Topsy-Turvy

What kind of world do we live in the man who is kicking another, who is not only on the ground but repressed by two special forces officers, can claim to be acting self-defence?  The Turkish aide Yusuf Yerkel has been diagnosed by soft-tissue trauma in the leg he used to savagely kick a prostrate member of the stricken mining community of Soma.  I wonder the extent of the soft-tissue trauma in the protestor whose only crime was kick an official vehicle.  Yerkel has been given sick leave for a week.  A medical report issued at an Ankara hospital testifies to "sensitivity with leg and arm movements and difficulty with walking," according to the newspaper Hürriyet.  Allegedly, he told doctors that he had fallen - which is correct, his foot repeatedly fell into a Turkish citizen, who would also have sensitivity extending beyond his legs and arms.
Last week, Kirsty Wark repeatedly asked a politician on Turkey's Defence Select Committee whether he thought that Yerkel should be sacked.  Initially evasive, this ruling party member came out eventually in support of Yerkel.  Officials of the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the aide was acting self-defence and gangsters were trying to lynch the governmental deputation.  The deputy prime minister, Hüseyin Çelik, said that Yerkel's alleged injury was proof enough for his innocence(!) and that it was impossible to judge the situation from one photo (there were several in reality).  Instead, the government's ire was focussed on an 'irresponsible press'.  Comedy authoritarianism is still authoritarianism and deeply disturbing.  Worrying times indeed for Turkey.