Category: World

According to the Mezopotamya News Agency (MA), the court said Turkey had violated the plaintiffs’ right to freedom of assembly and association (Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights) and ordered the Turkish government to pay each of them €1,500 in non-pecuniary damages.

The 10 politicians were accused of violating the law on meetings and demonstrations for attempting to make a press statement about an alleged enforced disappearance case from 2001. After legal proceedings that lasted for six years, they were sentenced to one year, three months’ imprisonment. The case was taken to the ECtHR in 2007.

The plaintiffs included Siirt provincial HADEP chair Ahmet Konuk, district chair Abdurrahman Taşçı and eight other politicians.

Speaking to MA, their lawyer Reyhan Yalçındağ criticized the ECtHR, saying, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” She said not much had changed in Turkey in the 20 years since the incident in terms of how the Kurdish political movement is treated.

“After 20 years, instead of improvements, we see continuing violations of the convention’s articles regarding freedom of association and freedom expression,” Yalçındağ said. “Elected mayors are removed and replaced with caretakers, and lawmakers, mayors and party executives are arrested for exercising their rights protected by those articles.”

According to the Ministry of Interior, Ankara has ousted a total of 151 elected mayors from office on accusations of terrorism in the last six years, almost all from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a left-wing party with majority Kurdish support, replacing them with government-appointed bureaucrats. According to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, during the last two mayoral terms — 2014-2019 and 2019 onwards — 73 of the 151 mayors removed from office were sentenced to a total of 778 years in prison.

US Senators Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Florida Republican Marco Rubio, today urged the new Biden administration to press the Turkish government to improve its human rights record, which includes an increasingly authoritarian crackdown on dissent both domestically and abroad, according to a press release on Wyden’s official Senate website.

The bipartisan letter signed by more than 50 other senators cited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for marginalizing domestic opposition, silencing or coopting critical media outlets, purging independent judges and replacing them with party loyalists, and jailing scores of journalists.

“President Erdogan’s foreign policy has also grown more belligerent and combative over time.  In recent years, he brazenly attacked U.S.-backed Kurds fighting ISIS in Syria, he purchased Russian air defense systems despite warnings that they were incompatible with U.S. technology, and he encouraged Azerbaijan to use violence to settle a territorial dispute with Armenia,” the senators wrote. “President Erdogan has also attempted to pressure the U.S. and other countries into extraditing Turkish nationals, whom he blames for the failed coup in 2016.  The Erdogan government has sought to silence critics in the United States like Enes Kanter, an NBA player and human rights advocate, by going after his family in Turkey and placing an INTERPOL red notice on him.”

The senators note that the United States has a significant opportunity to influence Turkey’s troubling human rights record because it’s an important ally in a key region of the world.

“We believe that the United States must hold allies and partners to a higher standard and speak frankly with them about issues of human rights and democratic backsliding,” the senators wrote. “We urge you to emphasize to President Erdogan and his administration that they should immediately end their crackdown on dissent at home and abroad, release political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, and reverse their authoritarian course.”

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.

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.

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.

“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 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

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.

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.

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.