Spotted this over at http://richarddawkins.net/article,3770,n,n with the full article at http://www.slate.com/id/2216518/
The article(s) and comments certainly raise some important questions. Many years ago I was in support of Turkey becoming a full member of the EU. But Turkey has not made any significant progress in terms of basic human rights such as freedom of speech. In fact, Turkey would seem to have regressed in many of these important areas.
If Turkey became a full member of the EU today, would that help to improve the situation in Turkey? No I don’t think so. I believe Turkey will extract whatever it can to improve their economy but refuse to allow progress in freedom of speech and other human rights. And Turkey have already demonstrated that they will interfere and meddle in the affairs of other countries and attempt to curtail human rights in those countries.
It’s clear that Turkey’s government is itself easily influenced by internal factors. There is a weakness in that constitution and they have a lot of reforms to undertake to fully adopt and guarantee human rights. So I’m all up for refusing Turkey entry into the EU for the time being.
Article by Kulvinder Singh Matharu – 2009