Fairfax's editorial policy?

There is no doubt that the paranoia and anxiety, which Erdogan presents with his heavy-handed responses to peaceful demonstrators both of which were documented by McGeough, is an accurate picture. McGeough cites several examples of Erdogan's ruthlessness and callous disregard for protesters and for those citizens who don't share his Islamic vision of a Sunni state or his class.

McGeough is right on the money when he comments that "Erdogan is the current prime minister. But he is embarking on a Putinesque lunge for political longevity".

But it is what McGeough does not inform his readers about, which is a bigger story in today's Turkey. Erdogan's attitude to infidels. Christians and Jews that is.

Let's look first at Erdogan's anti-Christian policies. Why Fairfax chooses to ignore this is a mystery.

Spending time in Malaysia, I resorted on 6 August, to the (Muslim) Malaypress which reported that Erdogan faced accusations of anti-Christian comments merely a few days before he stands in presidential elections after saying in a television interview on the private NTV channel late the previous evening that it was "ugly to be called an Armenian".

EU politicians regularly remind Turkey that its refusal to confess to the orchestrated genocide of one and a half million Armenians some 99 years ago is not acceptable. While the Continentals may guffaw about whether a pathological Turkish denial of that genocide is or is not a hurdle to Turkey ever joining the Christian Club that is the European Union, the fact is to date, neither has Turkey admitted to genocide nor has Bruxelles found a seat at the EU table for Turkey. Turkey has resisted widespread calls for it to recognise the 1915-16 killings of Armenians as genocide as well as the slaughter of a further 750,000 Assyriansand up to 900,000 Greeksin the years to 1922.

Armenians died when the Ottoman Turks ethnically cleansed eastern Anatoliaof Christians, killing many and deporting the balance to the Syrian Desert and elsewhere in 1915-16. The Turks turned eastern Anatolia into one massive slaughterhouse.

Armenians mark the date 24 April 1915 as the start of what is widely regarded as genocide. That was the day the Ottoman government arrested about 50 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders. They were later executed.

In April, Erdogan offered 'condolences' for the mass deportation of Armenians in 1915. But denied Armenian claimsthat up to 1.5 million people were killed and that the event constituted an act of 'genocide'.

Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and Uruguay are among more than 20 countries that have formally recognisedgenocide against the Armenians.

The European Parliament and the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities have also done so.

The UK, US and Australia are among those that use different terminology to describe the events. They all fall short of uttering the word "genocide".