Yasemin Congar wrote a hard-hitting Opinion piece in Taraf Daily on the Army General Staff’s Information Support Plan, dated September 2007, a document unearthed by Taraf Daily that it claims describes a comprehensive plan of action to intervene in politics and civilian life.
From a Todays Zaman article: The plan went into effect in September 2007, according to the document, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I’ve added two new links to my blogroll:
Internation Musing, a group of people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds who are not living in their country of birth. There is a category of blog entries on their site about Turkey.
Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion, the much-read and much-discussed blog written […]
81.9 percent of the nation would object to a coup d’état, a poll conducted late last year by Infacto Research Workshop on behalf of Bogazici University and the Open Society Institute shows. 81.9 percent said they opposed military coups and oppressive regimes, while 12.3 percent said they would support a coup; 5.8 percent were […]
Photo by Jenny White
Under the proposed changes to Article 301 (see my April 19 post), the approval of the justice minister will be necessary for a prosecutor to proceed with a 301-related investigation. If the justice minister does not allow a 301-related probe, the accused might not have legal difficulties, but could still face social pressure for having […]
Graphs from Today’s Zaman
Turks are unhappy about the case before the Constitutional Court to close down the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). If the party is closed down and new elections are held, none of the other parties will have enough votes to create a functioning government and at present there are no […]