A complaint by Adnan Oktar (also called Harun Yahya) led to the banning of another internet site yesterday (September 24). This time, the 2nd Civil Court of First Instance of Gebze in Istanbul banned the internet site of the Union of Education and Scientific Workers, Egitim-Sen, egitimsen.org.tr. [The Nigde branch website is still available, […]
Adnan Oktar (aka Harun Yahya), the Turkish creationist cult leader, who sued to close down the world-renowned scientist Richard Dawkins’ website, has hatched another wild attention-seeking scheme. He has offered to pay 10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone “who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution” – a sum […]
From Sahin Alpay’s column (click for full text):
… Perhaps the most interesting finding of the [German Marshall Fund] “Transatlantic Trends” survey is that 57 percent of Europeans and 55 percent of Turks agree that “Turkey has such different values that it is not really part of the West.” This reminds me of the findings of […]
Firearm ownership in Turkey has reached alarming figures, with the number of guns in the country estimated at 8 million, more than twice what it was seven years ago. According to current figures, 9 percent of the nation owns a firearm.
Turkey has approximately 2.5 million registered guns, while an estimated 5.5 million guns are believed […]
A sardonic look at Turkey-EU relations by cartoonist Osman Turhan. His cartoons were exhibited recently at Amsterdam’s Rhone Congress Center and at Rotterdam’s Kunsthal.
Photo by Jenny White
Mustafa Akyol’s take on the recent “anti-Crusader” incident in Kayseri (click for full article):
The most tragic-comic news story of this week came from the central Anatolian town of Kayseri. A film crew was shooting a documentary about the medieval past of the town, and they decided to use the city’s ancient castle as a stage. […]
(click here for the full article, which also discusses Turkey’s only female Ramadan drummer). Excerpts:
…Each morning during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, an hour and a half before dawn, drummers tour the streets, hammering out a repetitive beat to wake people up to have their suhoor (pre-dawn meal) before dawn, when those who are […]
The list of those detained Tuesday as part of the Ergenekon investigation contains several former notable members of Turkey’s security, politics and judicial structure.
Former police officer Adil Serdar Saçan, whose name was mentioned as the first official to confiscate documents regarding the Ergenekon gang in 2001, was detained together with 15 other suspects. Former mayor […]
Almost half [45%] of urban Turkish women believe economic independence for women is unnecessary, and younger generations seem to share this view more than the older generations, according to [a newly published poll by the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, or KAGIDER]. Almost 50 percent of women between ages 15 and 19 believed a woman’s […]