Different takes on Turkey

Re Democracy undone, Editorial July 27 I disagree with the way your paper is reporting the coup attempt in Turkey. Every night, in half of Turkey’s big cities, tens of thousands of people who stopped the coup are demonstrating against the coup plotters and defending democracy and the Turkish national will. That is why we the Turkish Canadians have staged several demonstrations here in Canada against the coup.

Although I am against many policies of the governing AK Party, I do not feel insecure in any way in my country because of my political views. I strongly objected to the failed coup attempt. The government is sincere in targeting only the coup plotters and for that they have my support. Mesut Koçak, president, Canadian Turkish Platform Your editorial calls Turkey the “only stable, responsible democracy in the Middle East.” While I’m well aware that many editorials and journalists whom the Star publishes are firmly against the policies of the Israeli government, I’m curious how you would categorize Israel, if not a democratic state? Adam Green, Toronto Is Turkey turning into another Egypt? Western countries have lined up their support for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stating his government was democratically elected. Wasn’t Mohamed Morsi the democratically elected president of Egypt in 2012? Now he’s serving a life sentence and possibly death in a Cairo jail.

Mr. Erdogan, since the failed coup, has detained over 50,000 armed forces, judges, civil servants and is closing thousands of private schools, dozens of universities and medical institutions.

Are the western powers wading into another foreign policy nightmare as they have in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, with little knowledge of local conditions? Max Desouza, Toronto