Moonlight and Blonde Girl: These are the poetic names given to coups allegedly planned by former Turkish military commanders that have been revealed through the Ergenekon probe and documented in the diaries of now-retired Admiral Özdem Örnek. Örnek, together with Land Forces Commander Gen. Aytaç Yalman, Air Forces Commander Gen. Ibrahim Firtina and Gendarmerie […]
Excerpts from Mustafa Akyol’s article, “Secular Jihad”, in The Wall Street Journal:
Who would you expect to be zealous enemies of “moderate Islam”? Islamic fundamentalists? You bet. From Osama bin Laden & Co. to less violent but equally fanatic groups, Islamist militants abhor their co-religionists who reject tyranny and violence in the name of God. […]
Mustafa Akyol’s column translates some of the statements attributed to PM Erdogan listed in the indictment as evidence to close the AKP party. Akyol argues that many of these statements sound perfectly reasonable. How, then, can they be considered evidence of a “crime”? Here is Akyol’s translation of the prosecutor’s explanation:
Prosecutor: “For the actions […]
Painting by Osman Hamdi Bey
For those wishing to understand — and visualize — late 19th-century Istanbul, the period in which the Kamil Pasha novels are set, I recommend Asli Sancar’s new book, Ottoman Women: Myth and Reality (Light Publications). It has many interesting facts about daily life, the harem as a space and an institution, […]
Photograph by Abdullah Freres
Excerpts from Andrew Finkel’s column today:
The legal writs and indictments are flying through the air like paper darts in a particularly unruly kindergarten class….So thick is the atmosphere of bitterness and accusation that it has become difficult to decide whether we are witnessing the wheels of justice grinding slowly or the second act of some […]
An interesting comparison can be made between the use of the judiciary to combat creeping religionism in the public arena in Turkey and in the US. Some of the issues are similar, although the role of the judiciary in resolving them is quite different. I just received the following message from the People for […]
As bits and pieces of the indictment of the AKP submitted by the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals are translated, other insights emerge from the sometimes strikingly revealing language. Ihsan Dagi, a professor and political commentator, called attention to the anti-Western language in the indictment and argues that there is more at […]
A new law that was approved by parliament’s Budget and Planning Commission and is now up for a vote would ban all alcohol sales via Internet, telephone and fax, with a very large fine between 50 and 250 thousand YTL fine (approximately 40-200 thousand dollars). This is aimed primarily at wine sales, since wine cannot […]
Two people were killed and many detained in Kurdish celebrations of the spring festival Nevruz around the country. Some Kurdish DPT politicians are accused of making inflammatory speeches and protesters were observed carrying pro-PKK slogans and pictures of PKK leader Ocalan. Demonstrators in Van reportedly threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police and attacked […]