Wednesday, March 19

How AKP runs the country

If you have been following news on Turkey you all know the back story. The protests of the last summer shook the country, its leadership and brought out many grievances accumulated over the past decade of the ruling Justice and Development Party. The graft scandal in December further showed the other face of the party, the one deeply involved in shady business deals and corruption. Then came the controversial bills on judiciary power and the Internet followed by the release of phone conversations between the Prime Minister and few other individuals including his son, and finally the death of a young boy, Berkin Elvan that sparked more country wide protests.

But I bet here is something that you didn't know or not yet at least. This ad appeared on TV channels just a few hours ago. The ad is promoting Turkish flag, the national anthem, religion and the evil forces trying to eliminate all of that (starring an evil guy dressed in black whose face we never see, which kind of plays with the whole "third powers" argument of the Prime Minister). And so the people start running, determined to stop the evil from ruining their future. 

If they would have added the riot police preventing these people from running and threw in few water cannon vehicles the picture would have been complete. Maybe next video ad- this time promoting the skills of accurate aiming of the Turkish riot police would do total justice. 

What you also didn't know most likely is that the ad was banned from TV shortly after it was aird but strangely few people spotted the ad on some of the channels. Today, as the Turkish Parliament was debating the graft scandal, all of a sudden most of the state TV channels stopped broadcasting the debate. It was thanks to the CHP MP Melda Onur and her i-pad and her quick thinking that it was possible to watch the debate on livestream.

How convenient or shall I say ironic that when the banned TV ad is still aired on state TV channels, the debate on something far more important isn't.

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