habergiris.zamanaustralia.com

Blog

  • Australia’s migration rate is heading back to normal, but what does that mean for wages growth?

    Australia’s migration rate is heading back to normal, but what does that mean for wages growth?

    Unions are questioning whether a quick return to pre-pandemic levels of migration may suppress forecast wages growth, particularly as the cost of living climbs.

    While inflation is expected to outpace wages growth until mid-next year, real wages are predicted to steadily rise after June 2022.

    It is one of the federal government’s key selling points from Thursday’s mid-year budget update, telling voters to look forward to fatter pay packets in years ahead.

    As wages are forecast to rise, so is migration — steadily climbing back to roughly pre-pandemic levels.

    Treasurer Josh Frydenberg argues migration can climb alongside wages.

    “I don’t see it as a binary choice between having a sensible, measured immigration program … as well as getting a tighter labour market and putting the policies in place that drive real wages up,” he said.

    Labor has agreed migration is an important source of economic growth but says it should not be a substitute for training Australians to fill workforce shortages.

    Unions have called for a migration rethink and suggested rushing back to pre-pandemic levels will “clearly” push wages lower than they otherwise would be.

    Where is migration headed?

    Australia is currently in the very unusual position of actually losing people overseas, rather than gaining them.

    In 2020-21, roughly 100,000 more people left Australia than moved here due to strict border policies.

    That trend is expected to continue this financial year, even as borders slowly open — with 41,000 more people to depart than arrive.

    But in 2022-23, things will start to quickly turn around.

    That year is expected to see 180,000 more people arrive than depart, followed by 213,000 the following year, and 235,000 in 2024-25.

    To put that number in context, during the last “normal” year (2018-19), that number was 241,000.

    And it has been much higher than that in the past — in 2008-09, it fell just short of 300,000.

    Unions worry it is too much, too soon
    Some union leaders have expressed concern about the rapid return of significant migration, just as wages growth is forecast to rise.

    Acting Secretary of the ACTU Liam O’Brien said he was worried about temporary migration in particular.

    “We’re deeply concerned about the fact that the Morison government looks to be restarting and really ramping up temporary migration in this country,” he said.

    “This clearly puts downward pressure on wages just when we need to see them going up.”

    Mr O’Brien said after years of stagnant wages, the government should be doing everything it can to drive them up as fast as possible.

    He said rising wages will drive economic growth more effectively than migration, or anything else.

    “Sixty per cent of our economy is workers spending money,” he said.

    “And if we don’t have serious efforts to increase wages, then economic growth is going to slow over the long term.”

    Are migration and wages really linked?

    Some economists pour doubt over suggestions increased migration might affect wages, and others claim it is unequivocally good news.

    Chris Richardson from Deloitte Access Economics suggests migrants coming to Australia tend to be younger and more skilled than the general population.

    “Over time, migrants don’t affect wages for everybody else,” he said.

    “If a migrant arrives and puts up their hand to take a job, they get a job and spend that money and it creates the next job.

    “It doesn’t affect job numbers, it doesn’t affect wages over time.”

    But he does warn a very steep climb in migration could have unintended consequences.

    “If the return to migration is rapid, it may take some time for those people to get jobs — that may be something that slows wage growth, temporarily,” he said.

    Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute said seeing borders open faster than expected is a very good thing.

    “What that does is lifts the overall growth rate — if you have more people, the economy grows stronger overall,” she said.

    “Given some of the pressure points in labour markets and shortages in various parts of the economy, that will very welcome news for a lot of businesses.”

    ‘We have to be more ambitious’: Business groups argue forecasts aren’t enough

    Business groups are pushing back strongly against suggestions of any slowdown in migration and some are arguing what is being forecasted will fall short of what is needed.

    Many industry groups have for months been complaining of significant skills shortages due to the effective suspension in migration, particularly in sectors like IT and hospitality.

    Andrew McKellar from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry argues any question over Australia’s migration levels has been long settled.

    “The economics of this is well established — migration has been a positive for the Australian economy over a long period of time,” he said.

    “We know that it will add to demand, we know it will add to our skills base.”

    Mr McKellar said there is a strong argument for larger numbers in the next few years, to make up for lost time.

    “We have to get back to much stronger levels of migration,” he said.

    “Even the numbers that are factored into the budget at the moment, I’m not sure that’s enough.

    “I think we have to be more ambitious and we shouldn’t run away from it, we shouldn’t be afraid of it — we need leadership on both sides on this issue.”

  • Turkish watchdog fines Netflix and TV stations for gov’t criticism, ‘immoral’ content

    Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), has imposed fines on digital platforms Netflix and local streaming application Exxen in addition to pro-opposition Halk TV, Fox TV and TELE1 due to their “immoral” and anti-government broadcasting, Turkish Minute reported on Wednesday.

    Netflix was fined on the grounds that a Spanish movie titled “Donde Caben Dos” (More the Merrier) streaming on the platform was “based on a fiction in which homosexuality, incest and couple swapping were predominantly featured,” a situation characterized by the council as damaging to public morals.

    RTÜK also ordered Netflix to remove the movie from its catalog of content offered to viewers in Turkey, according to local media reports.

    Local streaming service Exxen was fined due to the use of “a large number of swear words and slang words containing sexist elements and references to family members” in an episode of a talk show called “Konuşanlar,” Turkish media reports said, adding that the platform was also ordered to remove the episode from its content.

    Local media reports also said Fox TV, Halk TV and TELE1 were fined due to a series called “Yasak Elma,” political debate programs “Açıkça” and “İki Yorum,” and “Demokrasi Arenası,” respectively.

    İlhan Taşçı and Okan Konuralp, RTÜK members from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), criticized the decisions for violating freedom of expression and thought.

    Underlining that he voted against the board’s decisions on Exxen and Netflix as well as those on the TV channels, Konuralp said: “RTÜK fined TELE1 because CHP group deputy chairman Engin Altay called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a ‘dictator’ [during a program]. However, aside from discussions about whether using the word ‘dictator’ is a crime or not, Altay’s words were [uttered] within the scope of [his] parliamentary immunity.”

    Taşçı said RTÜK imposed a TL 210,000 ($13,883) fine on Halk TV because of the criticism made during programs regarding Devlet Bahçeli, the far-right leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Erdoğan’s election ally, and Ali Erbaş, head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate.

    The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government shuttered 60 TV and radio channels by decree during a state of emergency imposed after an abortive putsch in July 2016.

    The government has also played an active role in the takeover of big media outlets since 2007 by companies it considers friendly. Under new ownership, the media outlets have tailored their coverage to avoid criticism of the government, and in some cases, acted as direct mouthpieces for the presidency.

    RTÜK has been accused of contributing to increasing censorship in the country by imposing punitive and disproportionate sanctions on independent television and radio stations critical of the government.

    According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 85 percent of the national media in Turkey is owned by pro-government businessmen and toe the official line. SCF

  • Former judge with 6-month-old baby sent to prison in defiance of legal provisions

    Esra Çiçeklidağ, a former judge dismissed from her job by a government decree, was arrested on November 10, 2021 in violation of a Turkish law that requires the postponement of the execution of prison sentences for women who are pregnant or have given birth within the last year and a half.

    Çiçeklidağ’s case was brought to light by human rights defender and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu on Thursday. Gergerlioğlu said in a tweet that Çiçeklidağ was sent to Gebze Prison with her 6-month-old baby and 4-year-old son.

    “Her husband [a former district governor] was sent to prison the same day after his sentence was upheld [by an appeals court],” Gergerlioğlu said.

    No details were shared about the accusations against the couple.

    According to legal experts, the arrest of pregnant women or women with babies falls afoul of the Law on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures, which stipulates that “execution of the prison sentence is delayed for women who are pregnant or have given birth within the last year and a half.” The law also applies to inmates in pre-trial detention.

    But the detention and arrest of pregnant women and mothers with babies have been continuing unabated in Turkey since a coup attempt in July 2016.

    According to a report by Solidarity with Others, a nongovernmental organization that consists mainly of political exiles from Turkey, a total of 219 pregnant women and women with children under 6 years of age were arbitrarily detained or arrested over their suspected links to the Gülen movement.

    Turkey experienced a controversial military coup attempt on the night of July 15, 2016 which, according to many, was a false flag aimed at entrenching the authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by rooting out dissidents and eliminating powerful actors such as the military in his desire for absolute power. The abortive putsch killed 251 people and wounded more than a thousand others.

    The next morning, after announcing the coup had been suppressed, the Turkish government immediately started a wide-ranging purge of military officers, judges, police officers, teachers and other government officials that ultimately led to the dismissal of more than 130,000 public servants from their jobs.

    As part of the massive crackdown, 150 of the Turkish Armed Forces’ (TSK) 326 generals and admirals and 4,156 judges and prosecutors as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces, more than 33,000 police officers and in excess of 5,000 academics were fired from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

    According to Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, as of November 15, 2021 a total of 319,587 people had been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt. scf

  • NT outback to host Australian-first green hydrogen project at Tennant Creek

    In the centre of Australia, where the landscape is parched and temperatures can soar into the high 40s, water can be a precious commodity.

    But a “cutting edge” technology is being trialled in the Northern Territory, giving a glimpse of how water-dependent industries may one day be able to operate in the outback without having to rely on sucking those resources from underneath the earth.

    The Desert Bloom Hydrogen project has been heralded as “ground-breaking” by the NT government, for its technological ability to extract water from the atmosphere to create hydrogen.

    “It is absolutely cutting edge, at the forefront of technology at the moment,” NT Energy Minister Eva Lawler said.

    “[But] it’s something that could be used into the future.

    The full extent of this technology’s long-term environmental impact remains somewhat unknown, but a study into any potential dangers is weeks away from being released.

    The project in Tennant Creek is being fast-tracked by the Territory government and has been granted Major Project Status.

    The government said the project has already been backed by a private firm, Sanguine Impact Investment, to the tune of $1 billion, to get it off the ground.

    Emeritus professor Barry Hart, a Victorian-based water expert who was previously involved in the NT’s fracking inquiry and has long-term knowledge of the NT’s climate conditions, said the project was “unique” and a first of its kind in Australia.

    “The energy for this project comes from solar, it’s all solar, so it’s nothing off the grid. And the water, uniquely, is going to come from the atmosphere,” Professor Hart said.

    “You’re not looking at domestic water, or groundwater, or seawater, it’s water coming from the atmosphere.”

    So how on earth does it work?

    The desert may seem like a dry place, but Professor Hart said the relative humidity in Tennant Creek — “the amount of moisture that’s in the atmosphere” — was often up to 20 or 30 per cent.

    “Given the volume of air, that’s still a large amount of water,” he said.

    The process of extracting the water, Professor Hart explained, was a “pretty simple one, conceptually”.

    “The air is drawn through a column, that water is absorbed on the column, and the columns that will be used … have characteristics that they can absorb water at lower temperatures,” he said.

    “If you then heat it up to the order of 150 degrees [Celsius], it will evaporate the water that’s been trapped, and that can be condensed, and then taken off to the electrolytic cell, and hydrogen [is] produced.”

    Are there dangers involved?

    Professor Hart has commissioned a study by an air quality modelling organisation to determine any potential dangers posed by the project.

    “I suppose the potential risk is that you suck all of the water out of a relatively low humidity [area], and leave that with, potentially, damage to the environment and maybe even to humans,” he said.

    “I don’t believe that will occur … we’ll have to wait for the results, but I expect the impact will be minimal.”

    The firm behind the Desert Bloom Hydrogen project, Aqua Aerem, has flagged its plans to begin mass-producing and exporting hydrogen overseas to Asian markets within five years.

    Aqua Aerem co-founder and CEO Gerard Reiter said the project offered “the most direct, cost-effective route to Asian export markets”.

    Construction on the project is scheduled to start next year, with production to begin in 2023. ABC

  • Today marks the 84th month of former STV head’s imprisonment on “terror” charges

    Today marks the 84th month of former STV head’s imprisonment on “terror” charges

    Today marks the 84th month of imprisonment of Hidayet Karaca, former chief executive of the Samanyolu Media Group, on terror charges.

    According to tweets posted by his son, Sıdkı, Hidayet Karaca has been in İstanbul’s Silivri Prison for a total of 2557 days. 1496 of those days were in solitary confinement.

    “As of today, he is in the 84th month (2557 days) of his imprisonment” Sıdkı tweeted.

    Hidayet Karaca has been held in the notorious Silivri Prison in İstanbul since December 14, 2014 and was sentenced by an İstanbul court to 31 years, six months’ imprisonment over the scenario of a TV series that was broadcast by Samanyolu TV. Karaca was sentenced on charges of membership in a terrorist organization for his alleged ties to the Gülen movement and for allegedly slandering the al-Qaeda-affiliated radical Islamist group Tahşiyeciler.

    In June 2018 the Ankara 4th High Criminal Court handed down an aggravated life sentence to Karaca on charges of attempting to overturn the constitutional order. His sentence was later upheld by the 20th Criminal Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court of Justice in November 2020 as part of a case that was launched against 75 people accused of links to the faith-based movement inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen group 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 locked up thousands including many prosecutors, judges and police officers involved in the investigation as well as journalists who reported on them.

    Erdoğan intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The crackdown also targeted political opponents of the government, Kurdish activists and human rights defenders, among others. Gülen denies involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

  • Working for Gülen-linked media, doubting gov’t coup story not grounds for terror charges: ECtHR

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled in the case of prominent journalist Nazlı Ilıcak that working for media outlets close to the Gülen movement and expressing doubts about the Turkish government’s narrative on an attempted coup are not plausible grounds for terrorism-related charges, Turkish Minute reported on Tuesday.

    The ECtHR has faulted Turkey for violating Ilıcak’s rights to liberty and security as well as freedom of expression, stating that the charges that led to her imprisonment for more than three years are not plausible.

    Ilıcak (77), was taken into custody on July 26, 2016, ten days after a failed coup, after which the Turkish government started a crackdown on civil society, purging state institutions and rounding up tens of thousands under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.

    Membership in a terrorist organization and participating in the attempted coup were the accusations lodged against Ilıcak, who was later arrested.

    The grounds of the charges were that she was working at that time in media outlets considered close to the Gülen movement, a faith-based group accused by Ankara of orchestrating the abortive putsch, and had posted tweets on July 15 and 16, 2016 in which she had questioned government’s coup narrative and expressed doubts that the Gülen movement was behind the attempt.

    Ilıcak was initially convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, but the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeals and, after a retrial, she was sentenced to eight years, nine months, this time “for voluntarily aiding and abetting a terrorist organization without holding membership in it.” She was released by the court under judicial supervision in November 2019, and in April 2021 the top appeals court again overturned Ilıcak’s conviction. The criminal proceedings are still ongoing.

    The ECtHR issued the ruling by six votes to one and said there had been no plausible reason to suspect Ilıcak of committing the offenses, noting that her writings on which the charges had been based concerned matters of public interest and fell within the scope of freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

    The ECtHR held that authorities’ accusations of terrorist activities could not be based on the applicant’s work as a journalist in certain media outlets and “on her tweets expressing doubts about the possible perpetrators of the attempted coup.”

    The Strasbourg court ordered Turkey to pay Ilıcak 16,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages.

    Following the coup attempt in July 2016 that claimed the lives of more than 250 civilians, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government intensified its crackdown on media outlets and journalists critical of it under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.

    Turkey, which has dropped precipitously since it was ranked 100th among 139 countries when Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published its first worldwide index in 2002, the year the AKP came to power, was ranked 153rd out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

    Crackdown on Gülen movement

    Turkey’s AKP government launched a war against the Gülen movement, a worldwide civic initiative inspired by the ideas of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, following corruption investigations in late 2013 that implicated then-prime minister and current President Erdoğan’s close circle.

    The war against the movement culminated after the attempted coup because Erdoğan and his AKP government accused the movement of masterminding the abortive putsch and initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

    Although both Gülen and the members of his group strongly deny any involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activities, Erdoğan’s AKP has detained a total of 319,587 people while jailing 99,962 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 Interior Ministry data. SCF

  • Journalist Hasan Cemal faces 8 years in prison on Erdoğan insult charges

    Veteran journalist Hasan Cemal is facing eight years in prison charges of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for two tweets he posted in 2016 and 2020, the T24 news website reported on Friday.

    The first tweet mentioned in the indictment was shared four days after a controversial coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016. In the tweet Cemal had said, “The criterion for being a democrat is not only to stand against a military coup. It is also to say no to a deepening ‘ERDOĞAN COUP’.”

    The second tweet referenced in the indictment is a comment on an opinion piece by Professor Murat Belge titled “The Caliphate.” Sharing the link to the piece, Cemal had said, “If the caliphate is to return, I suppose the caliph will be Tayyip Erdoğan.”

    In his first testimony in October, Cemal, who writes for T24 news website, said the tweets do not contain any insults and that he was exercising his right to freedom of expression.

    In addition to a prison sentence, the prosecutor also demanded a ban on certain civil rights including voting and running for office.

    Insulting the president is subject to criminal charges under the controversial Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), and thousands of people in the country are under investigation, with most of them facing the threat of imprisonment over alleged insults of Erdoğan. Whoever insults the president can face up to four years in prison, a sentence that can be increased if the crime was committed through the mass media.

    The insult cases generally stem from social media posts shared by Erdoğan opponents. The Turkish police and judiciary perceive even the most minor criticism of Erdoğan or his government as an insult. SCF

  • Turkish prosecutors ordered detention of 149 people over alleged Gülen links in a week

    Turkish prosecutors ordered detention of 149 people over alleged Gülen links in a week

    Turkish prosecutors have over the past week ordered the detention of 149 people on terrorism charges due to their alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, local media reported.

    On Monday the İstanbul and Kars public prosecutors issued detention warrants for 51 suspects, including active duty officers, noncommissioned officers and former military cadets.

    On Tuesday prosecutors in Ankara issued detention warrants for 37, including officers and former military cadets, on accusations of secretly communicating with their contacts within the Gülen movement via payphones.

    An additional 32 detention warrants were issued in Kayseri, Samsun, Edirne, Bursa and Manisa provinces on Wednesday.

    On Friday detention warrants were issued for 29 individuals by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and 24 were detained for alleged links to the Gülen movement.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, 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 an abortive putsch that he accused Gülen of masterminding.

    The so-called “payphone investigations” are based on call records. The prosecutors assume that a member of the Gülen movement used the same payphone to call all his contacts consecutively. Based on that assumption, when an alleged member of the movement is found in call records, it is assumed that other numbers called right before or after that call also belong to people with Gülen links. Receiving calls from a payphone periodically is also considered a red flag.

    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 were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

    A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Nov. 22.

    In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown. SCF

  • Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce tests positive for COVID-19 in US

    Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce has tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in the United States.

    Mr Joyce told ABC Radio New England he had been experiencing mild symptoms and chose to get tested.

    “Look, obviously [I am] very frustrated I’m going to be locked up in a room by myself for 10 days, but that’s part of the process,” he said.

    “It’s probably developing, I’m probably very much in the early stages — but I’m more worried about being in a room by myself to be honest.”

    Mr Joyce is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

    He said he had felt tired and pain in his legs, but that the illness was so mild he was uncertain whether he was even sick.

    “I don’t feel that bad, that’s the crazy thing,” Mr Joyce told Sky.

    “If I can just work out which channel has the cricket on it, I’ll be so much better.”
    The Deputy Prime Minister was in Washington DC for work relating to the government’s plan for new social media regulations, and was previously in the United Kingdom before arriving in the US.

    Mr Joyce said he was disappointed he would be unable to consult with his US counterparts on the matter.

    “Part of your job is you have got to travel … I really wanted to follow up on some of this online stuff, try to get better online protection laws and see where the United States are,” he said.

    “But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
    Mr Joyce said that, despite his infection, he would continue to advocate for a return to normalcy where COVID-19 could be treated like the flu through regular vaccinations.

    Asked whether he knew which variant of COVID-19 he was infected with, Mr Joyce joked he would “have to talk to it tonight and find out which one it is”.

    “It’s just me and Omicron in this room, I’ll have a yarn to it tonight.”

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had spoken to Mr Joyce this morning and wished him well.

    “He tells me he’s feeling all right, apart from the mild illness, and he has been vaccinated — what we do know already is that the vaccinations do have an impact on the seriousness of the disease,” Mr Morrison said.

    “And that’s why it’s so important to get vaccinated.

    “We look forward to his recovery.”

    Australia’s ambassador in Washington, Arthur Sinodinos, met with Mr Joyce at his hotel last night and is now self-isolating.

    He said Mr Joyce had not appeared unwell.

    Mr Joyce said other members of the delegation had all tested negative for COVID-19. ABC

  • Main opposition leader visits Şenyaşar family members, who have been demanding justice in political murder case

    The leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, on Thursday visited members of the Şenyaşar family, who have been demanding justice for three of their relatives murdered by people connected to a lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkish media reported.

    Kılıçdaroğlu visited the family in front of a courthouse in Şanlıurfa province where they have been staging a sit-in for the past 276 days. Speaking to the press next to Emine Şenyaşar, the mother of some of the victims, Kılıçdaroğlu said this wasn’t an ordinary case.

    “This is the struggle of a mother who lost her husband and children,” he said. “Everyone needs to support this mother. How can we be deaf to the cries of a mother?”

    Kılıçdaroğlu promised Emine Şenyaşar that he and his party would be following the case until justice is served.

    Emine’s husband, Esvet Şenyaşar, and two of their sons, Adil and Celal, were brutally murdered on June 14, 2018 in Şanlıurfa province.

    They were initially attacked in their store and taken to a hospital. However, they were followed by the family of AKP deputy İbrahim Halil Yıldız to the hospital, where they were ultimately murdered. Eight more people were injured during clashes between the two groups. An older brother of Yıldız was also killed.

    According to Ferit Şenyaşar, bullets from 17 different guns were retrieved from the body of one of his brothers.

    Two Şenyaşar brothers, Ferit and Fadıl, who were injured but survived, were later detained, and Fadıl Şenyaşar was arrested. However, none of Yıldız’s relatives or his bodyguards were detained despite the fact that three people had died.

    Only 15 months later, on September 18, 2020, was Yıldız’s older brother Enver Yıldız arrested.

    The Yıldız family claimed the Kurdish Şenyaşar family had links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and that they had been victims of terrorism. SCF