Istanbul (and all of Turkey, obv.) is run by a dictator who tortures detainees, and arbitarilly arrests journalists and human rights workers
https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia...
No matter where your customers are, you are subject to (at the very least) tax and social security regulations of the country you live in.
Rather than looking in the mirror I would suggest looking at:
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-rank
http://www.doingbusiness.org/en/doingbusiness
As a foreigner you cannot do as the locals do when it comes to corruption (even if you wanted to) or you're going to have a target on your back.
You don't need to shun the people even if you shun the country.
I feel it's already very widespread to avoid any visits to Turkey and Russia (among others obviously), though it's hard to say how much of it is because of the political situation, and how much because of perceived instability. Personally, I would like to see Hagia Sophia but I'm unlikely to visit as long as Turkey stays in the current dictatorial road.
The scale may be different, but the situation in the US is not to good either on these topics, and has been deteriorating lately.
A total of 11 journalists have been arrested during the protests in Ferguson
Most were only held briefly, not charged
German reporter says he's never been treated so badly by police
https://www-m.cnn.com/2014/08/19/us/ferguson-journalists-arr...
I saw something once that credibly argued that the treatment of Chelsea Manning in prison amounted to torture.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning
The current president of the US has called for his political opponent to be jailed. Not readily finding actual instances of actually jailing political opponents in the US, but I'm not trying that hard either.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/2/1729104/-Donald-Trum...
We also generally treat Blacks and Natives terribly and generally have crazy high rates of incarceration.
Ferguson protests were dangerous and riotous at times. Sure, some people were arrested that shouldn't have been, but they were released. This isn't even comparable to the kinds of journalist arrests and murders we are talking about.
Journalists entrenched in violent protests will inevitably get arrested, that's not a break down of rule of law, nor of democracy; are they getting imprisoned for being journalists who are critical of the president? Not AFAICT. In Turkey journalists are imprisoned for not supporting Erdogan.
Has Trump called for his opponents to be imprisoned for not supporting him? Or, did he claim they had committed crimes for which objectively they should be punished? Erdogan has his political opponents actually imprisoned; and 10s of thousands of their supporters.
Trump is a whacked out crazy misogynist, displays the worst traits of capitalist greed, and of self-obsession, he's a power hungry ignoramus. But Erdogan is an evil genocidal fascist.
I wouldn't move to any of those places though, partly because I don't want to support people like Hamas or Erdogan, and with the justice systems in these countries, that's what you're doing. Same if you set up shop in Colombia or Venezuela.
However it's also because of corrupt governments means I as a westerner am particularly vulnerable. Canada, New Zealand, Finland, Portugal, Japan, Argentina, sure, you'll be fine (ok maybe not Brits in Argentina).
If all you're doing is a backpacking gap year, and you're willing to get out of these fast, you're probably OK, but look at how quickly Istanbul turned during the attempted coup. Things can get very ugly, very quickly, or they can get very ugly in a boiling frog basis and you won't notice until it's too late. Neither is good.
For example, Russia bombs and shells cities in Europe and Africa, uses chemical weapons, bombs hospitals, torture and kills civilians in their own and even in other countries, supports terrorists, spread fake news, and so on. But you can find lot of intellectuals in Moscow.
In one word, no
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-... is a good starting point