Turkey: Covid-19 Pandemic Used to Strengthen Autocratic Rule

By Human Rights Watch

Click to expand Image Police block protesting lawyers during a demonstration against a government draft bill to reduce the authority of Turkey’s leading bar associations. July 10, 2020, Ankara. © 2020 Tunahan Turhan / INA Photo Agency / Sipa via AP Images. (Istanbul) – The Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey has enabled the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to deepen autocratic rule by silencing critics and rapidly passing restrictive new laws to limit dissent, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2021. In 2020, Turkish authorities used the pretext of the pandemic…

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