Iranian man held by police after neighbours said display of UK flag a provocative act
Authorities in Turkey have detained a man for hanging a towel emblazoned with the British union jack flag from a building during a public holiday.
The Iranian man was detained on Tuesday in the central Turkish city of Kayseri following complaints from neighbours who deemed the display of the design to be a provocative act.
Continue reading...In a country highly polarised along political and religious lines the symbol has become another cultural battleground
Like many children across the world sent home from school, youngsters in Turkey were encouraged to draw pictures of rainbows and place them in windows to cheer up the country in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Orders to teachers from some local education boards to stop because the rainbows were part of a “plot” to turn children gay were met with surprise.
Instead of boosting morale, the lockdown rainbows have become yet another symbol of division, the latest cultural battleground in a country highly polarised along political and religious lines.
Continue reading...Collapsing economy and rising death toll could prove downfall of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is a populist juggernaut, fond of suggesting that his leadership is the only way to protect the country from enemies both real and imagined. The coronavirus pandemic, however, is an existential crisis unlike anything he has faced before.
“Erdoğan has gradually managed to reform Turkey’s constitution, consolidating power into the presidency’s hands,” said Nate Schenkkan, the director for special research at Freedom House, a US-based democracy watchdog.
Continue reading...First the asylum seekers were used to further Turkey’s regional ambitions, now they are made to suffer in quarantine camps
At the beginning of March, thousands of refugees gathered in the shadow of the Pazarkule border gate in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he would “open the gate” to Europe.
The move was a reaction to the killing of 33 Turkish soldiers in Idlib province on 28 February and designed to exert pressure on the EU and Nato to support its military operation in northern Syria.
Continue reading...Health department understood to be returning shipment of PPE and seeking refund
Last month, amid dire warnings of shortages of personal protective equipment for health workers, ministers publicised the imminent arrival from Turkey of a fleet of RAF cargo planes bringing in a “very significant” shipment of PPE for the NHS.
Related: Picnics and sunbathing on cards as PM expected to allow more time outside
Continue reading...Young people likely to challenge Islam and see themselves as less religious than previous generations
Twenty-two-year old Esra, from Mersin, is even more bored than usual this Ramadan. Universities are shut and Turkey has taken the unusual step of placing under-20s, as well as over-65s, under a night-time curfew, because many Turkish families live in intergenerational households.
As a result, Esra can’t see any of her friends. And a few days into the Muslim month of fasting, like many young people, she is now feeling even more suffocated by the religious restrictions imposed by her pious parents.
Continue reading...The blast in a market in Afrin came as people went shopping in preparartion of breaking the Ramadan fast, says US and Syrian Observatory
A fuel truck bomb in a market in northern Syria killed at least 46 people including Turkish-backed rebel fighters, according to US officials and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The blast on Tuesday in Afrin, a city controlled by Ankara’s proxies, came as people went shopping in preparation to break the Ramadan fast, according to the US state department, which condemned the attack as a “cowardly act of evil”.
Continue reading...Ankara bans UK publication’s Turkish-language site over its links to Riyadh
The Independent has found itself caught in a bizarre tit-for-tat press freedom war between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, after the British publication’s Turkish-language site was banned by authorities in Ankara over its links to Riyadh.
The move comes shortly after Turkish authorities charged 20 Saudis over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, an incident that soured relations between the two countries.
Continue reading...Saudia Arabia religious body urges all Muslims to pray at home during Ramadan; Spanish PM seeks lockdown extension
Lockdowns across Europe have had a dramatic impact on air traffic, with 90% fewer flights taking off from the continent’s largest airports compared to a year ago
Wearing face masks, waving black flags and keeping two yards apart, thousands of Israelis demonstrated against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu under strict coronavirus restrictions on Sunday.
Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, is under criminal indictment in three corruption cases.
Continue reading...Preserved cargoes of vessels linking eastern cultures with western Europe show ‘the barbarian Orient’ was a trendsetter
For almost seven decades archaeologists have searched the eastern Mediterranean in vain for wrecks that sank along antiquity’s mighty shipping lanes.
Now, though, a British-led team can reveal a spectacular discovery – a fleet of Hellenistic, Roman, early Islamic and Ottoman wrecks that were lost some two kilometres below the waves of the Levantine Basin between the 3rd century BC and the 19th century.
Continue reading...For the first time, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has directly accused Syria’s leadership of ordering illegal attacks on its people
There is a temptation, to which some European governments and politicians are prey, to imagine that Syria’s civil war is over. It would, after all, be politically convenient if the millions of refugees languishing in Turkey and Jordan were to go home, rather than serve as a constant reminder of the EU’s chronic fear of migrants.
An end to the war would remove a prime cause of instability in the Levant and eastern Mediterranean region. Russia and Iran would have less excuse to play games of geopolitical chance with civilian lives. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s irascible president, would have less to complain about.
Continue reading...Singer Helin Bolek, 28, of Grup Yorum, was protesting against government’s treatment of group
A member of a popular folk music group that is banned in Turkey has died on the 288th day of a hunger strike. The singer and a colleague had started the strike while imprisoned to protest at the government’s treatment of their band, according to a post on the group’s Twitter account.
Grup Yorum, known for their protest songs, said Helin Bolek, 28, had died on Friday at a home in Istanbul where she had been staging the hunger strike in an attempt to pressure the government into reversing its position on the band and its members.
Continue reading...Government’s critics not among 90,000 inmates eligible for early release due to coronavirus
Anger is growing in Turkey that while the government is preparing to grant amnesties to up to one third of the country’s prison population in order to combat the coronavirus pandemic, jailed human rights activists, journalists and opposition politicians will not be among those considered for early release.
The Turkish parliament discussed a legal amendment on Tuesday which should make 90,000 of the country’s approximately 300,000 prisoners eligible for either house arrest or parole by halving sentences for offences including non pre-mediatated murder and organised crime. Early drafts of the bill, which would also have covered sex offenders and those convicted of gender-based violence, were dropped after being met with outrage from women’s rights groups.
Continue reading...Two allies of crown prince among suspects charged over killing of dissident journalist
Turkish prosecutors have formally charged 20 Saudi nationals over the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018, including two men close to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
The former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and former deputy head of intelligence Ahmed al-Asiri were among the suspects charged with “instigating a premeditated murder with the intent of [causing] torment through fiendish instinct”, the office of the Istanbul chief prosecutor, Irfan Fidan, said on Wednesday. Assisted by three intelligence officers, a team of 15 men then travelled to Istanbul and carried out Qatani and Asiri’s orders, the statement said.
Continue reading...Border issue and other matters discussed in conference call with Germany, France and UK
Turkey has pressed European leaders to make fresh cash pledges to prevent tens of thousands of refugees from leaving the country and trying to reach Europe amid a Russian-Syrian offensive in north-west Syria.
After intense bombardment in Idlib province last month, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, encouraged thousands of refugees in the country to move on towards the Greek islands and the Baltics, in a repeat of the surge to Europe in 2015.
Continue reading...Greek PM tells the Guardian planned talks including Merkel, Macron and Erdoğan are an opportunity to ‘set the record straight’
Greece is hoping critical talks between the EU and Ankara will help ease the border crisis that has weighed heavily on the country since Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, declared he had “opened the gates” to Europe for migrants and refugees.
In an exclusive interview, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said planned talks between the German and French leaders on one hand, and Erdoğan on the other, on Tuesday would be an opportunity to finally “set the record straight”.
Continue reading...Turkish leader repeats unproven claims of killings by Greek forces and says border will stay open
Turkey’s president has likened Greece’s treatment of refugees and migrants at its borders to Nazi atrocities, reigniting tensions between Athens and Ankara before a visit by EU officials to the Greek capital.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said alleged abuses against people who had amassed at the two nations’ land frontier were comparable to tactics employed by Hitler’s troops during the second world war.
Continue reading...Brussels agrees to rehouse up to 1,500 children as conditions in Greek camps deteriorate
EU leaders in Brussels held “frank” talks with president Recep Tayyip Erdoğanon Monday over his decision to open Turkey’s border to migrants travelling to Europe, as deteriorating conditions in Greek camps led to the bloc agreeing to rehouse up to 1,500 child refugees.
The presidents of the European commission and council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, sought a way to save the current migration deal with Turkey during difficult discussions with Erdoğan in Brussels.
Continue reading...People around the world marked International Women's Day on Sunday with rallies, marches and protests. In London, topless protesters formed a human chain on Waterloo bridge to highlight the vulnerability of women in the face of the climate crisis. In Kyrgyzstan, dozens of protesters were arrested after masked men attacked them at a rally for gender equality. On the Greek-Turkish border, asylum seekers marched to demand entry into the EU
Continue reading...Teargas fired by both sides amid political standoff over people displaced by war in Syria
The EU has told migrants in Turkey that Europe’s doors are closedas Greek and Turkish police fired teargas at their shared border amid growing tensions over the plight of Syria’s refugees.
In a blunt message, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said: “Don’t go to the border. The border is not open. If someone tells you that you can go because the border is open … that is not true.
Continue reading...