Press TV has interviewed Shabbir Hassanally, an activist and Islamic scholar in London, about a Turkish court ordering a board of trustees to take charge of the mainstream opposition newspaper�Zaman.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV:�This incident plus over 1,800, I think, people who have been jailed because they were critics of Turkish President Erdogan; doesn�t Erdogan see that what he is doing in terms of stifling the opposition may come back and backfire on him?

Hassanally:�I am sure he does but at the end of the day when no one is holding into account, when all of his masters, be there in Tel Aviv, Washington, London, Paris, when they do nothing to stop him, when they don�t �, they provide some sort of token condemnation but they do not provide any real action.

I mean can you imagine if this had been for example Iran or another country that is not aligned to the American agenda, [everywhere] in the world would have been up in arms, the media would have been going crazy, every other human rights groups would be going completely nuts and shouting the odds but because it is Turkey, Turkey is allowed to get away with the murder of journalists like Serena Shim, it is allowed to get away with funding Daesh and buying Daesh oil, it is allowed to get away with taking away this opposition newspaper and media outlet that is being a little bit critical of what his regime is doing.

So really I think until the rest of the world turns around and gets really like serious about its criticism, I do not think Erdogan is doing anything. He knows that he is safe. He knows that Turkey is not really a democracy; it is a democracy in name a bit like the Zionists and all of these other entities. Even America and England, these are not democracies, they are democracies only in name. You have the illusion of you have got person A and person B being voted for and everything but in reality these people, they are the same, they are the same [scammers], they are the same criminals that have no interest in looking after the people. They still want to use the rights of the people. Erdogan knows this and he knows that until that changes he is immune, he is fine. So unfortunately I believe that drastic action is going to be required for this to change unfortunately.

By Press TV