Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our guests for being here with us today.
Mr. Kanat, I'd like to address a couple of the things you brought up. At one point you said that you believe Turkey will continue its journey to democratization. I'd like to go through some of the numbers here. It may take a couple of minutes.
The government dismissed between 100,000 and 150,000 public officials. They jailed 47,000 on terrorism charges, and 50,000 passports have been cancelled. Thousands of your soldiers have been detained. Thousands of police officers have been fired, and 2,700 plus members of the judiciary have been suspended. Over 20,000 private school teachers have been suspended, and 20,000 ministry of education officials have been fired. All of the 1,500 university deans were forced to resign, and 1,500 officials from the ministry of finance have been suspended. Then the government turned around and reinstated 40,000 plus public servants. They also along the way jailed 150 to 300 journalists, media workers; 12 parliamentarians ended up in jail; and 160 media outlets and over 1,000 NGOs and foundations were closed by degree. I guess the government then realized they had made a mistake there, because they turned around and allowed 350 of those to reopen.
Can you explain how all of this contributes to the journey to democratization?