habergiris.zamanaustralia.com

Author: Zaman Australia

  • Turkey seeks extradition of dissident academic from UK over fabricated terrorism charges: report

    The Turkish government is gearing up its efforts to file an extradition request for dissident academic and journalist Mahmut Akpınar who took shelter in the United Kingdom to escape fabricated terrorism charges, Nordic Monitor reported.

    According to an official communique circulated by the Justice Ministry, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office was asked to prepare the necessary documents for filing an extradition request for Akpınar, the author of multiple books on current affairs and one of Turkey’s top terrorism experts.

    The communique made reference to a document dated November 24, 2020 and issued by Turkey’s Interior Ministry stating that Akpınar’s residence in Leicester had been identified by Turkish authorities. It appears Turkish intelligence found out where Akpınar lives in the UK and informed headquarters in Ankara, which in turn prompted action against the academic.

    The tracking of Akpınar by Turkish officials abroad is not surprising given the fact that the Erdoğan government is running a worldwide campaign of hunting down critics to sustain the climate of fear among exiles, muzzle critical voices and stifle dissent back at home.

    Before arriving the UK, the 53-year-old academic used to lecture at the Ankara-based Turgut Özal University, which was unlawfully shut down by the government in 2016 along with thousands of schools, associations, foundations, universities, hospitals and other institutions affiliated with government critic the Gülen movement. Fethullah Gülen, the US-based Turkish Muslim scholar and leader of the movement, has been fiercely critical of Erdogan on a range of issues from pervasive corruption in the government to Turkey’s aiding and abetting of armed jihadist groups in Syria and Libya.

    Akpınar taught courses on political science, government affairs and the Middle East and terrorism, and he also wrote columns for the now-shuttered Millet daily. He helped establish the Ankara-based Center of Law, Ethics and Political Studies (Hukuk Etik ve Siyaset araştırmaları, HESA), which issued reports on critical matters in Turkey before it was also shut down by the government. He had been appearing as a commentator and expert on current affairs on TV networks as well.

    Akpınar runs his own YouTube channel from the UK, commenting on various matters and continues to write as a contributor to Turkish media outlet TR724, which was established by Turkish journalists in exile.

    The academic was one of the leading critics of the Erdoğan government in 2014 when Erdoğan pushed for sweeping powers for intelligence agency MIT, which is run by the president’s close confidant Hakan Fidan. Akpınar accused the Erdoğan government of turning Turkey into what he called a “mukhabarat” (intelligence) state. “MİT is busy conducting operations against or wiretapping the conversations of its own people. This is both against the law and stems from a lack of confidence in people. I see that we are moving toward becoming an intelligence state,” he said in remarks reported by the Turkish press.

    The changes in the intelligence law came after an illegal arms shipment bound for Syria’s jihadists and escorted by the Turkish intelligence agency was intercepted and exposed in January 2014. The government claimed the trucks were delivering humanitarian aid to war-torn Syria, but videos and photos of cargo containers showed the load was full of heavy weaponry.

    The academic was subjected to an intensive smear campaign perpetrated by the pro-government media starting in 2014 for his critical views, and he was warned by the government to not speak against Erdoğan. He was branded as a terrorist. The false allegations against him were later incorporated into politically motivated indictments by Erdoğan-appointed prosecutors. Despite pressure and the threat of imprisonment, the academic vowed to continue to speak his mind. He said the government’s character assassination attempts would not deter him from saying what he wanted. He said he had to leave Turkey out of fear for his life and had no choice but to leave everything behind and start over from exile.

    The Erdoğan government brands all its critics as terrorists, and 175 journalists are currently locked up in Turkish jails on terrorism charges, making Turkey the world’s leading jailer of journalists, according to the latest monitoring report by the Stockholm Center for Freedom. In total, 167 Turkish journalists have been forced into self-exile to escape prison on false accusations.

    In recent years Turkey has sought to extradite other critics from the UK with no success. Turkey asked the UK to extradite a prominent critic of President Erdoğan, Mustafa Yeşil, who was president of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) until the Erdoğan government unlawfully shut it down in 2016. But the UK judge rejected the Turkish government request, citing a lack of evidence and politically motivated charges. Yeşil has been affiliated with the Gülen movement, whose leader Fethullah Gülen has been a vocal critic of Erdoğan.

    Likewise, the Turkish government also failed in its attempts to extradite Turkish businessman Akın İpek, also a critic of Erdoğan, in 2019 when a British judge ruled that İpek not be extradited to Turkey, where he would be at risk of violation of his human rights.

    In Turkey, over half a million people affiliated with the Gülen movement have faced legal action, most in the form of detention, since 2016 on fabricated terrorism charges in the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt.  Since then, more than 130,000 civil servants have been dismissed by the government with no effective judicial or administrative investigation, 4,560 of whom were judges and prosecutors and were replaced by pro-Erdogan staff. As a result of the massive purge, the Turkish judiciary and law enforcement authorities have become tools in the hands of the Islamist government of President Erdoğan.

    The assets of individuals and entities affiliated with the movement which, according to estimates from Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), amounted to $11 billion, were also seized. The government also seized the assets and wealth of critical journalists and deprived them of their livelihood in order to stifle freedom of the press and expression.

  • Australia charts post-COVID course with vaccines; Victoria to tighten hotel quarantine rules

    Scientists probing the origins of the coronavirus are wrapping up a lengthy investigation in China and have found “important clues” about a Wuhan seafood market’s role in the outbreak.

    Peter Daszak, a New York-based zoologist assisting the World Health Organisation-sponsored mission, said he anticipates the main findings will be released before his planned February 10 departure.

    Speaking from the central city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 mushroomed in December 2019, Daszak said the 14-member group worked with experts in China and visited key hot spots and research centres to uncover “some real clues about what happened.”

    There have been no new cases of coronavirus recorded in Western Australia overnight, Premier Mark McGowan announced on Sunday.

    Mr McGowan said 5264 tests returned no evidence of community spread a week to the day a security guard at a Perth quarantine hotel tested positive to COVID-19, plunging WA into a five-day snap lockdown.

  • Turkey training military drone operators from Azerbaijan – report

    The four-month programme saw the Azeri military personnel trained to operate the Bayraktar TB2 at facilities run by manufacturer Baykar Defense in Keşan, north-west Turkey, Anadolu said.

    Bayraktar TB2 drones provided by Turkey played a crucial role in Azerbaijan’s advances during clashes with Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in October.

    In response, Canada temporarily halted exports of parts used in the Bayraktar TB2, citing human rights concerns. And British company Andair took similar action in January following pressure from the Armenian embassy,

    Baykar Defense is headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar, and the company has caused controversy for its close personal links to the government.

    Selçuk Bayraktar joined a graduation ceremony for the trainees alongside senior Azeri military officials, Anadolu said.

  • Biden maintains tough line on Turkey over Russia arms

    “Our position has not changed,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “We urge Turkey not to retain the S-400 system.”

    Turkey turned to Russia after failing to agree terms with Barack Obama’s administration about the purchase of US Patriots — the air defense system of choice for most NATO member states.

    It took delivery of the $2.5 billion S-400 system in defiance of warnings that such military cooperation was incompatible with NATO and would let Russia improve its targeting of Western planes.

    In retaliation, Washington banned all US export licenses and loan credits for Turkey’s military procurement agency, the Presidency of Defense Industries.

    Earlier it had also evicted Turkey from joint efforts in developing the F-35 fighter jet.

    “Turkey is a longstanding and valued NATO ally, but their decision to purchase the S-400 is inconsistent with Turkey’s commitments as a US and NATO ally,” Kirby said during a press briefing.

    “Turkey had multiple opportunities over the last decade to purchase the Patriot defense system from the United States and instead chose to purchase the S-400, which provides Russia revenue, access and influence,” he noted.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had expressed the hope in January of reaching a compromise with Biden that would allow Ankara to be reintegrated into the F-35 fighter aircraft program, but contacts between the new American administration and Turkey have been limited.

    While Ankara said on Tuesday that Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalın and US national security advisor Jake Sullivan had expressed wishes for greater cooperation, on Friday Biden still had not yet spoken with Erdoğan since becoming president.

  • Boğaziçi students list demands, vow to continue protests in open letter to Erdoğan

    Boğaziçi Dayanışma, an independent student platform at the university, posted the letter on Twitter early on Saturday after Erdoğan targeted the protestors on Friday, saying that they would go as far as calling on him to resign “if they had the courage to do so.”

    Following Erdoğan’s remarks, a hashtag calling on the president to resign became a trending topic on Twitter.

    “Is calling on a president to resign a constitutional right? Yes. Since when is exercising a constitutional right a matter of courage? Don’t mistake us for those who unconditionally obey you. You’re not a monarch and we are not your subjects,” the students emphasized in the letter, addressing Erdoğan.

    They added: “We have had no [legislative] immunity while you have been raging at everyone and everything from under a shield of immunity for 19 years. … It’s not very courageous [of you] to try support [Bulu] with new faculties and additional staff since you don’t have the power to keep within the university the rector you appointed. That’s why we don’t take your words about courage seriously.”

    As for the call for Erdoğan to resign, the students said they wouldn’t do such a thing because of Bulu’s appointment as rector, since they knew that “it’s not the biggest problem in Turkey.”

    “If you were to resign, you should have done it when [Turkish-Armenian journalist] Hrant Dink was murdered [in 2007], when 301 miners were killed [in a fire inside a coal mine] in Soma [in 2014], when 34 Kurdish civilians were killed in Roboski [in 2011], after the Çorlu train crash [claimed 25 lives in 2018], or when you witnessed the struggle of thousands of unemployed or dismissed citizens to earn a living,” they said.

    Since a failed coup that claimed the lives of over 250 citizens in 2016, more than 150,000 civil servants in Turkey have been dismissed from state jobs over alleged terror links by emergency decree-laws, which are subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny, under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.

    Stating that Bulu’s appointment was “legal” but not right, Boğaziçi students listed their demands in the letter, which included releasing those detained or arrested during the protests, ending campaigns aimed at discrediting the LGBT community and other minorities, the resignation of Bulu and holding democratic elections at Turkish universities to choose rectors.

    The students said they expected dozens of criminal complaints to be filed against them on charges of “praising an offender” and “insulting the president” for writing the open letter. “But we also know that we will never stop expressing the truth,” they continued.

    The Boğaziçi students promised they would continue protesting until Bulu resigned and ended the letter hoping that Erdoğan would understand that he can’t silence the oppressed in the country by “shouting at, threatening and targeting” them during his speeches.

    Since early January, students and alumni, as well as politicians and activists, have protested the appointment of Bulu, a long-time member of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), as rector of the university, arguing that it undercut academic freedoms and democracy.

    Hundreds of protestors have been detained across Turkey for participating in the youth-driven demonstrations that have echoes of protests in 2013, known as the Gezi Park protests, which erupted against plans to demolish a park in İstanbul’s Taksim neighborhood before spreading nationally and presenting a direct challenge to Erdoğan’s

  • 114 detained, 43 arrested in İstanbul-based operation over alleged Gülen links

    The police carried out simultaneous raids in 32 provinces after detention warrants were issued for 154 people accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by the teachings of US-based Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.

    Thirteen of those people were discovered to have left the country, while police efforts to find 27 individuals are still underway.

    According to Anka, 33 of the 114 people detained on Saturday were released on orders of a prosecutor after giving their statements. While 43 people were arrested over links to the Gülen movement, 38 others were released under judicial supervision.

    Following an attempted coup on July 15, 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government put the blame on the Gülen movement, labeling the group as a terrorist organization.

    Although both Gülen and the members of his movement strongly deny any involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activities, Erdoğan’s AKP launched a massive purge targeting real and alleged members of the faith-based group under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.

    Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced in November that a total of 292,000 people have been detained while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement since the failed coup, while scores of others had to flee the country to avoid the crackdown.

  • RBA governor outlines his reasons to be cheerful on economy’s bounce-back

    If you think the coronacession made last year a stinker for the economy, Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe has good news: this year pretty much everything will be on the up except unemployment.

    All Reserve governors see it as their duty to err on the optimistic side, and Lowe is no slouch in that department. In his speech this week foreshadowing Friday’s release of the Reserve’s revised economic forecasts for the next two years, Lowe was surprisingly upbeat on what we can expect in “the year ahead”.

    His first reason for optimism is that, though last year saw the economy plunge into severe recession for the first time in almost 30 years, it didn’t go as badly as initially feared.

    For one thing, he says, Australians did what they usually do: respond well in a crisis. As a community, we have pulled together in the common good and been prepared to do what’s been necessary to contain the virus.

    “Because of these collective efforts, Australia is in a much better place than most other countries. This is true for both the economy and the health situation,” he says.

    The downturn in the economy was not as deep as the authorities had feared and the recovery has started earlier and has been stronger than expected. “Employment growth has been strong, as have retail sales and new house building. Across many indicators, including gross domestic product, the outcomes have been better than our central forecasts and often better than our upside scenarios as well,” he says.

    As recently as August, the Reserve forecast that the rate of unemployment would be close to 10 per cent by the end of last year, and still be above 7 per cent by the end of next year. Its latest forecast is that unemployment peaked at 7.5 per cent in July and – having fallen to 6.6 per cent in December – will be down to 6 per cent by the end of this year.

    Why hasn’t the recession been as bad as expected? Lowe offers three reasons. First, our greater success in containing the virus.

    “That success has meant that the restrictions on activity have been less disruptive than we feared. It has allowed more of us to get back to work sooner and it has reduced some [note that word] of the economic scarring from the pandemic.”

    The second reason the recession hasn’t been as bad as expected is that governments’ fiscal policy (budgetary) “support” has been bigger than expected, even in August. Most of this support has come from the federal government, but the states have also played a role.

    Measuring this “support” the simple way the Reserve always does, by the size of the change in the overall budget balance (this time combining federal and state budgets), he puts it at almost 15 per cent of GDP.

    Note that this way of doing it adds together two elements economists often separate: the deterioration in budget balances caused by budgets’ “automatic stabilisers” – that is, the move into deficit that would have happened even had governments not lifted a finger, coming from the fall in tax collections and the rise in dole payments – and, on the other hand, the cost of governments’ explicit decisions to stimulate the economy with extra government spending (the JobKeeper wage subsidy and the temporary supplement to JobSeeker dole payments, for instance) or tax cuts.

    This greater-than-expected support has made a real difference, Lowe says. “It has provided a welcome boost to incomes and jobs and helped front-load the recovery by creating incentives for people to bring forward spending.

    The third reason the bounce-back has been stronger than expected is that Australians have adapted and innovated. “Many firms changed their business models, moved online, used new technologies and reconfigured their supply lines,” Lowe says.

    “Households adjusted too, with spending patterns changing very significantly. Some of the spending that would normally have been done on travel and entertainment has been redirected to other areas, including electrical goods, homewares and home renovations. Online spending also surged, increasing by 70 per cent over the past year” to about 11 per cent of total retail sales.

    All this suggests a stronger economy in the coming calendar year. With the key assumption that the rollout of the coronavirus vaccines in Australia goes according to Scott Morrison’s plan, but that international travel remains highly restricted for the rest of this year, real GDP is now forecast to grow at the above-trend rate of 3.5 per cent over this year, and at the same rate again over next year.

    In consequence, the level of real GDP will be back to where it was at the end of 2019, before the Black Summer bushfires and the arrival of the virus. Over that 18 months we’ll have had net economic growth of zero.

    As we’ve seen, the forecast rate of GDP growth is expected to get the rate of unemployment down to 6 per cent by the end of this year. But then it will take a further 18 months to fall to 5.25 per cent.

    As measured by the wage price index, wages grew by just 1.4 per cent over the past year, their lowest in decades. The underlying rate of inflation also grew by 1.4 per cent over the year, way below the Reserve’s target rate of 2 to 3 per cent.

    “Given the spare capacity that currently exists [seen in the high unemployment and underemployment of labour, and in unused production capacity in factories and offices], these low rates of inflation and wage increases are likely to be with us for some time,” Lowe concludes.

    If so, I’m not sure I’m as upbeat about the future as the Reserve Bank governor is.

  • Turkish gov’t labelling all critics as terrorists, says Demirtaş’s wife

    The Turkish government is designating every critic of it as a terrorist, from students at Boğaziçi University to members of the country’s top health association, Başak Demirtaş, the wife of jailed prominent Kurdish politician, Selahattin Demirtaş, said on Sunday.

    Ankara has used the pandemic as an excuse to dial up restrictions in Turkey’s prisons, she told journalist Fatih Portakal in an interview on his YouTube channel, where she criticised the government’s refusal to follow the ECHR’s ruling for the release of her husband.

    The Turkish government jailed Demirtaş, the former head of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), during a period ofemergency rule in Nov. 2016, accusing him of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group that has waged an armed struggle for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey since 1984.

    The 47-year-old faces dozens of terror-related charges carrying combined sentences that could exceed 140 years. Demirtaş’s arrest is part of a years-long crackdown on the HDP, which has seen dozens of elected mayors removed from office and thousands of members jailed.

    “What is being done to Selahattin, is being done to everyone,’’ Başak Demirtaş said. “There is virtually nobody left that has not been branded a terrorist among those criticise the government.’’

    Başak Demirtaş referred specifically to the case of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), Turkey’s leading medical group critical of the government’s pandemic response whose chair, Şebnem Korur Fincancı, Erdoğan has gone on record to accuse of being a terrorist. The Turkish president has even labelled as terrorists the students at Boğaziçi students protesting the appointing of a government-linked rector, Başak Demirtaş recalled.

    The jailed Kurdish politician’s wife also blasted the government for its appeal of an ECHR ruling calling for her husband’s release.”If the ECHR ruling is not binding, then why have you appealed it?’’ she asked, referring to Turkey’s appeal of the ECHR first ruling on Demirtaş in 2018.

    The ECHR ruled again on Dec. 22 that Turkey must immediately release Demirtaş, citing the government’s use of his four years in prison as a cover for limiting pluralism and debate in the country.

  • Turkish prosecutors say no need to investigate disappearance of former bureaucrat

    Küçüközyiğit was one of some 130,000 people purged from the civil service after an abortive military coup in July 2016 for their purported ties to the Gülen movement, which the Turkish government accuses of having orchestrated the failed putsch.

    The decision by the Kocaeli Public Prosecutor’s Office came as prominent rights group Amnesty International on Monday called on Turkey to investigate the suspected enforced disappearance of Küçüközyiğit.

    In a model letter provided for use by the public, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is asked to ensure a prompt, impartial and independent investigation to determine the whereabouts of Küçüközyiğit and the circumstances of his suspected enforced disappearance.

    “Any information relating to his location and wellbeing must urgently be shared with his family. I also urge you to ensure that all those suspected of criminal responsibility are brought to justice in fair trials,” said the model letter posted by Amnesty, which asked people to write an appeal letter in their own words or to use the model letter to help find the missing bureaucrat.

    Küçüközyiğit’s daughter Nursena, who has been campaigning on social media to raise awareness about the case of her father, tweeted on Tuesday: “It has been 36 days. When I went to meet with the prosecutor in Kocaeli yesterday, I learned that the prosecutors had decided there was no need for an investigation.”

    Nursena said her father’s case would be followed by prosecutors in Ankara but that there had been no developments regarding the disappearance of her father.

    Küçüközyiğit’s family also filed a petition with the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office requesting that Küçüközyiğit’s disappearance or abduction be investigated.

    Nursena said she fears the investigation in Ankara into her father’s disappearance will also be dropped.

    Küçüközyiğit last spoke by phone to Nursena on Dec. 29 at around 3:30 p.m. about their new year’s plans. His coworkers were the last people to have seen him. About 4 p.m. he left his colleagues to visit a friend in Ankara’s Gölbaşı district, taking off from an office facing the Maltepe Mosque. His cell phone stopped receiving signals at 4:23 pm.

    Nursena says her father was unemployed for a long time after being expelled from public service and was held in detention for six months for his alleged Gülen links. After he was released, he set up a business to offer legal advice to other purged public sector workers, which Nursena believes might have been the reason her father was abducted.

    Dozens of enforced disappearances have been reported in Turkey since the failed coup in 2016.

  • Erdoğan intensifies crackdown on opponents through mass detentions

    In the last two days, Turkey’s authorities have detained over 500 government critics including Kurds, Gülen movement followers and protesting university students.

    As the country continues to debate a possible snap election, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s pressure on opponents is bringing new mass detentions by the police.

    The Gülen movement, which the government accuses of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016, represents the lion’s share of mass detentions in the country. İstanbul prosecutors have issued detention warrants for 294 people, 292 of whom were either active duty soldiers or former soldiers previously dismissed from the ranks over suspected Gülen links. While there are high-ranking officers such as colonels and majors among the suspects, 211 are cadets from a military school that was shut down in 2016. Most of the former cadets continued their higher education at other universities.

    Students were the second largest group targeted by the operations, particularly those from İstanbul’s prestigious Boğaziçi University, where the recent appointment of a pro-government politician as rector sparked a wave of protests by students as well as members of the academic staff. A total of 159 Boğaziçi students were detained in İstanbul on Monday. In addition, police in İzmir took into custody 27 students from İzmir University during a protest to demonstrate solidarity with Boğaziçi students.

    Levent Pişkin, a lawyer for some of the students, announced that the detainees were threatened with torture and ill-treatment during their interrogation at police centers. Incidents of torture involving allegedly Gülen-linked detainees have become an everyday occurrence. The Ankara Bar Association has published a report on the brutal interrogation of the soldiers who are still being held at the Ankara Police Department. The authorities are keeping silent in the face of the allegations.

    Kurds, specifically those involved in pro-Kurdish political activism, are also victims of the mass detentions. In a protest march held by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the southeastern province of Batman on Jan. 29, 23 participants were detained, six of whom are minors.

    Increasing political tension

    While President Erdoğan has been using reconciliatory rhetoric aimed at normalizing ties with the US and the EU, the atmosphere of pressure is intensifying within the country. In addition to his previous remarks promising democratic and legal reforms, Erdoğan on Monday said they want to draft a new constitution.

    The opposition believes Erdoğan is rapidly setting the stage for an election. According to Meral Akşener, leader of the ultranationalist İyi (Good) Party, all of Erdoğan’s moves are indicative of a snap election to be held in June.

    Against the backdrop of Erdoğan’s new reform discourse, the country’s police, led by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, have been raising tensions.

    Soylu, one of the most powerful ministers in Erdoğan’s cabinet, has adopted the harshest stance against the Boğaziçi students. Soylu has used the word “deviant” on Twitter to refer to a pro-LGBT group among the students.

    Soylu’s tweet was blocked from access in France as it was found to be in violation of local laws. When accessed from Turkey, the same tweet has a warning to users that it violates Twitter’s rules on hateful conduct while not blocking it from access as Twitter claimed it would be for the good of the public that it remain open to access. Nevertheless, the warning message was the first time Twitter had imposed a restriction on a Turkish minister.

    Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a major ally to Erdoğan, supported the police intervention and slammed the student activists.

    “All kinds of insects and anarchist groups have been nesting in this university,” Bahçeli said. “If the gate of Boğaziçi University was locked [by the police], it is to narrow the terrorist groups’ room to maneuver.” turkishminute