The Gezi Park events in Istanbul have triggered one of the largest and most serious civil unrest in decades in Turkey. It all started as a peaceful sit-in protest in order to prevent the demolition of the trees for the construction of a shopping mall in the park, but excess use...
Once upon a time there were a park... Prologue: Turkey had a stable AKP government for 11 years. Picturing themselves as primary victims of an almost century old Turkish state mechanism, the Islamist party came to power with the promise of democratization and the help of...
In Turkey during the last decade of AKP government individual freedoms were in a recess. Party's unprecedented 53% majority in the last elections paved way to a borderline authoritarian regime where media was pressured for self-censorship, journalists and political activists...
Michael Thumann (Die Zeit) The decision on blasphemy which sounds like a verdict by a court in an Iranian city was taken by a 19th Magistrates’ Court in Istanbul. Most famous pianist in Turkey, Fazil Say was convicted on charges of blasphemy against Islam for ten months in...
(ANF) Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council President Murat Karayılan has held a press conference on the withdrawal of Kurdish guerrillas out of Turkish borders. The press conference, which was attended by KCK Executive Council member Zeki Şengali and...
We had had a tough year and needed to take a break from, well let’s say everything! I can’t think of a better place to go to than Bali when you need to get away, can you? Deciding better to avoid beaches full of surfers and pizza restaurants, we settled on Manggis which...
It was a hot summer’s night of 2011, when I sat on a balcony with my family in my birthplace near the Syrian-Turkish border: Antakya, Hatay. My cousin’s relatives from Syria were visiting her. These guests were wealthy Christians that had a very modern air, as they sat...
A few weeks ago a traffic jam forced me to walk through Tarlabasi, an old Greek quarter located in Pera district of Istanbul (Konstantinoupolis). While central Pera (Beyoglu) was where the turn of the century bourgeois lived, surrounded by elite stores and chic cafes, Tarlabasi...
In the context of a globalizing world, the question of identity becomes subject to change and challenge. This is especially relevant for migrant communities, and more so, as I argue, for the second-generation of a migrant group. Unlike the first, the second generation finds...
Most of us wake up in the morning and start our daily routine. Some a little early, some rather late. On December 28th, 2011 34 youngsters from Gulyazı village in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border did the same. You leave your house to arrive at your office if you are...
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