“Journalists wanted for international news agency,” read the Guardian job ad. As an editor in an industry where opportunities seem to be fading away by the day, you apply for pretty much any full-time job you see. A couple of months later, we arrived in Ankara, Turkey, ready to “write history” as the first international journalists to be welcomed [...] → Read the full article…
Not just the mobilizational power but also the spirit of Gezi pervades objections to electoral manipulation, defying the AKP’s attempts to snuff it out. The wickedly humorous wit and creativity used to critique the AKP’s brutal police crackdowns that drove millions of people to the streets during the height of the Gezi protests in 2013 are being deployed in full force to [...] → Read the full article…
It is evident from the 45% of the overall vote the AKP won in the local elections that Erdogan’s strategy of converting the “Dec. 17 corruption scandal” into the “Dec. 17 coup attempt” was also successful. With the aid of a pro-government media, reinforced after the AKP’s business cronies began buying mass circulation dailies at Erdogan’s behest, the conservative masses — which still constitute [...] → Read the full article…
On March 30th the prime minister’s support among Turkish voters will be put to the test, for the first time since the Gezi protests and the corruption probe, in municipal elections. Mr Erdogan has explicitly turned these into a referendum on himself and his party. If AKP does well, which most analysts reckon means winning over 40% of the vote and [...] → Read the full article…
Agence Le Journal photojournalist Emin Özmen’s documentary Witnessing Gezi – Gezi Tanıklığı is awarded First Prize in World Press Photo’s Multimedia 2014 Contest. Source: worldpressphoto.org
Berkin Elvan’s funeral services, which were held at the Okmeydani Cemevi on 12 March, once again raised the question of why all six youths killed during the Gezi Protests—or, if we are to approach the Gezi process within a broader framework, why seven out of eight youths killed—were Alevîs. Indeed, the question is not a new one; months prior to [...] → Read the full article…
A 10-year-old child was seriously injured during a protest in the southeastern city Diyarbakır March 25, allegedly hit by a tear gas canister. After Peace and Democracy Party’s (BDP) electoral rally at Azizoğlu Square in the Silvan neigborhood, a masked group pelted police with stone and shot fireworks at them, semi-official Anatolian news agency reported. As police intervened with tear [...] → Read the full article…