Turkey has blocked access to Twitter, hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to close down the social media platform. “We now have a court order. We’ll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic,” Erdogan said at his campaign rally in the western city of Bursa on [...] → Read the full article…
Restrictions on freedom of expression during and following the Gezi Park protests The Turkish authorities severely restricted the right to freedom of expression of journalists and writers during and after the Gezi Park protests in 2013, English PEN and PEN International said in a new joint report published today. Journalists, protesters and social media users are still facing prosecution in [...] → Read the full article…
It seems there is no limit to the copycats of Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars selfie, with protesters in Istanbul getting in on the act during clashes in the Turkish city. The group even managed to top the chat show host in terms of numbers, cramming 14 people into the shot compared to Ellen’s 12, which was taken in an environment much less [...] → Read the full article…
Erdoğan’s strategy since Gezi has been to polarize the electorate, disowning those who speak against him and trumpeting his role as a fighter for those who support the party. But his indifference to Elvan’s fate exhibited cruelty rather than strength. On Tuesday, a fifteen-year-old Turkish Alevi named Berkin Elvan died, sparking the country’s largest anti-government protests since last summer, when [...] → Read the full article…
Even if his party manages to scrape by in Turkey’s upcoming municipal elections on March 30, Prime Minister Erdogan has already done irreparable harm to his brand. It is hard to imagine how in any society a Prime Minister caught on tape firing journalists because he does not like their point of view or instructing television stations to stop the [...] → Read the full article…
The death of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who spent 269 days in coma after being hit by a teargas canister last June, is sparking renewed protests in Turkey. On Tuesday, Berkin Elvan died. He was 15 years old and weighed a mere 35 pounds (16 kilograms) at the time of his death. He was in a coma for the last 269 [...] → Read the full article…
An enormous outpouring of grief and antigovernment rage during the funeral procession for a teenage boy felled by a police tear-gas canister turned into another mass confrontation with the Turkish authorities on Wednesday as mourners clashed with antiriot squads in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. At least one person was killed. The new unrest came a day after protesters battled with [...] → Read the full article…
Thousands of people are flocking to Istanbul’s Okmeydanı neighborhood for the funeral procession of Berkin Elvan, who died yesterday after 269 days in coma. Some groups put up barricades on the roads leading to a local cemevi, a house of worship for the Alevi community, where the funeral ceremony has started at 12 p.m. Live footage of the funeral can [...] → Read the full article…
Fifteen-year-old Berkin Elvan has died after 269 days in a coma. The Istanbul schoolboy incurred a head injury that doctors say was most likely inflicted by police shooting a teargas canister directly at him at close range. The incident happened during the June 2013 protests in many Istanbul neighborhoods and in cities across Turkey, triggered by the police’s violent dispersal [...] → Read the full article…
Berkin Elvan has been in coma since June last year when he was hit by a teargas cartridge during anti-government protests in Istanbul Fresh clashes between Turkish police and protesters have erupted in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara on Tuesday , after a 15-year-old boy died from a head injury sustained during anti-government protests last summer. Berkin Elvan, then aged [...] → Read the full article…