By Yasemin Congar Turkish might be a relatively lean language when it comes to the number of words in it (barely more than 111,000 words, according to the official Turkish Language Institute, compared to English which tops a million), but it is rather rich in wisely-quipped proverbs that have stood the test of centuries. One such adage that I find especially relevant [...] → Read the full article…
Osman Erden, an assistant professor who was detained and subjected to police violence in downtown Istanbul during Gezi Resistance, was ordered to stand trial for “resisting police officers and attending an illegal demonstration”. Erden is facing prison sentence up to 3 years. By Ayca Soylemez – Istanbul Osman Erden, an assistant professor of art history at Mimar Sinan Fines Arts [...] → Read the full article…
AKP deputy Galip Ensarioğlu said 164 policemen faced investigation regarding their conduct during Gezi Resistance protests. However, police authorities announced the toll to be 31. “These numbers are products of imagination,” said Interior Minister Güler. İstanbul – BIA News Desk Police authorities released a statement, saying that 31 active-duty policemen faced investigation due to their conduct during Gezi Resistance protests [...] → Read the full article…
Unless appropriate measures are taken and an exit is found quickly, Turkey is going to be facing developments that will be at least as formidable to handle as its Kurdish issue. The almost instantaneous spillover of incidents at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University to Antakya [historical city of Antioch] near the Syrian border, the death of 23-year-old Ahmet Arikan on [...] → Read the full article…
Turkey’s ruling party, facing the threat of fresh anti-government demonstrations, is boosting its presence in a sphere long dominated by the opposition: social media. The Justice and Development Party, led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is recruiting a 6,000-member social-media team to woo citizens and fight critics, party officials said. The AKP is gradually bringing young, tech-savvy party members to [...] → Read the full article…
Watch Professor Judith Butler’s lecture, “Freedom of Assembly, or ‘Who are the People?’” held on September 15, 2013 in Istanbul at Boğaziçi University. Judith Butler’s lecture was a collaboration of Columbia Global Centers | Turkey, the 13th Istanbul Biennial and Boğaziçi University. About the Talk The freedom of assembly is a basic right, but how is it to be understood? [...] → Read the full article…
A crackdown on anti-government protests forced the art show to abandon its more edgy ideas. But the spirit of Taksim Square is not entirely absent For the time being, the days of “art for art’s sake” are over in Turkey. A police crackdown on a fresh protest in Taksim Square threatened to overshadow the opening of the Istanbul Biennial, the country’s most important [...] → Read the full article…
Now in its 13th edition, this year’s Istanbul Biennial, which runs through Oct. 20, is called “Mom, Am I a Barbarian?” taking its title from a book by the Turkish poet Lale Muldur. It fills five venues in Istanbul’s bustling downtown, bringing together 88 artists from around the world: 15 of them are Turkish, others are from Latin America, the [...] → Read the full article…
On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan, a strong advocate for military intervention in the Syrian war, reacted angrily to the United States’ decision to delay a military strike there — a decision analysts said had left Mr. Erdogan more politically vulnerable at home. In Istanbul on Thursday, police officers used tear gas to disperse protesters. Demonstrations have broken out recently across the [...] → Read the full article…
The demonstrations that broke out across Turkey earlier this year after the police clampdown on an environmentalist protest at Istanbul’s Gezi Park came as a major sociopolitical quake for the country. The first tsunami after the big tremor is beginning to rise as street clashes spread again across Turkey over the Sept. 10 death of a 22-year-old protester in Hatay province. A [...] → Read the full article…