The arrest of the Head of Amnesty International Turkey, is a severe act and with a strong symbolic weight: it shouts that no one is safe anymore from the Turkish political system.
However, de facto, it increases the reputation of the NGOs committed in the defence of human rights and needs.
Apparently less severe, but much more damaging, are the despiteful polemics, unleashed without any proof or hint, by some Italian magistrates and politicians. Even though the fact has ended, showing in the end only the despiteful intention of those who talked, this action of unsubstantiated allegation is having severe consequences on the fundraising, both in the medium and long term, and on the public opinion. Both internal confidential researches, carried out by some important international NGOs, and those carried out by independent research institutes, like Pagnoncelli’s one, show how three Italians out of four believe now that in the NGOs there is something rotten.
In this scope, if on one side it is difficult to juxtapose the measures taken by the dictatorship and by a character like Erdogan with that has happened in Italy because of some politicians and magistrates, on the other side, the common line is clear. It is the action of bringing the non-governmental organisations, committed on uncomfortable front lines, to silence and to act less independently as possible from the political power, since, with their action, they dangerously declare and take charge of emptiness and contradictions, both of the European Union as of Turkey, both of the western democracies and of the dictatorships.
Solidarity to Amensty International on behalf of the Social Change School.
Photo Source: Amnesty International
