Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has attacked environmental protesters in the country describing them as ‘idle'. After proclaiming himself to be a ‘real environmentalist', referencing Turkish ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, he went on to claim that "being an environmentalist is something they (protesters) do to pass their free time".

Erdogan's comments were made on a trip to the coastal city of Rize, where protests against shoreline-polluting fish farms have been focused. During that weekend, 33 anti-nuclear protesters were also arrested in Sinop, while ongoing protests throughout the country have focused on government plans for numerous new dams, including a high-profile campaign to stop construction of the Ilisu dam on the River Tigris. The dam will destroy the town of Hasankeyf, displacing an estimated 78,000 people, mainly of the country's Kurdish minority, and will submerge key archaeological sites. The mayor of Hasankeyf has joined protests, moving into a threatened limestone cave.

Ironically it seems it is environmental action and not idleness that has enraged Erdogan. Were protesters as lazy as he makes them out to be, surely he wouldn't have noticed them. Fatma Dişli has an interesting piece in Zaman, summarising the response of the Turkish media to this outburst. Milliyet's Sedat Ergin suggests that Erdogan's comments reflect ‘an understanding of leadership peculiar to the East rather than the EU democracies'. The Prime Minister, he argues, might need to learn to accept protest as ‘being a democratic means of standing up for citizens' freedoms'. One can only hope that Erdogan, the democrat, heeds his advice.