The hypocrisy of Turkey and Pakistan’s Islamophobia claims

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a sucker for conquest symbolism. As Covid-19 restrictions were being eased this year, he ensured that mosques reopened on 29 May to coincide with the 567^th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The Turkish president has now gone on to sign a decree converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque, just in time for the fourth anniversary of the failed coup against him, which symbolises his own conquest over Turkey’s military and judiciary.