The demise of Turkey’s democracy: an open letter to President Erdogan

Under the cover of fighting ISIS, you focused instead over the past three years on fighting the Syrian Kurds. Several credible reports suggest that you have been buying oil from ISIS, thereby aiding them financially as well as in their recruitment efforts by allowing thousands of volunteers to cross the Turkish border into Syria to join their ranks. You turned a blind eye to ISIS' heinous crimes because their Islamic credentials mattered more to you than the lives of thousands of innocent people.

Corruption? It is rampant on your watch. Bribery charges have implicated municipal employees, businessmen, the sons of three of your ministers, and your own son. Rather than taking these charges seriously, you dismissed high-ranking officials who are pursuing the investigation. Your obstruction of justice was so obtrusive, it evoked criticism even from members of your own AK Party.

Thirsty for insatiable power, you have pushed to amend the constitution to codify the president's absolute authority while eliminating the office of the Prime Minister. You have made the parliament nothing more than a rubber stamp to pass any laws that you desire to promote your personal agenda. You have betrayed the Turkish people, who trusted you as you amassed unprecedented powers while subjecting your fellow citizens to despotism and despair.

Scores of irregularities occurred during the referendum, which was held under a state of emergency, in place since the July 2016 coup. You masterfully exploited it – calling it a "gift from God" – in order to rid yourself of your opponents, enacting a purge and spreading fear and anxiety throughout the country. Opposition members were intimidated, imprisoned, shot, or beaten. Voter fraud was pervasive and was captured on camera.

You thrive on conspiracy theories. Many government officials close to you and government newspapers accuse Fethullah Gülen, a powerful Muslim cleric, and his followers of conspiring to topple your government without any shred of evidence. You have heartlessly purged tens of thousands of innocent men and women for allegedly being supportive of the Gülen movement, denying them job opportunities and leaving their families economically despairing.

How convenient for you to systematically subordinate the judiciary to your whims. You issued decrees requiring prosecutors to receive permission for investigating ministers which violates the new constitution, helping you bend the rules to strengthen your authoritarian muscles. What a dismal state of affairs, when attorneys and solicitors are terrified of defending anyone accused of being supportive of Gülen or the Kurds, fearing retribution from your secret service.

You have made journalists one of your main targets, arresting and imprisoning them based on fabricated charges; over a hundred are languishing in jail. Reporters Without Borders ranks Turkey 154th out of 179 countries in terms of freedom of press. Scores of media outlets, including newspapers and TV stations, were closed or taken over to promote your skewed narrative, while disregarding basic journalistic ethics.

You expressed your false piety by limiting social freedoms, banning the sale of alcohol between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and pushing to prohibit coed dormitories in state universities. You believe you have the right to impose your moral code on every home and control the personal space of every Turkish citizen, as if it were all ordained by a higher authority and you are simply the humble messenger.

Your extremism has also created a split in your own party between those who blindly support you and those moderates who are genuinely concerned about the way you are leading the country. You maintain a veneer of democracy, but in fact you stifle opposition political parties, making it extraordinarily difficult for them to challenge you. In May 2016, you pressed the Turkish parliament to approve a bill stripping MPs of immunity from prosecution in a blatant attempt to marginalize Kurdish MPs.

You are tenaciously instilling Ottoman images into the public consciousness, including building an extravagant 1,100-room 'White Palace' as your Ottoman-esque residence. Your most recent project was the Çamlica Mosque, the now-largest mosque in Istanbul. Another mosque in Taksim Square was built with all the trimmings of the Ottoman era, which you are trying to resurrect when in fact it was rejected and vanquished a century ago.

You presume to be a man of faith, a reformer who put his country first, but you have been blinded by your thirst for power, betraying your fellow countrymen. Their hopes during Turkey's initial march to greatness, under your leadership no less, have faded away, leaving anguish and anger in its wake.

I know that you want to preside over the hundredth anniversary of the new republic of Turkey in 2023. But how do you want to be remembered? As the man who had all the power to make Turkey a shining star and a proud nation, or the ruthless Sultan who has squandered Turkey's potential to become a model of Islamic democracy with a brilliant future ahead?

You have failed your people. They must now await your departure from public life to breathe again, to think again, and yes, to dream again.