Late one night last summer, at the height of antigovernment demonstrations sweeping Turkey, a group of protest leaders rushed to the home of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, the capital, to negotiate a solution to the growing crisis.They came away with a tentative agreement, but it was never accepted by the rank-and-file protesters, and so the movement was [...] → Read the full article…
Erdogan has decided the best way to maximize his vote in Turkey’s first direct presidential election next year is to polarize the electorate. He wants to force Turks to choose between two options: You’re either with Erdogan, or against him. And if you are against him, you are with the old, wooden-headed, military-backed, secularist system and its decadent offspring. ”Those who [...] → Read the full article…
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly accused the Western press of reporting “lies” that misrepresent Turkey. Now his government has decided to tell its own side of the story – reaching foreign audiences directly by setting up an English-language television channel. According to the spokesman of state broadcasting company, TRT, the English-language channel is the most expensive project [...] → Read the full article…
Turkey’s Gezi Park protests have clearly reflected the distance between the priorities of the Turkish people and the Turkish government, Socialist International (SI) Secretary-General Luis Ayala has said ahead of the group’s summit in Istanbul, which will begin with a special session on Gezi. We are very interested in listening and learning more of the Gezi Park protests. That’s why [...] → Read the full article…
UStream, the leading video technology platform allowing individuals to broadcast live online with their mobile devices, said four million people watched Turkey’s Gezi Park protests as clashes between police and protesters on the mainstream news channels were not broadcasted properly. “There was an amazing traffic during the protests in Turkey, an incredible creativity by users. Some 4 million people watched [...] → Read the full article…
In his time in power, more than a decade now, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has alienated large portions of the population for his seeming intrusions into private lives. He has told women how many children they should have, has sought to outlaw abortion and adultery and to limit alcohol consumption and once, oddly, went on a public tirade [...] → Read the full article…
It started with a leak, too. The leak was from a closed-door session of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Parti) latest big event bringing MPs and party organizers together to assess the political atmosphere before the March 2014 local elections. It was exclusively reported by daily Zaman and as part of another political story, not a separate one. [...] → Read the full article…
Gul not ruling out challenging authoritarian prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for presidency next summer. Growing divergence of views over the government’s handling of last summer’s violent street protests, and over what Gul calls Turkey’s “democratic deficit” and the “normalisation” of Islamic values within Turkey’s secular constitutional framework, has prompted suggestions that the two men, who together have dominated the [...] → Read the full article…
As part of the project Inside Out initiated last year by the Festival The Influencers, one of the “reclaimed” walls of Barcelona has been pasted with the photos of people supporting the Gezi Park resistance in Istanbul. Inspired by JR’s large-format street “pastings”, INSIDE OUT gives everyone the opportunity to share their portrait and make a statement for what they [...] → Read the full article…
82 university students have been expelled from state-run student residences in Samsun for attending Gezi Resistance protests – a penalty that also included the suspension of their scholarships and loans. 82 university students have been indefinitely expelled from state-run student residences in the northern province of Samsun for being detained during Gezi Resistance protests – a penalty that also included [...] → Read the full article…