Europe two-faced on democracy, human rights: Turkish PM

By Yildiz Aktas

GUMUSHANE, Turkey (AA) - Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has accused some European countries of being “two-faced" on democracy and human rights.

Addressing a rally in northeastern Gumushane province ahead of the April 16 referendum on constitutional reforms, Yildirim said: "Recently, there has been no sign of democracy in Europe."

In his criticism of the Netherlands for blocking meetings of Turkish ministers with their expat community, he said: "Where is democracy, where is human rights?"

On March 11, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya were banned from holding rallies or meeting expat Turks in the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

Later, when Turkish citizens in Rotterdam peacefully protested, they were met by police using batons, dogs and water cannons in what some analysts described as a disproportionate use of force.

Yildirim pointed out that the same European countries did not react harshly with Egypt’s ruler Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi after the Egyptian army ousted Mohamed Morsi, the Arab country’s first freely-elected president, in a 2013 coup.

"Europe also closed its eyes and forgot about human rights when a massacre, a genocide was carried out in Bosnia," he said, referring to the war crimes from 1995 when more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.

About current anti-immigration policies of Europe, he said: "They are kicking Syrian refugees out, keeping them away from their own countries and are building walls.”