ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Turkish riot police stormed the offices of Koza Ipek Holding, a media group in Istanbul housing the Bugun TV channel and the Bugunand Millet newspapers.
“Dear viewers,” a Bugun TV anchor casually announced during the early morning broadcast, “do not be surprised if you see police in our studio in the upcoming minutes.” Outside, police were leading journalists away in handcuffs, while citizens — many of them journalists who worked in the building — protested the dawn raid as police attempted to disperse the growing crowd with tear gas and water cannons.
Refugees merely ‘bargaining chip’ in shameful EU-Turkey deal
Richard Howitt is a Labour MEP for the East of England. He is the Socialists & Democrats group spokesperson on foreign affairs in the European Parliament and a member of the EU-Turkey Joint parliamentary committee.
The EHCR has upheld the right of the Turkish politician Dogu Perincek to deny the Armenian genocide. It’s a bad decision with dangerous implications.
On 15 October 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made a controversial ruling: Switzerland had violated Dogu Perincek’s right to freedom of speech. Perincek is a Turkish politician who made a series of provocative speeches in Switzerland saying there was “no Armenian genocide”; this historical event in the Ottoman empire in 1915 and after was an “imperialist lie”. Swiss courts condemned him under anti-racist laws. In its decision, the ECHR considered that the Swiss courts had “censured (Perincek) for having simply expressed an opinion divergent from those in Switzerland.”
“Human rights and the rule of law in Turkey are at the worst level I’ve seen in the 12 years I’ve worked on Turkey’s human rights.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Friday prayer in Istanbul. Demotix/ Sahan Nuhoglu. All rights reserved.(Istanbul)–As the EU bends over backward to get Turkey to accept a deal to prevent Syrian and other refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants from leaving its shores or crossing its western borders, it’s worth thinking hard about what’s at stake.
The ‘deep state’ meets Erdoğan’s ‘New Turkey’. The country’s resulting predicament is much more dangerous than two decades ago.
Hrant Dink..Adalet ( justice!) 8 years on, the government has failed to bring those responsible to justice. Demotix/J Kojak.One suicide bombing after another, Turkey’s public is growing accustomed to images of carnage that no longer originate from Syria or Iraq, but from their own capital. The twin blasts that killed at least 102 people at a peace rally in Ankara on 10 October follow a string of deadly explosions in Suruç in July and Diyarbakır in June, and claim the unenviable title of being Turkey’s deadliest terror attack from the Reyhanlı bombings of May 2013. The astonishing series of intelligence and security failures has cast in a critical spotlight the state’s ability or willingness to safeguard those citizens whom the government views as a threat to its rule.
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