Where democracies and dictatorships meet

Excerpts from an analysis in a prestigious newspaper:

“The government … has been posting a series of restrictive laws. 

“One example is state universities, where the authorities want to quash the anti-government protests that disrupted studies last year. The more than 1 million students returning to campuses faced lengthy queues and body searches just to get inside. After some responded angrily, police moved in with teargas and shotguns … Students who object may be dismissed. Faculty members may be fired for ‘inciting’ protests. Now [the president is] appointing people [as university presidents]. 

“[The state] bans protests, unless they are licensed, but such licenses are rarely granted. 

“The government has made it a crime punishable … to accept or ‘facilitate’ funding for any activity deemed a danger to national security or to ‘public peace.’ 

“‘Why do they make laws to frighten citizens instead of protecting them?’ asked [a poster] on Twitter. ‘It’s because they make them to protect the state,’ was one answer.”

That was a very realistic, though frightening, analysis of Turkish affairs at a time when Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s government, under remote-control from the presidential palace, has launched new de jure offensives on a phantom-like terrorist organization that goes with the phantom-like name “the parallel state,” as well as on any kind of dissent, Kurdish, Turkish or Martian. However, the analysis was not on Turkey.

The Economist’s gloomy analysis in its Oct. 25-31 issue was portraying the human rights situation in Egypt, ruled by a dictator; not in Turkey, ruled by democracy. Ah, that’s good news then? Unfortunately, on all...