Democracy and Freedoms Island to be inaugurated

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will inaugurate Democracy and Freedom Island on May 27 in waters near Istanbul on the 60th anniversary of a coup in Turkey.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli is also expected to attend the ceremony.

"Yassıada, which is home to one of the darkest periods in the history of democracy, is reborn as the Island of Democracy and Freedoms," Turkey's Communications Directorate said on May 26 in a public service advertisement.

"Our independence, democracy and national security have had to struggle with many coups and memoranda, terrorist attacks and many attempts to destroy democracy, such as the cruel May 27 coup," Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun tweeted.

He emphasized that the principle of "more democracy, more freedom" has been achieved a great distance in this struggle, which is based on independence between the nation and its guardianship, under the leadership of Erdoğan.

During this government's era, innovations and transformation that have been implemented in the context of the realization of human rights, democratization and universal law constitute the culmination of the nation's struggle for decades, he said.

Turkey's fight against terrorist organizations that threaten the country's democracy, security, the future of the children continues without compromising the principle of the rule of law, he said.

"Unfortunately, those who are in an effort to represent the terrorist crimes as a thought crime were not able to understand neither this nation's hundred-year struggle nor threats against the ideal of an independent Turkey," Altun stated.

Yassıada, one of the Princes' Islands located in the Sea of Marmara southeast of Istanbul, is...