Both #Turkiye and #Georgia probably won't go far in #Euro2024 but both are going at each other like there's this is a cup final - and it is one helluva good game!
The Turkish British writer Elif Shafak has published 19 books, many of which are bestsellers, and her novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Yet she's also one of Turkish literature's most attacked authors, the victim of a campaign that started with fringe nationalist groups and has now been taken up by individuals associated with the ruling Justice and Development Party. Kaya Genç writes for The Dial about how this case is part of a wider trend in President Erdoğan's "new Turkey."
#Israel / Global Index: Israel falls out of the liberal democracy category for the first
time in over 50 years; substantive decline also include freedom from #torture
With the question of whether a “Jewish State” can even be a real democracy put aside, Israel is no longer even that. Strangely, Israel seems to to have finally assimilated in the Middle East, but in the worst possible way.
[…] The Middle East and North Africa (#MENA) remains the most autocratic region in the world, with 98% of its population residing in autocracies. A large share (45%) lives in closed autocracies such as #Iran, #Libya, and Saudi Arabia, but 53% live in electoral autocracies, such as #Türkiye and Iraq. 2% of the region's population reside in #Tunisia, which is in the “grey zone” electoral autocracy category. The remaining 2% live in Israel. Notably, Israel lost its long-time status as liberal democracy in 2023. It is now classified as an electoral democracy – for the first time in over 50 years. This is primarily due to substantial declines in the indicators measuring the transparency and predictability of the law, and government attacks on the judiciary.
[…] Among other things, Israel’s Knesset passed a bill in 2023 stripping the Supreme Court of the power to declare government decisions unreasonable. Indicators that are in substantive decline also include freedom from torture.