When the Ankara government carried out a brutal media crackdown at the weekend and then saw minimal Western protest as a result, President Erdogan knew he had the upper-hand – to leverage the refugee crisis. It seems more than strange that, only three days before a high-profile summit was to take place between European Union leaders and Turkey on Europe’s refugee crisis, the Ankara authorities carried out an audacious assault on democratic rights. The violent police seizure of Turkey’s biggest...
