A group of unarmed PKK members are entering Turkey borders now. It could be a giant step; it depends how the group will be met…
photos from Milliyet
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT
accompanying the
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL
Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2009-2010
And another roundup on Turkey’s foreign policy issues and its place in Europe:
I am still optimistic, still, really. But there are not all good news here.
In the mean time: a first case. a policeman arrested because of assault to a young citizen:
Efkan Bolaç, lawyer of the severely beaten student Güney Tuna, stated that 8 police officers were involved in the assault on her client: “Tuna was not …
PM Erdoğan’s speech at his party convention was discursively promising:
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) held its third ordinary party congress on Saturday at the ASKİ Sports Hall in Ankara.
One of the murder stories I have read about throughout the summer reaches at a new level:
Dear Prof. Jenny White emphasizes a study on the political identities of Turkish youth. A vital issue to think about.
I was very intrigued by Professor Selçuk Sirin’s study of political identities of Turkish youth but wanted more information than given in the press and the interview linked to in my previous post. Unable to find the original study on the web, I contacted Professor Sirin at New York University and he kindly sent me a summary of the results (presumably what had been released to the media). (21 pp in Turkish, click here sirin-basin-raporu.doc to download. For non-Turkish speakers, there are many clear pie charts, some of which I discuss below) Professor Sirin said he is still working through the rest of the data.
Relatively good news:
I don’t like Nil Karaibrahimgil’s too girlish attitude much but I like this song as it bangs on my head in the internet cafe. Her summer hit. There are 24 days to freedom. Now I am one of the closest ones to finish the service- called "tezkereciler". I am now bolder to ask for … Read more
I came across a video of media footage on the 1995 Gazi Incident. It has yet to be proven if this was a work of Ergenekon gang.
It is also alleged that those detained were involved in provocation and agitation during the Gazi incidents of 1995, when tens of people died in clashes with the police in demonstrations after an attack at an Alevi coffeehouse in the neighborhood.[*]
Protests after the Gazi massacre in 1995
In the mean time,
Court to wait for opinion on Ergenekon merger
The Ankara 11th High Criminal Court hearing the case on the 2006 attack on the Council of State, which left a senior judge dead, announced yesterday that it will wait for another court’s decision before it rules to merge the case with the ongoing Ergenekon trial in İstanbul.
Let us examine the most spectacular case to date: the curious case of Mustafa Balbay.
I do hope you read his story in today’s paper. A colleague (daily Cumhuriyet) and a suspect in the Ergenekon case, Balbay, earlier taken into interrogation for alleged activities for being part of a terrorist organization with the aim of overthrowing the constitutional order and toppling the government, was recently detained again.
Immediately after the arrest, protests were heard: How dare you arrest a man who does his job, some columnists objected. Some of Balbay’s documents were taken to the prosecutor’s office and the protesters argued that he was entitled to keep secret documents at home. What’s wrong with that? some of his colleagues asked. Then, the entire episode developed into an action: A group of columnists gathered some days ago in what they call a "historic act" at Cumhuriyet and signed Balbay’s books for the public. "We are all Balbay!" they declared. According to the Press Council’s chairman, Oktay Ekşi, this act was to "defend the freedom of expression."
Then, on Monday, the Tempo weekly published the diaries of Balbay. He thought he had deleted them before the police raid and was surprised when the police told him that they had "saved" the entire text.
It is a document of shame: As you can read today, the diaries tell how deeply a "journalist" was involved in clandestine activity — as an accomplice, not as a covert reporter — to provoke top military officials to a coup.
"We are all Balbay," claimed the signatories: Ironically, it is true. The tragic fact is that when I look at them, I see only a mental impasse. The precedent they set in their capacity as leaders of journalistic organizations allows the invasion of Balbays to continue.
I could not follow the Ergenekon case properly last week. You can find a weekly round up below. There appeared a pattern for those arrested in the case. They are hospitalized and then are transferred to the grand military hospital in Ankara, GATA(but it has other branches in other towns, too) There, it is decided that these people are sick and they they are released. So there appeared a suspicious situation in relation to this hospital. There also appeared some tapped recordings that supported this situation. But i did not follow it properly, i won’t have much to say.
I woke up to see the bombardment of news about the 11th wave of arrests…. 20 soldiers and special police force members and a major trade union’s leader is detained…
Forensic officers search for weapons in a wooded area in central Ankara January 9, 2009. More than 40 people, including three retired generals, nine military officers, a state prosecutor and a former chairman of the higher education board, were detained for their suspected links to a right-wing group. The military, which has unseated four … Read more
Weapons and explosives, dug up from a hidden cache during an investigation into an alleged coup plot, are displayed at the local police headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009. A Turkish court formally arrested nine people on charges being part of an alleged secularist plot to bring down the Islamic-rooted government and police detained 33 more suspects while displaying weapons, dug up from a hidden cache. Prosecutors say the alleged plot aimed to destabilize Turkey through a series of attacks and trigger a coup in 2009. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Usta)