Erdogan Watch

[Bengal_Tiger]

17 indicted in Hatay for insulting Erdoğan



April 02, 2015, Thursday/ 18:56:08/ TODAY'S ZAMAN / ISTANBUL

A total of 17 people from a People's House (Halkevi) have been indicted for allegedly insulting then-prime minister, now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a public rally in March 2013.

The indictment against the People's House members seeks a prison sentence of up to three years for each member on the charge of insulting a statesman, the private Doğan news agency reported.

According to the report, a group of People's House members marched towards an area on March 22, 2014, where then-prime minister Erdoğan was preparing to hold a rally, carrying the pictures of people who were killed during the Gezi Park protests of 2013. The group continued to move forward after being warned to withdraw by police. Four members of the group were taken into custody and later released.

Speaking to reporters on behalf of the group on Thursday, after the hearing was canceled due to the absence of the judge, Eylem Mansuroğlu denied the charges attributed to the People's House members, claiming that they hadn't insulted Erdoğan, but had only expressed their opinions. “The investigation was launched against us after we said the killers will account for their acts,” Mansuroğlu said.
Dozens of people, including journalists, high school students, activists and even a former Miss Turkey, have been prosecuted for insulting Erdoğan on social media.

According to the Turkish daily Sözcü, Erdoğan has filed complaints on charges of insulting him against a total of 236 people in the 227 days since he was elected president on Aug. 10, 2014. Out of these 236 individuals, eight are currently under arrest, and trials are underway for 105. The rest of the complaints were rejected by prosecutors without being brought to trial, according to the report.

http://www.todayszaman.com/national_17-indicted-in-hatay-for-insulting-erdogan_376986.html

- Believe it or not the dictator Erdogan has compiled data on all of the 77 million people of Turkey.

- He has also established rooms in his presidential palace where he can monitor all major towns of Turkey to personally see through cameras what they are doing if there were to be another uprising against him.

Links will be provided later.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Journalist sentenced to jail for sharing Facebook post ‘insulting’ Erdoğan




Journalist sentenced to jail for sharing Facebook post ‘insulting’ Erdoğan
Journalist Yaşar Elma (L) and his lawyer, Dilber Demirel. (Photo: DHA)

April 04, 2015, Saturday/ 14:28:33/ TODAYSZAMAN.COM / ISTANBUL

A local journalist in the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep was handed a suspended prison sentence for sharing on Facebook another user's post that the court said insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Journalist Yaşar Elma was convicted of “insulting a public official” for the post he shared on his Facebook page on July 16, 2014 and given a suspended sentence to serve one year and 11 months in prison. A lawyer for Erdoğan, who was still the prime minister at that time, was a co-plaintiff in the case. The Gaziantep court also ordered Elma to pay the lawyer's TL 1,500 (approximately $580) fee.

Elma's lawyer, Dilber Demirel, said she will appeal the ruling, insisting that the political figures should tolerate heavy criticism and that her client exercised his freedom of speech. Demirel also complained that the verdict opens the way for criminalizing the sharing of a post on social media platforms. “This means, you may be punished for sharing someone else's opinions,” she was quoted as saying by private news agency Doğan.

Elma said he was not aware that sharing another user's post was a crime. He also said he had deleted the post half an hours after he shared it on his Facebook page but was still called by the police after a while to give a testimony about the post.

It was not clear whether the user who originally published the post has also been prosecuted.

Scores of people, including journalists, students, activists and even a former Miss Turkey, have been prosecuted for “insulting” Erdoğan. Most cases have been launched under a law that bans “insulting the president” but several people have also faced the court on lesser charges of “insulting a public official” for statements that were made before he became the president in August 2014.

According to a recent tally by opposition daily Sözcü, President Erdoğan has filed complaints on charges of “insulting” him against a total of 236 people since he was elected president in the election held on Aug. 10, 2014.

http://www.todayszaman.com/national_journalist-sentenced-to-jail-for-sharing-facebook-post-insulting-erdogan_377143.html

[Bengal_Tiger]

16-year-old Turkish student on trial for calling Erdoğan ‘a thief’




A 16-year old Turkish high school student appeared in court on Friday in the central Anatolian city of Konya on charges of insulting President Tayyip Erdogan, having called him “the thieving owner of the illegal palace” in December.

16-year-old Turkish student on trial for calling Erdoğan ‘a thief’


Police arrested Mehmet Emin Altunses in December after he read out a statement slamming both the ruling AK Party government and Erdogan over corruption allegations during a ceremony to commemorate the killing of a Turkish soldier by Islamists in 1920s.

"I should have been at school at this hour today but I am at the courthouse. I don't want to come to the court frequently. I want to be acquitted of all charges at the next hearing. I want to look to the future," Altunses told reporters outside the courthouse.

Lawyer Barış İspir said the teenager will plead not guilty to charges at the next hearing in September.

"We believe that sooner or later justice will be done and unveil the truth free of all political pressures. Therefore we believe that our client will be acquitted," İspir said.

In a video broadcast by Dogan News Agency last year, the teenager read out a statement defending secularism and the principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, as a crowd surrounding him chanted "everywhere is bribery, everywhere is corruption".

Artilce 299 of Turkey's penal code explicitly forbids insulting the president.

http://national.bgnnews.com/16-year-old-turkish-student-on-trial-for-calling-erdogan-a-thief-haberi/4840

[Bengal_Tiger]

Four Turkish daily journalists Erdoğan's latest targets




Cumhuriyet writers Cüneyt Arcayürek, Özgür Mumcu, Meriç Velidedeoğlu and reporter Emre Döker become the latest to face charges over their writing on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has sued them for slander, according to the President’s lawyer.

Four Turkish daily journalists Erdoğan's latest targets


Words like 'tyranny' and 'ignorance' in the articles form the basis for the controversial slander accusation from Erdoğan’s lawyer, who stated that the journalists had attempted to defame the president.

The pieces of the journalists date from around mid-March. Emre Döker had penned an article concerning four villas belonging to the president, built on a preserved forest site. Ahmet Özel, the president's attorney, said that the statement that the villas were gifted to the president was false and harbored the intent of implying that there was bribery involved in the dealing.

Özgür Mumcu on the other hand had written on an AK Party (the ruling Justice and Development Party) rally where Erdoğan had the crowd boo the mother of a 15-year-old protester who had died in a coma after a tear gas canister fired by the police struck his forehead, stating that the incident showed that Erdoğan’s “tyranny had no limits.”

Erdoğan also drew strong criticism for demanding that women give birth to at least three children each. Meriç Velidedeoğlu’s crime was expressing that this statement bore resemblance to Hitler calling for women to bear four babies, practically viewing the female body as a "womb machine."

The Turkish president’s statements on the economy equally drew ire when he called for a takeover of publicly traded Bank Asya, saying it was on the verge of collapse, while disregarding separations of state powers to publicly lash out at the Central Bank to cut inflation rates. Meanwhile the lira has breached record after record in its decline against the dollar. Cüneyt Arcayürek had referred to Erdoğan’s policy as 'ignorance.'

Since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected president of Turkey in August 2014, more than 70 Turks have been prosecuted on charges of 'insulting the President.' More and more critics believe these cases, opened against a variety of journalists, teachers, public officials and even teenagers, are tools to smother dissent.

Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and the European Union are among numerous international bodies which have condemned the persecution of free press by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

http://national.bgnnews.com/four-turkish-daily-journalists-erdogans-latest-targets-haberi/5174

[Bengal_Tiger]

Over a thousand more high ranking police officers forced into retirement

Over a thousand more high ranking police officers forced into retirement
Some 1,176 high ranking police officials, including those who played a key role in the 2013 corruption probe, have been retired at a High Assessment Board meeting of the National Police Department following a security bill approved by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and signed into law on April.



Over a thousand more high ranking police officers forced into retirement.


The board began deliberations on the retirements on Monday, April 13, under a newly-enacted and controversial internal security legislation which amended the Police Duties and Authorities (PVSK) law.

On the fifth day of the meeting, chaired by the head of the National Police Department Celalettin Lekesiz, the board continued to review the records of first-, second-, third- and fourth-degree police chiefs. In a statement released late on Friday, the board said that it had decided to retire 1,142 first-degree police chiefs as well as 269 second, 184 third and 181 fourth-degree police chiefs.

The board had also retired 1,150 first-degree police chiefs out of 1,725 on Thursday.

The retirements of police chiefs follow a massive wave of reassignments or removals of thousands of members of the police force since a corruption scandal broke out on Dec 17, 2013, implicating ministers and businessmen in the inner circle of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Erdoğan launched a war against the faith-based Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, after a scandalous corruption investigation which targeted his inner circle became public with a wave of detentions beginning on Dec. 17, 2013. Erdoğan accused the police officers, judges and prosecutors he claimed to be linked to the Gülen movement of being behind the investigation.

http://national.bgnnews.com/over-a-thousand-more-high-ranking-police-officers-forced-into-retirement-haberi/5229

- Erdogan will win the elections in 2 months time, and become a powerful executive president as per his agenda.


He will lead Turkey for another 4 years.


- However he will not be able to carry on doing what he is doing at the moment e.g. supporting radical "Islamists" all over the Muslim world from Bangladesh to Libya.


- Also the Turkish economy has long term structural problems and the next few years may see the Turkish economy decline dramatically.


More important than anything to the Turkish electorate apart from ideology, Ataturk, nationalism, is the economy.

If the Turkish economy collapses at it did before e.g. 2002, Erdogan will be out.

However if he is voted out, he may be arrested and tried, or he may be assassinated as previous pro-Muslim leaders were in Turkey e.g. Turgut Ozal (suspected to have been killed by the Turkish deep state).

[Bengal_Tiger]

The Turkish lira’s long tale of woe under Recep Tayyip Erdogan



WRITTEN BY

Jason Karaian
@jkaraian

April 15, 2015

Another day, another record low for the Turkish lira. The currency crossed 2.70 to the US dollar today, extending a series of losses that stretches back years but has accelerated in recent weeks. The lira is one of the worst-performing emerging markets currencies against the US dollar so far this year, losing around 13% of its value versus the greenback.

Turkey’s central bank has been trying to talk up the currency, but its options are limited—after all, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan once denounced central bank chief Erdem Basci as a “traitor” for not cutting interest rates more quickly. But lower rates are the last thing that Turkey needs to shore up the lira right now. Turkey relies heavily on foreign borrowing, and the expected rise in US interest rates will make financing its already wide deficit even harder.

The other thing that turns off traders is Erdogan himself. He took power as prime minister in 2003 as a reformer, but “the reform phase effectively ended in 2006-7,” an analyst told Reuters. Erdogan made self-preservation more of a priority as time went on, particularly when he switched to president last year after he hit a three-term limit on serving as prime minister. By not addressing the economy’s structural weaknesses—unemployment is now at a five-year high—growth has sputtered and investors have taken flight.


What’s more, the Erdogan regime’s checkered history on human rights and free speech is now mixed with an air of conspiratorial paranoia, with officials recently denouncing Pope Francis as part of an “evil front” seeking to undermine the ruling party. (The Pope dubbed the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a genocide, which Ankara vehemently denies.)
A key pledge by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party going into a June general election is to change the constitution and centralize more power in the presidency, until now a mostly ceremonial role. As we have recently written, this volatility and unpredictability makes Turkey look less like a democracy and more like an “arbitocracy”:

Turkey’s problematic relationship with the rule of law has always spurred criticism. However, there has been no other period in which the system revolved around one man, and in which the violation of the constitution has become so commonplace, unquestionable and unjustifiably arbitrary.
This is not a trait that attracts much-needed foreign capital, and the lira’s long slide shows what the markets think of the country’s increasingly erratic leadership.

Turkey’s mixed record over the last decade can be summarized as the transformation of a regional poster child into a huge disappointment.
Although ostensibly democratic, Turkey is a de facto authoritarian regime, and one that increasingly supports systems of clientelism and patronage. The intimidation and arrest of journalists—as well as regular citizens who dare criticize the omnipotent president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—has now become common. Under this unprecedented pressure, Turkey’s few remaining domestic analysts and independent observers no longer question whether Turkey is an oppressive regime; now we debate the nature of its authoritarianism.

Some call Turkey’s regime “sultanistic,” because it revolves around Erdoğan. Others say that Turkey has been reduced to “electoral democracy,” since it lacks the civil liberties of a full democracy. Due to the combination of elections and intolerance for dissidence, still others label Turkey a system of “competitive authoritarianism.”

“If they have the power, then let them destroy it.”

But for its highly unpredictably and personalistic regime, perhaps Turkey deserves a new name: “arbitrocracy.” Turkey’s problematic relationship with the rule of law has always spurred criticism. However, there has been no other period in which the system revolved around one man, and in which the violation of the constitution has become so commonplace, unquestionable and unjustifiably arbitrary.

In the eyes of many, the most visible symptom of arbitrocracy has been Erdogan’s lavish new palace, widely referred as “Ak Saray,” based on the initials of Erdogan’s AK Party. In Mar. 2014, an Ankara court ruled against the construction of Erdoğan’s new palace. Then prime minister, Erdoğan openly challenged the court’s decision, saying “If they have the power, then let them destroy it.” No one did—the court order was eventually dismissed, and the palace completed. The same building, originally designed to house the office of the prime minister, became a presidential palace when Erdoğan was elected president on Aug. 10, 2014.

But this extravagant palace is only one example of Erdoğan’s free reign.
Turkey’s record on freedom of the press has never been particularly stellar. In June 2014, Freedom House, a non-governmental advocacy organization for democracy and human rights, downgraded Turkey from “partly free” to “not free,” citing the government’s harassment of reporters in during Istanbul’s 2013 Gezi Park protests. In Dec. 2014, the country witnessed a major crackdown against members of the media critical of the regime and close to the grassroots religious movement Hizmet. Ekrem Dumanlı, the editor-in-chief of Turkey’s highest circulation daily Zaman;

Erdoğan has repeatedly disappointed Turkish liberals and Muslim democrats who believed he would Westernize Turkey

Hidayet Karaca, director of Samanyolu Broadcasting Group and others (including script writers and graphic designers) were detained by Turkish police on charges of forming a terrorist organization. On Dec. 30, 2014, journalist Sedef Kabaş was detained over a single tweet.

The cost of such arbitrariness is not simply political. In Feb. 2015, the inexplicable fight that Erdoğan waged against the president of the Turkish Central Bank for not lowering the interest rate per Erdoğan’s instructions led to a historic loss of value for the Turkish lira. Simultaneously, Erdoğan’s tireless efforts to bankrupt a private bank with shareholders close to the Hizmet movement have led to a crisis of confidence in the country’s economy and the withdrawal of foreign investors.

Erdoğan sometimes does not bother to hide his motivations. On the way back from a trip to South America in Feb. 2015, Erdoğan told journalists that he had essentially awarded a lucrative construction contract, even though bidding for the project had not yet been opened to the public. The 2002 law of public procurement been amended 37 times during the rule of Erdoğan’s AKP party.

Erdoğan has repeatedly disappointed Turkish liberals and Muslim democrats who believed he would Westernize Turkey and bring it into the European Union. He has similarly undermined the idea that political Islamists can be genuine democrats by doing exactly what skeptics feared most. The consequence of the stubborn president’s arbitrocracy will likely reach far beyond Turkey’s borders: any hope for a democracy that might set a model for oppressive neighbors and Muslim peers in the region is now gone.

Follow Sevgi on Twitter at @sevgistanbul. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

http://qz.com/382258/turkeys-vengeful-president-erdogan-is-squashing-his-countrys-rise/

- Unemployment is at a five year high.

- Investors are avoiding Turkey.

- The Lira is at its weakest against the dollar and getting weaker and weaker.


- Egypt has blocked certain Turkish ships from using certain routes via the Suez, so Turkey is looking to go via Iran.

Link


- Bad relations with Syria which the Erdogan regime is at war with.

- 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.

- An ISIS attack killing 2 Turks in northern Iraq today, link.

- Bad relations with Iran which is suspected of carrying out two cyber-attacks on Turkey recently shutting down Turkey's electricity supply through out the country.

- Bad relations with Iraq.

- Bad relations with Armenia and an argument with the pope over the Armenian war of the 20th century (when hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Turks are said to have been killed too, but ignored by western media).

- Military tensions with Greece, link.


- Violence with Kurdish separatists in the south-east, link.


Erdogan is no longer seen as the messiah and hero that he was by many in the past and is now seen as a bully and to an extent, a pariah by some.

[tripledouble]

Sheikh Haseena is even worse...

[Bengal_Tiger]

Columnist Avcı faces life sentence for tweeting Erdoğan’s voice recording with son



April 24, 2015, Friday/ 23:19:35/ TODAYSZAMAN.COM / ISTANBUL


Columnist Gültekin Avcı, a former public prosecutor who now defends a jailed journalist as a lawyer, was summoned to testify to a prosecutor on charges of establishing a terrorist organization and attempting to overthrow the government for retweeting a post that featured the audio recording of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asking his son Bilal to “zero” $1 billion in cash that was in their house.

Bugün daily columnist Avcı announced on his Twitter account on Friday that he was summoned to testify by an İzmir prosecutor as part of an investigation carried out by the Anti-constitutional Crimes Investigation Bureau at the Chief Prosecutor's Office in Ankara.

Avcı said he, along with other journalists Emre Uslu, Önder Aytaç, Mehmet Baransu and İsmail Saymaz, is accused of establishing a terrorist organization and attempting to overthrow the government.
“The action which is shown as the basis for attempting to overthrow the government is retweeting a voice recording leaked by Twitter account Başçalan [Prime Thief],” Avcı said.

Stating that the prosecutors claim that the suspects, who have large numbers of followers, attempted to overthrow the government by retweeting the voice recording between Erdoğan and his son, Avcı said the person who filed the criminal complaint was Erdoğan himself.
According to Avcı, prosecutors seek aggravated life imprisonment for the suspects over the allaged crime.

“I told the prosecutor during the testimony that if governments would fall with tweets and retweets, I would not leave Twitter for a second,” Avcı defiantly tweeted. He said the prosecutor “surprisingly” did not seek his arrest but released him pending trial.

The voice recording Avcı retweeted, allegedly belonging to Erdoğan and his son, was leaked on the Internet on the evening of Feb. 24, 2014. In the recorded phone conversations Erdoğan is heard instructing his son Bilal to dispose of vast amounts of cash on Dec. 17, 2013 amid an ongoing corruption operation. The conversations came at a time when police had raided a number of locations as part of the operation that also implicated the sons of three former ministers as well as business executives and the chief of state-run Ziraat Bank. In the recording Erdoğan asked Bilal to “zero” the money in their house.

Avcı has been recently come to prominence for defending journalist Hidayet Karaca as his lawyer.

Samanyolu Broadcasting Group CEO Hidayet Karaca has been under arrest for more than four months since he was detained as part of a major media crackdown on Dec. 14, 2014, just three days before the first anniversary of the massive corruption investigations of Dec. 17 and 25.

The only “evidence” supporting Karaca's arrest is a fictional TV series that was aired on Samanyolu TV in 2009 that mentions an extremist organization named Tahşiyeciler. The organization, which is sympathetic to al-Qaeda, was later subject to a police operation in which its leaders received prison time. The prosecutor argues that it was Karaca who plotted against this terrorist organization by means of sending messages to the police chiefs through the TV series that aired on his TV station. The judge used an illegally acquired phone conversation of Karaca in 2013 to arrest him for events that transpired in 2009, although the illegal wiretap was excluded from the case after Karaca's lawyers objected.

“You can forget me if I am arrested unjustly one day. But don't forget Hidayet Karaca,” Avcı also tweeted on Friday.

http://www.todayszaman.com/anasayfa_columnist-avci-faces-life-sentence-for-tweeting-erdogans-voice-recording-with-son_378941.html

[Bengal_Tiger]

Mourner kicked by Erdoğan’s aide in Soma now faces 6 years in jail



Then-prime minister and current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's aide Yusuf Yerkel kicks a citizen during Erdoğan’s visit to the town of Soma in May 2014. (Photo: Cihan)


May 17, 2015, Sunday/ 14:46:44/ ÖZDEMİR ÖZKAN/ ÖMER ÇAKMAK/ / MANISA

A miner who was kicked by then-Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's aide, Yusuf Yerkel, in Manisa's Soma district following the country's biggest mine disaster is now facing a prison term of up to six years for damaging an official car in Erdoğan's convoy.

Erdoğan's aide Yerkel kicked protester Erdal Kocabıyık, who had lost his cousin in the accident that claimed the lives of 301 miners, during Erdoğan's visit to Soma last year after the disaster. According to reports in the Turkish media, special forces had been interrogating the protester after he allegedly kicked the official car. Yerkel, who saw the scene while preparing to take a seat in the car assigned to him, rushed at Kocabıyık and kicked him three or four times. Kocabıyık was recently fined TL 543 by a court for causing material damage by kicking the car in Erdoğan's convoy.

Akhisar Public Prosecutor Adem Aktaş launched a case against Kocabıyık over the damage to the car, one used by Erdoğan's bodyguards, with the license plate 06 ZDB 91. In the indictment that he prepared, Aktaş stated that the injured party was the Prime Ministry of the Turkish Republic, and said the damage sustained by the car amounted to TL 543.44. The prosecutor is seeking a prison sentence of between one and six years for damaging public property, as per the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).

Prime Ministry joins case against kicked mourner

The Prime Ministry also decided to become a co-plaintiff in the case that was launched by the prosecutor ex-officio and a prison sentence for the miner who was subjected to being kicked by Erdoğan's aide is now being sought. Oğuz Gezer, the lawyer representing Kocabıyık, said his client did not file a complaint against Yerkel despite being kicked.
Gezer also denied that the alleged damage to the car occurred, adding that they asked for documents and evidence proving that the car sustained damage.

“My client is having difficulty in finding a job. To be honest, he still hasn't found a job. We don't understand why the Prime Ministry is pressing the issue this much. The issue between the parties [Yerkel and Kocabıyık] has been closed. My client didn't even file a complaint despite being kicked,” Gezer said.

The fine of TL 543 was publicized last week when Derya Kocabıyık, the wife of the miner, said they had received a summons from a court, indicating that the official vehicle had incurred material damage and that her husband has been fined the amount for the damage to the vehicle.

Yerkel's forceful kicks to the slain miner's relative caused huge public outrage and fueled anti-government protests across the country. However, Yerkel, who stayed out of the public eye for a while, was not fired from his post. After the incident, Yerkel obtained a medical report showing that his right leg -- which he had used to kick the protester -- had been injured in the incident and the report excused Yerkel from work for seven days. He now works as President Erdoğan's aide.

On May 13, 2014, Turkey was shocked by news of an explosion and fire at a coal mine in Soma, a town in the western province of Manisa. The fire rapidly depleted the oxygen in the mine shaft, causing 301 trapped workers to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. A total of 162 other people were injured in the blast. Erdoğan's speech in Soma on May 14 prompted public fury, particularly because of examples of work accidents he cited from around the world dating back to the 19th century and his statement that death is part of the nature of the mining industry.

http://www.todayszaman.com/national_mourner-kicked-by-erdogans-aide-in-soma-now-faces-6-years-in-jail_380916.html

[Bengal_Tiger]

Libyan air force bombs Turkish ship suspected of carrying arms to ISIS supporters:

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/turkey-libya-libyan-air-force-attacks-turkish-ship.html

Egypt restricts women from travelling to Turkey.

Egyptian women are no longer allowed to travel to Turkey without security clearance, police in Egypt announced on Sunday. The same goes for Egyptian men - to prevent them from joining the so-called Islamic State.

The restriction covers women aged 18 - 40 – they now need to obtain security clearance before leaving for Turkey.

"A security clearance can be acquired within 72 hours, and it is now mandatory for women traveling to that country," the officer said

http://rt.com/news/259645-egypt-turkey-women-isis/

- Erdogan's Turkey is now being seen widely as a state sponsor of terrorism including ISIS.

The following governments have had problems with its support for terrorists and radicals in their countries.


- Egypt
- Iraq
- Syria
- Tunisia
- Libya
- Bangladesh


Erdogan must go.


He will win the elections in a few weeks and quite possibly by a resounding majority.

The next four years after that he can concentrate on dismantling Kemalism for once and for all and creating an irreversible reformation of Turkey from a fascist state to a more tolerant one.

However after that in the long run he is a criminal, traitor and a thief and he will have to go.

[HalloIsBack]

Kurds in Germany enraged over AKP phone text messages
By Polla Garmiany 3 hours ago
Erdogan speaks to supporters in Karlsruhe earlier this month. AP photo.
Erdogan speaks to supporters in Karlsruhe earlier this month. AP photo.
MAINZ, Germany – Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has sent phone text messages calling on citizens living Germany to vote in next month’s Turkish elections, enraging many Kurds who are complaining about a loss of privacy.

“No time, no problem,“ reads the message in Turkish. “Bring your Turkish ID card with your ID number, your driver’s license or your passport to vote from May 8 to May 31 between 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. AK Party.”

Even many Kurds who are not originally from Turkey have received the short text messages (SMS) over the last several days.

Many recipients ask themselves how the AKP, supported by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who was in the German city of Karlsruhe this month rallying Turkish citizens to vote, could obtain the phone numbers.

Others question the legality of obtaining phone numbers and sending the text messages, ahead of the crucial June 7 parliamentary polls.

“This is just annoying! The AKP is trying to influence the outcome of the elections by all available means,“ complained Devran Alkan, who has roots in Erzurum in eastern Turkey, or Northern Kurdistan as the Kurds call it.

“Firstly, Erdogan campaigns for them, like in Karlsruhe, even though he has to stay neutral as president of Turkey. And then they send all these text messages to people here in Germany,” Alkan added. “I don’t even know where they got my number from!”

Customers of all big German telecommunication providers, mostly with Kurdish or Turkish names, have received the message.

Rojin Murad, whose parents once fled from Turkey, said: “This move by the AKP is intolerable! I have already filed a complaint at the Federal Network Agency. It is not acceptable that private data is abused for propaganda purposes. I am not even a citizen of Turkey, I can’t vote in that country!”

The incident has even attracted the attention of German politicians. On his official Facebook page Tobias Huch, from the German Liberal Party (FDP), has posted instructions on how to file a complaint.

“Firstly, this act by the AKP is definitely illegal,“ Huch told Rudaw. “This is clearly a violation of Germany’s Federal Privacy Act,” said Huch, who is a supporter of Kurdish independence and has traveled to the Kurdistan Region to visit the frontlines against ISIS and help start a charity that provides clean water for some of the 1.4 million refugees in Kurdistan.

“This is a very lousy way of campaigning,” Huch said. “This clearly shows the AKP’s panic from loss of autocracy.”

The June 7 election is hugely important: Erdogan is pushing for a sweeping victory for his former AKP party to realize his wishes of changing Turkey’s parliamentary system to a presidential one and concentrating greater power in the presidency.

The pro-Kurdish HDP party, which is fighting for at least the 10 percent of votes required to win a seat in parliament, has vowed to stand in Erdogan’s way.

Anya Delen, vice chairperson of the “Kurdische Jugend Deutschland” organization that represents Kurdish youth in German-speaking countries across Europe, agreed that the AKP is going full throttle because it fears votes going to the HDP.

“These enormous efforts by the AKP and the empty AKP booths in Kurdish cities just reflect their fears of the rising HDP. However, this is not an excuse for unfair and dishonest methods at campaigning. We strongly condemn this action by Mr. Erdogan’s party,” Delen told Rudaw.

Statements by telecommunication provider Vodafone and the Federal Network Agency denied any complicity in the SMS campaign.

“Vodafone did not provide the sender any phone numbers,” Vodafone spokesman Peter Volkendorf said. “We also do not manage and separate our customer files by nationality,” he explained.

The Federal Network Agency has said it will examine the incident and try to find out how the targeted message was sent.

In his speech to supporters gathered to hear him in Karlsruhe ten days ago, Erdogan said: “(You) are our power outside the country. For us you are no migrant workers, you are our strength in foreign countries.”

Germany hosts a large number of migrant workers and ethnic Turks, whose votes are hugely important to the AKP.

Alkan, from Erzurum, has not taken the AKP message sitting down; he has written back: “I will vote for HDP.“

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/20052015

[HalloIsBack]

erdogan spied on jezidi in germany
3 spies were catched

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/spionageaffaere-anklage-gegen-ankaras-agenten-a-1034933.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=

[Bengal_Tiger]

After sending ship, Turkey to donate $1 million for Rohingya refugees

ANKARA



An Indonesian paramedic gives medical treatment to a Rohingya migrant woman, who recently arrived in Indonesia by boat, inside a temporary compound for refugees in Aceh Timur regency, Indonesia's Aceh Province




Turkish military ship joins efforts to reach Rohingya Muslims

Turkey has pledged to add $1 million to efforts by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide humanitarian aid for Rohingya and Bengalese refugees stranded at sea, Anadolu Agency has reported, citing presidency sources.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on May 20 to talk on refugees stranded in the Andaman Sea and confirmed that Turkey was ready to take responsibility on the issue.

The agency said Erdoğan told Razak that Turkey appreciated the efforts of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand for the refugees.

The Turkish Navy has been carrying out efforts to reach Rohingya Muslims stranded in boats off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on May 19.

Addressing a group of young people at Çankaya Palace May 19, Davutoğlu had said that Turkey was doing its best to reach Rohingya Muslims at sea with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), with the help of a ship from the Turkish Armed Forces already sailing in the region.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/after-sending-ship-turkey-to-donate-1-million-for-rohingya-refugees.aspx?pageID=238&nID=82786&NewsCatID=510

- Erdogan has to be respected for his efforts in helping the Rohingyas.

[marwat]

[SIZE="5"][B]- Erdogan has to be respected for his efforts in helping the Rohingyas.

Erdogan and whole turkey nation have my respect. in the past Erdogan visited rohingya muslim and helped them financially. saudi arabia too helped them financially.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Turkish Elections

In a week's time elections will take place in Turkey.

In Turkey the president's post is mainly ceremonial but he does have some powers, but he is supposed to be neutral and non-partisan.

Erdogan is seeking the change the current ceremonial Turkish presidency to a powerful executive presidency as in the USA or France.

In his critics eyes, he is looking to make himself a semi-dictator.

Erdogan himself will not be standing in the elections, but his old party the ruling AKP will be.




AKP Victory

- The AKP will win. Everyone knows that.

The question is will the AKP get 2/3 of parliamentary seats so they can organize a referendum for Turks to decide whether Erdogan should be a super-powerful president?

No one is sure.




If Erdogan does change the constitution and become a super-powerful president he will no doubt carry on his policy of harassment and aggression to other Muslim countries e.g. supplying arms to terrorists killing Muslims e.g ISIS, hosting radicals e.g. the "Muslim" Brotherhood, supporting alleged war criminals in Bangladesh etc.

This is his role as decided by his American masters.




- Turkish economy?

The Turkish economy is not doing as well as it was before.

If Erdogan does indeed become a super-president, he may have the fate of being leader whilst the Turkish economy tanks or collapses.





Erdogan personality-cult. Erdogan is the centre of a dangerous personality cult which is a characteristic of Turks who are inclined to revere their heroes be it Ataturk, Gulen, Erdogan with extreme reverence, this partly stemming from the Altaic culture of their Turco-Mongol ancestors who believed in collectivism over individualism, strong decisive autocratic leadership over consensual democracy and adoration for their leader, "Basbug".