News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Turkish academics: Remain silent or risk all by akiselev on Friday July 29, 2016 @12:14PM (#12187832)
Vast majority my arse. Erdogan won the last election in 2014 with less than 52% of the vote [1] on less than 75% turnout and he has only been so successful in his career because of a quirk of demographics. Turkey has been slower than other countries in urbanization and the rural Islamic majority has used their very slim majority to wipe out democracy and institute their policies at the expense of the urban secular minority. Just look at the distribution of protests in the country and you see a very clear pattern: the cities are very different from the rest of the country.

Putin is someone who has the support of the vast majority of his constituents, even despite the hardships and corruption, while Erdogan is just another opportunistic authoritarian who abused a faulty system to become a "democratically elected" dictator. In the eyes of much of the rest of the world, he has no legitimacy and is a pariah whose only leverage is the migrant crisis and the conflict with ISIS.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_presidential_electio...

Re:Turkish academics: Remain silent or risk all by linkregister on Friday July 29, 2016 @01:15PM (#12188252)
52% of the vote on 75% turnout is fantastic. When's the last time an American president was voted in on such a mandate?
Re:Turkish academics: Remain silent or risk all by akiselev on Friday July 29, 2016 @01:31PM (#12188375)
The United States doesn't have compulsory voting like Turkey does. Australia, another country with compulsory voting (although much better enforced), regularly sees elections with over 90-95% turnout. That is a real democratic mandate.
Re:Turkish academics: Remain silent or risk all by linkregister on Friday July 29, 2016 @01:39PM (#12188435)
Thanks for the information; I was unaware that Turkey has compulsory voting.

Is there a credible opposition party to AKP, or a smattering of smaller parties?

Re:Turkish academics: Remain silent or risk all by akiselev on Friday July 29, 2016 @01:54PM (#12188561)
There is a long list of opposition parties in Turkey but few of them have any power [1]. The main opposition party with about a quarter of MPs (vast majority representing urban districts) is the Republican People's Party, which was the first political party in Turkey post WWI as well as the one led by Ataturk during his secular revolution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_T...

Re:Turkish academics: Remain silent or risk all by afsina on Friday July 29, 2016 @01:16PM (#12188266)
Vast majority was against the coup. That is for sure.
Re:Turkish academics: Remain silent or risk all by afsina on Friday July 29, 2016 @04:27PM (#12189727)
In the Last election Erdogan's `party` had 49.5% of votes with %85.18 turnout.