Review of The Abyssinian Proof in Natural History Magazine (click here):
You can almost see the smoke and hear the calls to prayer as author Jenny White guides you through the narrow streets of Istanbul. The year is 1887, and Kamil Pasha, a magistrate under the Ottomans, is trying to keep the city from going up […]
Despite being fatally wounded, these policemen, two of them traffic police, fought the terrorists attacking the US consulate in Istanbul and killed three of them. Calik was killed first when one of the attackers opened the door of the police guard house and shot him. The two traffic policemen were working in the area and, […]
Excerpts from news article:
Three policemen and three gunmen were killed in an armed attack yesterday on the US Consulate General in Istanbul… The consulate occupies a citadel-like structure on a hill in Istinye, a densely populated residential neighborhood along the Bosporus on the European side of Istanbul. Turkish police guard the street, while US […]
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 […]
A system of sea taxis will be instituted in Istanbul, a great relief to those of us stuck for hours in traffic and crammed into overcrowded buses with someone’s elbow in your eye. But the sea taxi prices are high, making it a facility for the wealthy and for emergencies. What about more ferries, […]
Turkish Daily News, May 8, 2008:
Three members of the European Parliament sent a letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday welcoming the decision to task Parliament’s Human Rights Commission to look into abuses taking place in the ongoing demolition of Istanbul’s traditional Roma neighborhood known as Sulukule. Underlining the lack of understanding on the […]
Photos are by Jenny White
I visited the Romani (gypsy) area of Sulukule yesterday, which is being torn down and its historic population moved 40 kilometers outside of Istanbul to make room for a housing development. Sulukule is a neighborhood of substandard homes, a number of them in various stages of being demolished. It is surrounded […]
Photos are by Jenny White
May 6 is the Hidrellez holiday. Some believe it to be an Islamic holiday, others a pre-Islamic, pre-Christian spring festival. It is a celebration of nature; the first spring lamb is eaten. The night of Hidrellez (tonight) brings blessings, so one custom is to leave your purse open if you want […]
Turkish municipalities are increasingly invoking Article 5366 of the law passed in 2005 which allows the demolition of shantytowns in the name of urban transformation projects and using them to destroy parts of the urban fabric. The Romani (gypsy) neighborhood of Sulukule, which dates to Byzantine times, has thus become an “urban transformation area” […]
Photo from Radikal
On May 1 an army of police in Istanbul closed off Taksim Square and surrounding streets to prevent a planned labor union rally.
Excerpt from a Turkish Daily News article (my comments are at the bottom):
Thursday’s outrageous scenes of brutality, firing gas bombs into hospitals, trade union and political party buildings, beating up protestors […]