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Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

reuters.com

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Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#171

Post by BrandoElFollito »

dylan604 wrote: post #159
eru wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US requires a fairly high minimum age and for someone to be born American. Those requirements seem also a bit silly and stand in the way of voters expressing their wishes. For some fun times, have a look at the requirements to become president in Singapore. Basically, you either have to have been a senior civil servant before or the CEO of a large and profitable company. https://www.eld.gov.sg/candidate_president…

Having someone born in the country they are looking to lead seems silly to you? With that restriction, it has taken quite some time for a foreign adversary to have a puppet elected vs just shipping in some carpet bagger. Having a minimum age also allows for some decent life experience. After all, 35 years old is not that old.

For me "botn in the country" or "born a citizen of the country" does not mean much.

This is like assuming that your birth status makes the person. Think minarchy, castes, ...

You can be a naturalized citizen in live with your country, or a born citizen plain stupid and with worst interests in mind.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#172

Post by plorg »

Aurornis wrote: post #154
rapind wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Withdrawing properly received credentials opens the door to yet another extra-judicial punishment and we already have too many of those. I don’t understand why this is even an option? So the degree is never truly owned by the recipient then if it can be withdrawn/ revoked? Just another reason not to invest time and money into it.

> Just another reason not to invest time and money into it. No it’s not. Not unless you plan on taking over campus buildings and vandalizing them, I guess. The degree isn’t some unrevocable item that you own. It’s an endorsement from the university. There are contractual agreements involved and it doesn’t take much imagination to think of how taking over a campus building and vandalizing it (while encouraging current…

Eh, I attended a conservative Christian college and there was a pretty strict religious code of conduct students were required to abide by. I would find it pretty disturbing for the school to retroactively rescind my engineering degree due to my having drunk underage or being an atheist.

You can come up with whatever justification you want, but this action is unprecedented and clearly a politically motivated punishment.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#173

Post by YZF »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #135
jayknight wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2028, The State of Indiana is going to issue a corrected birth certificate for Pete Buttigieg showing him to be 32 years and therefore not eligible to be president.

The Constitution requires Presidents “have attained to the Age of thirty five Years” [1]. It cites the fact, not the certificate. The Turkish law doesn’t seem to require an education, it requires a degree. Minor difference. (And the text of the law wouldn’t matter in the end.) But an interesting difference nevertheless. [1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/

Can't this be fixed easily by another university bestowing an honorary degree to this guy then?

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#174

Post by ok_dad »

Teever wrote: post #136
hackyhacky wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it rude? Do you think Americans haven't worked hard to build democratic institutions?

It's not that it's rude per se, it's that users of this site who aren't from the US find it irksome when a subject that isn't the US comes up and someone invariably pivots it to talk about the US and current events. It's okay to talk about stuff that isn't contemporary American politics or even sit the conversation out and observe others talking about non American subjects. Not everything has to be about America.

Unfortunately, a lot of countries are doing a similar thing as these countries, there’s a lot of authoritarians taking over all over the world.

I think people should talk not only about the history or events in one country, but also talk about how other places are following in their footsteps and how we can prevent it from going forward where we can.

Also, interestingly, when folks talk about how the USA is sliding into authoritarianism on HN, it’s often downvoted, while for other countries it’s treated as serious and obvious, so it’s hard for Americans to see people agree that Turkey is doing bad stuff but they deny the same for America.

Lessons need to be shared so we can all do better together, I think.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#175

Post by dylan604 »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #171
dylan604 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having someone born in the country they are looking to lead seems silly to you? With that restriction, it has taken quite some time for a foreign adversary to have a puppet elected vs just shipping in some carpet bagger. Having a minimum age also allows for some decent life experience. After all, 35 years old is not that old.

For me "botn in the country" or "born a citizen of the country" does not mean much. This is like assuming that your birth status makes the person. Think minarchy, castes, ... You can be a naturalized citizen in live with your country, or a born citizen plain stupid and with worst interests in mind.

Born in the country lessens the likelihood that you are beholden to more than one master. Born in another country then naturalized still does not rule out sleeper agent situations. Seems pretty obvious to me.

I'm one that questions the whole pledge of allegiance forced to be recited by children that have no wherewithal to understand what allegiance even means or the ramifications of that pledge. Yet, I'm okay with born in country and of a minimum age.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#176

Post by JumpCrisscross »

YZF wrote: post #173
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution requires Presidents “have attained to the Age of thirty five Years” [1]. It cites the fact, not the certificate. The Turkish law doesn’t seem to require an education, it requires a degree. Minor difference. (And the text of the law wouldn’t matter in the end.) But an interesting difference nevertheless. [1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/

Can't this be fixed easily by another university bestowing an honorary degree to this guy then?

> Can't this be fixed easily by another university bestowing an honorary degree to this guy then?

No. That’s a technical solution to a political problem.

But, we’re on HN! Does anyone have a good English translation of the relevant statute? The loopholes to a certificate problem are with the certification authority—how is a compliant degree defined?

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#177

Post by vkou »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #115
amadeuspagel wrote: post #34

The really interesting news here is that in Turkey you need a degree to run for president.

Turkish law experts: say some other university grants an honorary degree in response to this. Would that make him compliant again to run for office?

IANAL, but you generally can't rules lawyer your way out of an autocracy.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#178

Post by vkou »

7e wrote: post #52
overfeed wrote: post #31

In other, recent, non-related news, Columbia University revoked the diplomas of some pro-Palestine protestors[1]. The CBS headline buries the lede, but revoking diplomas is not too low for American universities. 1. https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/columbia-university-pro...

Their diplomas were not revoked for being pro-Palestine, they were revoked for seizing a building, trespassing and vandalism. That's a false equivalence to what is happening in Turkey.

> they were revoked for seizing a building, trespassing and vandalism.

Allright, I'll bite the hook.

1. Precisely what categories of crimes do you think degrees should be revoked for?

2. Should it be automatic, or up to the whims of a political appointee?

2.1 If it's the latter, is that really the society you want to live in? Why?

It's easy to find a reason to shit on people you dislike. It's a lot harder to find a principled reason to do so, that can stand up to basic scrutiny.

(Of course, the current solution to this quandary is to gleefully abandon any principles.)

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#179

Post by rafram »

csomar wrote: post #168
alephnerd wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the 2000s, depending on how overtly conservative you were and who was in govenenent (coups, counter-coups, and fits of "democracy" happened every couple years), you might not have been allowed to attend at all. An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. Unsurprisingly, once conservative Turkish politicians like Erd…

> An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. This should have been countered by "forcing" education for everyone. For university, you could do special high subsidies that enable the woman to break from their families. It'll be painful for a couple generations but it does work.

I may be misunderstanding what you’re saying, but it sounds like you’re assuming that women only continue wearing hijab because their families force them to. That’s certainly not the case.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#180

Post by enceladus06 »

alephnerd wrote: post #72
msm_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a brief reading of the wikipedia article you linked, I'm under impression that the accusations are baseless (given that there are - supposedly - witnesses and his former classmates that confirm his version, and apparently no whistleblowers that present a proof otherwise). The sources are in Turkish so I didn't consult them[1]. Is the article biased or omits some important context? Since you believe the degree is…

Before the 2000s, depending on how overtly conservative you were and who was in govenenent (coups, counter-coups, and fits of "democracy" happened every couple years), you might not have been allowed to attend at all. An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. Unsurprisingly, once conservative Turkish politicians like Erd…

Or they could get out of the middle ages and stop caring if women cover their hair?
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