[Skybird]

And there goes the European Convention of Human Rights down the drain - Turkey has suspended it.

Which is only consequent, since I argue since over ten years now that Turkey is not part of Europe. The culture is Middle Eastern, the ethnic group of Turk-men comes from Northern Iran and Afghanistan, the language has nothing in common with traditional European languages, and the value system of Islam (which inevitably and unavoidably can only mean Sharia) is incompatible with that of Western humanism, civil rights, and understanding of liberty and individuality, not to mention that the political-communal and the religous realm do not get separated at all, and rule over the individual (which is totalitarianism, Muhammad always was about uniformity). Just around 5% of the Turkish territory lies north of the Bosporus.

This is not Europe. Even Constantinople, even before Islam conquered the land of today'S Turkey, it was a sphere of transition, where Europe faded out, and the Orient faded in. Cultural spohere are not strictly separated by a border just 300m thick, they fade in and fade out in their outer periphery over sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds of kilometers.