Almost 300 journalists in Turkey, a member state of the Council of Europe and a candidate country to the European Union, are languishing behind bars or facing outstanding arrest warrants, a report released by the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF)
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The replacement of democratically elected HDP/DBP mayors and local municipality workers by AKP appointees is a grave threat to democracy in Turkish Kurdistan and the larger region.
A placard with photos of 11 jailed pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, HDP, lawmakers, left by Leyla Birlik, a HDP lawmaker after her address to the Turkish parliament on Jan. 19, 2017. Picture by AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved. In the aftermath of the July 2016 coup d’état attempt in Turkey, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has dismissed, detained and in some cases imprisoned co-mayors from 51 majority Kurdish local authorities across South East Turkey (North Kurdistan), replacing them with appointees from the AKP. The majority of these co-mayors belong to the AKP’s leading opposition parties, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and its Kurdistan branch the Democratic Regions Party (DBP).
The celebrated Turkish writer is one of many of the country’s intellectuals facing criminal charges since last summer’s failed coup attempt. Asli Erdogan spent more than four months in pre-trial detention, charged with one of Turkey’s most severe
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