The worst thing is that in Turkey everyone is afraid

The Turkish Nobel laureate, writer Orhan Pamuk, after a long absence from the public, presented his new book, which will be published this week. He also used the opportunity to openly criticize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his policies.

"The worst thing is that there is fear here (in Turkey). I feel everyone is scared. That is not normal. Freedom of public expression has fallen to the lowest level," Pamuk told the Istanbul newspaper "Hurijet", as reported by the portal Cenzolovka.rs. The writer accused the government of persecuting and harassing any journalist who dares to be critical, and where not even those who are very close to the government are spared. Pamuk also called out the Turkish president for his recent statement that women and men cannot be equal by nature because God ordained that they give birth and raise children.

Recently, Orhan Pamuk has not appeared so often in public. The last time he spoke out was last year, and supported the protesters in Istanbul's Taksim Square.

"The problem here is that Erdoğan is behaving like the old rulers of the 50s. He does everything, controls everything. He says: 'I have 50 percent of the votes behind me. Shut up.' It is true that he has 72 percent (of the vote), but we have XNUMX million inhabitants who are not all like him (Erdogan)", the author of the text reminds us of Pamuk's statement, but also of the fact that the writer was declared an enemy of the country even in the last decade.