[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14231]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1730
                   THE UNDOING OF DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

  (Mr. ROHRABACHER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about the 
disastrous undoing of democracy in Turkey and, specifically, the 
targeting and incarceration of those opposed to Turkish President 
Erdogan's ruling clique, especially anyone with any association to the 
Gulen movement as well as ethnic Kurdish leaders.
  Since an upheaval in July, President Erdogan has used emergency 
powers to arrest over 37,000 people and dismiss 100,000 other people 
from their government jobs. Lawmakers, Supreme Court judges, mayors, 
journalists, and approximately 14,000 doctors and teachers have been 
arrested or dismissed--many without due process.
  Newspapers and television channels critical of the Turkish Government 
have been shut down. Twitter and Facebook are filtered, while Internet 
connections are systematically interrupted. Human rights in Turkey are 
under severe attack, and the enemy is the Turkish people's own 
government.
  President Erdogan's administration is currently brutally oppressing 
anyone representing the Kurdish people in that country, including the 
Turkish political party HDP, which is involved in the democratic 
process. Perhaps the most bizarre is the repression of the Gulen 
movement in Turkey, and I would suggest that those people dedicated to 
education, benevolence, and respect for others should not be oppressed 
but should be looked at as friends of freedom everywhere.

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