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Author: Zaman Australia

  • Subscription to popular children’s magazine considered terrorism crime in Turkey

    ABDULLAH BOZKURT-Nordicmonitor.com

    Turkey secretly launched criminal investigations into subscribers of the nation’s one-time most popular children’s magazine because the parent company’s corporate owners were aligned with critics of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

    According to documents obtained by Nordic Monitor, the head of a counterterrorism police unit in Antalya province requested detailed information about subscribers of the Gonca children’s magazine from a prosecutor in Istanbul on March 21, 2017. The magazine was published monthly and was the highest-selling children’s publication in Turkey before the government unlawfully seized it along with other companies owned by Kaynak Holding.

     

     

    Kaynak Holding owned dozens of companies and maintained diverse business interests including the largest publishing house in Turkey. The government unlawfully seized it in 2015 over claims that its corporate owners were aligned with US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, a vocal critic of the Erdoğan regime. Gonca was selling around 50,000 copies on a monthly basis.

    Ilhan Murat Kulalar, the head of the counterterrorism unit, was at the time investigating several suspects who were accused of membership in the Gülen movement. He asked the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office to determine whether the person(s) in question had subscriptions to Gonca, and if they were subscribers, he wanted  to know the dates of their subscriptions, where it was delivered and how many copies were sold to them.

     

     

    In addition to Gonca, the police officer also asked whether the suspects under investigation had subscriptions to national newspapers such as Zaman and Bugün, two major dailies that were critical of the Erdoğan government on issues such as corruption and Erdoğan’s aiding and abetting of terrorist groups. Sızıntı, an educational magazine that was selling 527,000 copies on a monthly basis and was also published by Kaynak, was also listed in the police officer’s request. Both publications were shut down by the government in 2016 along with some 180 media outlets.

     

     

    The documents also show how judicial investigations are driven by the police or the executive branch. It was against established rules in the code of criminal procedure for the police to ask a prosecutor to furnish information in a police investigation. It is supposed to be the other way around. However, since the rule of law is effectively suspended in Turkey, prosecutors and judges have become tools of oppression in the hands of the Erdoğan government, which abuses the criminal justice system to hunt down critics.

     

     

    In document No. 46914323-66715 (81380)/6173, a victim was identified as Selbi Baştimar, about whose subscriptions to the children’s magazine and other critical media publications the police were asking. The probe was part of coup investigation No. 2017/14482, which means the government associated subscriptions to a children magazine with coup plotting — hard to believe but unfortunately true in the case of Turkey. The file was coordinated by Antalya prosecutor Cemil Ceylan.

     

     

    The government has rounded up over half a million volunteers of the Gülen movement since 2016, mainly on coup, terrorism and defamation charges. The witch-hunt aimed to suppress civil society, silence critical voices and stifle the right to dissent, while Erdoğan continued to transform Turkish democracy into a dictatorship.

     

     

    In another document, No.46914323-66715 (81380)/6105, Turkish national Kadir Çil was also listed in the police request that asked Istanbul to provide detailed information about her subscriptions to Gonca, Zaman, Bugün and Sızıntı. The prosecutor’s case file was No. 2016/64567, which means his case was separately investigated from Selbi’s case above.

     

     

    In a third document dated March 20, 2017 and numbered No. 46914323-66715 (81380)/285, a suspect identified as Mahmut Kodan was listed, and the police requested his subscription information to these publications as well. The prosecutor’s case file was No. 2016/71967, which is also separate from the two listed above. The fourth document was numbered 46914323-66715 (81380)/3933, and that was filed on the same day, showing a man named Hakkı Bağrıyanık was also investigated over his possible subscriptions to the publications in question as part of the prosecutor’s investigation file No. 2016/7454.

    Turkish national Bekir İbiş was listed as a suspect in the fifth document, No. 46914323-66715 (81380)/23400, and the police asked for information on subscriptions to same publications as well. He was investigated by the prosecutor as part of case No. 2016/59440. The fact that all the names come from separate investigation files confirms that the criminalization of subscriptions to a children’s magazine and mainstream critical dailies have become systematic, routine and deliberate in Turkey.

    Murat Kaya, the managing editor of Gonca, was arrested on fabricated terrorism charges. Osman Kaplan, the chief editor for the children’s publication, was also arrested on similar charges but later released pending trial.

  • Dubliners cautious as Merkel jets into town amid Brexit impasse

    The German chancellor met the Irish taoiseach, with questions over the future of the Irish border central. The capital’s residents hope more support will come for the Irish position.

    Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Dublin on Thursday to meet with Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar.

    Brexit and the effects on EU-member Ireland with its UK-member Northern Ireland were high on the agenda.

    “Let me say, we will simply have to be able to do this [both preserve the single market and avoid a border in Ireland],” Merkel said. “We have to be successful. We hope for a solution. But we simply have to be successful.”

    Merkel expressed a personal understanding of the presence of borders and walls: “I personally come from a country that was for many years divided by a wall. I know what happens once borders, once walls fall. A heavy death toll has happened here.”

    Merkel, as expected, expressed strong solidarity with Ireland. “Every step of the way we will stand together, we will walk together,” she said. “We worked together as 28 [EU member nations] for a long time and now we are 27. I wanted to demonstrate with my visit that we will continue to stand together as 27.”

    However, she stopped short of saying that regardless of what happens, no hard border would be reimposed in Ireland. “We will do everything in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit, Britain crashing out of the European Union. But we have to do this together with Britain and with their position that they will present to us.”

    Varadkar said he still wanted the Withdrawal Agreement ratified, but also acknowledged that a no deal scenario had to be anticipated.

    “Both Ireland and Germany want to have a future relationship with the UK which is close and comprehensive and as deep as possible, and we would like to see the Withdrawal Agreement ratified so that we can begin the negotiations on a new economic and security partnership without further delay,” he said.

    “There is very little time left and we have to prepare ourselves for all outcomes.”

    Soccer, the bailout and beyond

    Ahead of Thursday, the high point to date of Angela Merkel’s relationship with Ireland came during the 2012 European Football Championships.

    Ireland was in the teeth of a brutal economic recession at the time and many in the country associated the austerity measures being imposed with the frugal German chancellor. So when a group of young Irish football fans at the tournament made a large banner that said “Angela Merkel thinks we’re at work,” it quickly became an online hit.

    Seven years on, and Merkel’s Irish connection has become altogether more serious.

    As well as their own talks, Merkel and Varadkar took part in a roundtable discussion with people representing communities from both sides of the Irish border earlier in the afternoon.

    Those who took part said they were impressed with Merkel’s grasp of the issues around the Irish border.

    “I think everyone who was there could not but be impressed by how much the Chancellor knew,” said Peter Sheridan, the CEO of Co-operation Ireland, a charity dedicated to securing peace on the island of Ireland. “I think her own background, living on one side of a wall, helped her to understood the stories, the very personal stories, that people shared with her.”

    Merkel and Varadkar met at Farmleigh House, a stately building located in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Security for the short visit was quite tight, but on a bright and blustery morning in the adjoining Dublin district of Stoneybatter, residents and commuters weren’t overly exercised by the impending presence of one of the most famous and powerful politicians in the world.

    “Angela who?” said one young man out walking his dog. “Is it about this Brexit? I don’t bother with any of that, it’s just myself and himself I focus on,” he told DW, pointing to his dog.

    But while quite a few people weren’t aware that Merkel was coming, almost everyone was well aware of her motivations for making what is her first trip to the island in five years.

    “I presume it’s to do with Brexit,” said Josie, another dog walker. “Hard borders and backstops and whatever else they are talking about. I think she would be interested or keen that there wouldn’t be a hard border.

    “I think she’s OK, she’s fair. She’s serious but she’s also down to earth. I think we can rely on her and the rest of the EU and I think that’s the general feeling in Ireland. I think they are all fed up of the British,” she said.

    Eleanor, a retired former civil servant living in the southern Dublin suburb of Dun Laoghaire, was slightly less optimistic about the outcome of the powwow in the park.

    “Merkel wants to stress that if and when the UK is a third country, suitable arrangements will have to be made to protect the single market and the customs union.  She may, like me, have tired of Leo and Simon’s (Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney’s) mantra of ‘no hard border in Ireland.’ I think she’ll make some soothing noises about solidarity and possibly EU support after Brexit in view of Ireland’s special vulnerability.”

    ‘If she didn’t back Ireland on this issue, I would be flabbergasted’

    Given Merkel’s undisputed status as the most influential politician in Europe, her interventions into the Brexit and border question have been closely watched in Ireland.

    Reports of a phone call between her and Varadkar back in January — at the height of a particularly tense time around the whole question of the Irish border “backstop” — raised several Irish heartbeats a few notches.

    There has been occasional speculation, not just from ardent Brexiteers, that Merkel’s innate pragmatism could lead to her putting pressure on the Irish government to ease their position on the backstop question and help get a deal done.

    “I think Ireland is becoming an issue, they just want to get it through now,” said Ciara, as she made her way to work. “I think we’re the weaker link in this situation.”

    However, Chris, the man walking to work with her, was more optimistic. “I think she might be here to support us. We’ll have to wait and see.”

    Overall, the people DW spoke to ahead of Thursday’s meeting had a positive image of Merkel, with several pointing to her experience of a divided Germany —  and her reaction to the migrant crisis — as evidence that Ireland could rely on her solidarity.

    “Considering she is not my cup of tea, I think she played a blinder in terms of the migrant crisis. Compared with every other leader, she has been startlingly brave,” said Mick, 61.

    “She also understands what it is to have a country divided, by a partition that lasted a lot shorter than our own. She probably has demands in terms of the single market, protecting the integrity of the market. But she will have certain support for government dilemmas in this.”

    For Martin Smith, a Scot who moved to Ireland 15 years ago, the idea that Merkel could be anything other than fully supportive of the Irish position with regard to Brexit and the reimposition of a border was unacceptable.

    “I’d say she’d have to take Ireland’s side,” he said. “If she didn’t, then what is the point in Europe? I have always been behind Europe. As a Scotsman, I’d never call myself British! If you are part of Europe, you are part of Europe. The Irish border issues need to be defended by Europe. If she didn’t back Ireland on this issue, I would be flabbergasted.”With dw.com

  • Turkey’s Erdoğan calls elected opposition mayors lame ducks

    Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told his supporters on Wednesday that candidates of the opposition parties that were elected in locals on Sunday vote were lame ducks, Oda TV news site reported .

    Erdoğan returned from Ankara to Istanbul on Sunday night after a brief speech evaluating elections results, while the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) requested a recounting of votes in some districts in Istanbul and Ankara.

    Erdoğan appeared for the first time in public on Wednesday, when he came to the new Çamlıca mosque in Istanbul for evening prayers. He was surrounded by his supporters who were protesting the election results, including one lady who said that she could not work under Imamoğlu in the Istanbul metropolitan municipality, which the Islamist parties have been running for the last 25 years.

    “We have the majority,” said Erdoğan referring to local council results in Istanbul, adding that recounting of votes continued. “And even if that happens [the opposition wins] do you know what they are now, lame ducks,” he said.

    The Turkish president on Wednesday evening also gathered with senior AKP officials and the party’s Istanbul mayoral candidate Binali Yıldırım to evaluate the local election results.

  • Responsible managing editor of Zaman to remain in jail: court ruling

    A court in İstanbul ruled on Thursday for a continuation of the pre-trial detention of Harun Çümen, the last responsible managing editor of the Zaman daily.

    Çümen is standing trial on terrorism charges.Attending the hearing from Balıkesir Prison via a video conferencing system, the journalist asked to be released on bail, noting that he has been jailed for 330 days.

    The Zaman daily, which was seized by the government in March 2016 and then shut down by decree in the wake up a July 15, 2016 coup attempt, was considered to be linked to terrorism by the Turkish government due to its affiliation with the faith-based Gülen movement. The regime in Turkey holds the movement responsible for the failed coup and has designated it a terrorist organization, although the movement denies any involvement.

    The next hearing will be held on June 19, and Çümen will remain in jail along with hundreds of other journalists.

    According to 2018 report by Reporters Without Borders, Turkey is the largest jailer of professional journalists in the world. Most were arrested on trumped-up terrorism charges in the wake of the abortive putsch.

  • 2 more women sent back to jail immediately after delivery

    Two women jailed in Turkey over links to the faith-based Gülen movement were this week returned to prison immediately after delivery.

    Beyza Demir, who gave birth this week and was immediately sent back to prison in İstanbul to serve a seven-year sentence, became news on Twitter. Cemre Birand, wife of the late journalist Mehmet Ali Birand and a vocal protester of jailing children, tweeted about the imprisonment of a one-day-old baby.

    The second incident took place in the eastern province of Erzurum. Human rights activist, medical doctor and opposition deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu tweeted on Thursday that a jailed woman named Şeyma Tekin was awaiting delivery in prison. According to her relatives, Tekin had her baby on Friday and was expecting to be sent back to prison.

    According to Turkish law, it is illegal to imprison pregnant women even if they have been convicted of a crime. Exiled lawyer Nurullah Albayrak told TR724 news that there are over 700 children in Turkey’s prisons along with their mothers in open violation of the law.

    He added that despite the impunity in Turkey under the current political climate, those who infringe on human rights will be accused of violation of international agreements in the future.

    Jailing pregnant women and sending them back to prison after delivery has become a common practice in Turkey especially after a failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016. A majority of these women have been jailed over links to the Gülen movement, which the government holds responsible for the failed coup.The movement denies any involvement in the abortive putsch.Liked it? Take a second to support Turkish Minute on Patreon!

  • [OPINION] The time has come for a new EU strategy for Turkey

    Mehmet Efe Çaman-tr724.com

    COOPERATION AND INTEGRATION, two carrots of the European Union, are considered influential and effective policy tools that enable the transformation of candidate and associated countries. In this context the EU contributes to peaceful coexistence in Europe and its neighboring regions and promotes economic and political stability, prosperity, democracy, human rights and the rule of law across Europe. Many countries rode the wave of European integration for their democratization and stabilization such as Greece, Spain and Portugal in the southern enlargement of the 1980s and all Eastern European countries after 1989.

    Turkey’s participation in the European integration process dates back to 1959 and includes the Ankara Association Agreement (1963). Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987, established a customs union with the EU on the basis of the Ankara Agreement in 1995 and was officially declared eligible to join the EU in 1997. As of 2005 Turkey had fulfilled the EU requirements. But as democracy research confirms, democratization is not a static process. Turkey no longer sufficiently meets the EU’s political criteria for accession. Turkey’s ultimate foreign policy goal to become an EU member was a powerful external dynamic that initiated a comprehensive system transformation in Turkey.

    In July 2017 the European Parliament called for a suspension of Turkey’s EU negotiation process, referring to the Turkish regime’s crackdown on its opponents.

    UNDERSTANDING THE DECLINE and eventual collapse of Turkish democracy is no piece of cake. Turkey’s domestic power constellation is complex and volatile. The key in this constellation is civilian-military relations. The military was the guarantor of the unitary state that socially engineered a Turkish identity as the foundation of a Turkish nation-state. It aimed to diminish all ethnic identities other than Turkish.

    During Turkey’s long European journey, the EU considered the special role of the Turkish military in the Turkish political system as an anomaly and asked Ankara to normalize civilian-military relations (to subordinate it to the elected government). In other words, the limitation of the power and influence of the military was a key condition in becoming an EU candidate country and very much in the interests of Erdoğan’s Islamist agenda. Using the EU reform process to democratize the constitutional order in Turkey was the only way to convince the pro-secular and Kemalist establishment (military and bureaucracy). The pro-EU and pro-Western wing of the Turkish establishment (the dominant faction) agreed to this idea and gradually accepted the normalization process, which ended up subordinating the military to civilians. Back then the Erdoğan government was pursuing a liberal Kurdish policy, officially conducting negotiations with Kurdish separatists to end their long-standing bloody conflict. While moderate soldiers accepted this policy, another faction in the military disagreed with it because they believed the EU accession process of Turkey and the political reforms associated with it (particularly minority rights related to Kurdish politics) would eventually lead to dissolution of the unitary Turkish nation-state. Some high-ranking members of this faction planned a coup to overthrow the government and were subsequently arrested. The following (Ergenekon) trials resulted in lengthy prison sentences for most of the accused officers.

    Nevertheless, in 2013 Turkey was shaken by a massive corruption scandal that reshuffled the deck and changed the political power balance in the country. The power vacuum created by this scandal could have cost then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his inner circle their political careers, if not put them in jail. Erdoğan had to stop the ongoing judicial process to ensure they faced no criminal or political consequences. However, he was not influential enough to control the judiciary. The urgent help he needed came from the deep state. In return, according to the expectations of his allies, Erdoğan publicly terminated the “Solution Process” with Kurdish separatists and declared that the criminalization and detention of soldiers in the Ergenekon case was a plot organized by the Gulenists. All the evidence against Erdoğan and his inner circle was declared fake; judges, prosecutors and police officers involved in the criminal investigation were unlawfully discharged, and official investigations into the corruption scandal were swept under the rug.

    THIS WAS A CIVILIAN COUP by Erdoğan and his allies. It extended Erdoğan’s power and enabled him to control the judiciary. Erdoğan’s name was now cleared, and the deep state had the upper hand. After the military coup attempt of July 15, 2016, the most comprehensive liquidation in the republican history of Turkey took place. About 50 percent of all flag officers in the Turkish military and thousands of other high-ranking officers were jailed. The officers who opposed the Turkish military’s pro-EU course were appointed to key positions in army, navy and air force command structures.

    After the new regime was established and Erdoğan gradually increased and consolidated his new coalition’s power, he pushed a so-called “presidential system.” This should not be confused with the American or French systems. In this political system, Turkey is now undoubtedly an autocracy that is entirely detached from Western or European standards: no independent judiciary, no free press and no free civil society. Most scholars agree that Turkey is now in the club of “strong rulers” along with Russia and China. The Turkish presidential system, which has no checks and balances, is entirely incompatible with the EU’s core values. Moreover, through this system, Erdoğan could hypothetically stay in power for a very long time. With the new presidential system, he can run twice and also for a third time if he calls for early elections. And calling early elections is within the president’s authority.

    The new regime’s ideology and the official discourse based on it serve to consolidate the regime. It is a matter of hybrid ideology, a mix of Islamism and Turkish nationalism in which the latter is more dominant. The new ideological amalgam of Islamism and Turkish nationalism is extremely anti-West and anti-EU. Erdoğan uses this ideology at every opportunity and declares the EU (and the West) responsible for any failures. The new perception of Turkey’s political elites portrays Europe as a fortress of Nazism that is anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim and wants to weaken Turkey. Relations with the United States are at a low point because of Turkey’s decisions to launder Iranian money and support Iran’s dubious nuclear program, to buy S-400 missiles from Russia (a huge area of conflict with the United States and NATO), and to use foreign prisoners as bargaining chips under the cover of a remote-controlled judiciary in the orbit of the regime.

    While this power shift occurred in Turkey and a de-facto regime emerged, the EU preferred a wait-and-see policy. Europeans were undecided regarding the future of Turkish-EU relations and particularly about Turkey’s membership, anyway. Turkey was too big, too poor and too Muslim. Beyond the formal membership perspective and the standard bureaucratic negotiation process, there was no particular motivation in the EU to give Ankara the trajectory that would lead to EU membership. Fixing Turkey’s troubled democracy was simply too “normative-ethical” and might underline serious material interests such as bilateral trade relations. This undermined the EU’s credibility in Turkey and empowered Erdoğan and his new allies’ de-facto regime. Beyond this, the EU members and the union itself were experiencing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. Millions of Syrians fleeing the civil war came to Turkey with the hope of traveling further west and northwest to Europe. The tragedy of asylum seekers who lost their lives in the Aegean Sea garnered the attention of the international community, which forced the EU to address the issue. However, the response from the EU was not to secure the refugees’ passage to the EU but rather to send them back to Turkey.

    THE REFUGEE DEAL, signed in March 2016, promised Turkey aid, visa-free travel for Turkish citizens and accelerated EU membership talks in return for stopping the Syrian refugee influx to keep Europe as refugee-free as possible. As a result, Turkey has become the biggest EU refugee camp. Since the deal, Erdoğan has used the existence of 3.5 million Syrian refugees in his country to blackmail the EU and its member states. He repeatedly threatens EU countries with allowing refugees to travel from Turkey to Europe whenever the political climate between Ankara and Brussels deteriorates.

    What can the EU do? Some EU officials believe that freezing accession talks with Turkey would feed the Islamist-nationalist narrative. However, the ongoing pathetic “wait-and-see policy” of the EU based on the refugee deal with Erdoğan and some other short-term interests are factors that only strengthen the regime. It is unlikely that anyone in Europe’s capitals has ever believed that this strategy would function, anyway. It was just an official narrative to justify the passivity of the EU’s Turkey strategy. The EU never prioritized a strategy based on normative politics such as supporting Turkey’s political normalization process in terms of restoration of the constitutional regime, the rule of law, individual and minority rights, etc. Turkey is a country with no oil or gas, low savings in relation to GDP and is in need of daily short-term borrowings and long-term foreign direct investment. Turkey’s current economic crisis has been caused primarily by the regime’s mismanagement – unmaintainable borrowing, nepotism and huge public construction projects with little economic return. The devaluation of the Turkish currency cannot be stopped, continually driving prices higher in the country.

    The EU is still a vital partner of Ankara in trade, borrowing and investment. Turkey needs to improve the existing customs union and deepen its economic dialogue with Brussels more than ever before. Turkey-EU economic relations are deeply institutionalized, and they can only continue if Turkey functions as a transparent rule-of-law country. It is time for the Erdoğan regime to realize that the EU’s carrots only rest on rule-of-law-based governance. However, Erdoğan has noticed that the EU hesitates to combine carrots with sticks, which undermines the influence of Brussels in Turkish domestic politics.

    Therefore, the EU should not stand still while Turkey backslides on democracy. Without a credible EU conditionality, both Turkey and the EU will lose in the medium and long term. What the democratic forces in Turkey need is a new EU strategy for Turkey that is based on this conditionality. But for a new EU strategy to be formed, the old one must first be terminated. This requires a return to normative EU politics on Turkey, emphasizing the restoration of the constitutional regime, the rule of law and individual and minority rights: in a nutshell, the re-democratization of Turkey. To achieve this, the EU should freeze the negotiation process, with a clear evaluation of Turkey’s political situation as soon as possible without losing any time and promise a democratic Turkey a real membership perspective to revitalize the pro-European and democratic domestic social dynamics in the country. Otherwise, the EU will lose Turkey. turkishminute

  • House prices keep falling, ahead of federal election and banking inquiry report

    Australia’s property downturn has continued into the new year — with the national value, on average, dropping 1 per cent last month.

    Since peaking in October 2017, the median value has fallen 6.1 per cent to $528,553, according to the most recent figures from property analysts CoreLogic.Stricter lending standards and “a further dent to confidence” are expected ahead of the federal election and banking royal commission’s final report — to be released publicly next Monday.”This is the new normal,” Tim Lawless, CoreLogic’s head of research, told ABC News.

    “Tight credit conditions, weakening consumer sentiment, less domestic and foreign investment and higher levels of housing supply are the primary drivers of the worsening conditions.”

    Sydney and Melbourne experienced the weakest conditions once again, with values falling by at least 1 per cent each month since November 2018.

    The latest results take Sydney’s median home value back to where it was two-and-a-half years ago (July 2016), and Melbourne dwellings have reverted to their January 2017 values.

    Hobart remains the best performing market (from a seller’s perspective) with prices rising 7.4 per cent in the last year to a median of $457,785.

    But Tasmania’s capital is showing signs of slowing down, recording a 0.2 per cent fall in values in January.

    Every capital city, except for Canberra, saw a fall in their median values last month.

    There was a silver lining (for landlords) as every capital city — except for Hobart and Darwin — saw a lift in rental yields over the last 12 months as prices fell but rents remained relatively steady.

    The most expensive quartile of the housing market experienced the biggest fall in values.

    In particular, CoreLogic observed that the most expensive 25 per cent of housing stock in Melbourne and Sydney markets dropped 12.4 and 10.8 per cent in value in the last year.He noted this was “likely supporting a shift of demand towards lower price points”.

    “Although the more affordable valuation brackets across Sydney and Melbourne have seen some resilience to falls early in the decline phase, it’s clear that all segments of the market in Australia’s two largest cities are losing value.”abcnews

  • Turkish teachers linked to Gülen movement detained in Afghanistan

    One Afghan and three Turkish teachers linked to the faith-based Gülen movement were detained by Afghan intelligence officials on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

    The move against Afghan Turk CAG Educational NGO (ATCE), the organization that runs the schools, appeared to be part of a witch-hunt being waged on followers of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a coup attempt in July 2016.

    The ATCE, which says it is an independent organization, runs schools in several cities including the capital, Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar and Herat and has been in Afghanistan since 1995.

    “Around 7 am, four of our teachers traveling in two different cars were picked up by [Afghan intelligence],” said ATCE Chairman Numan Erdoğan.Other intelligence officials later went to the group’s girls school nearby looking for another teacher, he said.

    He said the men presented themselves as members of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, according to Reuters.

    Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was on his way to Istanbul on Tuesday to attend an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit.

    In March Afghanistan ordered the schools to be transferred to a foundation approved by Ankara.

    Last year, shortly before a visit to Islamabad by the Turkish president, Pakistan ordered Turkish teachers at schools run by a body called PakTurk International Schools and Colleges to leave the country.

    Gülen, a former ally of Erdogan who now lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, promotes a moderate form of Islam, supporting inter-faith communication and Western-style education and inspiring schools in various parts of the world.

    He and the group he inspired have denied any involvement in the failed coup attempt of 2016..turkishminute

  • Meet the woman who fosters 60 birds in her home

    The cacophony of screeches, whistles and tweets heard from outside Lyn John’s home crescendo to a deafening pitch the closer you approach.

    Inside the unassuming house in Hammondville in Sydney’s south-west, Ms John is a foster mum to 60 birds.

    Her back patio is lined with large enclosures, while two of her rooms have been turned into aviaries and are stacked to the ceiling with cages.

    “They’re my alarm birds … they knew a stranger was here,” Ms John said as a way of explaining the noise.

    “I am going deaf.

    “I have some hearing loss but I am used to it, and when I’m working I’ll tune out the noise.”

    Formerly an animal rescue worker, Ms John set up the avian foster service six years ago.

    She has 12 volunteer carers around Sydney who also house birds and has in total about 100 birds on her books.

    There’s a range of species including a love bird, cockatoos, galahs, lorikeets, eclectus parrots, Indian ring-necks, conures and a couple of rare and sought-after Amazon species.

    Lola, a doubled-headed Amazon, which is an endangered species to Mexico and South America, is a bright yellow and green and is accustomed to talking and singing to Ms John throughout the day.

    The other, a beautiful blue-fronted Amazon named Marley, has taken some time to recover after being found in a dumpster.

    The majority of birds are given to Ms John by vets, while others are handed in after being found injured or because their owners had died and the family was unable to take over its care.

    Surprisingly, there are no complaints from Ms John’s neighbours nor the local council.

    “I’ve got really good neighbours actually. One neighbour has canaries and quails also,” she said.

    “Because [the birds] aren’t permanent, it doesn’t break any laws.”

    A full-time job

    Ms John rarely has time for herself and said she and her husband hadn’t had a holiday in years.

    Her day starts at 5:30am cleaning the cages, refreshing water bowls, and preparing a “gourmet” salad mix that included sweet potato, kale, bok choy, carrot, cauliflower, red cabbage, silverbeet, chia, quinoa flakes, rolled oats, capsicum and squash.

    “They also get fruits like passionfruit, pomegranate, apples, apricots,” she said.

    “I get up at 4:30am every Saturday to go to Flemington markets and do a weekly shop for them.”

    Ms John keeps the birds for at least a year before putting them up for adoption.

    Her main goal, however, is to reconnect the birds with their owners.

    Recently, she was able to return a galah to its owners, two years after it had gone missing.

    “If we can’t find their owners after a year, two years, we put them up for adoption, reluctantly in most cases, because we get very attached to them,” Ms John said.

    “I cry when they go. I am a big sook.”

    There can be a dark side to the foster care experience.

    Some birds, like the Amazons, can fetch up to $5,000, while others like the New Zealand kakariki or ring-necks are worth between $60 and $250.

    Ms John said she’d had people enquire about different birds and purported to be their owners with the intention of reselling them.

    “Unfortunately it happens a lot,” she said.

    “We don’t flick the birds on like the RSPCA who get them in, hold on to them for three or four days, then sell them.

    “We try and get them home.

    “We’re not in it to make money on the birds — we’re here to look after them, keep them safe until we can find their owners.”abcnews

  • More than 70 Hizbullah terrorists released from prison after ECtHR ruling: report

    The Turkish media on Monday reported that more than 70 militants of the Hizbullah terrorist group were released from prison based on a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

    According to the reports, the ECtHR ruled that Turkey had violated the right to fair trial of a Hizbullah militant, who was tried by the now-closed State Security Courts in Diyarbakır and subjected to torture during interrogation.

    In 2011 some high-ranking Hizbullah militants were released after the enactment of a new regulation that shortened the upper limit for pre-trial detentions, although they were given life sentences by the local court.

    After their release from prison pending trial, the militants reportedly fled Turkey.

    Well-organized in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern region of Turkey, Hizbullah was responsible for the assassination of former Diyarbakır Police Chief Gaffar Okkan in 2001.

    The terrorist group is also accused of brutally killing 188 civilians during the 1990s.

    As Hizbullah has “bad blood” with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group, some experts claim that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has secretly been supporting Hizbullah.

    In the Southeast, the Free Cause Party (HÜDAPAR), a political party that allegedly has ties with Hizbullah, supported AKP candidates in the June 24 general election.