Erdognan Wins Referendum.

[vetuste_ennemi]

How good will this be for secular Turks?
How might this effect attitudes in the Turkish diaspora in northern Europe?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Apologies to Mr Erdogan for the misspelling.
And I meant "affect".

[Jackdaw33]

Quelle surprise!

[Jackdaw33]

He had about as much chance of losing the referendum as Kim Jong Un would have had in North Korea.

[birdie1971]

Q1. "How good will this be for secular Turks?"
A1. Utterly disastrous. Their lives are now under threat more so than they ever have been in recent years. If I were a secularist (or anyone other than a Muslim) living in Turkey, I would be making plans to leave ASAP.

Q2. "How might this effect attitudes in the Turkish diaspora in northern Europe?"
A2. I suspect they are not very happy to say the least.

[vetuste_ennemi]

I was referring to the Turks in Germany and Holland who'd emigrated to work rather but had retained tribal loyalties, Birdie. Some (the good guys) will have got out because they didn't like the regime and ideology.

My point was this: http://news.sky.com/story/dutch-branded-fascist-over-turkey-foreign-ministers-plane-ban-10797971

[vetuste_ennemi]

The other models of Muslim tolerance have gone the same way. Indonesia - most populous Muslim majority country (and the only one to have become Muslim by accident rather than force) - has a province (Akei?) now imposing Sharia "moral" standards. Malaysia has gone the same way. One province/state is now considering the implementation of the Sharia penal code - hadud - which is the stoning and amputation stuff. Long since Nigeria, with its British Common Law inheritance, had ceded some legislative authority to its northern Hause speaking Muslim regions. This is very bad news for all Christian communities in the north (not that any AB Christians would bother about that), very bad news for any gays in that area (not that any AB gays would worry about that), and very bad news for all women in northern Nigeria. Not that that any AB feminists would give an expletive deleted about that.

[Khandro]

It has been described by him and his hapless supporters as a "Presidential" style government, when in fact it will be an out and out dictatorship.
If I understand it correctly though, his new powers will not come into play until his present term ends, which is in 2 years time; a lot can happen in two years.

[mikey4444]

From what I have seen and read, this Referendum is deeply flawed. It was carried in an entirely biased way, and should be treated with deep suspicion.

It gives Erdogan unprecedented powers in what is supposed to be a democracy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39622335

[jourdain2]

I agree with mikey. Deeply flawed. For a start all the unpunched votes should be disallowed. It was not a vote which was debated equally, so the result is debateable and should not be binding i.m.o.. . Deeply unsettling for secular Turks as repressive moves have already taken place.