While statistics regarding torture while in detention shows a decrease, pre-detention torture continues, that is, mistreatment while not “officially “detained. Yesterday passersby saw a wounded man lying in front of the wall of the Taksim Teaching and Research Hospital in Istanbul. Most walked on, but one good Samaritan woke the man and discovered that […]
YouTube Ban
A court order blocking access to popular video-sharing Web site YouTube that has been in place for one-and-a-half months was rescinded on Tuesday night; however, the Web site remained open only for several hours as it was banned again around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. Turkey’s frequent YouTube bans, often caused by videos deemed insulting […]
What is Ergenekon?
Over the past few months, the Turkish police have arrested a diverse group of shadowy figures, including former military officers, secret police, prosecutors, and others, accused of plotting to overthrow the Turkish government, preparing to assassinate the Turkish Nobel Laureate writer Orhan Pamuk, and of being involved in the murder of other prominent […]
Photo from Zaman
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) submitted its final written defense in the closure case filed against it to the Constitutional Court on Monday. The AK Party turned in its defense statement ahead of the deadline in an attempt to speed up the legal process to avoid lingering ambiguity. Media reports […]
On April 16, Professor Henri Barkey’s gave the 2008 Campagna-Kerven Lecture on Modern Turkey at Boston University: “Where have Old Friends Gone? US-Turkish Relations Since the Iraq War”. To see a video of his well-received lecture, click here.
A couple of years ago, a young professional woman I met told me the story of how her family lost a parcel of land overlooking the Bosphorus on the Asian side that had been in her family for generations. Men with guns came and threatened to harm them if her father didn’t sign the property […]
Photo from Zaman
Mehmet Yilmaz’s column in Hurriyet:
I saw a very interesting picture published in one of Turkey’s pro-Islamic newspapers on Thursday. To protest the Constitutional Court ruling*, a group of male students at Yuzuncu Yil University in Van marched wearing white headscarves.
I was touched by their show of concern for their female friends to find a solution to the issue. After seeing […]
I just read Nicholas Carr’s thought-provoking article in The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. It’s not about Turkey (although it does resonate with some of my posts on education), but it’s well worth reading — in its entirety, not just the pre-masticated summary excerpts I offer below to tantalize you.
Anyone who writes, teaches, reads […]
From Mustafa Akyol’s column:
[Serif Mardin] argued that, in the past decades, the official ideology of the Republic (i.e., Kemalism) has been overshadowed by the teachings of Islam. Using the “imam” and the “teacher” as symbols for religious morality and secular ethics respectively, he flatly proclaimed: “The imam has won over the teacher.” …
The reason why […]
Summary of Ibrahim Kalin’s column, based on three recent reports:
According to the 2007 census, about 60 percent of the total population of Turkey is under the age of 30. So just what is this young and extremely dynamic population doing?
About 40 percent of Turkey’s youth seems to be doing “nothing”. They don’t work, they […]