On an early morning in October 2011, I received a text from a columnist of a Turkish daily telling me to not give up. I was traveling in Amsterdam, still jet-lagged from the day before, and I didn’t know what he meant. Then I noticed my Twitter feed was overflowing with similar messages. It was my seventh year as a columnist [...] → Read the full article…
“Dakar TOMA”, “TOMAZILLA”, “At-At TOMA”, “TOMAdurma”, “Çapulsavar”, “TOMAĞĞĞ”… What’s your favorite TOMA? TOMA – acronym for Intervention Vehicle to Public Events in Turkish – has inspired Gezi Park activists to launch a mock campaign where people are to design their own TOMAs. Initiated under slogans like “Don’t expect everything from the government” and “We won’t learn how to design TOMAs [...] → Read the full article…
For most people around the world, the recent uprising against Turkey’s ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) is still a puzzle. Why did a protest over a park lead to country-wide unrest so quickly? The Turkish government has explained what happened by resorting to a conspiracy theory, referring to an international “interest-rate lobby” that planned to overthrow the government. Yet, [...] → Read the full article…
Paradoxically, Gezi Park presented Erdoğan with a golden opportunity, one that could also have helped Turkish democracy part company from the tendency of powerful political parties to drift into populism-fuelled authoritarianism. For the global media what happened in Gezi Park throughout June is now old news. Not so much for the citizens of Turkey. Gezi still remains the single most [...] → Read the full article…
BURSA Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç asked a local singer not to sing the folk song “Vardar Ovası” because the song contained the word “rakı” in the lyrics in a meeting with the Bursa-based Balkan Immigrant’s Culture and Support Association, or Bal-Göç, on Aug. 9. A local folk singer, Fahriye Güney, asked Arınç for support to attend cultural events [...] → Read the full article…
A group of people has launched a campaign in Istanbul’s Yoğurtçu Park, accepting medicine and dry foods donations in order to support people in Rojava – Syria’s Kurdish region. A group of people has launched a campaign in Istanbul’s Yoğurtçu Park, accepting medicine and dry foods donations in order to support people in Rojava – Syria’s Kurdish region. The campaign [...] → Read the full article…
Turkey’s President Abdullah Gül voiced his “deep grief” over the loss of lives during anti-government protests held during the Gezi Park unrest, as he drew attention to the peaceful use of the right to protest and expressed hope that no such loss would happen again in the country. “We have felt deep grief for everybody who lost their lives during [...] → Read the full article…
Sevinç Dok, who was detained during the Armutlu resistance, which lasted for several days, told her experience in the prison in a letter that she sent. Dok stated that the detainees are getting the news. “Our minds are at peace, we know that we have been falsely accused.” She adds, “we are not giving up eating the bread until its [...] → Read the full article…
![Wednesday's detentions were the first related to the deaths of protesters during unrest in June [GALLO/GETTY]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2013/08/aj1-300x198.jpg)
Policeman and three others jailed for death of university student during nationwide June protests. Four men, including a police officer, have been remanded in custody by a Turkish court over the death of an anti-government protester who was beaten during a June demonstration, local media reported. The four were placed in detention by a court in the northwestern city [...] → Read the full article…
Recently, several Facebook and Twitter account have either been shut down or suspended. bianet asked the reason of this recent phenomenon to Erkan Saka, lecturer at Istanbul Bilgi University. By Elif AKGÜL – İstanbul – BIA News Desk elif@bianet.org Recently, Facebook has reportedly shut down the pages of two alternative news websites (Yüksekova Haber and Ötekilerin Postası), while Twitter suspended several [...] → Read the full article…