Category: World

US President Joe Biden has announced he will withdraw remaining US troops from Afghanistan on 11 September.

“It’s time to end the forever war,” Biden said in remarks from the White House’s Treaty Room.

His plan is to pull out all US forces – numbering 2,500 now – one the 20th anniversary of the 2001 terror attack that was coordinated from Afghanistan.

The US cannot continue to pour resources into an intractable war and expect different results, Biden said.

After his televised remarks, Biden went to Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery to visit the graves of US troops killed in Afghanistan.

“There’s no comforting distance in history in Section 60, the grief is raw.” he said. “It’s a visceral reminder of the living cost of war.”

The troop drawdown would begin rather than conclude by May 1, which has been the deadline for full withdrawal under a peace agreement the Trump administration reached with the Taliban last year.

The decision marks perhaps the most significant foreign policy decision for Biden so far in his presidency.

The president will then visit Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery to honour the sacrifice of those who died in recent American conflicts.

The US administration had originally planned to withdraw troops by May 1 as part of a peace agreement the Trump administration reached with the Taliban last year.

His plan sets a firm end to two decades of war that killed more than 2,200 US troops, wounded 20,000, and cost as much as €835bn ($1 trillion).

The conflict largely crippled al-Qaeda and led to the death of Osama bin Laden, the architect of the September 11 attacks.

It recently became clear that an orderly withdrawal of the remaining troops would be difficult and was unlikely by May 1.

Defence officials and commanders had argued against the May 1 deadline, saying the US troop withdrawal should be based on security conditions in Afghanistan, including Taliban attacks and violence.

Officials have quietly acknowledged that there are hundreds more in Afghanistan than the official 2,500 number.

The president’s decision risks retaliation by the Taliban on US and Afghan forces, possibly escalating the 20-yea conflict.

It will also reignite political division over America’s involvement in what many have called the endless war.

The German Defence Minister also said NATO soldiers engaged in Afghanistan are likely to withdraw by September.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of defence and foreign ministers of NATO members on Wednesday, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said: “I am for an orderly withdrawal, which is why I suppose we will decide this today.”

During a videoconference the Alliance is expected to make a decision on whether the time is right to end the “Resolute Support” mission in Afghanistan which includes 9,600 troops from 36 countries.

An intelligence community report issued on Tuesday about global challenges for the next year said prospects for a peace deal in Afghanistan are “low” and warned that “the Taliban is likely to make gains on the battlefield.

If the coalition withdraws support the Afghan government will struggle to control the Taliban, the report says.

Reaction to the new deadline has been mixed.

“Precipitously withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “It is retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed the move as a “reckless and dangerous decision.”

He said any withdrawal should be conditions-based, adding that arbitrary deadlines could put troops in danger, create a breeding ground for terrorists and lead to civil war in Afghanistan.

Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said President Donald Trump’s May 1 deadline limited Biden’s options.

“We still have vital interests in protecting against terrorist attacks that could be emanating from that part of the world, but there are other areas, too, we have to be conscious of,” Reed said.

But at least one senior Democrat expressed disappointment; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said in a tweet that the US “has sacrificed too much to bring stability to Afghanistan to leave without verifiable assurances of a secure future.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told the AP that the religious militia is waiting for a formal announcement to issue its reaction. The Taliban previously warned the US of “consequences” if it reneged on the May 1 deadline.

In a February 2020 agreement with the Trump administration, the Taliban agreed to halt attacks and hold peace talks with the Afghan government, in exchange for a U.S. commitment to a complete withdrawal by May 2021.

When Biden entered the White House in January, he began a review of the February 2020 agreement and has been consulting at length with his defence advisers and allies.

In recent weeks, it became increasingly clear that he was leaning toward defying the deadline.

“It’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline,” Biden said in March. “Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out.” He added, “And if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.” euronews

Turkish Twitter users conducted a hashtag campaign yesterday calling on authorities to release Sabriye Dağdeviren, the mother of 11-year-old leukemia patient Hakan, who is battling the cancer alone in a hospital, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.

Hakan was diagnosed with advanced stage leukemia in January. According to his doctors the cancer metastasized to his liver, abdomen, neck and armpits. He is expected to stay in the hospital for almost a year.

Both of his parents were arrested in 2018 for alleged links to the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.

The hashtag #DirenBeHakan (Be strong, Hakan) was shared widely by Turkish social media users appealing to the Turkish government to postpone the execution of the jail sentence of Hakan’s mother.

Hakan’s mother was sentenced to six years, 10 months in prison and his father, Gökhan Dağdeviren, to 19 years. Both are serving their time in Eskişehir Prison, while Hakan and his sister Halenur, are under the care of their grandparents.

In a letter to Elif Çakır of the Karar daily, his mother Sabriye said Hakan is at times cared for by their neighbors during his treatment at the hospital because his grandmother also needs to tend to her 90-year-old mother,

“How painful it is for a mother to know that her son is cared by someone other than his family during chemotherapy,” Sabriye Dağdeviren said in her letter. “I can’t do anything other than wait to hear from my son once a week.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

Turkey’s post-coup purge has taken a huge toll on human life, making no exceptions for children. Several children such as Ahmet Burhan Ataç, Mehmet Fatih Dedeoğlu, Selman Çalışkan, Eymen Küçükaydoğan, Ali Ihsan Başer and Furkan Dizdar were diagnosed with cancer after their fathers were arrested. Some of these children were unable to cling to life and succumbed to their illnesses. According to the doctors, their fragile bodies were not able to process the sorrow and affliction caused by the persecution of their fathers.

According to a statement from Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on February 20, a total of 622,646 people have been the subject of investigation and 301,932 have been detained, while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement since the failed coup. The minister said there are currently 25,467 people in Turkey’s prisons who were jailed on alleged links to the Gülen movement.

Turkey’s top administrative court, the Council of State, has rejected an application seeking the reinstatement of a headscarf ban in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), saying that the freedom to wear Islamic attire in the military does not violate the principle of secularism, Turkish media outlets reported on Thursday.

In a landmark move in February 2017, the Turkish Defense Ministry amended the TSK dress code to allow headscarf freedom for female cadets and officers. The amendment went into force without being published in the Official Gazette.

In the past, even headscarf-wearing family members of TSK officers were not allowed to attend ceremonies or events at military facilities or guesthouses and were required to remove their headscarves to be able to enter the premises.

The People’s Liberation Party (HKP), a left-wing populist and anti-imperialist political party in Turkey, took the amendment to the Council of State, claiming that headscarf freedom in the TSK would lead to a division between those who wear headscarves and those who do not and would violate secularism, and that amendments cannot be based on religion.

The ministry said in its defense statement to the top court that the amendment made in the TSK’s dress code does not concern the public but only TSK personnel; hence, the HKP had no standing to file a case demanding its annulment.

Three members of the Council of State’s 2nd Chamber, which reviewed the HKP’s application, voted in favor of headscarf freedom in the TSK while two of them voted against it.

The HKP has been informed of the court’s decision. The party will be able to challenge the ruling with the court’s highest organ, the Plenary Session of the Administrative Law Chamber (İDDK). The party’s lawyers announced that they will go to the İDDK seeking the annulment of the amendment in the TSK dress code enabling the freedom to wear headscarves in the Turkish military.

Since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, a strict version of secularism had been in place, and wearing headscarves in public institutions was banned in the 1980s.

The AKP government abolished a ban on the wearing of headscarves at Turkish universities in 2010, while the same ban was abolished for civil servants in 2017.

According to Turkey’s secular circles, the headscarf is a symbol of religious conservatism, and they accuse President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of abusing the headscarf ban to polarize society and consolidate its conservative grass roots.

A police officer whose alleged torture and maltreatment of detainees was exposed by Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a former lawmaker who was expelled from parliament and jailed over the weekend, was among the police officers who forcibly took Gergerlioğlu into custody at his home on Friday night.

The police officer, Abdülkadir Yılmaztürk, is seen in a video of Gergerlioğlu’s detention attacking and hitting the former deputy when Gergerlioğlu wanted to make a statement before his arrest.

Türkiye bu fotoğrafı unutmayacak; vicdan sahibi herkes bunu yapanları ve yaptıranları lanetleyecektir.pic.twitter.com/5z3Z34nIOT

— Mehmet Bekaroğlu (@MBekaroglu) April 3, 2021

Gergerlioğlu, a former lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and a prominent human rights activist, was stripped of his status in parliament on March 17 based on a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down to him on terrorism charges. Describing the jail sentence as unlawful, Gergerlioğlu refused to turn himself in to the authorities and waited for the police to come and arrest him.

A video of Gergerlioğlu circulating on social media showed that he brought up the alleged acts of torture and maltreatment by Yılmaztürk at the Ankara Police Station in a speech he delivered in parliament on Nov. 29, 2019.

Ankara Emniyetiyle ilgili işkence iddiaları var. Avukat tutanak tutmuş: “Abdülkadir Yılmaztürk, bir memurlarının eline plastik eldiven geçirerek kendisinin kulak memesi ve göğüs ucunu sıkarak işkence ettiklerini, bir soda şişesi getirerek bu şişeyle tehdit ettiklerini söylüyor! pic.twitter.com/hmksvC5UOP

— Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu (@gergerliogluof) November 29, 2019

Seventy-seven people who were detained in operations targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement, accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup in 2016, were subjected back then to acts of torture by a team of police officers led by Yılmaztürk at the Ankara Police Station. Rıdvan Çobanoğlu, a lawyer representing some of the detainees, at the time had revealed Yılmaztürk’s name and ensured it went into official records as the head of the “torture team.”

In an official document, one of the detainees, identified only by their initials as N.C., said Yılmaztürk wore plastic gloves and repeatedly squeezed sensitive body parts of the detainees such as nipples and earlobes. N.C. said Yılmaztürk also brought a soda bottle to the room and threatened to rape the detainees with the bottle.

Gergerlioğlu had read out the statements of the detainees in his speech in parliament detailing the acts of torture committed by Yılmaztürk.

After his detention on Friday evening, Gergerlioğlu had to be hospitalized and underwent an angiogram in the early hours of Saturday, after which was put in intensive care due to high blood pressure.

The ex-deputy’s son, Salih Gergerlioğlu, tweeted later on Saturday that his father was secretly taken to prison from the back door of the hospital while he was in intensive care.

Gergerlioğlu is now behind bars in Ankara’s Sincan Prison to serve his sentence.

The 55-year-old politician, who has shone a light on controversial topics including torture and prison strip-searches in Turkey’s prisons and detention centers, was expelled from parliament over terror charges linked to a 2016 social media post where he commented on a story that reported on outlawed Kurdish militants calling on the Turkish state to take a step towards peace.

Gergerlioğlu was given the jail sentence at the end of his trial on Feb. 21, 2018, and the conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals on Feb. 19.

The HDP is accused by the government of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU. Although the pro-Kurdish party denies the claim, a government-led crackdown on the HDP reached new heights following the failed coup in July 2016.

Mustafa Çamaş, a prominent bioengineering professor fired from his job by a government decree in the aftermath of a July 15, 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, died on Monday at a construction site after a crane fall on him, the Bold Medya news website reported.

Çamaş was an associate professor at Tunceli University’s faculty of engineering until September 2016. After he lost his job and was banned from public service, Çamaş started a construction job. According to the Science Citation Index Çamaş had 24 publications and over 200 citations to his name.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 20,610 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs and banned from public service with the claim that they were “member[s] of or have a connection to or are in communication with the structures, organizations, groups or terrorist organizations that are considered by the National Security Council [MGK] to pose a threat to the national security of the state.”

Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs; they were also banned from working again in the public sector and getting a passport. The government also made it difficult for them to work formally in the private sector. Notes were put on the social security database about dismissed public servants to deter potential employers.

Dismissed civil servants face other kinds of discrimination as well. In a striking case, an insurance company refused to pay for the damages caused by a car accident to the wife of a fired public servant who was incarcerated at the time. According to the company, the government had instructed them in a directive not to make payments to civil servants who had been terminated from their jobs.

In another well-known case, Garanti BBVA, an affiliate of Spanish Bank BBVA, refused to open a bank account for a dismissed public servant. The bank had to reverse its position after the pro-opposition media covered the incident extensively and agreed to open a restricted checking account. The account holder could only use his account for withdrawing his salary. Other banking transactions such as money transfers were still prohibited.

In a more recent case a former public school teacher fired by the Turkish government in the aftermath of the abortive putsch in July 2016 was not allowed to attend a vocational course organized by the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR) because he was a dismissed public servant.

A man who is allegedly an advisor to a lawmaker from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was detained after a video emerged showing him snorting cocaine in a luxury automobile.

The man, named Kürşat Ayvatoğlu, is allegedly an advisor to AKP deputy chairman and İzmir MP Hamza Dağ. Muhammad Doğan, another Dağ advisor, however, has denied claims that Ayvatoğlu was Dağ’s advisor although there are many photos showing Ayvataoğlu with Dağ in public. The last photos showing Dağ and Ayvatoğlu together are from Thursday.

A statement by the Ankara Police Department said on Friday that the person seen in a video posted online using drugs has been detained and that an investigation has been launched into him.

When Ayvataoğlu’s video first emerged, Dağ issued a statement saying that Ayvatoğlu was not his advisor but a staff member at AKP general headquarters in Ankara and that his employment contract was cancelled after the controversial video was put online.

Ayvatoğlu also appears in numerous photos taken with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.

Turkey has a strict drug policy under which illegal drug possession, including cannabis and marijuana, is considered a punishable offense. All drugs are illegal, and there is no legislation that allows the medical use of any non-pharmaceutical drugs.

Birol Akgün, chairman of Turkey’s Maarif Foundation, on Monday said during an online meeting that they have taken over 216 schools affiliated with the faith-based Gülen movement, a worldwide civic initiative inspired by the ideas of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, in 44 countries, according to local media.

Akgün also stated that the foundation had signed 77 protocols to take over schools linked to the movement in 45 more countries.

“Celebrating its fifth year, our foundation … extended its educational activities to 44 countries in 2021, along with Kyrgyzstan and South Africa,” Akgün said, adding that they aim to increase the number of countries hosting Maarif schools to 50 by the end of this year.

Akgün explained that the foundation has representative offices in 52 countries and that they conduct activities in 67 countries, 44 of which have active Maarif educational institutions, with a total of 354 schools and 41 dormitories hosting nearly 43,000 students.

According to Akgün, 216 of those schools were handed over by their host countries after the foundation proved their links to the Gülen movement.

Maarif, which was established prior to a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 through legislation in the Turkish parliament, has targeted the closure of Gülen-linked educational institutions since the abortive putsch as part of the foreign policy of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which labels the movement as a terrorist organization and accuses it of orchestrating the failed coup.

Although both Gülen and the members of his faith-based group strongly deny any involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activities, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP has jailed some 96,000 people while investigating a total of 622,646 and detaining 301,932 over alleged links to the movement as part of a massive purge launched under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, according to the latest official figures.

Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a politician and renowned human rights activist who was expelled from the Turkish Parliament last week, has received a notification from Turkish authorities telling him to surrender himself in 10 days to serve a prison sentence, according to Tukish Minute reported.

In a move that sparked shockwaves in Turkey and the international community, the Turkish Parliament on Wednesday expelled Gergerlioğlu, a politician from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), due to a prison sentence he was handed down for a tweet. Gergerlioğlu was stripped of his parliamentary membership after a Supreme Court of Appeals decision upholding a prison sentence of two years, six months given to the rights advocate lawmaker on charges of disseminating terrorist propaganda was read out in the General Assembly.

The former lawmaker said he will not surrender to the authorities because he thinks his prison sentence is unlawful.

“I will not turn myself in. I will continue my justice watch at home,” said Gergerlioğlu.

Following his expulsion from the legislature, Gergerlioğlu refused to leave the parliament building and launched a “justice watch” in his office; however, he was detained in a dawn raid on Sunday morning and removed from the premises. He was released after a brief detention.

The HDP politician also said he would not be allowed into the parliament if he goes there and even heard that vehicles driving onto the parliament campus were being checked to prevent any attempt by him to get into the building.

Gergerlioğlu said he would continue his “justice watch” in prison if he is sent to jail.

In the meantime, the HDP announced in a statement on Monday that a group of lawyers, party lawmakers and Gergerlioğlu will on Tuesday file an application at Turkey’s Constitutional Court for the annulment of the expulsion of Gergerlioğlu from the Turkish Parliament.

In early March Gergerlioğlu had petitioned the top court, claiming that his right to freedom of expression was violated over the prison sentence handed down to him on terrorism-related charges.

Turkish police on Friday detained dozens of pro-Kurdish party officials and a renowned human rights activist, as prosecutors increase the pressure on the country’s third-largest party, Agence France-Presse reported.

A top public prosecutor on Wednesday demanded the dissolution of the leftist opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The move followed the expulsion of an HDP MP from parliament on the same day.

The HDP said at least 36 party members were detained, including 10 in İstanbul among which were three HDP district chairs, over suspected PKK links.

Police were on the hunt for five others, the agency added.

Özturk Türkdoğan, head of the Ankara-based Human Rights Association (IHD), was also detained on Friday in the Turkish capital and his house was raided, the organization said.

“Our lawyers are trying to obtain information about this case. His arrest is a blatant human rights violation. He must be released now,” the IHD tweeted.

Breaking news: Mr Ozturk Turkdogan, İHD president, was arrested by police officers. His house was raided this morning.Our lawyers try to obtain information about this case.His arrest is a blatant human rights violation.He must be released now. pic.twitter.com/FDYx5WjJnC

— İHD Genel Merkezi (@ihd_genelmerkez) March 19, 2021