Woman with soft tissue tumor held in Ankara prison for 8 months: report
Date posted: February 6, 2020
Seynur Özdemir, a Turkish woman from Ankara, suffers from soft tissue sarcoma, a rare type of cancer that begins in the tissues that connect, support and surround other body structures. She however has been held in Ankara’s Sİncan prison since June 2019 on terror and coup charges.
According to a Twitter account managed by her husband, Özdemir is at imminent risk of losing her leg due to advanced soft tissue sarcoma:
“She has 3-litres of tumor in her leg. She underwent a biopsyand at the Hacettepe hospital. Can you be our voice, @gergerliogluof,” the husband tweeted.
Turkish government survived the attempt that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others, however; AK Party officials along with Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen group and launched a widespread war on its alleged and real followers.
The Gülen group denies any involvement in the attempt.
Many cancer patients died in Turkish prisons in the past three years. Tacettin Toprak, 36, is the latest of them.
Council of Europe warns against hate speech by senior state officials in Turkey
The human rights body of the Council of Europe, the Commission against Racism and Intolerance, issued a report on Wednesday about the increasing use of hate speech, even by senior state officials. While President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the Gülen sympathizers “viruses,” Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım labeled them microbes. The movement is the main target of a massive purge and witch-hunt in Turkey.
Turkish PM heads to Brussels for tough talks with EU
Although the prime minister argues that an ongoing corruption and graft probe engulfing his own ministers is simply a plot hatched by an “illegal gang” that he describes as “parallel state” operated by Fethullah Gülen, a cleric in self-exile in the U.S., EU officials have made clear that such rhetoric has not been bought in Brussels.
Gülen’s defense against Erdoğan’s onslaught
In an effort to find a scapegoat for the colossal wrongdoings in government — including graft, money laundering, re-zoning land and influence peddling allegedly committed, according to the opposition, with the full knowledge and consent of Erdoğan — the Turkish prime minister has staged an unprecedented onslaught against Gülen with all kinds of name calling. He has accused Gülen of plotting a coup against his government without offering a single shred of evidence
Swoboda accuses Erdoğan of using Hizmet movement as a pretext
Socialist leader Hannes Swoboda asked “You were still supporting the Hizmet movement a year ago. Now you use the movement as an excuse for halting reforms. Why do you see them as a danger to Turkey now?”
Sources said Swoboda made it very clear that the EU was very concerned about the state of the rule of law in Turkey. “We are very concerned about the rule of law and the separation of powers, especially the independence of the judiciary,” he stressed.
Middle East’s Struggle for Democracy: Going Beyond Headlines
Last month, when Hizmet representatives criticized the government-proposed legislation that calls for banning exam prep schools, Turkish and Western journalists labeled this opposition as a feud between Prime Minister Erdogan and Mr. Gulen because roughly 15-25 percent of these prep schools were founded by Hizmet participants according to various estimates. But that is an oversimplification.
AFSV Statement on Media and Business Crackdown
The Alliance for Shared Values denounces the politically-motivated raids on Koza Ipek holding group, publisher of opposition Bugun daily, as well as the arrest of two British journalists and their translator. These disgraceful actions by President Erdogan and his oligarchy are aimed at silencing independent media in preparation for upcoming November elections, and at deflecting criticism resulting from massive government corruption, nepotism and failure to accept election defeat.
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