Opposition mayor bans Syrians from beach in western Turkey
Syrians have been barred from public beaches by the mayor of Mudanya, a coastal district in the western Turkish province of Bursa, who said that he would not allow Syrians disturb Turkey’s own people, Karar newspaper reported on Saturday.
Hayri Türkyılmaz from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), who was elected for a second term as Mudanya’s mayor on March 31, also attempted to ban Syrians from using beaches in 2014, Karar said.
“Nobody has the right to bother others or restrict their freedoms”, tweeted Türkyılmaz. “While our children are dying (in Syria), our mothers are crying, our economy is going downhill, we won’t tolerate our people being annoyed as they live a life of comfort”.
Turkey hosts some 3.6 million registered refugees from Syria, according to the latest United Nations figures published in May. Many in Turkey object to their presence, and the tensions have been fuelled in part by viral reports – often fake – of misdeeds by refugees, as well as inaccurate reports on the benefits offered them by the Turkish government.
Turkish news site Gazete ABC reported that a high number of Syrians had been a fixture on the beaches in Mudanya for months, likening them to an “invasion”.
The Syrians had been moved off the beaches and municipal police posted to ensure they did not return, Gazete ABC said.
“They can either conform to us or they can go back to their own country”, Türkyılmaz said.
With a reported 79 percent of Turks holding unfavourable views of the refugees, nationalist politicians have brought the issue to the agenda over recent years. This year another newly elected CHP mayor, Tanju Özcan of the north western Turkish province of Bolu, announced that he was cutting aid to Syrian refugees.
Ajouté à cette métaliste :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/773978
“#Columbia_University cancels panel on Turkey due to pressure from Turkish government”
Colombia University effectively canceled a panel discussion on Turkey two days before the event, citing “academic standards.”
Steven A. Cook, one of the panelists and a senior fellow for Middle East & Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, has tweeted that the decision was made after “the university came under pressure form Turkish government.
“Disappointed to learn that @Columbia ‘s Provost effectively canceled this panel two days before the event, citing “academic standards.” One can only assume that the university came under pressure form the govt of #Turkey and its supporters. Terrible precedent,” Cook tweeted.
The panel discussion was about the Turkish governments increasing authoritarian tendencies and human rights violations in the country since a coup attmept on July 15, 2016.
Daniel Balson invited the university administratrion to explain “what (specifically) about this panel does not meet its “academic standards.”
“This is stunning – @Columbia should be pressed to explain what (specifically) about this panel does not meet its “academic standards”. If they think the facts are wrong they should publicly correct. Too serious a precedent to ignore. @KachaniS, @ColumbiaVPTL @ColumbiaSpec,” Balson tweeted.
▻https://turkeypurge.com/columbia-university-cancels-panel-on-turkey-due-to-pressure-from-turkis
#université #Turquie #censure #liberté_académique #liberté_d'expression #USA #Etats-Unis #standards_académiques
#Google erases #Kurdistan from maps in compliance with Turkish gov.
▻http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/e6a0b65e-84fa-447b-9ed4-5df8390961d3
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Google incorporation removed a map outlining the geographical extent of the Greater Kurdistan after the Turkish state asked it to do so, a simple inquiry on the Internet giant’s search engine from Wednesday on can show.
“Unavailable. This map is no longer available due to a violation of our Terms of Service and/or policies,” a note on the page that the map was previously on read. Google did not provide further details on how the Kurdistan map violated its rules.
The map in question, available for years, used to be on Google’s My Maps service, a feature of Google Maps that enables users to create custom maps for personal use or sharing through search.
Because the map was created and shared publicly by a user through their personal account, it remains unknown if their rights have been violated or if they will appeal.
A Turkish lawmaker from the ultra-nationalist, opposition IYI (Good) Party revealed last week that he put a written question to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Cahit Turan, as to whether the Turkish government acted to make Google remove the Kurdistan map.
Turan answered in affirmative, saying authorities were in touch with Google.
The MP, Yavuz Agiralioglu, charged the map with “being at the service of terrorist organizations” in his question to the minister, referring to Kurdish armed groups fighting for different degrees of autonomy and recognition of cultural rights in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, modern nation-states Kurdistan was divided between a century ago.
He also claimed the map violated the Turkish borders, although it showed modern borders superimposed by a non-standard red line that defined Kurdistan as “a geo-cultural region wherein the Kurdish people have historically formed a prominent majority population.”
“The most dangerous Turk is the one looking at the map. We laid the Earth flat under our feet and only walked. We took our civilization, our justice, and our mercy to the countries we went. Let those who fancy dividing our country with fake maps look at our historical record,” the nationalist MP tweeted, in a veiled reference to the fate of the Armenian people which faced a genocide before the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Currently, the search “Kurdistan” on Google brings up results for the Kurdistan Region and its constitutionally-defined borders within Iraq and the Kurdistan Province in Western Iran.
The use of the word “Kurdistan” is criminalized in Turkey, even at the parliament’s floors where lawmakers can be fined to pay up to several thousand Liras and be dismissed from at least two legislative sessions.
Maps drawn by ancient Greeks, Islamic historians, Ottomans, and Westerners showing Kurdistan with alternative names such as “Corduene” or “Karduchi” have existed since antiquity.
The use of the name “Kurdistan” was banned by the administration of Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the immediate aftermath of the crushed Sheikh Said uprising for Kurdish statehood in 1925.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
]]>Khashoggi and the Jewish question - Middle East - Jerusalem Post
▻https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Khashoggi-and-the-Jewish-question-569256
Khashoggi and the Jewish question
“It is certainly not in our interests to see the status of the Saudi government diminished in Washington.”
By Herb Keinon
October 12, 2018 04:24
The disappearance of Saudi government critic and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey – and the very real possibility that the Saudis either kidnapped him, killed him, or both – is no exception.
On the surface, this story seems distant from Jerusalem. Israel was not involved in any way, and even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who never misses an opportunity to blast Israel, is not saying that Jerusalem had anything to do with it.
(...)
As a New York Times headline read on Thursday, “Khashoggi’s disappearance puts Kushner’s bet on Saudi crown prince at risk.”
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has invested much in building a relationship with MBS, and Jerusalem – for its own interests – hopes that this particular bet does not turn sour.
(...) As Dore Gold, the head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and former Foreign Ministry director-general, said: “This problem could be used by the Iranians to drive a wedge between the West and Saudi Arabia.”
That is bad for Israel, he added, because “anything that strengthens Iran’s posturing in the Middle East is bad for Israel,” and in the Mideast balance of power, a weakened Saudi Arabia means a strengthened Iran.
It also means a strengthened Turkey, which could explain why Ankara is going the full monty on this issue, releasing surveillance tape and leaking information about the investigation.
“Turkey is part of an axis with Qatar,” Gold said, “and that puts Saudi Arabia at odds with the Turkish government.
]]>Turkey Says Recordings Are Evidence of Saudi Journalist’s Killing - WSJ
▻https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-says-saudi-journalists-killing-was-recorded-1539314057
▻https://images.wsj.net/im-29748/social
The Turkish government has what it describes as audio and video recordings purporting to show that Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and has shared the evidence with U.S. officials, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Turkish officials may release the evidence in coming days, these people said, adding the recordings have been described by those who have reviewed them as evidence of a killing. The audio evidence is particularly graphic, according to these people.
et récit détaillé ici (repris de la presse turque)
▻https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/12/middleeast/khashoggi-saudi-turkey-recordings-intl/index.html
Missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi may have recorded his own death, a Turkish newspaper reported Saturday morning.
Khashoggi turned on the recording function of his Apple Watch before walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 , according to Sabah newspaper.
The moments of his “interrogation, torture and killing were audio recorded and sent to both his phone and to iCloud,” the pro-government, privately owned newspaper paper reported. The Turkish newspaper said conversations of the men involved in the reported assassination were recorded.
Security forces leading the investigation found the audio file inside the phone Khasshoggi left with his fiancé, according to Sabah.
Upon noticing the watch, Sabah reports, Khashoggi’s assailants tried to unlock the Apple Watch with multiple password attempts, ultimately using Khashoggi’s fingerprint to unlock the smart watch. They were successful in deleting only some of the files, Sabah reported.
However, on its website, Apple does not list fingerprint verification as one of the Apple Watch’s capabilities. A representative from the company confirmed to CNN the watches do not have the feature.
It was not immediately clear whether it would have been technically feasible for Khashoggi’s Apple phone to transfer audio to his phone, which he had given to his fiancee before entering the consulate.
CNN cannot independently verify Sabah report and is seeking comment from both Saudi and Turkish officials.
]]>Jamal Khashoggi: A different sort of Saudi | Middle East Eye
▻https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/jamal-khashoggi-different-sort-saudi-1109584652
This is the darkest day of my time as editor of Middle East Eye. It should not be. Jamal Khashoggi is not the first Saudi exile to be killed. No one today remembers Nassir al-Sa’id, who disappeared from Beirut in 1979 and has never been seen since.
Prince Sultan bin Turki was kidnapped from Geneva in 2003. Prince Turki bin Bandar Al Saud, who applied for asylum in France and disappeared in 2015. Maj Gen Ali al-Qahtani, an officer in the Saudi National Guard, who died while still in custody, showed signs of abuse including a neck that appeared twisted and a badly swollen body. And there are many, many others.
Thousands languish in jail. Human rights activists branded as terrorists are on death row on charges that Human Rights Watch says “do not resemble recognised crimes”. I know of one business leader who was strung upside down, naked and tortured. Nothing has been heard of him since. In Saudi, you are one social media post away from death.
A Saudi plane dropped a US-made bomb on a school bus in Yemen killing 40 boys and 11 adults on a school trip. Death is delivered by remote control, but no Western ally or arms supplier of Saudi demands an explanation. No contracts are lost. No stock market will decline the mouth-watering prospect of the largest initial public offering in history. What difference does one more dead Saudi make?
As a journalist he hated humbug. The motto in Arabic on his Twitter page roughly translates as: “Say what you have to say and walk away.”
And yet Khashoggi’s death is different. It’s right up close. One minute he is sitting across the table at breakfast, in a creased shirt, apologising in his mumbled, staccato English for giving you his cold. The next minute, a Turkish government contact tells you what they did to his body inside the consulate in Istanbul.
]]>By Stifling Migration, Sudan’s Feared Secret Police Aid Europe
At Sudan’s eastern border, Lt. Samih Omar led two patrol cars slowly over the rutted desert, past a cow’s carcass, before halting on the unmarked 2,000-mile route that thousands of East Africans follow each year in trying to reach the Mediterranean, and then onward to Europe.
His patrols along this border with Eritrea are helping Sudan crack down on one of the busiest passages on the European migration trail. Yet Lieutenant Omar is no simple border agent. He works for Sudan’s feared secret police, whose leaders are accused of war crimes — and, more recently, whose officers have been accused of torturing migrants.
Indirectly, he is also working for the interests of the European Union.
“Sometimes,” Lieutenant Omar said, “I feel this is Europe’s southern border.”
Three years ago, when a historic tide of migrants poured into Europe, many leaders there reacted with open arms and high-minded idealism. But with the migration crisis having fueled angry populism and political upheaval across the Continent, the European Union is quietly getting its hands dirty, stanching the human flow, in part, by outsourcing border management to countries with dubious human rights records.
In practical terms, the approach is working: The number of migrants arriving in Europe has more than halved since 2016. But many migration advocates say the moral cost is high.
To shut off the sea route to Greece, the European Union is paying billions of euros to a Turkish government that is dismantling its democracy. In Libya, Italy is accused of bribing some of the same militiamen who have long profited from the European smuggling trade — many of whom are also accused of war crimes.
In Sudan, crossed by migrants trying to reach Libya, the relationship is more opaque but rooted in mutual need: The Europeans want closed borders and the Sudanese want to end years of isolation from the West. Europe continues to enforce an arms embargo against Sudan, and many Sudanese leaders are international pariahs, accused of committing war crimes during a civil war in Darfur, a region in western Sudan.
But the relationship is unmistakably deepening. A recent dialogue, named the Khartoum Process (in honor of Sudan’s capital) has become a platform for at least 20 international migration conferences between European Union officials and their counterparts from several African countries, including Sudan. The European Union has also agreed that Khartoum will act as a nerve center for countersmuggling collaboration.
While no European money has been given directly to any Sudanese government body, the bloc has funneled 106 million euros — or about $131 million — into the country through independent charities and aid agencies, mainly for food, health and sanitation programs for migrants, and for training programs for local officials.
“While we engage on some areas for the sake of the Sudanese people, we still have a sanction regime in place,” said Catherine Ray, a spokeswoman for the European Union, referring to an embargo on arms and related material.
“We are not encouraging Sudan to curb migration, but to manage migration in a safe and dignified way,” Ms. Ray added.
Ahmed Salim, the director of one of the nongovernmental groups that receives European funding, said the bloc was motivated by both self-interest and a desire to improve the situation in Sudan.
“They don’t want migrants to cross the Mediterranean to Europe,” said Mr. Salim, who heads the European and African Center for Research, Training and Development.
But, he said, the money his organization receives means better services for asylum seekers in Sudan. “You have to admit that the European countries want to do something to protect migrants here,” he said.
Critics argue the evolving relationship means that European leaders are implicitly reliant on — and complicit in the reputational rehabilitation of — a Sudanese security apparatus whose leaders have been accused by the United Nations of committing war crimes in Darfur.
“There is no direct money exchanging hands,” said Suliman Baldo, the author of a research paper about Europe’s migration partnership with Sudan. “But the E.U. basically legitimizes an abusive force.”
On the border near Abu Jamal, Lieutenant Omar and several members of his patrol are from the wing of the Sudanese security forces headed by Salah Abdallah Gosh, one of several Sudanese officials accused of orchestrating attacks on civilians in Darfur.
Elsewhere, the border is protected by the Rapid Support Forces, a division of the Sudanese military that was formed from the janjaweed militias who led attacks on civilians in the Darfur conflict. The focus of the group, known as R.S.F., is not counter-smuggling — but roughly a quarter of the people-smugglers caught in January and February this year on the Eritrean border were apprehended by the R.S.F., Lieutenant Omar said.
European officials have direct contact only with the Sudanese immigration police, and not with the R.S.F., or the security forces that Lieutenant Omar works for, known as N.I.S.S. But their operations are not that far removed.
The planned countertrafficking coordination center in Khartoum — staffed jointly by police officers from Sudan and several European countries, including Britain, France and Italy — will partly rely on information sourced by N.I.S.S., according to the head of the immigration police department, Gen. Awad Elneil Dhia. The regular police also get occasional support from the R.S.F. on countertrafficking operations in border areas, General Dhia said.
“They have their presence there and they can help,” General Dhia said. “The police is not everywhere, and we cannot cover everywhere.”
Yet the Sudanese police are operating in one unexpected place: Europe.
In a bid to deter future migrants, at least three European countries — Belgium, France and Italy — have allowed in Sudanese police officers to hasten the deportation of Sudanese asylum seekers, General Dhia said.
Nominally, their official role is simply to identify their citizens. But the officers have been allowed to interrogate some deportation candidates without being monitored by European officials with the language skills to understand what was being said.
More than 50 Sudanese seeking asylum in Europe have been deported in the past 18 months from Belgium, France and Italy; The New York Times interviewed seven of them on a recent visit to Sudan.
Four said they had been tortured on their return to Sudan — allegations denied by General Dhia. One man was a Darfuri political dissident deported in late 2017 from France to Khartoum, where he said he was detained on arrival by N.I.S.S. agents.
Over the next 10 days, he said he was given electric shocks, punched and beaten with metal pipes. At one point the dissident, who asked that his name be withheld for his safety, lost consciousness and had to be taken to the hospital. He was later released on a form of parole.
The dissident said that, before his deportation from France, Sudanese police officers had threatened him as French officers stood nearby. “I said to the French police: ‘They are going to kill us,’” he said. “But they didn’t understand.”
European officials argue that establishing Khartoum as a base for collaboration on fighting human smuggling can only improve the Sudanese security forces. The Regional Operational Center in Khartoum, set to open this year, will enable delegates from several European and African countries to share intelligence and coordinate operations against smugglers across North Africa.
But potential pitfalls are evident from past collaborations. In 2016, the British and Italian police, crediting a joint operation with their Sudanese counterparts, announced the arrest of “one of the world’s most wanted people smugglers.” They said he was an Eritrean called Medhanie Yehdego Mered, who had been captured in Sudan and extradited to Italy.
The case is now privately acknowledged by Western diplomats to have been one of mistaken identity. The prisoner turned out to be Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, an Eritrean refugee with the same first name as the actual smuggler. Mr. Mered remains at large.
Even General Dhia now admits that Sudan extradited the wrong man — albeit one who, he says, admitted while in Sudanese custody to involvement in smuggling.
“There were two people, actually — two people with the same name,” General Dhia said.
Mr. Berhe nevertheless remains on trial in Italy, accused of being Mr. Mered — and of being a smuggler.
Beyond that, the Sudanese security services have long been accused of profiting from the smuggling trade. Following European pressure, the Sudanese Parliament adopted a raft of anti-smuggling legislation in 2014, and the rules have since led to the prosecution of some officials over alleged involvement in the smuggling business.
But according to four smugglers whom I interviewed clandestinely during my trip to Sudan, the security services remain closely involved in the trade, with both N.I.S.S and R.S.F. officials receiving part of the smuggling profits on most trips to southern Libya.
The head of the R.S.F., Brig. Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, has claimed in the past that his forces play a major role in impeding the route to Libya. But each smuggler — interviewed separately — said that the R.S.F. was often the main organizer of the trips, often supplying camouflaged vehicles to ferry migrants through the desert.
After being handed over to Libyan militias in Kufra and Sabha, in southern Libya, many migrants are then systematically tortured and held for ransom — money that is later shared with the R.S.F., each smuggler said.
Rights activists have previously accused Sudanese officials of complicity in trafficking. In a 2014 report, Human Rights Watch said that senior Sudanese police officials had colluded in the smuggling of Eritreans.
A British journalist captured by the R.S.F. in Darfur in 2016 said that he had been told by his captors that they were involved in smuggling people to Libya. “I asked specifically about how it works,” said the journalist, Phil Cox, a freelance filmmaker for Channel 4. “And they said we make sure the routes are open, and we talk with whoever’s commanding the next area.”
General Dhia said that the problem did not extend beyond a few bad apples. Sudan, he said, remains an effective partner for Europe in the battle against irregular migration.
“We are not,” he said, “very far from your standards.”
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/world/africa/migration-european-union-sudan.html
#Soudan #externalisation #asile #migrations #contrôles_frontaliers #frontières #réfugiés #police_secrète #Europe #UE #EU #processus_de_Khartoum
signalé par @isskein
Turkish court bans 9 books on terror charges
A Turkish government has banned the sale and distribution of nine books, printed by pro-Kurdish Avesta Publications, media reported Sunday.
The ban was imposed after the copies of the nine books were found at a place where two people were earlier detained as part of an investigation into the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Sirnak’s Idil district.
“The said books are the ones which were published as doctoral dissertations at the world’s leading universities between 2003 and 2015. …Among the banned books are the the ones about Yazidis’ holy writings and Battle of Chaldiran. How on earth they are affiliated with terrorism? The other banned book is on the genocide in Iraq. This book consists of official reports of Human Rights Watch… and it is accredited with parliaments of several countries,” publisher’s editor-in-chief Abdullah Keskin told Duvar news portal.
The original names of the banned books are as follows: “ Kan, İnançlar ve Oy Pusulaları; Cesur Adamların Ülkesine Yolculuk; Tasavvur Mu Gerçek Mi? Mahabad Kürt Cumhuriyeti Büyük Güçlerin Politikasında Kürtler 1941-1947; Mağdur Diasporadan Sınır-Ötesi Vatandaşlığa Mı?; Ülkemde Bir Yabancı; Çaldıran Savaşı’nda Osmanlılar Safeviler ve Kürtler; Tanrı ve Şeyh Adi Kusursuzdur: Yezidi Tarihinden Kutsal Şiirler ve Dinsel Anlatılar; Kürdistan Bayrağının Altında; Irak’ta Soykırım.”
Des demandeurs d’asile soudanais torturés dans leur pays après avoir été expulsés par la #France
Une enquête du New York Times a révélé dimanche soir que plusieurs demandeurs d’asile soudanais renvoyés par la France, l’#Italie et la #Belgique, avaient été torturés à leur retour dans leur pays d’origine.
▻https://www.lejdd.fr/international/des-demandeurs-dasile-soudanais-tortures-dans-leur-pays-apres-avoir-ete-expuls
#torture #asile #migrations #réfugiés #renvois #expulsions #réfugiés_soudanais #Soudan
via @isskein sur FB
#Ankara authorities rename ‘Gülenist’ streets
The Ankara Metropolitan Municipality has changed the names of streets and avenues that bear the last name of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, who is accused by the Turkish government of mounting a botched coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
According to Anadolu News Agency, seven streets and avenues in various districts of the capital Ankara have been renamed after a decision by the Municipal Council and approval of the governor’s office.
Streets and avenues named “Gülen” were renamed “Homeland,” “Crescent,” “Redflag,” “Motherland,” “Flag,” “Resurrection” and “Kayı.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP government have been pursuing a crackdown on the Gülen grup since the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
The group denies any involvement in the attempt.
According to a report issued by European Commission (EC) on April 17, 2018, over 150,000 people have been taken into custody, 78,000 arrested and over 110,000 civil servants have been dismissed since July 2016.
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu stated last year that 234,419 passports have been revoked, eight holdings and 1,020 companies were seized as part of investigations into the group since the failed coup.
Turkey deports over 6,800 Afghan migrants
The Turkish government has deported 6,846 Afghan refugees back to Kabul recently, according to a statement from the Interior Ministry’s General Directorate of Migration Management.
The directorate said the migrants were deported from the eastern provinces of Erzurum, Ağrı, and the western province of İzmir on nine charter flights, as well as additional scheduled flights following the completion of deportation procedures, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on April 16.
The undocumented migrants were reported to have entered Turkey through Iran via illegal means and were mostly captured in Erzurum.
More migrants will be deported to Afghanistan through an additional four charter flights in the upcoming days, the directorate said.
Turkey is a common transit country for migrants trying to reach Europe. Turkey accelerated the deportation process on April 8, following reports that nearly 20,000 undocumented Afghan migrants have arrived in the country over the past three months, an unprecedented number.
The first group of Afghan migrants, consisting of more than 200 people, left Erzurum on April 8 on a charter flight bound for Kabul, with reports following that a total of 3,000 were planned to be deported from Erzurum alone.
The Interior Ministry on April 7 said the Afghan migrants had crossed into Turkey through Iran due to “ongoing terrorist activities and economic troubles” in Afghanistan and security forces had handed the migrants over to provincial immigration authorities
“Following the completion of deportation procedures for illegal migrants in our other provinces, deportations will speed up and continue in the coming days,” the ministry said in a statement.
During an official visit to Kabul on April 8, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said the Interior Ministry was conducting a productive plan to stop the inflow of illegal Afghan migrants.
▻https://www.pajhwok.com/en/2018/04/17/turkey-deports-over-6800-afghan-migrants
#réfugiés_afghans #renvois #expulsions #Afghanistan #Turquie #asile #migrations #réfugiés
cc @i_s_ @tchaala_la @isskein
Thousands hold #sit-in protest in İstanbul against ongoing state of emergency
Thousands of people affiliated with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) held a sit-in in İstanbul’s Taksim area on Monday protesting government plans to extend a state of emergency, known as OHAL, which was declared following a failed coup attempt in July 2016.
Police teams prevented the crowd from entering Taksim Square, forcing the group to gather on İstiklal Street.
Emergency rule was declared for three months on July 20, 2016. It was extended for another three months on Oct. 19, 2016, Jan.19, 2017, April 19, 2017, July 21, 2017, Oct.16 2017 and Jan.18, 2018.
On Wednesday, the Turkish government is expected to extend the emergency rule for the seventh time.
The CHP supporters chanted slogans saying, “Don’t be silent, scream ‘no to OHAL’,” “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism” and “Everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance.”
CHP İstanbul deputy Mahmut Tanal, who was among the participants of the protest, said the independent judiciary and media in Turkey have been destroyed during the state of emergency.
“During the Nazi era in Germany, the press didn’t write anything other than what the government said. There are now innocent students who are in jail. There are teachers who have been removed from their posts. OHAL is the enemy of democracy. OHAL brings injustice,” said Tanal.
Under emergency rule, the government has pressed ahead with many controversial decrees that have the force of the law and are not required to be approved by Parliament. In line with these decrees, more than 150,000 people have been purged from state bodies on coup charges.
J’essaie de réunir ici quelques liens déjà sur seenthis sur la #persécution de citoyens de #Turquie à l’#étranger, suite à la #purge après le #coup :
▻http://seen.li/d36u
#Allemagne
▻http://seen.li/e8dx
#Belgique #Suisse
Turquie : Erdoğan traque les collaborateurs de Gülen dans tous les Balkans
▻https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Turquie-Erdogan-traque-les-collaborateurs-de-Gulen-dans-tous-les-
#Balkans #Albanie #Bosnie-Herzégovine #purge
cc @isskein
Turkey confirms use of German tanks in Afrin offensive
The Turkish government has confirmed deploying German Leopard tanks against the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria. Reports of their use in the offensive on the Kurdish-held Afrin region provoked heated debate in Germany.
Turkish government blasts Constitutional Court’s ruling on jailed journalists
▻http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkeys-top-court-rules-to-release-two-jailed-journalists-local-c
The Constitutional Court’s ruling that the jailing of journalists Şahin Alpay and Mehmet Altan during the trial violates their constitutional rights “is not the final decision,” Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said.
Yıldırım told reporters on Jan. 12 that the local court will “give the right decision as it has the full knowledge about the case.”
According to the Turkish Constitution, the Constitutional Court is legally superior to lower courts and its rulings are binding, but its Dec. 11 decision on Alpay and Altan drew the ire of some ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) members.
Yıldırım, however, said debating the Constitutional Court’s ruling would not be in line with the principles of a state of law.
“Rushing to comment would be unfair to the court,” he added, noting that the top court merely ruled against the grounds for arrest during the trial.
The Constitutional Court’s decision covers the pre-trial detention period, before the preparation of the prosecutor’s indictment, and the process after the indictment should be left to the local court’s decision, Yıldırım said.
]]>How to Launder $1 Billion of Iranian Oil - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-08/how-to-launder-1-billion-of-iranian-oil
It wasn’t until he appeared in court on Nov. 29 that the full story surfaced. The FBI had removed him from jail to protect him from threats, keeping him under guard at an undisclosed location. By then, Zarrab had secretly pleaded guilty to all the charges against him and agreed to help the U.S. government. As part of his deal, prosecutors offered him and his family witness protection.
Over more than a week on the witness stand, Zarrab spun a stunning tale of corruption and double-dealing that reached the highest levels of the Turkish government, all the way up to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The case has further soured Washington and Ankara’s already strained relationship, revealing how America’s longtime ally may have helped Iran undermine sanctions even as Turkey received millions of dollars in U.S. aid. Nine people have been charged, including Turkey’s former economy minister and past chief executive officer of Halkbank, a major Turkish bank owned by the government. Of them, only one—a senior Halkbank executive named Mehmet Hakan Atilla, Zarrab’s former co-defendant—is on trial. The others have all avoided U.S. arrest.
In court, Zarrab laid out how he paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to Turkish government officials and banking executives to win their assistance—and cover—for the money laundering operation. He dropped a bombshell on his second day of testimony, when he implicated Erdogan as part of the scheme, saying he was told Turkey’s president gave orders that two Turkish banks be included in the plot.
]]>Solidarité avec les universitaires turcs dont les procès s’ouvrent mardi 5 décembre
Parmi les soutiens possibles (document intitulé What do do) :
1. Partager l’appel à solidarité ; montrer votre solidarité en suivant les procès et en les commentant sur vos réseaux sociaux, ou en écrivant des articles de blogs ou de journaux sur le sujet. Des informations sont disponibles ici : ▻https://barisicinakademisyenler.net or ▻http://mesana.org/pdf/Turkey20171017.pdf
2. Contacter bakuluslararasi@gmail.com si vous souhaitez assister aux procès en tant qu’observateur, ou écrivez à une association des droits de l’homme pour qu’elle envoie un délégué.
3. Signer la pétition ▻https://academicboycottofturkey.wordpress.com/petition pour soutenir le boycott des universités complices en Turquie ;
4. Informer vos organisations professionnelles ou le sénat de votre université pour qu’elles prennent acte contre les institutions complices telle le Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK ; www.tubitak.gov.tr/en) ;
5. Soutenir financièrement les enseignants-chercheurs démis de leurs fonctions en faisant un don au syndicat qui les soutient, ici ▻https://www.youcaring.com/academicsforpeaceinturkey-763983
N’hésitez pas à faire circuler dans vos réseaux universitaires, syndicaux, et militants.
#solidarité #résistance #Turquie #université #purge #coup #universitaires_pour_la_paix #procès
@isskein : je vais essayer de mettre sur ce fil ce que je trouve sur cet horrible procès
Turkey’s Erdogan links fate of detained U.S. pastor to wanted cleric Gulen
▻http://www.dailystar.com.lb//News/Middle-East/2017/Sep-28/420858-turkeys-erdogan-links-fate-of-detained-us-pastor-to-wanted-cler
President Tayyip Erdogan suggested Thursday that Turkey could free a detained U.S. pastor if the United States hands over a Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania whom Ankara blames for a failed military coup last year.
Turkey has been seeking the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan whose supporters are blamed for trying to overthrow Erdogan’s government in July 2016. Gulen has denied any role in the coup attempt, in which 250 people were killed.
Thousands of people have been detained in a crackdown since the failed coup, including American Christian missionary Andrew Brunson, who ran a small church in Izmir on Turkey’s western coast.
Brunson has been held since October. Turkish media say the charges against him include membership of Gulen’s network, considered a terrorist organisation by the Turkish government. The United States says Brunson has been wrongfully imprisoned and has called for him to be released.
In a speech to police officers at the presidential palace in Ankara, Erdogan appeared to link the fate of the two men.
“’Give us the pastor back’, they say. You have one pastor as well. Give him [Gulen] to us,” Erdogan said. “Then we will try him (Brunson) and give him to you.”
“The [pastor] we have is on trial. Yours is not - he is living in Pennsylvania. You can give him easily. You can give him right away.”
A decree issued in August gave Erdogan authority to approve the exchange of foreigners detained or convicted in Turkey with people held in other countries “in situations required by national security or national interests”.
]]>Architecture of Commons – Archifutures
▻http://archifutures.futurearchitectureplatform.org/volum-2-the-studio/architecture-of-commons
The demonstrations against Turkish government action to demolish Gezi Park in Istanbul in 2013 prompted the self-organisation of its citizens and a new grassroots understanding of the notion of the “public”. Urbanist, writer and curator Merve Bedir, took part in the protests. Here she analyses what happened back then and how the seeds of a new type of urbanism were sown.
The ambiguity surrounding the future of the park kept people guessing for a long time, until the day an excavator entered the park and ripped up a tree from its roots.
The ensuing protests on the streets continued uninterrupted for 20 days; with crowds gathering in Gezi Park, Taksim Square and the surrounding areas. Despite all their differences, the citizens of Istanbul were united in claiming what they commonly understood to be theirs: the tree, the park and more. This event marked a threshold moment in which the people remembered the notion of “common(s)” – one that they have been re-discovering and exploring ever since, through all the possible spatial and political meanings of the word.
The forums were held for people to discuss further collective action. As spaces for exercising direct democracy, the parks in the city became forums, agoras and common(s). The results of the various discussions were shared around the city and a daily report on each forum disseminated via a newsletter and blogs. These forums made people remember their public parks again, and their relationships to one another. Local inhabitants started maintaining the parks in their neighbourhood, using and programming them in ways that had never been experienced before.
Without doubt, the understanding of common(s) is as a new kind of (urban) space that is outside the dichotomy of public and private; a space that is created by collective action, by people; not trying to be permanent but looking for the transforming capacity of the temporary. Learning from the dynamism of the temporary is certainly inspiring for designers and other creative disciplines.
The most important thing is creating new common(s), by the people, particularly in the cities. We know we all have a thousand virtual friends, but we only have a small number of real friends. Ivan Illich talked about his polyphilia, the need to be with friends. He elevated friendship as the main category for the reorganisation of our society, for reconstructing it in a different way, as the starting point of hope.
Friendship as common(s) is a working methodology bringing people together towards collective imaginaries that also acknowledge the individual within them. This working methodology could be an inspiration for designers to position themselves, as well.
]]>I hope Turkey avoids our mistakes in fight against terrorism: US ambassador
▻http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/i-hope-turkey-avoids-our-mistakes-in-fight-against-terrorism-us-a
U.S. Ambassador to Ankara John Bass has said Turkey should “avoid making the mistakes that the U.S. made” in its fight against terrorism, warning that an overly broad definition of terrorism could erode fundamental freedoms.
“We hope our friends in Turkey will avoid making some of the same mistakes that we have made,” Bass said during the Independence Day reception hosted by the U.S. consulate in Istanbul on the evening of July 6.
“Unfortunately it has been another painful year since many of us gathered last July, a few short days before the terrible events of July 15,” he added, referring to last year’s military coup attempt in Turkey.
“Our socities, America, Turkey and those of many of our friends, have again suffered pain and loss at the hands of terrorists. As we saw almost one year ago today, on the terrible night of July 15, Turkish citizens defended democracy against the people who attacked it, at great coast,” he said, extending the U.S. government’s “deep condolences to everyone in this country who has suffered losses from violence over the last year.”
“If we have learned anything from last year and the violence of this year, it is that the only answer to terrorism and violence is justice and tolerance,” Bass added.
“We support the Turkish government’s ongoing efforts to bring to justice those who were responsible for the terrible events of a year ago. In our own experience dealing with terrorism in recent years, in the U.S., we have learned some painful lessons. Among those lessons, we have learned that rushing to justice or making an overly broad definition of terrorism can erode fundamental freedoms and undermine public confidence in government. We learned those lessons the hard way. It is our hope that our friends in Turkey will avoid making some of the same mistakes that we have made,” he said.
]]>Mapping Media Freedom: Turkey continues to use judicial harassment as a means to silence journalists
The first hearing of the ongoing trial of Turkish journalists for involvement in last year’s coup took place on Monday 19 June. Political commentators and brothers #Ahmet_Altan and #Mehmet_Altan are accused of offences against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government including “attempting to overthrow the Government of Turkey” and using “subliminal messaging” to encourage the coup.
Turks Click Away, but #Wikipedia Is Gone
But these Turks were not able to quickly find out what they wanted. Since late April the Turkish government has blocked one of the world’s go-to sources of online information, Wikipedia.
After Wikipedia refused to remove unflattering references to Turkey’s relationship with Syrian militants and state-sponsored terrorists, officials simply banned the whole site.
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/world/europe/turkey-wikipedia-ban-recep-tayyip-erdogan.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homep
#turquie #censure
cc @isskein
Censorship in Turkey
Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, the latter (in theory) taking precedence over domestic law, according to Article 90 of the Constitution of Turkey (so amended in 2004).[1] In April 2017 it was reported that the Turkish Government blocked access to Wikipedia.
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Turkey
#censure #liberté_de_la_presse #Turquie #médias #presse #journalisme
]]>Turkey’s #Diyarbakir struggles to rebuild
Diyarbakir, one of the biggest cities in southeastern Turkey, has for decades been crucial to the ongoing conflict between the Turkish government and Kurdish fighters.
Israeli forces kill Palestinian man during predawn raid in al-Faraa
Jan. 10, 2017 9:42 A.M. (Updated: Jan. 10, 2017 11:18 A.M.)
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=774838
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces during an overnight raid in the al-Faraa refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank district of Tubas on Tuesday, Israeli and Palestinian sources reported, although they widely diverged over the circumstances of the man’s death.
A member of the politburo of the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), Khalid Mansour, told Ma’an that an Israeli intelligence officer “executed” Muhammad al-Salihi, 32, during a raid in his home.
Al-Salihi and his mother were surprised when Israeli forces entered and ransacked their homes, Mansour said.
“Muhammad started to shout at them because he thought they were thieves, and the soldiers immediately showered him with bullets at point-blank range, before the very eyes of his elderly mother,” Mansour recounted.
According to the PPP official, medical sources at the Turkish hospital in Tubas said al-Salihi had been shot at least six times, including in the upper body.
An Israeli army spokesperson, meanwhile, told Ma’an that a Palestinian advanced towards Israeli troops holding a knife during an army detention raid in al-Faraa. She said that al-Salihi did not heed calls by the soldiers asking him to halt, leading the soldiers to shoot and kill him.
The deadly altercation did not take place inside a home, the spokesperson said, contradicting Palestinian accounts.
The army added that no Israelis were injured in the incident.
Al-Salihi’s funeral was set to be held after midday prayer on Tuesday.
]]>Farsnews
▻http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950910000562
Si c’est vrai, on sera fixé assez vite. La bataille d’Alep est manifestement presque finie.
Reports said that the ISIL has started a new scenario in the regions near Manbij in coordination with the Turkish government and has attempted in the past few days to reoccupy the villages in the Western and Northwestern parts of the Kurdish-held Manbij with the help of the Turkish forces who are stationed in the Northern villages.
Manbij was taken from ISIL by the YPG Kurdish fighters several months ago. Turkey has repeatedly warned the Kurds to leave the strategic city that links two Kurdish Cantons on the Eastern and Western side of the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates. Turkey has repeatedly warned Kurds in the last several months to leave the Northeastern parts of Aleppo on the Western side of Tishrin and retreat to the East.
According to field sources, the ISIL terrorists have also agreed to evacuate the strategic city of al-Bab in several stages and reoccupy Manbij again so that the Turkish government will be able to deploy forces in the city under the pretext of fighting against terrorism.
Sources in the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) also disclosed that the US forces stationed in Northern Syria have also agreed with the Turkish scenario and have instead promised the Kurdish forces to give them control of the Southern parts of Raqqa province.
In surprising remarks on Wednesday, Erdogan said that the Turkish Army entered Syria to overthrow the Syrian President Bashar Assad, and accused the Syrian government of terrorism.
]]>Could megaprojects spell mega trouble for Turkey’s economy?
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/11/turkey-megaprojects-threaten-black-hole-coffer.html#
A key element in the image of success the Turkish government is trying to project is the large number of grand construction projects in the country combined with the narrative that Turkey faces challenges by adversaries who are “jealous” of its progress and resurging power. For instance, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a crowd of supporters in May, “Why is the West jealous of us? It’s because of the dams. … It’s because of the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge [over the Bosporus]. … It’s because of the Marmaray Tunnel and subway running under the Bosporus.”
The megaprojects are being built on the public-private partnership (PPP) model and, as such, are ultimately viewed as a sort of privatization. Though the state remains the owner of public property such as land, shores, waterways and mines, the transfer of operation and usage rights to private companies is, in a broad sense, a sequel of privatization.
The PPP model, including methods such as build-operate-transfer or the transfer of operational rights, is an investment model that the World Bank has promoted and backed, especially for emerging economies. According to World Bank figures, Turkey is third among 10 emerging countries in terms of the total contract value of PPP project stocks. Brazil tops the list with $510 billion, followed by India with $341 billion and Turkey with $161 billion. The fourth-largest project stock, worth $155 billion, belongs to Russia, followed by Mexico with $141 billion and China, which surprisingly lags behind in this field with $139 billion.
Four of the 34 PPP projects that are under construction in Turkey account for two-thirds of the total investment volume. And the largest of the four, the $14 billion third airport for Istanbul, accounts for 38% on its own. Three of the four largest projects are located in Istanbul, Turkey’s most populous city and industrial hub. The third airport, the Eurasia Tunnel and the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge — the already operational third suspension bridge over the Bosporus — are part of an interconnected scheme, along with Canal Istanbul, a man-made waterway that is still in the planning stage.
All PPP projects involve guarantees, meaning a guaranteed minimum profit for the contractors, both local and foreign, no matter how the projects perform once they become operational. The Gebze-Izmir Motorway project, for instance, involves a demand guarantee of 40 billion Turkish liras (some $13 billion) for the contractors, who will hold the operational rights for 15 years. In the North Marmara Motorway project, which includes the third Bosporus bridge, the demand guarantee is nearly $6 billion for an operation period of about eight years. In the project for Istanbul’s third airport, the passenger guarantees for international flights and transits alone amount to 6.3 billion euros ($6.94 billion) for the first 12 years, while the guarantees for the Eurasia Tunnel cover 70,000 vehicle crossings per day. In the health sector, meanwhile, public hospitals will pay $27 billion in rent for buildings in large health campuses, which contractors will build and operate for 25 years, according to Development Ministry figures.
The guarantees were based on a projection of economic growth of at least 4% to 5% per year, which dates back to 2013 and 2014, when the projects were tendered. Since then, however, the growth rate has slowed down to an average of 2.5% to 3%. The government’s 5% growth target for the coming years seems unrealistic, given the slowdown in the inflow of foreign capital. So if the projects fail to generate the expected income when they become operational, the Treasury will have to pay the guaranteed sums to the companies, opening black holes in the budget.
]]>International Disputes
▻http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/aegean.htm
The Turkish-Greek dispute over territorial claims in the continental shelf areas in the Northeastern and Southwestern Aegean Sea began in November, 1973, when the Turkish government conceded part of the Northeastern shelf to the Turkish Petroleum Company for development, and continued when the Turkish government later conceded a part of the Southwestern Aegean seabed to the same company. At the center of the dispute is the definition of boundaries of the continental shelf and a rule of international law that holds that islands have continental shelves as well as continental territories.
In Turkey’s view, the fundamental source of the tension is Greece’s conviction that the Aegean Sea is Greek. Greece’s determination to expand the limit of territorial waters from six to twelve miles would diminish the Turkish and international share to an unacceptably low level, as would Greece’s claim to a ten-mile national air-space limit. The Turks believe they are seeking only to ensure Turkey’s freedom of access to the high seas and international airspace.
]]>Pour archivage
Syrian Refugees in Turkey: The Long Road Ahead
Turkey now hosts the world’s largest community of Syrians displaced by the ongoing conflict in their country. According to United Nations estimates, Turkey’s Syrian refugee population was more than 1.7 million as of mid-March 2015, and the large unregistered refugee population may mean the true figure is even larger. Turkish reception policies at the outset were predicated on the assumption that the conflict would come to a swift conclusion, allowing the displaced Syrians to return home, but as conditions continue to deteriorate in Syria and the conflict stretches into its fifth year, it has become clear that a shift in policy to encompass longer-term solutions is needed.
The Syrian refugee crisis arose as the Turkish government was in the midst of overhauling its immigration system to meet international—and, particularly, European Union—standards. The implementation of these reforms has limited Turkish authorities’ capacity to manage the Syrian inflows, and as a result, management of the crisis was left largely in the hands of national organizations working on the ground, in camps, without larger policy guidance. Meanwhile, formal immigration channels, including recognition of refugee status, remain restricted to Europeans, while non-Europeans receive temporary protection status and are expected at some point to resettle in a third country.
This report provides an overview of Turkey’s migration landscape and the position of Syrian refugees in Turkey today. It also offers an assessment of current policy approaches toward displaced Syrians in Turkey, looking at changes in Turkey’s asylum and protection regime before discussing ongoing challenges and future policy directions in this area. Finally, it discusses policy recommendations—both for Turkey and for other states—given the likelihood of long-term or permanent displacement for Syrians.
►http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/syrian-refugees-turkey-long-road-ahead
#réfugiés_syriens #réfugiés #asile #migrations #Turquie #Syrie #rapport
New Report: Coal & Climate Change 2016 in Turkey
▻http://www.onderalgedik.com/coal-2016
Climate and Energy Expert Önder Algedik recently released new report: Coal and Climate Change 2016. According to report, Turkey’s high carbon policy has been increasing fossil fuel dependency as well as energy import dependency despite political discourse.
Coal import: six times of 90s!
The report analyses energy policies, investments and coal power plants. While Turkey is almost doubling its total coal consumption, coal import has reached a level in 2014 that is 6 times the level in 1990. Although Turkish government has been pushing local energy sources such as lignite, 41,5 million ton of 42,5 million ton coal consumption increase came from coal power plant mostly import coal. Coal import was 5.5 million tons in 1990 and increased approximately 6 times and reached 30,2 million tons in 2014.
Önder Algedik, author of the report, explains such dependency “ Import coal in power plant is a new issue emerging from 2002. 9 GW of new power plant capacity has commissioned since that time and almost 6 GW them are burning imported coal. While Turkey has been pronouncing lignite, we are seeing that more coal has been imported.”. The report clearly delivers Turkey’s high carbon market motivation by pushing local as well as import coal consumption.❞
]]>Turkish, Russian officials downplay reports Russia might operate out of #Incirlik air base
▻https://www.airforcetimes.com/articles/turkish-russian-officials-downplay-reports-russia-might-operate-out-o
Turkish and Russian officials say Russian warplanes will not be sharing a critical hub for air operations in the Middle East with the U.S. Air Force.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim raised the possibility of Russian aircraft using Incirlik air base during a press conference. The U.S. Defense Department and the White House have declined to comment on the reports.
“Incirlik is a Turkish air base and any foreign nation’s operations from there would need to be coordinated with the Turkish government,” Defense Department spokeswoman Laura Seal told Air Force Times in a statement. “We’ll decline to speculate on discussions between Turkey and Russia that may be taking place,” she said. The White House, too, referred questions on the matter to the Turkish government.
Meanwhile, Yury Y. Melnik, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., said his country isn’t particularly interested in operating out of Turkey.
]]>Exclusive: Turkish military officer seeking asylum in United States - U.S. officials | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-turkey-asylum-exclusive-idUSKCN10L03U
A Turkish military officer on a U.S.-based assignment for NATO is seeking asylum in the United States after being recalled by the Turkish government in the wake of last month’s failed military coup, U.S. officials told Reuters.
The asylum bid is the first known case involving a Turkish military officer in the United States as Turkey purges military ranks after mutinous soldiers commandeered fighter jets, helicopters and tanks in an unsuccessful attempt to oust President Tayyip Erdogan.
The case has the potential to further strain ties between the United States and Turkey, which is already demanding Washington hand over a U.S.-based Turkish cleric it alleges was responsible for the failed coup.
The two U.S. officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the Turkish officer was working at the headquarters of NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, located in Norfolk, Virginia. They did not name him or offer his rank.
However, an official at Turkey’s embassy in Washington said Turkish Navy Rear Admiral Mustafa Ugurlu had failed to report to authorities after Turkey issued a detention order for him last month.
“On July 22, on that day he left his badges and his ID at the base and after that no one has heard anything from him,” the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Turkish official said he was unaware of a subsequent asylum request. An April news article on the NATO website identified Ugurlu as the Norfolk-based command’s assistant chief of staff for command and control, deployability and sustainability.
]]>Turkey: State Blocks Probes of Southeast Killings. Allow UN to Investigate Cizre Abuses; Repeal New Law to Block Prosecutions
(Istanbul) – The Turkish government is blocking access for independent investigations into alleged mass abuses against civilians across southeast Turkey, Human Rights Watch said today. The alleged abuses include unlawful killings of civilians, mass forced civilian displacement, and widespread unlawful destruction of private property. The government should promptly grant the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights permission to enter the area and investigate according to its standards.
▻https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/node_embed/public/multimedia_images_2016/turkey0716_cizre_map-01.png?itok=Bsmzspqt
▻https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/node_embed/public/multimedia_images_2016/2016-07-eca-turkey-presserplus-photo-16.jpg?itok=TJVkxM5g
▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/11/turkey-state-blocks-probes-southeast-killings
#Turquie #kurdes #Kurdistan #abus #violences #PKK #guerre #conflit #Cizre #destruction #démolition #cartographie #visualisation
cc @albertocampiphoto @isskein
Turkey Did Nothing About the Jihadists in Its Midst — Until It Was Too Late | Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/01/turkey-did-nothing-about-the-jihadists-in-its-midst-until-it-was-too-
Turkey was aware of these networks from the early days of the Syrian conflict. In 2012, Turkish police began to electronically monitor suspected Turkish al Qaeda members but did little to disrupt their networks. Turkish intelligence officials privately suggested that they were more interested in mapping the network and seeing where the information led them rather than endlessly arresting low-level recruits.
The Turkish government had also concluded that the Syrian conflict would be a short one, estimating that President Bashar al-Assad would be forced from power in six months. It viewed Syria’s jihadist problem as secondary to that of the Syrian regime and was focused on the immediate task of defeating Assad. The jihadist threat, many Turkish officials argued, was linked to Assad’s brutality. They made the case that the regime had to be removed before a long-lasting solution to a group like the Islamic State could be pursued.
But as Ankara focused on Assad, the jihadists concentrated on expanding their influence on Turkish soil. Turkish jihadists operated in much the same way as the Islamic State in Iraq, establishing cells embedded within hierarchical networks. These cells, like in Iraq, sought to use the media for propaganda. In Turkey, the leader of one al Qaeda cell, Ilham Bali, worked closely with Abdulkadir Polat, the editor of the Turkish language Takva Haber. This suggests that a more senior, Syria-based, Islamic State leader helped to shape Takva Haber’s editorial content.
The leaked transcripts clearly show that the Turkish government was monitoring these networks. The decision not to crack down on them at the outset of the Syrian conflict backfired badly on Ankara: As the war continued in Syria, al Qaeda and Islamic State recruiters tried to persuade Turkish youth and other Turks who worked in Syria with Islamist NGOs to join their ranks.
]]>Dispatches: ISIS Advance Traps 165,000 Syrians at Closed Turkish Border
There are two walls on the Turkey-Syria border.
One is manned by Turkish border guards enforcing Turkey’s 15 month-old border closure who, according to witnesses, have at times shot at and assaulted Syrian asylum seekers as they try to reach safety in Turkey – abuses strongly denied by the Turkish government.
The other is a wall of silence by the rest of the world, including the United Nations, which has chosen to turn a blind eye to Turkey’s breach of international law which prohibits forcing people back to places, including by rejecting them at the border, where their lives or freedom would be threatened.
▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/27/dispatches-isis-advance-traps-165000-syrians-closed-turkish-border
#Turquie #réfugiés #asile #migrations #fermeture_des_frontières #ISIS
]]>Newsletter de Foreign Policy
We see you.
In a slow-motion escalation of U.S. involvement in Syria, the number of U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground there has increased from the 50 that President Barack Obama authorized late last year, to about 300. And while the Pentagon has insisted they’ll stay buttoned up well behind the front lines advising local Kurdish and Arab rebels, we’ve seen that the line between advising and fighting can be erased pretty quickly.
On Thursday, a photographer caught a team of American commandos a few dozen miles north of the Islamic State’s HQ of Raqqa, bristling with weapons and wearing Kurdish YPG patches while out and about with the Kurds. FP’s Paul McLeary rounds up the pics, noting that the patches would anger the Turkish government since the Kurds, known as the YPG, have long been accused by the Turkish government of being terrorists. And in fact, on Friday Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called the U.S. “two-faced” and said the practice of working with the Kurds was “unacceptable”
Il s’agit clairement de la photo pointée ici ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/493339#message493558 par @souriyam
D’autres photos issues du même reportage là ▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/26/first-look-pictures-of-u-s-commandos-on-the-front-lines-in-syria
dont un plan large de la scène ci-dessus
Le site russe d’info Sputnik bloqué en Turquie par « mesures administratives » :
▻http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160414/1038031852/turkey-blocks-sputnik.html
Continuing its crackdown on press freedoms, the Turkish government has blocked access to the Sputnik News Agency website.
Ankara has justified its decision by citing “administrative measures.”
“After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the law Nr. 5651, administration measure has been taken for this website (sputniknews.com) according to decision Nr. 490.05.01.2016.-56092 dated 14/04/2016 of the Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication,” reads message that appears for anyone trying to access the Turkish site.
]]>Fewer than 0.1% of Syrians in Turkey in line for work permits
Critics say law does not offer refugees route to legal labour market as it requires employers to offer contracts and pay minimum wage
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/11/fewer-than-01-of-syrians-in-turkey-in-line-for-work-permits?CMP=Share_i
#Turquie #réfugiés_syriens #asile #migrations #travail #permis_de_travail
“Cleaning out the Ghettos” - Urban Governance and the Remaking of Kurdistan
▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24097/%E2%80%9Ccleaning-out-the-ghettos%E2%80%9D_-urban-governance-and-tn
Over the last couple of weeks, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the ruling AKP government have started to lay out the details of the government’s master plan for urban renewal in Turkey’s conflict-ridden Kurdish region in Southeast Anatolia. Though the government announced on 9 March that military operations in Sur had been completed, many of the aspects of the plans remain ambiguous. Nonetheless, it is evident that the government’s aim is to achieve a dramatic spatial and socio-economic reconfiguration of the region. For example, Davutoğlu announced a ten-point “master plan” for Kurdish cities in Turkey that ties notions of terrorism to economic underdevelopment and the languishing nature of urban life in the region. In the announcement, he rebuked HDP municipal leaders in the region for “supporting terrorism instead of making investments,” promising to “fortify” the region’s economy by deferring debts for tradesmen, artists, and farmers, and by offering new loans. And he promised to rebuild Diyarbakır’s historical Sur district “so well that humanity will come back to life” (“Sur’u öyle bir inşa edeceğiz ki insanlık ihya olacak”). In early March, similarly, Davutoğlu announced a “great reconstruction...through which the state will demonstrate its constructive capacity” (“Devlet inşa kudretini de gösterecektir”) to begin in Silopi—a district in the Southeastern city of Şırnak that was set under curfew for over a month until mid-January.
In this article, we discuss how these ideas of revitalization and urban transformation fit into the larger war that the Turkish government has been waging in Kurdistan for the past several months. We examine how the discourses of public housing and ghettoization intersect in order to understand the connections between the capitalization and governmentalization of urban space in Kurdistan. In Turkey, public housing has long been a tool for reorganizing urban spaces and the people who inhabit them. The urban transformation and gentrification of Istanbul, for example, has been the subject of countless academic articles as well as of the acclaimed documentary Ekümenopolis. Conversely, the notion of Kurdish city centers as “ghettos” constitutes a unique discursive turn worth exploring. By forcibly displacing whatever “innocent” civilians may have inhabited these urban spaces and consequently pathologizing these spaces as blighted by terrorism, the Turkish government has legitimized the wholesale liquidation of anyone who did not (or could not) flee from the military occupation. And it has set the stage for long-term forms of structural and economic violence aimed at stamping out oppositional Kurdish lifeworlds.
#Guerre #Kurdistan #Urbanisation #TOKI #Capitalisme #Urbicide
]]>Turkey thanks Merkel for support of #safe_zones in Syria
Turkey’s foreign minister has thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her support of the Turkish government’s demand to establish safe zones inside Syria, while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed wariness over a safe zone in Syria, saying that up to 30,000 troops would be needed to maintain the area.
▻http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-thanks-merkel-for-support-of-safe-zones-in-syria.aspx?page
Commentaire reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop :
- De facto, since Aleppo bombing by Russian army, Syrians cannot enter any more Turkey. They are stopped at the border. This decision was taken by Turkey without any existence of “safe zone” yet. This means that protection of the population is not the main goal behind this decision of “safe zone” in Syria: stemming the “inflow” of refugees is the main objective.
– Again, militarization of refugee “problems”: refugees will be surrounded by army to “protect” them. According to John Kerry, the deployment of up to 30,000 troops is needed and nobody agreed clearly on such deployment. Merkel agrees on safe zone but it is not sure that such protection can be granted to refugees. And what does protection mean when such troops can be the proper target of armed groups in Syria?
– Merkel still raises her voice to welcome refugees in Europe and faces all other European countries, stuck in the closure of borders. But meanwhile, Merkel agrees de facto on the closure of all Turkish borders: Germany controls NATO operations at sea and support Turkish desire of establishing a “safe zone”.
– Hypocrisy: "This proposal of Turkey was not seriously discussed when we first brought it to the agenda. But even with delay, Turkey’s proposal is now understood”. NO: the idea of safe zones had been rejected by the international community as an irrelevant “solution” that went against refugees safety. It had been seriously discussed and rejected with arguments. “Given the huge refugee problem threatening the EU’s unity”, Germany (and certainly the European Union will follow Merkel) changes her mind. For European ’safety’ and ’peace’, not for refugees’ protection.
#Allemagne #Turquie #réfugiés #asile #migrations #safe_zone #Syrie #safe_zones #zone_sure #zones_sures
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