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ErdoFascism turks In Their Natural Behavior

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#201 Yervant1

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Posted 02 January 2021 - 08:03 AM

Breitbart
Jan 1 2021
 
 
Turkey to Turn Armenian Church into ‘Humor Art Center’ 78 cdab0c70766dffc1dfab595fce2c7370517cdb72 TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE/AFP/File Mustafa Kamaci
Frances Martel 1 Jan 202157
 

The local government in south-central Konya, Turkey, announced this week that it would turn a fully renovated 19th-century Armenian church into a “humor art house” after barring worshippers from using the church for years, multiple reports revealed Thursday.

 

Under Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish government has aggressively targeted its Christian minority community and attempted to erase Christian heritage in the country. Erdogan’s most prominent attempt to erase the Christian history of Turkey occurred last year, when he converted the Hagia Sophia, one of Byzantine Christianity’s most important architectural facilities, into a mosque. The conversion process involved removing or covering up priceless Christian art in the former basilica.

Erdogan — who, like all Turkish leaders, denies the 1915 genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks by Turkey occurred — has also escalated aggression against both ethnic Armenians within Turkey and the nation of Armenia. In September, after fighting erupted between Armenian and Azerbaijan in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Erdogan’s government reportedly recruited thousands of battle-hardened Syrian mercenaries to fight in the Caucasus war theater. Erdogan attended a “victory parade” in Baku in December alongside Azeri President Ilham Aliyev to celebrate the expulsion of the indigenous Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to the Stockholm Center for Freedom, a news organization founded by dissident Turkish journalists, the Surp Yerrortutyun (Holy Trinity) Armenian church was built in 1859 and boasts an official cultural heritage site designation in Turkey. The Turkish government reportedly used the church’s location — the hometown of a medieval Turkish “satirist” — as reason to renovate the church, turning it into the “World’s Masters of Humor Art House” and the hub of a greater “humor village.” The government has not yet announced a reopening date for the venue.

“Restoration” of the church cost about half a million dollars and ended in 2017, but Turkish officials did nothing with the venue until now and did not allow Christians to pray in it.

 

It is not clear at press time how many Christians live in the area; the Stockholm Center noted an estimated 5,000 Armenians lived in the vicinity around the church historically, prior to the 1915 genocide. PanArmenian.net, a news site that caters to the Armenian community, noted in its report on the Holy Trinity church that, prior to the genocide, “there were four other Armenian educational institutions in the district. Among them, the Surp Stepanos School was famous in all provinces for its superior education quality.”

International Christian Concern, a faith-based human rights organization, condemned the Turkish government on Thursday for its repurposing of the house of worship.

“The 1915 genocide nearly eliminated the Armenian Christian population from Turkey. Since then, Turkey has taken control over most of the abandoned churches and other Armenian cultural sites,” the group said in a statement. “Turkey does not acknowledge the genocide, and has not made any attempts to restore these churches back to their original Christian community.”

“Instead, Turkey either converts these churches into mosques or restores their buildings into faith tourism sites. When pursuing the later option, Turkey uses it as an example to the international arena about how they care for religious freedom,” the statement concluded, adding that turning churches into tourism sites complicates Christians’ ability to worship there.

The Armenian Genocide is estimated to have killed 1.5 million of the 2 million Armenians estimated to have been alive at the time.

 

 

 

Erdogan has repeatedly denied the genocide happened and his officials have taken several recent opportunities to threaten the descendants of the few Armenians Turkey did not kill during that atrocity. In July, for example, the Turkish government — a U.S. ally through NATO — offered Azerbaijan advanced military technology to attack Armenia.

“Our armed unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition and missiles with our experience, technology, and capabilities are at Azerbaijan’s service,” İsmail Demir, the head of Presidency of Defense Industries, a government-related entity, said in July.

 

Demir made his offer after the Azeri defense ministry threatened to bomb Armenia’s Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant, a Soviet relic widely considered the world’s most dangerous nuclear plant.

“The Armenian side must not forget that our army’s state-of-the-art missile systems allow us to strike the Metsamor nuclear plant with precision, which could lead to a great catastrophe for Armenia,” Vagif Dargahli, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said the same week Turkey offered Azerbaijan missiles.

In September, fighting erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh. The region, which Armenians refer to as Artsakh, is a historic, indigenous Armenian territory given to the Azeri Soviet Socialist Republic under Joseph Stalin. While technically within Azerbaijan’s borders, it had been ruled by an ethnic Armenian separatist government since the fall of the Soviet Union. The state of Armenia does not recognize Artsakh as a sovereign state.

 

 

Both sides claimed the other triggered the fighting this year. The Artsakh government, and the Armenian government, accused the Azeris of committing several human rights violations in battle, including beheading civilians and targeting maternity hospitals. Turkey offered military aid to Azerbaijan but did not formally send Turkish troops to the region. Armenian government officials estimated, however, that Turkey sent as many as 4,000 Syrian mercenary jihadists into Nagorno-Karabakh to attack the Christian-majority ethnic Armenians there.

The fighting ended with a peace treaty that gave Azerbaijan not just control of Nagorno-Karabakh, but power over sovereign Armenian territory, prompting widespread protests in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

The Azeris organized a “victory parade” following the peace deal, inviting Erdogan. Speaking at the event, Erdogan threatened the Armenian people once more.

“Azerbaijan’s saving its lands from occupation does not mean that the struggle is over,” Erdogan said. “The struggle carried out in the political and military areas will continue from now on many other fronts.”

 

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#202 Yervant1

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Posted 03 January 2021 - 08:02 AM

Arab News

Turkey’s academic freedom under spotlight with new appointment

Jan. 2, 2021

ANKARA: Academic freedom in Turkey was dealt a huge blow with a
politically motivated appointment to one of the country’s handful of
independent universities, Bogazici University, which is more than 150
years old.

By presidential decree the current rector of the university was
replaced on the first night of the year with a political figure who
was a candidate standing for the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP) during the previous general and local elections.

The new rector, Melih Bulu, was a founding member of a district branch
of the AKP. Over the past year, 27 rectors have been appointed by the
president.

Bogazici University, overlooking the Bosphorus, was founded in 1863,
the first American higher education institution to be established
outside the US. It has more than 15,000 students and six campuses on
the European side of Istanbul.

This latest appointment symbolizes the increased politicization of
Turkish universities, along with an alarming trend of keeping the
critical voices in media, civil society and academia under the
control.

“President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tightened his control over the
higher education system in Turkey,” Berk Esen, a political scientist
at Sabanci University in Istanbul, told Arab News.

As Erdogan has repeatedly stated that his party has not yet gained
hegemony over education and culture, Esen thinks that such moves can
be seen as deliberate attempts to change this situation.

He said Erdogan's decision to appoint Melih Bulu as rector is
especially worrisome for several reasons.

“Bogazici is one of the best universities in the country and employs
some of Turkey's most respected academics in various fields. In the
past, President Erdogan refrained from appointing outsiders as rectors
to prominent universities in the country,” he said.

“Our country needs free academia, free scientists and productive
students. This freedom and productivity cannot be achieved by
appointing trustees. We want a free academia,” tweeted Ali Babacan,
the leader of breakaway DEVA party.

Students of the university, who are known for their high political
awareness, protested under the Twitter hashtag
#KayyumRektorIstemiyoruz (We don’t want a trustee rector).

In 2018, several anti-war students were arrested after a police raid
in their houses and dormitories after they staged a peaceful
demonstration in the university campus against Turkey’s military
campaigns in Syria. They were criticized by President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan as being “communist, terrorist youth” in a public speech.

“It is impossible to have competitive universities on a global level
and students who express themselves freely if you bring rectors to the
universities in a top-down fashion. You cannot get success with such a
mentality,” said Burak Dalgin, a founding member of DEVA who is also a
graduate of Bogazici University.

Dalgin studied at Bogazici University in the mechanical engineering
department between 1995 and 1999 before starting to work in the
investment sector.

“Despite the shortcomings of Turkish democracy in the past, the school
was still a safe haven for personal liberty,” he said.

Traditionally the candidate with the highest share of votes in the
university elections became the rector of Bogazici University.

As the outgoing Bogazici rector is a professor at the university and
briefly worked as vice-rector before taking on the top job, Esen said
this recent move breaks with such precedent.

“Melih Bulu comes from outside the ranks of the Bogazici University
and many have questioned whether he even has the academic credentials
to work at Bogazici, let alone become rector. Also, his close
connections to the AKP Istanbul branch will call into question his
impartiality towards critics of the government among the academic
staff and the student body,” he said.

According to Esen, this latest decision to appoint a political crony
will further contribute to the culture of fear that has permeated the
higher education system in Turkey and significantly harm academic
freedoms.

“There is now widespread fear that universities will turn into sites
for Erdogan to reward his party stalwarts,” he said.

Another presidential decree last year led to the closure of Sehir
University, a private university in Istanbul linked to former prime
minister and political rival Ahmet Davutoglu, making jobless all its
academic staff, many of whom had taken a critical political stance
over recent years.

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#203 Yervant1

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Posted 03 January 2021 - 08:10 AM

Jerusalem Post

Turkey’s goal in Caucasus was to increase Russia’s role

[While Turkey frequently spreads misinformation via its state media,
imprisons journalists and dissidents and bashes the US, it is growing
closer to Russia.]

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
JANUARY 2, 2021

Turkey and Russia are increasingly becoming strategic partners in an
effort to work with Iran and remove the US from the Middle East. This
is Turkey’s overall goal, and the recent conflicts and chaos that it
has spread from Syria to Libya, the Mediterranean and Caucasus are
designed to partition these areas into Russian and Turkish spheres of
influence.

Turkey has encouraged its lobbyists in the US to claim that Ankara is
doing “geopolitics” designed to be a “bulwark” against Russia, using
Cold War-era terminology to encourage Westerners to believe that
Ankara is on the side of Washington against Moscow. The reality,
however, is that Turkey’s goal is to work with Russia and Iran to
reduce US influence.

This has been the result in every area that Ankara has invaded and
involved itself. Turkey worked with Russia to partition parts of
northern Syria, removing US forces and spreading extremism. In Libya,
a conflict that the US was once involved in has now become a
playground for Turkish-backed militias. The recent war between
Azerbaijan and Armenia was likewise designed to bring Turkey and
Russia into direct contact in the southern Caucasus, remove US
influence and partition the area.

Evidence for this can be found in the agreement to end the war that
saw Russian peacekeepers and soldiers increase their role in
Nagorna-Karabakh, an autonomous Armenian region in Azerbaijan. Turkey
prodded Baku into war against Armenians there, causing massive damage
and forcing 50,000 to flee.

For Turkey, the attacks on Armenian civilians were a success,
replicating Turkish-backed ethnic-cleansing in Afrin where Kurds were
expelled in January 2018. The model was the same in Nagorna-Karabakh.
Turkey sent extremists, accused of beheading people, to ransack
churches and force Armenians out. A hundred years after the Armenian
genocide carried out by the Ottoman regime in 2015, Turkey wanted to
continue the process. Much as in 1915, the goal would in the end would
bring renewed Russian involvement in the Caucasus.

RUSSIAN RESCUE workers have now reconstructed more than 2,150
buildings in Nagorna-Karabakh, according to Russia’s TASS media. "As
many as 251 buildings have been reconstructed so far, including an
apartment building, 245 private houses, two government buildings, an
infrastructure facility and two social facilities," the statement
reads.

Some 2,600 more buildings damaged in the war may now receive Russian
support. Russia views this as a kind of police action, going in to
stop squabbling by former Soviet socialist republics. This is how
Ankara views the region as well: from the Ottoman empire's point of
view. That is why Turkey keeps talking about rewriting the Lausanne
Treaty and other agreements made after the First World War. Ankara’s
invasion of Syria and setting up a dozen bases in northern Iraq, as
well as involvement in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, is part of
this.

Turkey sells its involvement with different public relations campaigns
in different places. In Washington it sells this as “geopolitics,”
pretending to be a US ally. In fact, Turkey is rapidly buying Russian
arms.

Turkey and Russia met in the Russian resort city of Sochi last week to
talk strategy. Turkey’s state media says “the top Turkish and Russian
diplomats met Tuesday to discuss international issues and help prepare
for a meeting of the two countries’ presidents. Turkish foreign
minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with his Russian counterpart Sergey
Lavrov in Sochi, ahead of a planned meeting of the high-level
Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council, set to be co-chaired by their
presidents.”

WHILE TURKEY frequently spreads misinformation via its state media,
imprisons journalists and dissidents and bashes the US, it is growing
closer to Russia. It is now four years since Russia’s ambassador to
Turkey was assassinated. That incident has been quietly pushed aside
in favor of the new alliance.

Turkey, Russia and Iran see this as a pragmatic working relationship,
growing out of the Astana process of 2016 that was supposed to carve
up Syria into areas of influence and remove the US from eastern Syria.
The end goal is the same: Remove the US and give each member of this
new alliance their respective area of control.

Turkey has tried to hint to Israel, as well as the US, that it wants
“reconciliation.” However when Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan
speaks, he continues his militarist drive. His sycophants despise the
US and Europe. They use the term “reconciliation” only because they
think gullible Western media will buy them time and perhaps an in with
the new US administration to continue their work with Russia and Iran.

The US once had a wider role in the Caucasus. Georgia expected
American support in 2008 when it wandered into a war with Russia over
disputed areas. When Georgia was defeated, the US and European role
there declined. Later in 2014, Ukraine expected more US support but
saw Russia annex Crimea.

The war that Turkey prodded Azerbaijan into in September last year was
the final end of US involvement in the Caucasus. While Turkey sold the
war as being needed to confront Iran and Russia, Ankara was in fact
working with Tehran and Moscow.

The goal was to bring Russia into the southern Caucasus as
peacekeepers and to remove any Western influence. This is because
Armenia had been seeking to drift away from the Russia orbit. Nikol
Pashinyan wanted to seek closer ties to the West. To break this,
Moscow allowed Turkish-backed Azerbaijan to launch a war to weaken him
in the summer and fall of 2019. Weakened and defeated, he sued for
peace – and Russia and Turkey moved into disputed areas with Baku’s
acquiescence.

Now Armenia is totally hostage to Moscow and Ankara. Turkey
wants this. Azerbaijan, which sought for decades to grow closer to the
US and also to Israel as a strategic partner, has now also seen itself
cornered by Ankara. The end result is more Iranian, Russian and
Turkish control, and a weakening of independent southern Caucasus
states.

WESTERN MEDIA is fed stories about how the Turkish-Iranian-Russian
triangle is destined to clash because of historic Ottoman, Persian and
Russian imperial goals, or because they are Sunni, Shi’ite and
Christian countries. This is a misreading of history. They are more
likely to work together against their common enemies in the West, and
to further their joint authoritarian and military agendas.

They share much in common as rising powers in the world, seeking to
end the unipolar world of US hegemony that grew out of the Cold War.
Those in Washington who see Turkey through a Cold War lens are wrong
about Turkey’s overall agenda. The agenda of Ankara is always to
weaken and reduce the US role in the Middle East and to increase the
Russian and Iranian role. In every invasion Ankara has performed so
far, it has sought to increase Russia and Iran’s power – and to not
only weaken America, but to also weaken any groups that want democracy
or a more free press, and to bring in extremists and authoritarians.

John F. Kennedy in 1960 argued that the world was not just divided
into a Soviet and American camp, but rather those countries that were
“free” as opposed to those who aren't. He understood that
authoritarians prefer to work together; that is what is happening in
the Caucasus.


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#204 Yervant1

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Posted 04 January 2021 - 08:26 AM

Weekly Blitz
Jan 3 2021
 
 
 
Armenian churches under attack by Azerbaijanians and Turkey
 
Armenian-churches-under-attack-by-Azerba 
Published on January 4, 2021
 
Uzay Bulut
 
While many historic churches across Turkey are systematically used for sacrilegious purposes, churches in the Azerbaijani occupied-Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucuses) are bombed. Their statues, bell towers and other symbols are destroyed, bulldozed or vandalized by Azerbaijani forces.
 
Churches and other elements of Armenian cultural heritage in the parts of Artsakh that are now occupied by Azerbaijan have been attacked by Muslim Azeris. The Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi, also known as Holy Savior Cathedral, for instance, was severely damaged from two air raids conducted by the Azerbaijani military on October 8. Videos of the destruction reveal extensive external and internal ruin. This includes broken pews, scattered rubble and a partially collapsed ceiling, reported the Armenian Weekly.
 
From September 27 to November 10, Azerbaijan targeted Armenians in the Armenian Republic of Artsakh throughout its invasion campaign of the region with the support of Turkey and Al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters imported from Syria.
 
Through a deal brokered by Russia and imposed on Armenia on November 9, parts of Artsakh were granted to Azerbaijan. War crimes committed by the Azerbaijani government during that period – such as indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, beheadings of civilians and prisoners of war, and the destruction of Armenian graves – are widely documented.
 
For instance, some of the crimes committed against churches by Azeri forces from November 12 to 19 included:
 
One of the angel statues at Ghazanchetsots was destroyed and Ghazanchetsots was desecrated with graffiti. Garegin Njdeh statue and the cross on Mekhavan’s St. Zoravor Astvatsatsin church were also destroyed by Azerbaijani soldiers. The Statue of Vazgen Sargsyan was vandalized. Another statue in Artsakh was bulldozed and bell towers of Kanach Zham bell was destroyed.
 
Yet the international community has remained deaf and blind in the face of these blatant crimes and Azerbaijan remains a proud perpetrator. On December 23, the Armenian media reported:
 
All previous attempts to involve UNESCO in preservation of cultural heritage within the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have been thwarted by Azerbaijan, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anna Naghdalyan said.
 
The comments come after the UNESCO Secretariat publicly announced that only Azerbaijan has not responded on sending an expert mission of UNESCO to the Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent areas, in fact, clearly highlighting Azerbaijan’s destructive approach.
 
“Let me remind that upon the request of the Armenian side regarding the barbaric destruction of the cross-stones (khachkars) in Old Jugha, UNESCO expressed readiness to visit the region, but it was rejected by Azerbaijan,” the Spokesperson added.
 
Meanwhile, violations against historic churches across Turkey are ongoing. The Surp Yerrortutyun Church in the Aksehir district of the province of Konya in Turkey has been converted into a “cultural center,” the weekly Armenian newspaper Agos reported on December 28. The church is known as one of the once largest Armenian churches in Anatolia.
 
The former church will be used as the “The Art House of Humor Masters of the World.” The official date of the opening has not yet been announced.
 
The Aksehir district no longer has an Armenian Christian population because of the 1914-23 Christian genocide by Ottoman Turkey, in which around 1,5 million Armenians perished. Around 1 million Greeks and Assyrians also lost their lives during the same genocide.
 
According to professor Raymond Kevorkian’s book Armenians in the Ottoman Empire Before 1915, an approximately 4, 950 Armenians lived in Akşehir, Konya before the genocide. In addition to the Surp Yerortutyun Church (built in 1859) there were also four Armenian educational institutions in the district. Among these schools, the Surp Istepannos School was famous in all provinces for its “superior education quality.”
 
Despite being a small and oppressed community today, Armenians are among the most ancient peoples of Asia Minor. What is now Turkey was colonized by the Turkic peoples originally from Central Asia during the eleventh century after the Seljuk Turks arrived in Asia Minor and vanquished the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Manzikert. Historian Raymond Ibrahim refers to the invasion of Manzikert as “the first genocide of Christian Armenians at the hands of Muslim Turks.”
 
Yet despite severe persecution and the second class “dhimmi” status, the presence of Armenians and other Christian peoples remained in the region during the Seljuk and later the Ottoman rule.
 
This situation dramatically changed when Armenians were targeted in massacres by Ottoman Turks and Kurds between 1894–96 and during the genocide of 1914-23. During these attacks, Armenian cultural heritage was also systematically violated. Author Raffi Bedrosyan writes in his 2011 article “Searching for Lost Armenian Churches and Schools in Turkey”:
 
Considering that every Armenian community invariably strove to build a school beside its church, how many Armenian schools were there in Turkey before 1915, and how many are there now? How many Armenian churches and schools are left standing now in Turkey is the easier part of the issue: There are only 34 churches and 18 schools left in Turkey today, mostly in Istanbul, with about less than 3,000 students in these schools. The challenging and frustrating issue is how many were there in the past.
 
Recent research pegs the number of Armenian churches in Turkey before 1915 at around 2,300. The number of schools before 1915 is estimated at nearly 700, with 82,000 students. These numbers are only for churches and schools under the jurisdiction of the Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate and the Apostolic Church, and therefore do not include the numerous churches and schools belonging to the Protestant and Catholic Armenian parishes. The American colleges and missionary schools, mostly attended by Armenian youth, are also excluded from these numbers. The number of Armenian students attending Turkish schools or small schools at homes in the villages are unknown and not included. Finally, these numbers do not include the churches and schools in Kars and Ardahan provinces, which were not part of Turkey until 1920, and were part of Russia since 1878.
 
As researchers are striving to determine the exact number of lost or stolen Armenian schools and churches in their ancient lands in Turkey, Armenian lives and their churches are currently being targeted and destroyed in Artsakh.
 
Turkey and Azerbaijan, two historic perpetrators of crimes against Christians, are once again brutalizing Armenians in the indigenous Armenian lands before the eyes of the entire world.
 
What are the Christians in the West and the global human rights community doing today to stop these crimes and demand security and basic human rights for the Armenian people?
 
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara.
 
 
 


#205 Yervant1

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Posted 04 January 2021 - 08:35 AM

Ahval

2020 was a year of multiple defeats for Turkey
By Haluk Özdalga
Jan 03 2021

This past year has been one of defeats and retreats in almost every
area for Turkey.

The country has turned into one of the darkest places on Earth with
respect to the rule of law and freedom of expression. Its contracting
economy has resulted in rampant and near-permanent poverty. Its
international relations have devolved into an eerie isolation. These
are not subjective expressions of pessimism; they are all based on
facts.

Turkey ranked 107th out of 128 countries in the Rule of Law Index for
2020, made by the World Justice Project, an internationally renowned
civil society organisation that advances the rule of law worldwide. If
you divide these countries into five groups, Turkey would be in the
bottom fifth.

Even worse, the same report ranks Turkey 124th for independent civil
and criminal courts systems, free from improper government influence.
The only four countries worse off than Turkey are Cameroon, Russia,
Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Turkey also ranks 154th among 180 countries in the 2020 World Press
Freedom Index. In a similar fashion, we are in the bottom fifth group
for free media.

One can see the many clear signs that we have dropped to the bottom
league. Despite binding provisions in the Constitution, lower courts
have refused to implement rulings by the Constitutional Court and the
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) due to political influence. A
well-known member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
said on a TV programme that “not even a child would write these
indictments” – yet people remain in prison over such indictments.

If a country’s democracy is only as good as the rule of law and media
freedom it maintains, then our democracy is also fifth-class.

The most striking feature of the Turkish economy in 2020 was that it
sank into a cycle of perpetual impoverishment.

The gross domestic product and income per capita have both continued
to drop in the last seven consecutive years, plummeting sharply in
2020. Between 2013 and 2020, one-third of the GDP disappeared,
dropping from $960 billion to $650 billion. Income per capita fell
from $12,500 to $7,800 in the same period.

Taking the increasing inflation rate into account, our welfare
declined by more than 40 percent in the last seven years, a first
since at least 1960. I couldn’t find another country in the World Bank
data base that experienced such a drop within the same period.

Turkey is paying for an ideological approach to the management of
economy. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said repeatedly that
“interest rate is the cause; inflation is the effect”. The Financial
Times estimated that the failed currency intervention has cost $140
billion over the past two years, putting currency reserves at minus
$50 billion.

Tax revenues don’t even cover salaries of civil servants, deficits in
social security and interest on debts, without payments on the
principal. Turkey needs foreign capital.

But when you have a fifth-class rule of law, serious investors may be
hard to come by.

An example of this was when Volkswagen liquidated its $1.4 billion
investment in the western Manisa province, despite the AKP government
providing the German automotive giant with generous subsidies.

Countries in similar situations often attract speculative investors
who make windfall profits via short-term market transactions and pull
out. As interest rates are suddenly raised, Turkey is now
unfortunately facing such a situation. Turkey will most probably
continue its descent into poverty in 2021.

Separately, the health minister said 50 million people will be
vaccinated to COVID-19 by the year’s end – too little, too late. We
have a population close to 90 million, including immigrants, but the
contracts signed for vaccine shipments don’t even cover the 50 million
as promised. Turkey's economy and tourism may suffer greatly in 2021
because of that.

In terms of international relations, Ankara faced such a heavy
isolation as never experienced before.

The AKP jumps into any conflict it comes across in the region, always
taking sides in a partisan way. No other country, big or small, does
that.

The ruling party also has a proclivity to employ military means with
ease – often before all diplomatic options are exhausted.

The primary factor that shapes AKP’s foreign policy is ideology rather
than national interest; it is comprised of pro-Muslim Brotherhood
(Ikhwan) ambitions in the Middle East and an ideologically motivated,
anti-West attitude in the West.

There are unresolved issues with Greece and Greek Cypriots that date
back to the years before the AKP. However, the ideological posture
adopted by the ruling party has resulted in a decline in relations
with many other countries: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Sudan, half of Libya, the
European Union, the United States and more.

The AKP is now trying to mend fences with Israel and Egypt, so far
without any known positive outcome. If the party's policies for Egypt
and Israel were right in the first place, why would it want to change
things?

Turkey's focus on EU membership has dissipated – even though it should
be a strategic priority for Ankara – simply because of the fifth-class
democracy the AKP has moulded.

These days, the ruling party has spoken about turning a new page with
the EU, making it appear like a fresh start for the ascension process.
Many Turkish commentators view it that way. The EU can’t ignore
Turkey, whatever its regime may be – a country with a population
approaching 90 million, adjacent to its borders. There must be some
form of relation between the two.

But for the European bloc, it is no longer a relationship with a
prospective member. The AKP has destroyed the road to EU membership.
It is over. Now, the new page is about defining the nature of new
EU-Turkey relations.

Another masterfully presented recent piece of discourse by the ruling
party is that its current engagement in ‘reforms for democracy and
rule of law’.

I recollect the famous dictum in the Italian author Giuseppe Tomasi’s
book “Il Gattopardo”: for everything to remain the same, everything
must change.

In a cunning way, the ruling party in Ankara is trying to implement
Tomasi’s dictum with some distortion: for everything to remain the
same, everything must seem to change.

I do wish you a healthy and prosperous 2021.

(The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do
not necessarily reflect those of Ahval.)

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#206 Yervant1

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Posted 05 January 2021 - 08:40 AM

Greek City Times
Jan 2 2021
 
 
 
Former U.S. diplomat: It is worth looking at restoring the Treaty of Sèvres
 
By Paul Antonopoulos
 
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A former U.S. diplomat tweeted that it is worth looking “at restoring the Treaty of Sèvres.”
 
Alberto Miguel Fernandez, a former U.S. diplomat, made the comment in a retweet of an Ahval article.
 
The article quoted Turkey’s Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez calling for the renegotiation of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty which set the borders of Greece and Turkey.
 
In response to the article, Fernandez said it is “certainly worth looking at restoring the Treaty of Sèvres in place of the Lausanne Treaty.”
 
The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres that preceded the Treaty of Lausanne had radically different borders for Turkey.
 
Eastern Anatolia and Pontus was to be within Armenia’s borders, an independent Kurdistan would be establishment, and the region of Smyrna (Σμύρνα, Turkish: İzmir) and most of eastern Thrace would unite with Greece.
 
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Turkey are so paranoid that the Treaty of Sèvres could return that there is the Sèvres Syndrome (Turkish: Sevr Sendromu), and the former diplomat’s tweet would have surely created irrational fear in Ankara.
 
Turkish historian Taner Akçam describes this syndrome as an ongoing perception that “there are forces which continually seek to disperse and destroy us, and it is necessary to defend the state against this danger.”
 
Historian Nick Danforth said that “Sèvres has been largely forgotten in the West, but it has a potent legacy in Turkey, where it has helped fuel a form of nationalist paranoia some scholars have called the ‘Sèvres syndrome’”.
 
  
 


#207 Yervant1

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Posted 14 January 2021 - 08:54 AM

Jerusalem Post
Jan 12 2021
 
 
Turkey’s blank check to invade countries may end with Trump - analysis
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN   JANUARY 12, 2021 22:19
 
 
Turkey fears President-elect Joe Biden and his incoming team may not take orders from Ankara and may not welcome its threats.
 
When US President Donald Trump won the election in 2016, many foreign countries wondered what kind of US foreign policy might be crafted by the new US administration. One country had already begun to put its eggs in the Trump basket.
 
Ankara’s regime led by the AKP Party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan saw Trump’s isolationism as a means to an end. Turkey would seek a blank check from friends in Washington to begin a massive campaign of militarism, aggression and ethnic cleansing of opponents in Syria and across the region.
 
Now things may be changing. US officials such as James Jeffrey and Joel Rayburn have departed their roles with the US State Department, signaling that key figures of the last years are gone. Turkey’s leader counted on having unfettered access to the Trump administration. Now there are shifting policies in DC.
 
Over the last four years Turkey was allowed, often with approval from the Trump administration, to attack protesters in Washington, invade Afrin in Syria, threaten NATO partners, host Hamas, recruit poverty-stricken Syrians as mercenaries, encourage a war against Armenians and even threaten US troops in Syria. Now Turkey’s key allies in Washington are leaving office, including envoys and friends in the State Department that empowered Ankara’s authoritarianism and aggression.
 
Turkey fears that President-elect Joe Biden and his incoming team may not take orders from Ankara and may not welcome its threats. Turkey has stopped its aggressive behavior since learning of Biden’s victory, sensing the blank check to attack others has been reduced.  
 
For years, Turkey had been shifting from its interest in joining the European Union, which would require it having a free press and respecting human rights, to becoming a more authoritarian state. Ankara is the largest jailor of journalists in the world today.
 
Up until 2016 regarding foreign policy, Turkey had been reticent to use force, preferring to have no enemies and work with countries across the region. Turkey’s AKP had even come to power seeking reconciliation with the country's Kurdish minority and with Armenia. Turkey had worked with Israel on discussions with Syria.
 
BY 2016 that had all changed. Turkey’s ruler was seeking absolute power, arresting opposition journalists and seeking to overturn election results that had enabled the opposition HDP Party to gain inroads in parliament and many municipalities. Trump would be the key to an unhinged Turkey, with no checks or balances on its behavior.
 
To get to Trump, Turkey operationalized its lobbyists in Washington and worked with key voices, from think tanks to right-wing friends, to get an invitation to DC. Erdogan arrived in May 2017. He felt so empowered by the White House that he sent presidential security to attack peaceful US protesters near the Turkish ambassador’s residence.
 
This was unprecedented in American history. Usually protests may be banned abroad, but protesters have a right to peacefully assemble in the US and protest foreign leaders. Now the message was that in the heart of Washington, Turkey had the run of things. Charges were dropped.  
 
The attack on the protesters came as Turkey was purging hundreds of thousands of civil servants and others, accusing them of being “terrorists” and “coup plotters.” Ankara’s friends in Washington also spread stories about a US “deep state,” the kind they alleged also existed in Turkey, and claimed this “deep state” was seeking to undermine Trump.
 
Meanwhile, a referendum in Turkey also gave the presidency more power. Ankara sought immediate access to Trump, first via his original National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, and then direct access. US National Security Advisor John Bolton would later reveal how the US administration appeared to take orders from Erdogan’s regime, including to drop a case against Turkey's large, state-owned Halkbank. These revelations alleged corruption and other elements at work, according to reports at the Washington Post, ABC and other news outlets.
 
In January 2018, Turkey recruited Syrian rebels to fight Kurds in Syria. It’s goal was to end the Syrian rebellion against Assad’s regime by co-opting Syrians to fight what Ankara claimed were “terrorists” in Syria. There were no “terrorists” in the Kurdish area of Afrin, but Turkey attacked the Syrian area, sent Syrian rebels to plunder it and then ethnically cleansed it of Kurds. Women were systematically removed from all government positions under Turkey’s occupation, and many women were kidnapped to secret prisons run by Turkey’s extremist allies in Syria.
 
THE DESTRUCTION of Afrin was only the first step. Turkey sensed the US administration was so pro-Turkey that Ankara could get the US to even abandon its partners in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces. Working with the US State Department, which wanted to humiliate the Pentagon and Central Command’s successful operations in eastern Syria, Turkey ordered Trump to withdraw US forces. Never in history had a US NATO ally threatened US troops and bombed its partner forces. But Ankara understood that this US administration would put Turkey first.  
 
To sell its foreign policy in DC circles, Turkey understood that right-wing voices in the US tended to be anti-Iran as well as critics of Obama’s policies. Ankara sold its attack on Kurds in Syria as a way to upend “Obama era policies.” Meanwhile, Turkey was working with Tehran and Moscow, buying the S-400 air defense system from Russia, and seeking a deal with Iran on Syria that would isolate America and not include US partner forces in Syria negotiations.
 
In DC, the Turkish lobby claimed that Ankara was a bulwark against Russia and confronting Iran. To Trump, Turkey had a different message: It would save the US money by dealing with ISIS. In fact, Ankara’s regime was dealing with ISIS by letting ISIS fighters transit through Turkey to Idlib in Syria, where Turkish-backed extremists operated.
 
Turkey’s policy in Syria – getting the US to withdraw from part of northern Syria in October 2019 – ended up with Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime gaining ground. Yet Ankara sold the policy as upending Obama’s policies and confronting Iran. Instead, US soldiers were ordered to withdraw and Kurdish civilians were bombed by Turkey.
 
Ankara’s threats continued in 2020. It hosted Hamas twice with red carpets for the terror group's leaders, as if they ran a foreign country; expelled 60 mayors from HDP cities; and handed journalists and opposition politicians decades-long prison sentences – all the while knowing that it had a blank check from Washington to crush dissent and threaten other countries. Turkey threatened Greece, claimed it would use Syrian refugees against Greece, harassed Greek ships, and then sent Syrians to fight in Libya, in violation of sanctions.
 
Then Turkey prodded Azerbaijan to attack Armenians in Nagorna-Karabakh. Under Turkey’s rampaging foreign policy at least 300,000 people have been ethnically cleansed in Syria in areas under Ankara’s occupation, and tens of thousands of Armenians have been ethnically cleansed in Nagorna-Karabakh. Kurds and Armenians have been murdered, beheaded and kidnapped. Ankara even fueled terror attacks in France by pushing incitement against Paris. It also accused Israel of being similar to Nazi Germany, and threatened to “liberate” Jerusalem from Israel’s control.  
 
MUCH OF Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian and militarist behavior was done with American support or acquiescence over the last several years, a major departure from usual US foreign policy. A less chaotic administration, in which the president doesn’t take phone calls and orders from Ankara, might have worked with its own Pentagon, State Department and allies when Turkey demanded US forces withdraw. Instead the White House twice announced withdrawals from Syria without even telling key US allies. The UK, France and Israel were left out of the loop, raising concerns.  
 
At the same time, a strategy was put in place by pro-Ankara political appointees at the US State Department. They wanted to sabotage what they saw as an Obama-era policy in Syria where the US was working with the SDF, mostly Kurdish forces, in eastern Syria.
 
How do you sabotage a successful counter-ISIS effort? First, they wanted Turkey to control policy in Syria. They also believed in Cold War-era thinking that Turkey was a “balance” to Russia, even though Ankara was increasingly allied with Moscow and Tehran against US policy in Syria. Third they wanted to empower extremists, because they believed US counter-terror strategy unfairly targeted Sunni fighters, and they wanted the US to target Shi’ite Iran.
 
Kurds, a peaceful minority subjected to abuses by the Assad regime and also by extremists, were a nuisance in their assessment. Geopolitics is about grand strategy; minority groups like Kurds who are “in the way” would be brushed aside, or genocided as they had been under the Saddam regime – a genocide the US neglected to condemn.  
 
TO DESTROY the SDF, the US political appointees at the State Department, working with Ankara, had to sideline both the forces and Central Command. They told the SDF to work with Damascus and that they had no future in Syria. They told them the US role in Syria was temporary, transactional and tactical. The SDF, taking a cue from Washington, opened talks with Damascus. This gave the pro-Turkey members of the State Department a way to then allege that the SDF was working with Assad and Iran. Now they could set in motion Turkey’s invasion of Syria, which was their end goal, to get the US behind Turkey’s role in Idlib and get the US out of eastern Syria.
 
Historically, US policymakers don't work to undermine America's own policies, remove US leverage and destroy a successful campaign, like the one in Syria. But Turkey's ability to get the White House to do its bidding led to a strange era between 2017 and 2019.
 
Once the SDF had been told the US would leave, the officials told the White House that the SDF was talking to Damascus and that it was an example of Obama-era Iran policy. Under this advice, the White House accepted Ankara’s logic. Ankara’s real goal, however, was to destroy the SDF, which it claimed was linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkey had crushed the PKK in 2015, but wanted to destroy Kurdish left-leaning groups in Syria as well. After the SDF stuck with the US in the wake of the invasion of Afrin, Kurds were promised by US officials that no more Afrins would happen.
 
Behind the scenes, however, a US political appointee brought Ankara maps of areas the US would give Turkey in eastern Syria. All Turkey had to do was demand the US withdraw. In the summer of 2019, Turkey’s threats grew and Central Command was told that it needed to get the SDF to assure Turkey there were no threats from Syria. The SDF complied and tore up military positions near the Turkish border.
 
What Central Command didn’t know was that in the State Department and White House, work with Ankara was ongoing to invade Syria. Central Command was duped along with the SDF into believing that if they just removed some bunkers, this would build confidence with Turkey. Erdogan called Trump in October 2019 and the US ordered Central Command to move its forces to make way for Turkey. 200,000 Kurds fled the Turkish attack.
 
This was mission accomplished for the pro-Turkey elements close to Trump in Washington. The SDF had been humiliated and would be forced into the hands of Moscow and Damascus, while Turkey would be given parts of Syria. Hundreds of thousands would be ethnically cleansed and peaceful cities with Kurds and Christians would be depopulated as in Afrin. It didn’t quite work, because the US Congress was outraged at how Ankara had threatened Washington and appeared to have gotten the White House to work against its own policymakers.  
 
HAVING SABOTAGED US policy in Syria in 2019, most of 2020 was spent trying to restrain Turkey from more attacks on US partners when it became clear that its real goal was to make a deal with Russia, the Syrian regime and Iran to partition areas of former US control. The attacks and ethnic cleansing of Christians in Turkish-occupied areas of Syria didn’t sit well with those who believed the US should be supporting religious freedom in Syria. Attacks on women also didn’t sit well, and people wondered why the US appeared to be siding with an anti-American Ankara against pro-American SDF partners and friends in Syria.
 
The US political appointees dealing with US Syrian policy continued trying to provoke a showdown between Turkey and Russia in Idlib, hoping their theory that Turkey would obstruct Russia would play out. Instead Ankara and Moscow signed deals and the Syrian regime got more territory as Russia’s S-400 systems flowed to Turkey.
 
The last straw of the Ankara war effort through Washington was the decision to inflame the Caucasus. Turkey pushed Azerbaijan to war and encouraged more op-eds in DC about how the war on Armenians was about confronting Russia. However, the end result was like in Syria: Turkey ended up working with Russia and Iran in the Caucasus and Russian troops came in as peacekeepers.
Russia was empowered. Azerbaijan and Armenia’s leaders went to Moscow on January 11, 2021; they didn’t go to Washington. Russia gained influence. Turkey and Russia now work together in Syria, Libya and the Caucasus. The US role has been sidelined in each conflict, partly because Turkey got the US to outsource conflicts to Ankara.
 
ANKARA'S REGIME senses that its blank check is ending. It can’t use right-wing voices in the US to push the narrative that it is “against Iran” with the new US administration. Its only card now is reconciliation, which it is pushing with Greece, France, Israel and whoever will listen.
 
For the 350,000 people who were driven from their homes by Ankara’s invasion; the 200,000 or so purged and some imprisoned in Turkey; the journalists like Can Dundar who have been persecuted and driven into exile; the Kurdish women forced from office and replaced by extremists; the HDP mayors thrown out; and the politicians taken to prison on trumped-up “terror” charges, the last few years have been a nightmare.
 
For US officials in the Pentagon and State Department, the years where US Syria envoys would conduct policy that appeared to undermine Central Command – and where the White House wouldn’t even consult with or inform heads of the State Department and Pentagon about withdrawals from places like Syria – the era appears to be ending. US officials that bragged of hiding troop numbers from the White House – or told Ankara one thing, the SDF another and the White House something else – might stop.
 
Damage has been done to the SDF, key US partners who were sidelined for years by machinations in DC. In addition US policy, aiming to sabotage the Obama administration’s role in Syria, isolated the US from the Astana talks and made it entirely dependent on Turkey in Syria, partnering with extremists and authoritarians.
 
It remains to be seen if a new administration can figure out a way to have a consistent Syria policy.
 
 
 
 


#208 Yervant1

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Posted 16 January 2021 - 09:42 AM

Had this been a Christian chef doing a kebab party in a mosque, heads will roll throughout the world. But an Armenian church? Who cares!

Public Radio of Armenia

Jan 15 2021
 
Kebab chef slammed for hosting BBQ in 19th-century Armenian church in Turkey
Kebab chef slammed for hosting BBQ in 19th-century Armenian church in Turkey – Public Radio of Armenia

A kebab chef was criticized for hosting a barbecue in an ancient church in southeastern Turkey. The 19th-century structure has been abandoned after treasure hunters ransacked it, locals reported.

A kebab chef in southeast Turkey enraged eyewitnesses after he hosted a barbecue inside of an abandoned church in southeast Turkey’s Şanlıurfa district on Jan. 14, Duvar English reports.

Dating back to the 19th century and located about 10 kilometers from the nearest settlement, the Germuş Armenian Church has become a spot for squatters since its abandonment, one local noted.

“Treasure hunters destroyed this place. Now, people come here to drink, or grill kebabs,” Dağyanı Neighborhood resident Übeyit İnci said, urging the state to swiftly restore the ancient structure.

Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Garo Paylan also slammed the chef’s abuse of the ruins in a tweet. 

“I don’t know what to say, shame!” Paylan said. 

Kilisemde mangal partisi yaptılar.
Ne diyeyim.
Yazıklar olsun! https://t.co/nuZATNBhiz

— Garo Paylan – Կարօ Փայլան (@GaroPaylan) January 14, 2021

One local responded to Paylan’s tweet with more photos of the structure, adding that they’ve been trying to rally public support to save the church to no avail, and that it has essentially been left to rot. 

Ancient churches across Turkey have been condemned to similar fates as minority populations dwindle across the country after the foundation of the republic in 1923. 

 
 

 

 



#209 Yervant1

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Posted 16 January 2021 - 09:44 AM

Panorama, Armenia
Jan 15 2021
 
 
 
Turks organize feast in historic Armenian church in Urfa
 
pngQVCTTtxnRZ.png
Society 12:50 15/01/2021 Region
Turks organize feast in historic Armenian church in Urfa

Turks have organized a barbecue feast in the historic Armenian Sourp Asdvadzadzin (Holy Mother of God) church in the village of Germush in Urfa Province, Turkish T24 news outlet reported on Thursday.

The church is said to have been built in the 19th century. It was last restored in 1881. The church was badly damaged as a result of illegal excavations.

The feast was organized by the owner of a restaurant in the churchyard, the source said.

Photos of the party shared on social media came into the spotlight in a short period of time.

Local residents said the church was destroyed as a result of illegal excavations with the use of excavators and other heavy equipment, asking the authorities to restore the historic building.

One of the residents living in the vicinity of the church, Ubeyit Inci, said treasure-hunters, in the hopes of unearthing riches, come to the church unusually at night, adding it's the the local residents who protect the cultural heritage.

"Now those who want to buy alcohol or eat barbecue come here. We want the church to be restored," he said. 

 


#210 Yervant1

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Posted 17 January 2021 - 09:40 AM

It seems that, when a baby is born in Turkey or Azerbaijan, the first words that they hear are "Hate the Armenians".

Asia News, Italy

Jan 16 2021
 
Germus, an ancient Armenian church used for a barbecue party
 

A man lit a fire and cooked kebabs in the church of the Virgin Mary in Germuş. The building dates back to the 1800s, but has been unavailable to Christians for over a cebtury, subject to excavations and looting. The condemnation of local groups and opposition deputies. In Turkey, hostility towards Armenia and the Armenians continues, considered unwanted neighbors, intensifies.

TURCHIA_-_chiesa_barbecue.jpg
 
 
 

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - A man organized and publicized a barbeque inside the historic 19th century Armenian church of Sourp Asdvadzadzin, in the village of Germuş, 10 km north-east of Urfa, in southeastern Turkey. At the beginning of the 1900s the village was made up of more than a third of Christians, especially Armenians, later decimated by the genocide or emigrated abroad to save themselves from the slaughter.

The church of the Virgin Mary of Germuş is in ruins due to illicit excavations that have taken place for a long time in the area and for the looting carried out by bounty hunters looking for ancient treasures; for almost a century it has been unavailable to the local Christian community, which has repeatedly asked for its return to be restored and used again as a place of worship. The barbecue (in the photo) set up in recent days is just the latest example of the havoc that is taking place against the structure.

According to some testimonies and images posted on social media, a kebab seller cooked liver and served it to the people present "at the event". The "barbecue party", which had a wide echo among the internet users of the area, raised a wave of indignant comments, especially among Christians. Unanimous condemnations also come from local exponents of the pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP, including the Armenian-born MP Garo Paylan.

Some residents have appealed to the local administration and the central government to protect the historic church and return it to its original use, not to be used as a backdrop for a barbecue or parties of a different nature.

Ubeyit İnci, a local Christian, confirms that "we are devastated by the treasure hunters" who dig and plunder. "We protect - he adds - this cultural heritage with our efforts [...] We want the church to be restored, protecting it from attacks by treasure hunters and the exploits of those who use it for different purposes".

It is another blow to the Christian community in Turkey’s history and traditions, after last year’s conversions to mosques of the ancient Christian basilicas - then museums in the early 1900s under Ataturk - of Hagia Sophia and Chora.

The controversial decisions were made in the context of the "nationalism and Islam" policy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an attempt to hide the economic crisis and maintain power. Following the presidential decree that decreed its transformation, the Islamic authorities covered the images of Jesus, frescoes and icons that testify to the Christian roots with a white curtain both in Chora and in Hagia Sophia.

The hostile climate towards Christians, especially Armenians, also emerges from the results of a survey entitled "Research on trends in Turkey", conducted by the Kadir Has University in Istanbul, according to which fewer and fewer people accept to have Armenian neighbors.

Furthermore, Armenia is considered among the first three nations in the world to pose a threat to the Turks. When asked "I don't want to be close to ...", 47.6% of the respondents answered the Armenians, while the Greeks are in second place with 45.2%. Only 11.8% of the people interviewed agree to have Armenian neighbors.

 

 



#211 Yervant1

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 09:20 AM

Public Radio of Armenia
Jan 17 2021
 
 
Armenian church in Bursa, Turkey, put up for sale
pngBlgTP5oDT5.png
 
Armenian church in Bursa, Turkey, put up for sale – Public Radio of Armenia

An Armenian Catholic Church in Bursa has been put up for sale for 6.3 million Turkish liras (about $800,000) on sahibinden.com.

The advertisement is titled “Historical church that can become a culture and art center/museum/hotel in Bursa,” reports Gazete Duvar.

The website notes that the church, which was built for the Armenian population in the region, passed into private ownership, and had been used as tobacco warehouse since 1923 and then as a weaving factory.

It adds that the church, located in a region included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, can be used for touristic purposes.

Member of the Turkish Parliament from HDP Party, ethnic Armenian Garo Pylan, has slammed the decision.

“Armenian Church for sale in Bursa. Can the place of worship be sold? How can society and state allow this? Shame on you!,” Paylan said in a Facebook post. 



#212 Yervant1

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Posted 22 January 2021 - 09:41 AM

AL-Monitor

Turkey's scapegoating of McGurk rooted in revisionism
By Amberin Zaman
Jan. 21, 2021

With the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president, Turkey’s
designated nemesis, Brett McGurk, has formally taken over his new
position as the National Security Council coordinator for the Middle
East and North Africa. “The McGurk thorn in Turkish-American
relations,” fumed English-language government mouthpiece Daily Sabah
in a Jan. 18 op-ed. The headline summed up the mood in Ankara, where
McGurk is widely expected to use his power to undermine Turkey at
every opportunity.

“McGurk was the chief architect of the United States’ relationship
with the Syrian offshoot of the [Kurdistan Workers Party] PKK
terrorist organization, the [People’s Protection Units] YPG. The
appointment has dealt a heavy blow and could impact the mending of
ties between Ankara and Washington. McGurk’s appointment has sullied
the picture,” complained the op-ed’s author, Batu Coskun. Will it
really?

The narrative being pushed by circles close to Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan stems from McGurk’s role as counter-Islamic State envoy
under two presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. McGurk, together
with the US Central Command, oversaw the highly successful partnership
with the Syrian Kurdish YPG to defeat IS.

Turkey remains incensed by the alliance because of the YPG’s close
links with the PKK, which has been waging an armed insurgency against
Turkey since 1984. The reality is, though, that Ankara treats any
arrangement empowering the Kurds, be they in Iraq, Iran, Syria or
Turkey, as an existential threat. By May 2017, Turkish Foreign
Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was openly campaigning for McGurk to be
dismissed. “It would be beneficial if this person is changed,” he told
the private broadcaster NTV.

While it’s easy to see why having its NATO ally arm, train and
decorate members of a group that was established as the PKK’s Syrian
wing would drive Turkey mad, the reason the partnership grew is not
McGurk. It’s Turkey’s failure to come up with an alternative force and
its laissez faire attitude toward the thousands of foreign fighters
who poured into Syria through the Turkish border to expand the
“caliphate” that gave rise to Turkey’s image as a patron of the
jihadis.

In truth, McGurk worked closely with the Turks for many years
traveling to Ankara, meeting with Erdogan and striking up an amicable
relationship with his intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, among others, to
work on a range of knotty issues including Iraq and its oil trade
through the Kurdistan Region.

Yet the anti-McGurk growls from Ankara suggest that Turkey continues
to pin US policies that it doesn’t like on individuals and claim those
individuals have gone rogue.

“McGurk is not a rogue actor. He’s someone who’s deeply committed to
advancing the missions assigned to him by his commander-in-chief and
he’s done it for three presidents,” said a Western source with close
knowledge of McGurk. “He’s never believed in carving up Syria, just
like he’s never believed in carving up Iraq. He’s trying to cultivate
strong local partners to advance US interests. He’s driven by matching
means with ends and he’s often given few resources to accomplish
significant tasks,” the source added. One of his notable successes was
negotiating the 2016 prisoner swap with Iran that saw four Americans
of Iranian descent including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian
freed in exchange for seven Iranians who were held on charges of
violating sanctions.

A defining characteristic of McGurk is the ease and single-mindedness
with which he shapes the missions that he’s assigned. He’s a master at
navigating power — a strategist, not an ideologue. As such, if Ankara
were to turn a new page, as it keeps claiming it wants to do, it may
well find a constructive partner in McGurk, be it in Syria, Iraq, Iran
or Libya, over which he now holds sway.

And the Syrian Kurds may discover as their Iraqi brothers did that
McGurk does not always pick their side. He was among the fiercest
critics of the Iraqi Kurds’ 2017 referendum on independence.

In the first year of the war against IS in 2014, McGurk spent more
time in Turkey than any other country in the region. He negotiated the
deal to get Turkey to let the coalition carry out airstrikes against
IS. It took almost a year. It was again McGurk who secured Turkish
agreement to let Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga warriors transit through
Turkey to help the YPG end the IS siege of Kobani, the Syrian town on
the Turkish border where the US partnership with the Syrian Kurds was
first forged.

Yet even after Kobani, Washington’s plan A was to use the
Turkish-backed Syrian opposition against IS. Massive US air support
helped those forces cross the so-called Marea line and move east to
Manbij. The mixed Arab-Turkish town where IS had planned the Paris
attacks would soon become the locus of Turkish-US tensions in Syria.

However, when Turkish-backed forces failed to capture Manbij, where IS
had planned the deadly Paris and Brussels attacks, the Pentagon gave
the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) the green light on Manbij,
allowing them to seize territory west of the Euphrates River for the
first time, something Turkey was viscerally opposed to.

The same pattern was repeated in Raqqa. Turkey was given over a year
to come up with a rebel force to seize the jihadis’ capital. Ankara
instead demanded that the Pentagon provide more US forces — some
10,000 of them — than it was willing to deploy of its own. Once again
the SDF stepped in. Raqqa fell in 2017.

The emerging consensus was that Turkey was more motivated to attack
the Syrian Kurds than to clear IS from its border.

“Ankara did seek to build with the United States an alternative force
through the Train and Equip program. The program failed,” said Aaron
Stein, research director for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a
think tank based in Philadelphia. He was referring to a now defunct
CIA program to arm and train Syrian opposition rebels inside Turkey.
The US plan then became to defeat IS and “given the reality of
geography and the need to work through a proxy, the YPG was the only
option. Whereas it was a secondary priority for Ankara, as they
focused first on the clandestine program to push [out Syrian President
Bashar al-] Assad and then to frustrate the YPG’s efforts,” Stein
added.

Domestic politics also played a big part in deepening the US-Turkish
divide. The Kurds’ dizzying gains in Syria spooked Turkey into pulling
the plug on peace talks with the PKK. Up to this day, Erdogan remains
convinced that the United States had a finger in the failed attempt to
bloodily unseat him in July 2016. It is frequently cited as one of the
reasons the Turkish leader decided to acquire Russian S-400 missiles
that are designed to shoot down US-made F-16s, which the coup plotters
used to bomb the Turkish Parliament.

The move has pushed Turkish-US relations to the brink. Caving to
congressional pressure in December, the Trump administration slapped
sanctions on Turkey’s state defense procurer under the Countering
America’s Adversaries Act.

Turkey has already been kicked out of the F-35 consortium and will not
receive any of the fifth generation fighter jets until it's removed
the S-400s, or as Stein puts it, “verifies nondeployment” and “nonuse”
through a credible monitoring mechanism. Antony Blinken, the Biden
administration’s pick for secretary of state, made clear that there
will be no shift during his confirmation hearing on Jan. 19. “The idea
that a strategic — so-called strategic — partner of ours would
actually be in line with one of our biggest strategic competitors in
Russia is not acceptable,” he said, hinting that further sanctions
might follow.

Erdogan remains adamant, however, that Turkey will take delivery of a
second shipment of S-400 batteries. Might he believe that the Biden
administration will seek his ouster? His legendary paranoia will have
been fed by Biden's refusal to indulge his request for a telephone
conversation, as initially reported by the Middle East Eye.

Turkey’s assault against the YPG in October 2019 offered a glimpse of
what might follow, with Biden lashing out at Trump for greenlighting
the invasion. Biden said he would have never allowed it and called
Erdogan an "autocrat."

In December 2019, McGurk quit the administration in protest at Trump’s
announcement that he was pulling all US troops out of
Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria. (Faced with a congressional
outcry, Trump didn't follow through.) Freed of his bureaucratic
straitjacket, the 47-year-old former lawyer began publicly taking aim
at Turkey over its lax attitude toward IS. How else did Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi find sanctuary so near the Turkish border, McGurk mused in
a series of tweets.

In sum, Turkey’s real and self-inflicted problem is with a bipartisan
consensus in Congress and with the new president that it's Ankara, not
McGurk, that is going rogue. The priority, certainly as far as Syria
is concerned, will be to undo the damage Trump appointees wrought by
silently condoning Turkish aggression against the Kurds and turning a
blind eye to the horrific abuses by its rebel proxies. As of Jan. 20
the message from Washington will likely be, “No more free rides."


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#213 Yervant1

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Posted 25 January 2021 - 08:57 AM

Amnesty International

Human rights lawyers become “endangered species” in Turkey
By Stefan Simanowitz
Jan. 23, 2021


At the end of each year, the demise of the world’s most endangered
species is charted in a sadly familiar list, from tigers and snow
leopards to rhinos and gorillas.

But it’s not just wildlife that is at risk. Today marks the Day of the
Endangered Lawyer, a moment to recognize the threats facing lawyers
around the world who dare to stand up for human rights. In recent
years Amnesty International has felt the impact of these threats close
to home, through the government crackdown on our colleagues in Turkey.

One was a sunny morning in June 2017 I got a call. Taner Kılıç, our
then chair of Amnesty International Turkey and a tireless asylum
rights lawyer in Izmir, had been arrested in a dawn raid. Detention
orders for 22 other lawyers had also been issued.


A month later, Idil Eser, then director of Amnesty Turkey, was
arrested along with nine others, including human rights lawyer Günal
Kurşun.

Taner Kılıç, Idil Eser and the other nine arrested were all accused of
absurd terrorism-related charges and held in pre-trial detention for
many months – almost 15 in Taner’s case.

During a three-year trial involving 12 court hearings, each and every
allegation presented by the government was comprehensively exposed as
a baseless accusation.

And yet, last July, Taner was sentenced to six years and three months
in prison for ‘membership of the Fethullah Gülen terrorist
organization’. Turkey blames the Gülen movement for the 2016 attempted
coup.

İdil Eser, Günal Kurşun and another human rights defender, Özlem
Dalkıran, were also convicted and sentenced to one year and 13 months
for ‘assisting the Fethullah Gülen terrorist organization’. A few
months later in November, a regional appeals court upheld the
unfathomable convictions, rubberstamping the miscarriage of justice.
The four defenders have taken their case to the highest appeals court.

The fact that these politically motivated verdicts swept up several
lawyers drove home the increased danger to the legal community in
Turkey. Their cases are far from rare. Detaining lawyers has become
routine practice, deepening the climate of fear and repression across
the country.


Hundreds of lawyers are now believed to be in pre-trial detention or
serving prison terms in Turkey’s overcrowded jails. They are regularly
targeted through abusive criminal investigations and unfair
prosecutions, accused of the alleged crimes of their clients.

Veteran human rights lawyer, Eren Keskin, has been on the receiving
end of more than 100 criminal prosecutions for her role as a ‘symbolic
editor’ of the now shuttered Özgür Gündem newspaper. If the sentences
pending against her, Taner and Günal are upheld on appeal, all three,
who are currently on bail, would be sent to prison and unable to
practice law again.

In September, almost 50 lawyers were arrested in dawn raids across
Turkey. They are facing charges because the clients they had been
representing are accused of being part of the Gülen movement.

The latest blow came in November, when dozens of lawyers were among
more than 100 people issued with detention warrants as part of what
Turkish authorities called “terrorism-related investigations” in
Diyarbakır.
Commenting on the increasing number of arrests, the Istanbul Bar
Association said: “A lawyer cannot be identified with their client.
Intimidation which hopes to restrict the lawyers’ duty will impact the
public as much as lawyers and gradually destroy confidence in
justice.”

The targeting of defence lawyers with criminal charges for executing
their duties contravenes the UN Basic Principles on the Role of
Lawyers and critically undermines the right to a fair trial.

Lawyers are also coming under physical, sometimes fatal, attack. Tahir
Elçi, a prominent human rights lawyer, died after being shot in the
south-eastern province of Diyarbakır in 2015.

Two years ago, Turkey was the focus of the global ‘Day of the
Endangered Lawyer’. Dozens of lawyers protested behind a banner that
read ‘If lawyers lose their voice, citizens lose their breath.’

But little has improved in Turkey since then. Instead, the targeting
and harassment of lawyers through the misuse of the justice system has
become more acute.

Through abusive investigations, arbitrary detentions and unfounded
prosecutions under vaguely defined anti-terrorism laws, Turkey is
eroding the basic tenets of the rule of law.

In such a repressive climate the people who step up in defence of
human rights violations themselves become targets. The job of defence
and human rights lawyers is increasingly vital in Turkey, but ever
more dangerous.

*

Stefan Simanowitz is Amnesty International’s media manager for Europe.

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#214 Yervant1

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Posted 28 January 2021 - 08:39 AM

In few more years, Armenian existence in Turkey will disappear completely! 

BIAnet, Turkey (Human Rights)

Jan 27 2021
 
 
FROM HDP MP PAYLAN TO MINISTER‘How was the Armenian church demolished despite the protection order?’
Addressing a Parliamentary question to the Minister of Tourism and Culture, HDP Diyarbakır MP Paylan has asked how the historical Surp Toros Armenian Church was demolished despite being recognized as an “immovable that requires protection.”
İstanbul - BIA News Desk27 January 2021, Wednesday

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır MP Garo Paylan has submitted a Parliamentary question regarding the demolition of the Surp Toros Church despite being designated as an "Immovable Requiring Protection" by the Kütahya Regional Board of Cultural Heritage Protection.

The historical Armenian church in Turkey's western province of Kütaya has been destroyed after it came into the possession of a person.

CLICK - Surp Toros Church in Kütahya demolished

Submitting a Parliamentary question to the Speaker's Office to be addressed to Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, HDP MP Paylan has briefly stated the following about the issue:

"Dating back to 1603, the church had an important place in the city's memory. The church was considered to be an important site of memory as it was the church where musicologist Gomidas was baptized.

"The church was lastly used as a wedding hall and a movie hall; the authorities remained indifferent to the Armenian community's calls for its restoration or, at least, its use as a cultural center."

Paylan has also referred to the remarks of Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said, "We did not, do not and will not interfere with the belief, worship or the sacred of anyone."

Paylan has noted that "this demolition, despite Erdoğan's remarks, has deeply saddened and hurt all Christians, especially the Armenian citizens."

Accordingly, Paylan has asked the Minister the following questions:

  • How was the Kütahya Surp Toros Armenian Church demolished despite the protection order?
  • Has an investigation been launched against the person who demolished the church?
  • Has an investigation been launched against the public officials who made way for the demolition of the church under protection?
  • Why do you remain silent to the destruction of Armenians' cultural heritage?
  • Will you take any action to ensure that the church will be rebuilt to its original?
What happened?

After the Surp Toros Church in Turkey's Aegean province of Kütahya passed into the ownership of a person, it has been completely destroyed. There is now a flat ground in the place of the historical church.

As reported by Agos newspaper, local sources said that they went to the place where the church was located upon hearing that it was demolished. When they went there, what they saw was a plain ground.

The church has recently come into the possession of a person. It is now believed that the demolition was done upon the decision of this person. (HA/SD)

 

 



#215 Yervant1

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Posted 06 February 2021 - 10:13 AM

Al-Monitor
Jan 4 2021
 
 
 
 
Turkey’s talk of peace with Armenia rings hollow

A Turkey analyst reported that Turkey claims to be ready to reconcile with Armenia if Yerevan is willing to "take a step," but is that likely?

Amberin Zaman

@amberinzaman

 

Feb 4, 2021

In her recent Global Opinions column for The Washington Post, prominent Turkish analyst Asli Aydintasbas cited a senior adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as having told her that Turkey “is ready to normalize relations with Armenia” after helping its regional ally Azerbaijan defeat the country in a short and bloody war last November to wrest back control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. “The official now says they could engage with their historic foe and even open the border crossing,” she noted. The unnamed official told her, “The problem for us has always been Armenian occupation of Azeri territory. That’s now resolved. If Armenia is willing to take a step, we are ready.”

The assertion chimes with Turkey’s long-held policy that it would not establish diplomatic relations with its eastern neighbor nor reopen borders with it until it withdrew from Nagorno-Karabakh. The borders were sealed in 1993 to show solidarity with Azerbaijan over Armenia’s occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority enclave that was bestowed by Joseph Stalin to Baku to keep the satellites divided and firmly under Soviet grip.

Critics say Turkey’s apparent magnanimity smacks more of its recent efforts to fix its battered ties with Washington without making the concessions that are actually being demanded of it, namely to get rid of its Russian S-400 missiles immediately. While Aydintasbas agrees that Turkey may be driven by expediency she argues that this is irrelevant. “Sometimes self-serving positions end up producing positive outcomes. This is the first time Turkish officials are formulating a very clear proposal to normalize relations with Armenia,” Aydintasbas told Al-Monitor. “I hope the international community can encourage this.”

The United States and Switzerland were burned once already in 2009, when Turkey signed what was then hailed as historic set of accords they had helped broker with Armenia to forge diplomatic ties and reopen their common borders only to have Erdogan cave to Azerbaijani pressure and walk away.

Aydintasbas insists, however, that Azerbaijan no longer poses a hurdle. “Turkish officials underline that they have spoken to [President Ilham] Aliyev and have his consent,” she said. Cavid Aga, an Ankara-based Azerbaijani analyst and blogger, believes, however, that Azerbaijan would object to any border opening that preceded the opening of a proposed corridor connecting Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani enclave on the Turkish border, with Azerbaijan proper. “We can’t go to Nakhichevan like in Soviet times. We either have to take a flight, which doesn’t happen due to [COVID-19 related] quarantine, or pass through rugged Iranian territory. So, if Turkey opens borders with Armenia this would seem unjust to us,” he said.

Setting aside such considerations, what of Armenia? Is it willing “to take a step?”

Not any time in the near future, asserted a senior Armenian diplomat speaking on condition that he not be identified by name. The diplomat contended that the Turkish overtures were linked to President Joe Biden’s vows to join a growing number of nations that have formally recognized the mass murder of more than a million Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as a genocide. Turkey has for decades spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying to avert such recognition and blames the deaths on exposure to the elements, hunger and disease in the midst of conflict. Most credible historians agree that it was a genocide.

“Turkey’s open support to Azerbaijan’s war of aggression in the form of its top military expertise, consultants, weapons as well as recruitment and transportation of Islamic mercenaries [from Syria] resuscitated century-old held Armenian fears of genocide,” the diplomat said. “It is shocking that a country may stick to genocidal intent for a century, without feeling an inch of guilt for what it its predecessors did, [rather than] acknowledge and repent for the crime,” he added.

Such sentiments are widespread. Reconciliation with Turkey would likely deliver a fatal blow to beleaguered Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who faces popular calls for his resignation over his handling of the war. Jake Hanrahan, creator of the independent conflict journalism platform Popular Front who recently traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh, reckons the Armenian people would be “absolutely disgusted” by any rapprochement with Turkey. “There are literally Turkish flags visible from [the Armenian-held town] Stepanakert [in Nagorno-Karabakh] right now hanging from [Azerbaijan-held] Shushi, a place where Armenians had their heads cut off on camera by Turkish-backed Azerbaijani forces,” he told Al-Monitor. “If the Armenian government decides to do this now, they will lose what scraps of faith they had from the people of Karabakh,” Hanrahan added.

Hanrahan was referring to several gruesome videos that circulated on social media as the war raged on showing Azerbaijani forces decapitating two men believed to be Armenians. They stake the head of one on a pig’s carcass, saying, “This is how we get revenge — by cutting heads.” Amnesty International said footage of the beheadings was authentic. It accused both sides of committing war crimes.

Laurence Broers, Caucasus program director at Chatham House, concurs that amid such bitterness Turkish-Armenian dialogue is hard. “A humiliating defeat in which Turkey played a key role is of course not an enabling context for normalization. Any such process should be just that — a process, built up over time and realized across multiple dimensions — societal, cultural, ideational — not just as a geopolitical tradeoff,” he said.

It was just the sort of process he describes, aimed at healing the wounds of the Armenian genocide, that the globally acclaimed Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala was determinedly promoting before he was jailed on bogus terrorism charges in October 2017. He is due to appear in court again on Feb. 5. Freeing him would bring Turkey into compliance with the European Court of Human Rights, which has ruled that Kavala’s detention is unlawful. It would also add credence to claims that Turkey is sincere about reaching out to Armenia.

Kavala’s fate is unlikely to sway Armenia even though reconciliation with Turkey would serve it economically — it would help the landlocked nation reduce its dependence on Russia. But Richard Giragossian, director of the Regional Studies Center, a think tank in Yerevan, believes that Armenia may not have much agency in the matter. “Armenia’s now entrenched reluctance may become less of an obstacle and more of a minor inconvenience,” Giragossian said, citing two reasons: “First Turkey may initiate a unilateral effort to reopen the border, threatening to isolate Armenian leaders by forcing them into a self-defeating refusal.”

His second reason, that normalization may come from an agreement between Russia and Turkey that is forced on Armenia, sounds counterintuitive. But Giragossian argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin would view it as an important way to bolster the Eurasian Economic Union by extending its borders to Turkey. “Russian border guards control that border and the Russian-owned Armenian railway network will benefit. For Moscow it’s a further way to isolate Georgia,” he said.

Broers counters that the hard-power approach may deliver swift results but is no guarantee of stability. With Russia’s previous monopoly in the South Caucasus challenged by Ankara’s decisive intervention on the side of Azerbaijan and now largely “contained in the security sphere,” Turkey will need to decide whether it wants to exercise its influence as another hegemon over Armenia or to have a different kind of relationship rooted in soft and economic power. Turkey’s aggressive stance in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean suggest that it will likely plump for the former. “The whole dynamic of regionalization suggests Turkey is looking for ‘near-abroad theaters in which to project hegemony. Hegemonic power gets you a long way in the South Caucasus, but ultimately also falls victim to regional fracture,” Broers concluded.

 


#216 Yervant1

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Posted 16 February 2021 - 08:56 AM

Amnesty International

Turkey: “We’re not going anywhere either” – Activists pledge
solidarity with prominent human rights defender

Feb. 15, 2021

Responding to the conviction and sentencing of veteran human rights
lawyer, Eren Keskin to six years in jail on absurd grounds of
‘membership of an armed terrorist organization’, Amnesty
International’s Turkey Campaigner, Milena Buyum, said:

“Today a human rights lawyer who has spoken out against injustice for
more than three decades, has become the victim of injustice herself.

“Eren Keskin has dedicated her life to defending the rights of women,
prisoners and fought for justice for the families of the disappeared.
This verdict is yet another shocking example of anti-terrorism laws
being used to criminalize legitimate, peaceful activities.

“’I have been prosecuted many times and jailed for my thoughts. I’m
still here. I’m not going anywhere,’ Eren Keskin tweeted after she was
sentenced.

“We are not going anywhere either.”

Background

Eren Keskin is a prominent human rights defender and lawyer in Turkey.
She is the Co-Chair of the Human Rights Association (İHD).

Today, four defendants in the case concerning Özgür Gündem, a daily
newspaper that was shuttered in 2016, received prison sentences on
"terrorism-related" charges.

The court sentenced Zana Kaya, the newspaper's editor-in-chief to one
year and 13 months in prison for "making propaganda for a terrorist
organization."

The newspaper's grant holder Kemal Sancılı, managing editor İnan
Kızılkaya and attorney Eren Keskin have been sentenced to six years
and three months in prison for "being a member of an armed terrorist
organization." They remain at liberty pending their appeals.

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#217 Yervant1

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Posted 19 February 2021 - 09:09 AM

Human Rights Watch

Turkey: Student Protesters at Risk of Prosecution
Feb. 18, 2021

(Istanbul) – Turkish authorities have placed hundreds of student
protesters under possible criminal investigation, Human Rights Watch
said today. The students were arrested during weeks of protests
against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s appointment of an academic
closely aligned with the government as rector of one of Turkey’s top
universities.

Students and the academic staff of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul
have exercised their lawful right to peacefully express their
opposition to the appointment, which they regard as a move to impose
government control over the institution and undermine academic
autonomy and freedom.

“Erdoğan’s appointment of an unelected rector to Boğaziçi University
and the violent arrests of students who had peacefully protested the
move encapsulates the government’s disregard for basic human rights,”
said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights
Watch. “Imposing an unelected presidential-appointee rector on a
university with no consultation demonstrates a lack of respect for
academic freedom and the autonomy of universities in Turkey.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed eighteen students, including four who
had been released from police custody, four lawyers, and two
academics, analyzed images and legal documents, and monitored four
student protests.

The protests by students and faculty members started after President
Erdoğan appointed Melih Bulu as the Boğaziçi University rector on
January 1, 2021. Bulu, a political ally of the president’s Justice and
Development Party (AKP), has worked in academia and in the defense
industry, and previously served as rector of two private universities.

After police harshly dispersed protests at the campus on January 4,
the Istanbul prosecutor at 3 a.m. on January 5 issued arrest warrants
and ordered the confiscation of cellphones, laptops, and data storage
devices of at least 28 students, allegedly at the request of the
city’s governor. At around 5:30 a.m. police raided at least 17 houses,
in a few cases the wrong houses, and broke down doors, and in one case
walls, to arrest students who took part in protests a day before.

In the following weeks, demonstrations in support of the Boğaziçi
protests were held in other parts of Istanbul and in 38 cities across
Turkey.

The authorities have responded to some of the demonstrations with
excessive police force, summary arrests, and targeted house raids.
They arrested more than 560 protesters in all, most of whom were
released after a short time. Protesters detained in Istanbul in early
January, all of whom were released, told Human Rights Watch that the
police conducted strip-searches and verbally abused and threatened
them in some cases. Three reported that police held guns to their
heads during house raids, and two said the police also slapped and
insulted them.

The president and senior officials have directly encouraged a tough
police response throughout. President Erdoğan initially referred to
the student protesters as “lazy and narrow-minded” but, together with
other government officials, later began to suggest they had terrorism
links, an allegation widely used by the Turkish authorities to
criminalize democratic opposition and government critics.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and protesters
have been playing a key role in ongoing demonstrations. On January 29,
the authorities initiated a targeted crackdown on LGBT students and
protesters after students mounted an exhibition on Boğaziçi campus in
solidarity with the ongoing protests that included, among many other
pieces, an artwork depicting the Kaaba, the most important holy site
for Muslims, combined with LGBT flags and a mythological creature that
is half-snake half-woman. Police arrested two students who appear in a
video of the exhibition that was streamed to the internet, and two
others who were presumed to be among LGBT organizers on campus.

On the same day, the police raided a room used by a student LGBT club
and confiscated flags and books. Two days later, Bulu, the new rector,
shut down the students’ LGBT club.

The interior minister and Justice and Development Party’s (AKP)
spokesperson called the students “perverts” on several social media
platforms, apparently alluding to the artwork. Courts placed two of
the students in pretrial detention and two under house arrest on
suspicion of “inciting hatred and enmity” (Turkish Penal Code article
216/1).

Courts have placed at least 25 protesters under house arrest, and 9
remain in pretrial detention at the time of writing, on suspicion of
“inciting hatred” and “violating the law on demonstrations” and for
“resisting police orders.” Dozens were released under judicial
control. The arrests and detentions come against the backdrop of heavy
restrictions on public protest in Turkey; abuses of power by the
government to silence critical groups; and targeting of minority
groups, including LGBT people. The authorities have sometimes
justified bans on demonstrations by citing the risk of Covid-19
alongside unspecified threats to public order.

“The authorities should protect and affirm LGBT students’ rights to
organize and express themselves, rather than attacking them,”
Williamson said, “The Turkish authorities should respect the right to
assembly, stop 9using abusive police power to silence dissent, and
ensure the immediate release of students arbitrarily detained.”

On January 1, 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed rectors
to head five universities including Boğaziçi University, a school that
had been relatively exempt from a government crackdown on academia
that started in 2016. Until 2016, faculty members had elected the
rector of Boğaziçi University. In 2016 Erdoğan appointed a faculty
member who had not run for election over the candidate who had
received the majority of the votes. Despite some debate and protests
over that appointment, the academics and the university students later
accepted the appointee.

After his term ended in November 2020, the appointed rector became a
candidate for a second term. However, President Erdoğan took the
unorthodox step of appointing Melih Bulu, a candidate who was neither
an academic at the school nor, faculty members said, met the academic
criteria for being one.

On January 4, hundreds of students from Boğaziçi and other
universities, along with faculty members and alumni, gathered inside
and outside the campus to protest the appointment and to demand the
rector’s resignation and the right to choose university rectors. The
police responded with teargas, rubber bullets, and water cannons to
disperse the crowd.

Protests have been ongoing ever since. Alongside the student
demonstrations, Boğaziçi academics have been holding silent protests
every day in front of the new rector’s office, turning their backs on
the rectorate for 20 minutes.

Excessive Police Force

The Turkish authorities have consistently responded to the protests
with excessive use of force and arbitrary detention.

Excessive use of force was evident on the first day of protests,
January 4. One Boğaziçi university student who took part in the
protests, and asked that her name be withheld to avoid reprisals, said
that police grabbed and dragged her, injuring her wrists, arms, and
back. Another student, who gave his first name as Muhammed, said that
he saw police officers dragging a protester to a bus parked inside the
university premises.

The police interference was even harsher on February 1, when police
blocked students inside the campus from leaving and protesters outside
the campus from gathering. Human Rights Watch witnessed police
officers use excessive force to arrest at least four peaceful
protesters who showed no signs of aggression. Riot police entered the
campus that evening to disperse the crowd and arrested more than 50
students.

On February 2, the excessive use of force escalated significantly,
Human Rights Watch saw videos and images of students with broken
teeth, faces covered in blood, and several police officers kicking
protesters who were not attempting to resist arrest. Violent police
crackdowns on protesters resumed in the following days.

Detentions

Turkish authorities have detained more than 560 protesters in at least
38 cities, with 9 currently in pretrial detention and more than 25
under house arrest. Hundreds were released, but many were subject to
conditions such as travel bans and a requirement to sign in at the
nearest police station on a regular basis until further notice.

The first arrests took place on January 5, following a 3 a.m. request
by the Istanbul governor, lawyers said. An Istanbul prosecutor issued
arrest warrants for at least 28 students, including orders to
confiscate cellphones, laptops, and data storage devices. At around
5:30 a.m., special operations police units raided at least 17 houses.

At dawn, police raided a house where Yıldız Idil Şen and Havin Özcan,
two trans women who had joined the protests, were staying. Şen said
that police officers held guns to their heads and slapped them. Şen
also said that police officers remained in the hospital room during a
mandatory medical examination for detainees and used transphobic slurs
throughout the detention. Şen said police officers threatened to rape
her with a baton and told her, “You probably would enjoy this.”

Burak Çetiner, a master’s student at Boğaziçi University who was among
those arrested on January 5, said:

I went to the protests on January 4 and police raided my house where I
live with my mother and father, at dawn on January 5. We woke up to
sounds of hammering on the door. The police officers in riot gear
pushed us on the ground and held guns to our heads. They searched my
room and confiscated my cellphone and later detained me. While in
custody, police handcuffed our hands so tightly that several of us had
bruises on our wrists.

A lawyer who was representing some of the students said:

The process was so fast that the prosecutor sent the orders to the
police in a handwritten note. The prosecutor also issued a 48-hour
long custody period for the detainees. This custody period is in
violation of Turkey’s domestic law considering how light the charges
are. In their quest to detain students, police raided the wrong
houses, broke down doors and walls, ill-treated residents, and used
excessive force. Even hours after the arrests, we as lawyers were not
able to find a case number or a prosecutor to whom we could submit our
appeals. Statements from officials alleging terrorism links are
clearly misleading as there is no evidence to support it.

Information from lawyers and legal documents listed the grounds for
the arrests as “violating the law on demonstrations” (Law 2911) and
“resisting police orders.”

On January 6, the Istanbul governor used the Covid-19 pandemic as a
pretext to announce a ban until February 5 on all protests and public
gatherings in the two Istanbul districts where the Boğaziçi University
campuses are located. During student protests in Ankara, one student’s
leg was broken during their arrest. An opposition politician alleged
that a university in Ankara abruptly laid off at least eight research
assistants who joined protests, citing budget cuts.

Courts imposed judicial control measures and travel bans on 26
detainees released by Istanbul courts in early January, while 2 were
released unconditionally.

On January 29, police cracked down on students whom they believed to
be involved in mounting an exhibition on campus in support of the
protests, which featured an artwork combining the Kaaba with LGBT
flags and a mythological creature. After the exhibition, police
arrested two students who had been visible in a video of the
exhibition that had been streamed on the internet and two who were
known as campus LGBT organizers. The prosecutor is investigating four
of them on suspicion of “provoking hatred or hostility” (Turkish
Criminal Code 216/1). Courts placed two students in pretrial detention
and two others under house arrest. A fifth student briefly arrested
was released.

On February 1, at around midnight, dozens of riot police entered the
Boğaziçi campus and started arresting students who were protesting in
front of the new rector’s office. Police detained at least 51 students
inside the campus and about 108 outside. The prosecutor is
investigating several of them on suspicion of “damaging public
property,” “violating the law on demonstrations,” and “depriving an
individual of their physical liberty,” which carries a prison sentence
of one to five years.

The number of detainees increased enormously in the following days.
The deputy interior minister announced on February 4 that 528
protesters had been detained in 38 cities in one month and added “No
one should test our state’s strength.” Human Rights Watch estimates
the total number of police arrests to be around 560.

Anti-LGBT Discourse

Government officials have used anti-LGBT rhetoric to appeal to
conservative outrage and to delegitimize the protests, Human Rights
Watch said.

Many LGBT students have been heavily involved in the protests, in part
because of concerns that the new rector, who had posted views on
social media that the students characterized as anti-LGBT, would crack
down on LGBT organizing and threaten the precarious safe spaces they
had carved out on campus. A trans woman studying at Boğaziçi
University said:

There are minority groups who are more affected [by the appointment]
than the majority, for instance, LGBTQIs [lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer and intersex people], especially trans women and
men. At a time when trans women like me have very limited safe space,
such an appointment seems like an attempt to strip us of this space.
We just want to exist.

Other students expressed concern that the new rector might stifle the
limited amount of free speech in the university by allowing police to
enter the campus in cases of protests and student club activities
deemed inappropriate, such as LGBT movie nights.

On January 29, the interior minister called LGBT protesters “perverts”
on his Twitter account. Twitter placed a warning on the tweet soon
after for violating its rules about “hateful conduct.” President
Erdoğan on the other hand, speaking at a public event of his party on
February 3, described the students as “terrorists” and said “LGBT,
there is no such thing. This country is national and moral.”

The students’ fears about the new rector were borne out on February 2,
when Turkey’s communication director, Fahrettin Altun, shared a
document on his Twitter account and said students were protesting
because Bulu signed a decision to shut down Boğaziçi University’s LGBT
club.

Crackdown on Academia

The laws and regulations on universities in Turkey have been amended
and revised under political power shifts since the 1940s.

The universities had considerable autonomy in selecting their own
rectors until 1981 when the then military junta established a body
called the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) to select a pool of
candidates for top university posts for the president of the country
to choose from. In 1992, the government restructured the election
system to allow faculty members to take part in selecting candidates.

The most recent amendments to the appointment of rectors came while
Turkey was under emergency rule after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
A state of emergency decree (KHK 676) granted the president the
authority to appoint rectors, and another decree in 2018 (KHK 703)
reduced the requirement for candidates from five years as a professor
to three.

Between 2016 and 2018, the government used decree laws to shut down 15
private universities, dismiss more than 6,800 academics, and prosecute
hundreds of academics based on alleged terrorism links for signing a
petition calling for a peaceful resolution to the decades-long Kurdish
conflict in southeastern Turkey.

In addition to barring purged academics from working in universities
in Turkey, the government also canceled their passports, leaving them
unable to work or to travel to seek employment outside the country.

The government increased funding for Boğaziçi University after Bulu
became rector. President Erdoğan announced through the Official
Gazette on February 6 the formation of two new faculties at the
university. Students and critics see the move as an attempt to bring
in academics from other universities to allow the new rector to form a
management team to determine decision-making structures as well as to
exert influence over the university’s policies. Many academics at the
university have reportedly refused to work with him.

In 2020, President Erdoğan stripped Istanbul Şehir University of its
permit to operate. Ahmet Davutoğlu, a former prime minister under
Erdoğan and now a political rival, was the university’s founder.
Erdoğan’s move to close it down was widely seen in the independent
media as a reprisal against Davutoğlu.

Since the coup attempt, rectors, or academics linked with the ruling
Justice and Development Party, have had a significant advantage with
respect to promotions. President Erdoğan has appointed several former
AKP members of parliament or former party members as rectors of
leading universities in recent years.

“Ankara should understand universities are not government offices and
academics are not mere civil servants,” said Esra Mungan, an academic
at Boğaziçi University. Burak Çetiner, a student in a master’s program
at the university said that “[t]here is pressure on all parts of life
in Turkey including universities.”

In 2018 a group of students peacefully protested a stand set up by
another group of students on the campus of Istanbul’s Boğaziçi
University to support the Turkish military operation in the northwest
Syrian district of Afrin. Thirty students who were at the protest were
first detained and later charged with “spreading terrorist
propaganda.” In 2020, an Istanbul court sentenced 27 of them to 10
months in prison and fined the other 3.

International Standards on Academic Freedom and Institutional Autonomy

Freedoms of expression and assembly, guaranteed under international
law, including by articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on
Human Rights (ECHR) and articles 19 and 21 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) respectively, extend to
everyone and protect the right to peaceful protest. In an academic
setting and combined with the right to education (guaranteed under
article 2 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR and article 13 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR)), these freedoms take on a particular significance and are
core to the principles of academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

Academic freedom is a broad principle that protects educators and
students and applies to the complete range of academic pursuits –
formal and informal, inside the classroom and beyond. The Committee on
Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which interprets the
ICESCR, has stated that “academic freedom includes the liberty of
individuals to express freely opinions about the institution or system
in which they work, to fulfil their functions without discrimination
or fear of repression by the State or any other actor….” The committee
underlined that “enjoyment of academic freedom requires the autonomy
of institutions of higher education.”

The Council of Europe requires member states such as Turkey to respect
both academic freedom and institutional autonomy, and its Committee of
Ministers has issued multiple recommendations to member states on this
responsibility. The committee has noted that “academic freedom and
institutional autonomy are essential values of higher education” that
“serve the common good of democratic societies.” The committee defines
academic freedom as, among other things, guaranteeing “the right of
both institutions and individuals to be protected against undue
outside interference, by public authorities or others.” The European
Union, of which Turkey is not a member, includes the obligation to
respect academic freedom in article 13 of its Charter of Fundamental
Rights.


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#218 Yervant1

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Posted 21 February 2021 - 09:43 AM

Greek City Times
Feb 20 2021
 
 
Spokesperson of Turkey’s ruling party: We will turn the dreams of Greece and Cyprus into a nightmare by PAUL ANTONOPOULOS
 
 
 

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was denounced by the spokesperson of Turkey’s ruling AKP party Ömer Çelik for not inviting the pseudo-state of occupied northern Cyprus to the Philia Forum, while he also threatened Greece and Cyprus.

Speaking after a meeting of his party’s central committee, Çelik said:

“Mitsotakis presenting the Turkish army as occupying and then organizing a conference called the ‘Philia Forum,’ attended by the Foreign Ministers of Greece, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and the [Republic of] Cyprus, the question is: Why was the Turkish Republic, a Mediterranean country and a country at the center of these issues, not invited to this forum?”

1-192.jpgÖmer Çelik.

“In a meeting that was attended by the Greek Cypriot side, why was not the [unrecognized so-called] Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus [TRNC] invited? No meeting can be a friendship forum excluding the TRNC,” he said.

Çelik said that “if the Greece and Cyprus dreams of taking with them those countries that have problems for other reasons with Turkey to achieve their maximalist goals, we would like to guarantee that we will turn this into a nightmare.”

“We are not going to let this dream come true. They will not imagine such a thing, they will not take a step with such dreams, they will not even go crazy. They will not escape the nightmare if they take a step,” he added.

Turkey is immensely frustrated as the Philia Forum, the brainchild of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, completely isolated Turkey in the East Mediterranean region, while boosting Greece’s relations with Arab states in the Persian Gulf.

Effectively, as Turkey continues to act outside of international law and continues its threats and provocations against neighbouring countries, Greece has successfully sidelined Ankara as the key country of the East Mediterranean.



#219 Yervant1

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Posted 21 February 2021 - 09:44 AM

Public Radio of Armenia
Feb 20 2021
 
 
Prosecutors in Turkey seek to strip several MPs, including Armenian Garo Paylan, of immunity
 
 

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has prepared summaries of proceedings for nine lawmakers from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), seeking the lift of their legislative immunities, Bianet reports.

The HDP lawmakers, along with 99 other defendants, are facing aggravated life sentences for having allegedly organized the deadly “Kobane protests” in Kurdish-majority cities in October 2014.

The summaries of proceedings have been sent to the Ministry of Justice to be submitted to the parliament for a vote after being reviewed in relevant committees.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have the parliamentary majority to approve the summaries of proceedings.

HDP Co-Chair Pervin Buldan, its parliamentary group deputy chairs Meral Danış-Beştaş and Saruhan Oluç, and Garo Paylan, Hüda Kaya, Sezai Temelli, Pero Dundar, Fatma Kurtulan and Serpil Kemalbay-Pekgözegü are the MPs that the investigation concerns.

Dozens of HDP politicians were detained on September 25 after the investigation was launched and 17 of them were later remanded in custody.

The indictment charging the suspects with 25 different offenses, including “managing a terrorist organization” and “attempted overthrow,” was accepted on January 7.

The protests in question began in late September 2014 when ISIS launched an offensive to take over Kobane, a Kurdish town in northern Syria. Incidents between different protesting groups and the police response to protesters turned violent from October 6, resulting in the deaths of  42 people.

While the government has accused the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of orchestrating the protests and held it responsible for the losses, the party says most of the killed were its supporters and the incidents have not been effectively investigated.

Several senior HDP politicians had been previously investigated over the incidents but none of them received a sentence.

 

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#220 Yervant1

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Posted 25 February 2021 - 08:56 AM

ProPublica

Sheryl Sandberg and Top Facebook Execs Silenced an Enemy of Turkey to
Prevent a Hit to the Company’s Business

[Amid a 2018 Turkish military campaign, Facebook ultimately sided with
Turkey’s demand to block the page of a mostly Kurdish militia. “I am
fine with this,” Sandberg wrote.]

By Jack Gillum and Justin Elliott
Feb. 24, 2021

As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in
neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook’s top executives faced a
political dilemma.

Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from
the People’s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the
Turkish government had targeted. Should Facebook ignore the request,
as it has done elsewhere, and risk losing access to tens of millions
of users in Turkey? Or should it silence the group, known as the YPG,
even if doing so added to the perception that the company too often
bends to the wishes of authoritarian governments?

It wasn’t a particularly close call for the company’s leadership,
newly disclosed emails show.

“I am fine with this,” wrote Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s No. 2
executive, in a one-sentence message to a team that reviewed the page.
Three years later, YPG’s photos and updates about the Turkish
military’s brutal attacks on the Kurdish minority in Syria still can’t
be viewed by Facebook users inside Turkey.

The conversations, among other internal emails obtained by ProPublica,
provide an unusually direct look into how tech giants like Facebook
handle censorship requests made by governments that routinely limit
what can be said publicly. When the Turkish government attacked the
Kurds in the Afrin District of northern Syria, Turkey also arrested
hundreds of its own residents for criticizing the operation.

Publicly, Facebook has underscored that it cherishes free speech: “We
believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, and we
work hard to protect and defend these values around the world,” the
company wrote in a blog post last month about a new Turkish law
requiring that social media firms have a legal presence in the
country. “More than half of the people in Turkey rely on Facebook to
stay in touch with their friends and family, to express their opinions
and grow their businesses.”

But behind the scenes in 2018, amid Turkey’s military campaign,
Facebook ultimately sided with the government’s demands.
Deliberations, the emails show, were centered on keeping the platform
operational, not on human rights. “The page caused us a few PR fires
in the past,” one Facebook manager warned of the YPG material.

The Turkish government’s lobbying on Afrin-related content included a
call from the chairman of the BTK, Turkey’s telecommunications
regulator. He reminded Facebook “to be cautious about the material
being posted, especially photos of wounded people,” wrote Mark Smith,
a U.K.-based policy manager, to Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president
of global public policy. “He also highlighted that the government may
ask us to block entire pages and profiles if they become a focal point
for sharing illegal content.” (Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist
organization, although neither the U.S. nor Facebook do.)

The company’s eventual solution was to “geo-block,” or selectively ban
users in a geographic area from viewing certain content, should the
threats from Turkish officials escalate. Facebook had previously
avoided the practice, even though it has become increasingly popular
among governments that want to hide posts from within their borders.

Facebook confirmed to ProPublica that it made the decision to restrict
the page in Turkey following a legal order from the Turkish government
— and after it became clear that failing to do so would have led to
its services in the country being completely shut down. The company
said it had been blocked before in Turkey, including a half-dozen
times in 2016.

The content that Turkey deemed offensive, according to internal
emails, included photos on Facebook-owned Instagram of “wounded YPG
fighters, Turkish soldiers and possibly civilians.” At the time, the
YPG slammed what it understood to be Facebook’s censorship of such
material. “Silencing the voice of democracy: In light of the Afrin
invasion, YPG experience severe cyberattacks.” The group has published
graphic images, including photos of mortally wounded fighters; “this
is the way NATO ally Turkey secures its borders,” YPG wrote in one
post.

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone provided a written statement in response
to questions from ProPublica.

“We strive to preserve voice for the greatest number of people,” the
statement said. “There are, however, times when we restrict content
based on local law even if it does not violate our community
standards. In this case, we made the decision based on our policies
concerning government requests to restrict content and our
international human rights commitments. We disclose the content we
restrict in our twice-yearly transparency reports and are evaluated by
independent experts on our international human rights commitments
every two years.”

The Turkish embassy in Washington said it contends the YPG is the
“Syrian offshoot” of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which the
U.S. government considers to be a terrorist organization.

Facebook has considered the YPG page politically sensitive since at
least 2015, emails show, when officials discovered the page was
inaccurately marked as verified with a blue check mark. In turn, “that
created negative coverage on Turkish pro-government media,” one
executive wrote. When Facebook removed the check mark, it in turn
“created negative coverage [in] English language media including on
Huffington Post.”

In 2018, the review team, which included global policy chief Monika
Bickert, laid out the consequences of a ban. The company could set a
bad example for future cases and take flak for its decision.
“Geo-blocking the YPG is not without risk — activists outside of
Turkey will likely notice our actions, and our decision may draw
unwanted attention to our overall geo-blocking policy,” said one email
in late January.

But this time, the team members said, the parties were embroiled in an
armed conflict and Facebook officials worried their platform could be
shut down entirely in Turkey. “We are in favor of geo-blocking the YPG
content,” they wrote, “if the prospects of a full-service blockage are
great.” They prepared a “reactive” press statement: “We received a
valid court order from the authorities in Turkey requiring us to
restrict access to certain content. Following careful review, we have
complied with the order,” it said.

In a nine-page ruling by Ankara’s 2nd Criminal Judgeship of Peace,
government officials listed YPG’s Facebook page among several hundred
social media URLs they considered problematic. The court wrote that
the sites should be blocked to “protect the right to life or security
of life and property, ensure national security, protect public order,
prevent crimes, or protect public health,” according to a copy of the
order obtained by ProPublica.

Kaplan, in a Jan. 26, 2018, email to Sandberg and Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg, confirmed that the company had received a Turkish
government order demanding that the page be censored, although it
wasn’t immediately clear if officials were referring to the Ankara
court ruling. Kaplan advised the company to “immediately geo-block the
page” should Turkey threaten to block all access to Facebook.

Sandberg, in a reply to Kaplan, Zuckerberg and others, agreed. (She
had been at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, touting
Facebook’s role in assisting victims of natural disasters.)

In a statement to ProPublica, the YPG said censorship by Facebook and
other social media platforms “is on an extreme level.”

“YPG has actively been using social media platforms like Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and others since its foundation,” the
group said. “YPG uses social media to promote its struggle against
jihadists and other extremists who attacked and are attacking Syrian
Kurdistan and northern Syria. Those platform[s] have a crucial role in
building a public presence and easily reaching communities across the
world. However, we have faced many challenges on social media during
these years.”

Cutting off revenue from Turkey could harm Facebook financially,
regulatory filings suggest. Facebook includes revenue from Turkey and
Russia in the figure it gives for Europe overall and the company
reported a 34% increase for the continent in annual revenue per user,
according to its 2019 annual report to the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission.

Yaman Akdeniz, a founder of the Turkish Freedom of Expression
Association, said the YPG block was “not an easy case because Turkey
sees the YPG as a terror organization and wants their accounts to be
blocked from Turkey. But it just confirms that Facebook doesn't want
to challenge these requests, and it was prepared to act.”

“Facebook has a transparency problem,” he said.

In fact, Facebook doesn’t reveal to users that the YPG page is
explicitly banned. When ProPublica tried to access YPG’s Facebook page
using a Turkish VPN — to simulate browsing the internet from inside
the country — a notice read: “The link may be broken, or the page may
have been removed.” The page is still available on Facebook to people
who view the site through U.S. internet providers.

For its part, Facebook reported about 15,300 government requests
worldwide for content restrictions during the first half of 2018.
Roughly 1,600 came from Turkey during that period, company data shows,
accounting for about 10% of requests globally. In a brief post,
Facebook said it restricted access to 1,106 items in response to
requests from Turkey’s telecom regulator, the courts and other
agencies, “which covers a range of offenses including personal rights
violations, personal privacy, defamation of [first Turkish president
Mustafa Kemal] Ataturk, and laws on the unauthorized sale of regulated
goods.”

Katitza Rodriguez, policy director for global privacy at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the Turkish government has also
managed to force Facebook and other platforms into appointing legal
representatives in the country. If tech companies don’t comply, she
said, Turkish taxpayers would be prevented from placing ads and making
payments to Facebook. Because Facebook is a member of the Global
Network Initiative, Rodriguez said, it has pledged to uphold the
group’s human rights principles.

“Companies have an obligation under international human rights law to
respect human rights,” she said.

Do you have access to information about Facebook that should be
public? Email jack.gillum@propublica.org. Here’s how to send tips and
documents to ProPublica securely.

Mollie Simon contributed reporting

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