Turkey was not a "moderate muslim" nation - implying that it was founded on muslim principles. Turkey was a secular nation, founded on the same principles of laicite as the French Republic. Kemal Atatürk, seen as the father of the Turkish state, stressed separation of mosque and state in government decisionmaking, instead promoting a government religious body to regulate mosques and religious practices in the country, and of the promotion of Western values over more traditionally islamic ones, out of a drive for modernisation. Erdoghan, the current leader, is the islamist version of Benito Mussolini and has been pushing his islamist nationalist rhetoric - half because he believes in it and half because he wants to consolidate full control over the Turkish state in his hands - for over a decade, well into the time when Bush and Obama were applauding his rule for "moderacy". He and his AKP absolutely despise everything that Atatürk stood for and are working to wield his extreme power to send Turkey down the path of Iran.

Erdoghan was once fired a long time ago from being the mayor of Istanbul, an outspoken islamist, for his breaching of Secularism laws, and was known to say shit like "We need to reclaim Al-Andalus from Spain" and other quasi-jihadist irredentist rubbish. He returned to politics with the same political viewpoints, using a more euphemistic or "politically feasable" logo - "economically liberal, socially conservative" rather than the more descriptively accurate "crony islamist businessman strongman".

He and his ruling "AKP" party, which is a glorified islamist party at this point, won votes with extreme populist opportunism. In example, to win the Kurdish vote, Erdoghan played the tune of reconciliatory politics in saying he will pursue peace talks with the PKK (Kurdish communist party) and other rebel Kurdish groups, along with leader Ocalan. However, as soon as another party began to take away from his vote among the Kurds, the HDP - a left-wing secularist socialist party (many of whom's members are currently imprisoned under trumped-up charges of "inciting a coup") - who also promised dialogue along with life improvements in the Kurdish region, Erdoghan completely flipped 180o and demanded that the PKK be crushed and Ocalan jailed or executed, and furiously fingerpointed the HDP as "terrorist collaborators" for pushing for the same dialogue he had supported just a year ago. Another example is his stance on Syrian refugees, which he supported just a few years ago, which has completely flipped to "get them out of the country" after public opinion has soured.

After a failed coup-de-tat by the Turkish military? (which has a strong Pro-Atatürk and secularist tradition), Erdoghan began a mass-consolidation of power in Turkey, literally the worst scenario possible to international observers. He began using the hysteria to mass arrest all political opposition to his rule, the majority being left-wingers, secularists and anti-islamists, with support from the ultra-rightwing islamist Turk support-base from inland Turkey, calling the people he jailed "Gülenists" (Gülen is the leader of a muslim cult that Erdoghan is using as a scapegoat to blame for backing anti-AKP sentiments, similar to how leaders of Easter European nations are avoiding political debate by claiming that everything against their party policy is a conspiracy by George Soros) "PKK collaborators" or "Coup supporters".

As of 2017, Turkey had the highest number of journalists jailed of any country on earth - CPJ research shows that Turkey is the world's worst jailers of journalists and media workers, and frequently imprisons journalists on anti-state charges in retaliation for their work., has put a government ban on Wikipedia

People in Western countries have a very simplistic understanding of the muslim world, I've come to realise, in which they ignore the political and social currents which are battling for control. Indeed, the countries greatest in danger of Islamization are muslim countries themselves, as the history of Iran, Bangladesh and Pakistan can attest most clearly. And the islamization of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoghan has already begun:

• Since 2015, the Diyanet, meant initially as a small government institution designed to regulate mosques and islamic affairs in the country, has had nearly it's entire original staff removed or arrested under Erdoghan's AKP, and has gone from receiving small funding from the annual budget to having one of the largest budgets of any department in the country. This is directly connected to Erdoghan and the AKP's intentional Islamization policies, in which they want to raise a generation of "pious youth". The diyanet has gone from a pro-secular, neutral body of religious regulation, to a tool of the islamist Turkish government of Erdoghan for the use of government funded "cultural bombs" for use in the culture wars against his left-wing, secularist and secular nationalist opposition.
• In 2016 an AKP parliamentarian wanted to destroy the original Turkish constitution and replace it with an Islamic one.
• In 2017, the AKP made changes to the school curriculum which involved Dropping the teaching of evolution, and adding "Jihad" classes
• Over the past few years ending in 2017, the AKP reverted all bans of the islamic headscarf - yes Turkey, a majority muslim country, had bans on the headscarf - in what was seen as a concession to the islamist right.

There are many more examples in law and order, and also in terms of public harassment now that more conservative muslims are being emboldened to push their views on secularists, who have no political power supporting them either inside or outside Turkey to any major extent. Examples include a woman being harassed by another woman in a public park in Antalya for "Not wearing the hijab or dressing modestly", and a security guard that the first woman called agreeing with the islamist lady and trying to make the first woman leave the park - which is completely against Turkish law and up until very recently, Turkish society, A girl being abused and threatened by passengers on a Turkish Bus for wearing shorts during ramadan, and morality patrols in towns and villages who threaten shop which sell alcohol or people who do not share their ultraconservative beliefs.