International referendum observers have produced a damning initial report on the Turkish referendum, telling that the two sides of the campaign were not given equal opportunities.
The consortium of observers, which included the Council of Europe, a human rights organisation, said the legal framework “remained inadequate for the holding of a genuinely democratic referendum”.
While finding the referendum administered well from a technical standpoint and noting that voting was orderly, the report found that the political environment in Turkey has been negative after the coup attempt of July 2016.
“Freedom of expression was further curtailed under the state of emergency; the arrest of an unprecedented number of journalists and the surge of media outlet closures has led to widespread self-censorship,” the report said.
Among the report’s other main criticism was that 18 proposed amendments affecting 72 constitutional articles had been bunched together in a single package. It also noted that there were mass dismissals and re-appointments affecting the election bodies after last year’s coup attempt.
