Tag Archives: Erdogan

Erdoğan’s Hold on Power in Question as Votes Counted in Turkey

Neither the incumbent nor his main rival has secured the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff election in two weeks.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 5-14-2023 by Common Dreams

National Election Campaign Banner for PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan.. Photo: Adam Jones/flickr/CC

Whether Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, maintains power remains an open question as officials continue to count votes following Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

Tens of millions of people cast ballots in the pivotal election before polls closed at 5:00 pm local time. Preliminary results indicate that Erdoğan of the right-wing Justice and Development Party (AKP) holds a dwindling lead over Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who heads the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) and is the joint candidate of a six-party opposition coalition.

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What’s at stake for women in Turkey’s election

Feminist groups tell of increasingly hostile environment under Erdoğan – but say opposition doesn’t go far enough

By Jessie Williams Published 5-12-2023 by openDemocracy

We Will Stop Femicides group at the Labour Day protests in Istanbul | We Will Stop Femicides


“It will be like the Taliban regime,” says Melek Önder, asked what will happen to women’s rights if Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is re-elected as president of Turkey in the election on Sunday.

Önder is a spokesperson for We Will Stop Femicides (Kadin Cinayetlerini Durduracagiz), one of the most active groups in Turkey’s women’s movement. The platform was founded in 2010 after Cem Garipoğlu, 17, murdered his girlfriend Münevver Karabulut, also 17. It collects data on femicides and campaigns against violence against women.

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Groups Blast Right-Wing Government Control of Internet Ahead of Turkey Elections

The vote will test whether voters in Turkey can rely on social media for independent news and to express their views on the election and its outcome, despite government efforts to put companies under its heel.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 5-11-2023 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: Chatham House

As Turks prepare to vote in Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections, a pair of human rights groups warned Wednesday that the right-wing government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “will exert considerable control over the digital ecosystem in an effort to undermine the outcome.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Article 19, an international group promoting freedom of expression, published a question-and-answer report examining “potential threats to Turkey’s online environment in the parliamentary and presidential elections in which President Erdoğan—who has been in power for over 20 years—and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) face a significant electoral challenge.”

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Turkish President Erdoğan’s grip on power threatened by devastating earthquake

Erdoğan is facing criticism over his handling of the disaster.
Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Ahmet T. Kuru, San Diego State University

The earthquake that struck Turkey on Feb. 6, 2023, is first and foremost a human tragedy, one that has taken the lives of at least 45,000 people to date.

The disaster also has major implications for the country’s economy – the financial loss from the damage is estimated to be US$84 billion – and its politics.

Analyzing this human tragedy and its long-term implications for Turkey is difficult for me. I am a scholar of Turkish politics. But I also grew up in the affected region and lost relatives and friends in the cities of Antakya and Iskenderun. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to examine the implications of the earthquake on Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – not for reasons of political intrigue, but because it is crucial in determining how Turkey recovers from the disaster and better prepares itself in the future. Continue reading

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Turkey funds women’s groups to counter ‘feminist threat’

Government-operated women’s organisations are drowning out genuine feminist voices in Turkey, my research reveals

By Anna Ehrhart  Published 5-20-2022 by openDemocracy

“Kıyafetime karışma” protest in Kadıköy, Istanbul on July 29, 2017. Photo: Neslihan_Turan/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Government-controlled women’s organisations in Turkey are undermining genuine feminist organisations in the country, according to research I have undertaken over the past three years.

I have been studying how the Turkish leadership under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan strategically uses women’s organisations that it funds and controls – so-called ‘women-GONGOs’ – in order to mimic and undermine feminist groups. My qualitative research is based on interviews and meetings with more than 20 feminist women’s organisations across Turkey and explores their experiences of the country’s changing civic space. Continue reading

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106 years and 44 days of the Armenian Genocide

The US decision to recognise the Armenian Genocide has urgent relevance for the country in the wake of last year’s war in Nagorno Karabakh

By Avetis Harutyunyan  Published 5-7-2021 by openDemocracy

A view of Yerevan, the capital city of the Republic of Armenia, with the backdrop of Mount Ararat (locally known as Masis). Photo: Serouj Ourishian/Wikimedia Commons

“You have not seen Mount Ararat how I saw it growing up. I promise, one day I will take you back home.”

Since childhood, my grandfather grew up listening to these words of his great-grandfather, Baghdasar, who fled to Armenia with his family during the 1915 genocide.

My grandfather recollects how Baghdasar would tell stories of their home in Bayazet, or Doğubeyazıt in modern Turkey, in the shadow of Mount Ararat, and promise his grandchildren that one day they would return to their home. In 1915, to save his family from the massacres, Baghdasar closed the doors of his house, crossed the Araks River, which flows along the borders of Armenia and Turkey, and ended up in the Armenian city of Gavar. According to my grandfather, when Baghdasar died, he still had the key to his old house in his pocket. Continue reading

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The far right’s rise within armed forces is a global threat to democracy

The suspected involvement of soldiers and police in the US Capitol riots echoes infiltration moves by extremists in Europe.

By Paul Rogers  Published 1-16-2021 by openDemocracy

The Capitol ambush was a low point for US democracy. Screenshot: CBS News

Earlier this month, the world was shocked by the Capitol rioters’ assault on US democracy. But more chilling still is that those who swore to protect the institutions of state may have been among the attackers.

One US army captain is under investigation for taking part in the 6 January rally that eventually led to the breach of the Capitol in Washington DC, while a former marine was reported to be among the mob that descended on the building. Two off-duty police officers have been charged in connection with the riots.

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‘Inhumane’ and ‘Reckless’: Amnesty International Condemns Greece’s Measures to Block Migrants at Turkish Border

“People seeking asylum are once again being used as bargaining chips in a callous political game.”

By for Common Dreams. Published 3-2-2020

Photo: Gizli Muhafiz/Twitter

Amnesty International on Monday condemned “inhumane” measures that Greek authorities have taken toward migrants since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced last week that Turkey would no longer stop refugees and asylum-seekers—many of whom have fled the ongoing war in Syria—from crossing by land and sea into Greece.

Turkey eased restrictions at the western border it shares with Greece in response to thousands of migrants from Syria who have poured into Turkey in recent days amid a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive into Syria’s Idlib province and escalating violence between Syrian and Turkish forces. Continue reading

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Why the US has nuclear weapons in Turkey – and may try to put the bombs away

A B-61 bomb, like the ones stored at the US Incirlik Airbase in Turkey. Flickr/Kelly Michals, CC BY-SA

Miles A. Pomper, Middlebury

As the Syrian crisis pits Turkish troops against former U.S.-allied Kurdish forces, Pentagon officials have been reviewing plans to remove 50 nuclear bombs stored at a U.S air base in Turkey.

A congressional directive to the Pentagon to quickly assess alternative homes for U.S. “personnel and assets” currently stationed at Incirlik Air Base is part of a broader bipartisan bill, still being debated, that proposes sanctions against Turkey. President Donald Trump has been forced to issue public reassurances that the weapons are secure. Continue reading

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The Turkish invasion of Syria: A new hope for Jihadists

What are the geopolitical stakes of Turkey’s invasion of Syria?

By Chris Den Hond. Published 10-16-2019 by openDemocracy

Translated by Janet Biehl

From the moment Trump ordered U.S. troops to withdraw from Syria, Turkey wasted no time in launching an invasion of northern Syria. To understand the geopolitical stakes, I asked four people close to the situation for their assessments:

Salih Muslim, is spokesperson for the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria. Fehim Taştekin, is an analyst and journalist, based in Vienna. Agit Polat, is spokesperson for the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F) and based in Paris. Raphaël Lebrujah, is a journalist in Qamishlo.

I asked each of them about several important topics. Continue reading

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