Dr. Aykan Erdemir was once a member of the Turkish parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, usually referred to simply as the TBMM. Today, he works Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. With plenty of recent experience to share, he recently joined a discussion with Robert R. Reilly, writer and senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, to look at how the regime of President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has been systematically been weaponizing Turkish media and scapegoating minorities to keep power.

Censoring the media by the state has a potential to do lot of damage to society. The media is the voice of the voiceless. But when the media starts looking down at the minorities in favor of the majority it becomes a call for concern. Turkey may have lost its access to free media.

From 2011 to 2015, Dr. Erdemir worked inside Parliament as part of Turkey’s largest opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, modern Turkey’s once dominant party founded based on the philosophy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk that is known as Kemalism or Atatürkism. Erdemir was part of the reformist wing of the party.

As an outspoken advocate of freedom of religion or belief, separation of mosque and state, and minority rights in the Middle East and beyond, Erdemir has been a leading voice against radical Islam and violent extremism, and a vocal critic of the persecution of religious minorities in the Middle East. As Mindy Belz, senior editor of WORLD Magazine, explained:

As an outspoken advocate of freedom of religion or belief, separation of mosque and state, and minority rights in the Middle East and beyond, Erdemir has been a leading voice against radical Islam and violent extremism, and a vocal critic of the persecution of religious minorities in the Middle East.

The discussion of the effects of weaponizing Turkish media on the population is an important look at how the situation has progressed. The video lasts for about two hours. Take a look: