New York Times Editorial Board: Turkey’s Relentless Attack on the Press

The family that owns Dogan Holding has long been influential in Turkey’s secular establishment and ran afoul of Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist-based A.K.P. Party in 2009. With the company targeted again and fearful of losing more assets, the newspaper Hurriyet is widely seen as pulling punches to appease Mr. Erdogan by firing journalists and quashing even mildly critical news stories.

Corruption investigation: Questions that will hound PM Erdoğan

Everyone is wondering now what is behind the corruption investigation, and the first “suspect” to come to many minds is the Islamist Gülen movement. Tensions between this group and the AKP have been rising over the years, and boiled over recently due to the prep-school issue – a matter that has received wide media coverage.

The Gülen movement denies this but the vitriol flying between daily Zaman, which is close to Gülen, and Yeni Şafak, which is staunchly pro-AKP, is enough to give one a sense of the bitter struggle involved.

Turkish Olympiad students sing Kurdish, Turkish songs in Diyarbakır

İPEK ÜZÜM, DİYARBAKIR Students visiting Turkey from 140 countries for the 11th International Turkish Olympiad, a festival that celebrates the Turkish language and has brought together 2,000 students to Turkey this year, fascinated locals in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakır by singing songs in both the Kurdish and Turkish languages on Wednesday night.   […]

Kalashnikov-carrying police raid Gülen-inspired girls’ dormitory

Police officers carrying Kalashnikov rifles conducted a raid at a girls’ school dormitory in eastern Van province on Sunday, a move that is seen as part of an ongoing government-orchestrated operation targeting the faith-based Gülen movement, popularly known as the Hizmet movement.

Turkey’s Erdogan and unending human rights repression

The judiciary, media organisations, opposition parties, civil servants, charity groups, just to mention a few, are being subjected to a daily dose of massive abuses and suffocation in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The recent catch to the abuse list is the sacking of medical professionals, scientists, and other academics from universities.

Turkish family, kidnapped in Pakistan, deported to Turkey Saturday morning

Ex-director of a Turkish schools in Pakistan, Mesut Kaçmaz, and his family have allegedly been deported to Turkey days after they were abducted from their apartment in Lahore, according to the friends of the family.