ANKARA – The debate over a controversial road construction on the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) campus shows that “some people have not learned their lessons,” according to the outgoing EU ambassador to Turkey. “It is unfortunate that it was undertaken without waiting for the final [court] decision.,” Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, Head of the Delegation of the European Union, told [...] → 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…
By Semih Idiz With Ankara acting as one of the principal cheerleaders for a military strike against Syria, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing Turkey’s participation in any military coalition, increasingly concerned Turks, unaware of what exactly the Turkish contribution will be, are bracing themselves for all possible consequences from a US-led operation against the Syrian regime. Damascus’ chilling [...] → Read the full article…
By Dalia Mortada In Turkey, the government has been outspoken in its support of a foreign intervention in Syria. The country currently hosts close to half a million refugees from its southern neighbor, and thousands more pour in through Turkey’s borders each week. Turkey’s Prime Minister Reccep Tayyip Erdogan has spoken out against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad from the start [...] → Read the full article…
Erdogan’s Islamist government accused of exploiting religious divisions in Antakya, long renowned for its ethnic diversity By Constanze Letsche – ANTAKYA Nearly a quarter of the 2 million people who have fled the crisis in Syria – some 460,000 – have made their way into Turkey, the UN high commission for refugees announcedon Tuesday. While many find themselves at the [...] → Read the full article…
A court arrested four suspects (including a policeman) for the willful murder of Ali Ismail Korkmaz, a Gezi Park protestors who died in the results of massive beating in Eskişehir province. By Beyza KURAL – Istanbul – BIA News Desk beyza@bianet.org A court arrested four suspects (including a policeman) who stood trial for the willful murder of Ali Ismail Korkmaz [...] → Read the full article…
By Yavuz Baydar Turkey needs freedom of expression more than ever. Erdoğan’s clampdown could stop dead our transition to a liberal democracy Last week I was fired from my job as independent ombudsman for the Turkish daily newspaper Sabah, following the censoring of my column. I had worked for the newspaper in this position since 2004. I had been hired [...] → Read the full article…
The recent uprisings in Turkey indicated a transformation of youth cynicism into a widespread protest against the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) government’s conservative and autocratic policies. This transformation demands a new way of thinking about youth and politics in the country. If nothing else, young people can no longer be easily characterized as politically apathetic. In June 2013, Turkey [...] → Read the full article…
Police will replace private security firms in universities, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced as a response to the Gezi Park protests, which have particularly been led by young university students. “We will place in state universities the state-owned security forces instead of private security. Seeing that there were very different things has pushed us to further responsibility,” Erdoğan [...] → Read the full article…
THE mass anti-government demonstrations that have rocked Turkey over the past month are dying down and only now is the full horror of police abuse against protestors beginning to emerge. Human-rights groups say the use of tear gas as a weapon marks a new chilling trend among Turkey’s notoriously nasty riot police. Hasan Kilicgedik, a thirty-year-old Kurd, was among the [...] → Read the full article…