For The Los Angles Times Istanbul — On a single day earlier this month, Turkish authorities arrested more than 120 police officers in raids across the country and charged them with being members of a terrorist group — all because they were allegedly using an encrypted messaging app. The app, called ByLock, has been linked to the Hizmet movement, a religious group that the Turkish government blames for the July 15 attempted coup. The arrests are part of an increasingly wide-ranging attempt to rid Turkish…Continue Reading “In Turkey, you can be arrested for having this app on your phone”
For The Los Angeles Times: Istanbul — For much of the last month, in squares across Turkey, hundreds of thousands gathered for a “democracy watch” — part celebration of the failure of a bloody coup attempt that killed hundreds, and part an expression of determination to find and punish those responsible. But not everyone poured into the streets. “It’s right to be proud of what is achieved against the failed coup and traitors,” said Orhan, a middle-aged teacher from Istanbul who asked that his full…Continue Reading “Inside the secretive religious movement that is being blamed for Turkey’s attempted coup”
For The Los Angeles Times: Istanbul, Turkey — For much of the last month, in squares across Turkey, hundreds of thousands gathered for a “democracy watch” — part celebration of the failure of a bloody coup attempt that killed hundreds, and part an expression of determination to find and punish those responsible. But not everyone poured into the streets. “It’s right to be proud of what is achieved against the failed coup and traitors,” said Orhan, a middle-aged teacher from Istanbul who asked that his…Continue Reading “Inside the secretive religious movement that is being blamed for Turkey’s attempted coup”
For The Los Angles Times: ISTANBUL — The Turkish police officer boarded a crowded commuter bus heading toward Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul and snatched the keys from the driver, leaving him and the passengers in stunned silence. A moment later, the driver at least managed a few words. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he told commuters heading home at 10:50 p.m. last Friday on the E5, Istanbul’s major east-west artery. Almost immediately, dozens of lightly armed police officers showed up, parking their minivans…Continue Reading “In Turkey, frightening moments of a coup attempt, with orders sent via a social media app”
For The Los Angeles Times: It is dawn and the streets of Ankara’s Kizilay district are empty, strewn with rubbish and glass. A man casts a solitary figure, sweeping shards into piles after a night of bracing violence. Little else moves. On Ankara’s main boulevard, mangled cars sit at intervals. Some trees have been uprooted and shattered by the force of the previous night’s brutality. There is the vague howl of a jet high above. Gunfire occasionally rattles. Only a few hours earlier, fighter jets…Continue Reading “In Ankara, a night of fear as battling Turkish jets screamed through the skies”
For The Los Angeles Times: ISTANBUL — Nearly two years after shrapnel from a mortar shell hit his family’s Gaza Strip home and wrecked his upper body, Rami Abdusallam can finally move his right arm thanks to a team of Turkish surgeons. Abdusallam, who is from Rafah, at the southern edge of Gaza, said he had been sleeping in his bedroom when an Israeli shell crashed through the home’s roof. “One piece of shrapnel entered my shoulder and came out from my chest, and here…Continue Reading “Residents of impoverished Gaza Strip turn to Turkey for lifesaving medical care”
For IRIN News: The joint EU-Turkish action plan to end the migration crisis not only aims to make Europe a much less appealing destination – with threats of detention and deportation for all new boat arrivals to Greece – but also depends on making conditions more tolerable for the 2.7 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey. One of the main factors driving Syrians to abandon life in Turkey and move on to Europe has been Ankara’s reluctance to lift barriers to the formal labour market….Continue Reading “Why Turkey is still refugees unwelcome”
For The Middle East Eye: Nationalist and pro-rebel groups say they are inundated with calls from Turks keen to fight with Turkmen against Russian and Syrian forces ISTANBUL, Turkey – Tens of thousands of Turks have expressed a desire to cross the border into Syria and join Turkmen rebels fighting government and Russian forces in Syria, with hundreds already believed to have joined the battle. According to aid groups who have been funnelling aid to rebel areas, scores of potential recruits now want to go…Continue Reading “Turks head to Syria to defend Turkmen ‘brothers’”
For The Middle East Eye: ISTANBUL – Turkmens’ role in Syria war dates back to start of uprising but has come to prominence since Russia began bombing campaign. At the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, thousands of Turkmen – long repressed under the governments of both Hafez and Bashar al-Assad – joined the Free Syrian Army, forming more than 10 brigades in northern Syria. Almost five years later they have withstood assaults by the Syrian army, have fled the horrors the Islamic State group,…Continue Reading “Turkmen caught between IS, Assad and Russian intervention”
For The Boston Review: -Sanliurfa, Turkey: This time, Hammad did not expect to escape alive. He knelt on the side of a desert highway leading from Raqqa to Aleppo, fingers intertwined behind his head, where an ISIS fighter pointed a machine gun. “They told me I had committed a crime against Islam, against God,” he recalled of the five men who abducted him. We talked in Sanliurfa, Turkey, about fifty kilometers north of the Syrian border. A thin, wiry twenty-two-year-old with a penchant for chain…Continue Reading “Leaving ISIS”