Turkey and the World Around It; From a Democracy and Human Rights Perspective

The fundamental barrier to democracy in Turkey today is the clique which dominates the political system, of which the resistance of the bureaucratic strucrute is a product. Slogans such as "This society is not ready for democracy", "separatist Kurds could divide country", or "the Sharia is on its way" are used to make some groups in Turkey and the outside world accept a second-class democracy in Turkey. Within this framework, it is of the utmost importance to heed the words of those fair and reasonable intellectuals who analyze and articulate from a liberal democratic perspective what is happening in Turkey. Orhan Kemal Cengiz is one of those intellectuals. He is a defender of human rights from a robust legal perspective, a democrat, and a lawyer who has successfully defended religious minorities in Turkey.