Tag: Human Rights and Democracy

Israeli violence against Palestinians has increased in frequency and intensity over the last year. In Fenikspod’s most recent episode, Dana El Kurd from the University of Richmond talks about the Palestinian issue and Palestinian activism within the context of recent developments. She also discusses how to address the issue and how Israeli-Arab rapprochement might affect Palestinians.

Internet and media freedoms continue to decline in Turkey under strict control of President Erdogan’s government stated Gurkan Ozturan from the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) in FeniksPod’s latest episode.

With the 2016 EU-Turkey refugee deal coming to an end, the next agreement should be more comprehensive as Turkey grapples with an influx of Afghan refugees amid domestic economic downturn and a wave of political polarization that places refugees front and center.

FeniksPolitik organized its first in-house event on the future of NATO and the challenges it faces in confronting a changing Middle East, the US pivot to Asia, increasing presence of Russia and China in the region and intra-alliance tensions tied to a Turkey in democratic decline.

Amid deepening economic crisis, domestic and foreign policy disarray, and the decline of public support for Turkey’s strongman president, discussions on what a Turkey without Erdogan could/should look like are becoming more prevalent. Still, many experts agree that the end of Erdogan’s rule in and of itself wouldn’t usher in an era of democracy, especially without the opposition’s adoption of a pluralist approach.