Turkey Weekly 3 – 10 November 2024
Turkey Today – 10.11.2024
A vehicle has been bombed by a Turkish drone in Şengal. Casualties are feared.
DEM MP Ceylan Akça stated that young people arrested in Batman while protesting against the trustee were tortured.
PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s family applied to Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and İmralı Prison Directorate demanding a meeting.
CHP MP Salıcı demanded a party leadership congress, criticizing party leader Özel’s “normalization” policies with President Erdoğan. In response, the CHP Spokesperson said Salıcı’s remarks were a result of “sheer arrogance and rabid ambition.”
Turkey Today – 09.11.2024
The house of Mehmet Erol, a member of the Municipality Assembly, was raided in connection with the protests against the trustee appointed to Batman Municipality, and his son Medeni Erol (25), who is 70 per cent mentally disabled, was detained . Erol was released on house arrest conditions.
3 of 9 people including representatives of political parties and civil society organisations who were detained in Izmir on 7 November were arrested.
President Erdoğan expressed hope that US President-elect Donald Trump would urge Israel to stop its military actions. He also suggested that the war in Ukraine could be resolved quickly if the US administration adopts a solution-focused approach.
Saturday Mothers gathered at Galatasaray Square in week 1024 and sought the fate of Mehmet Şirin Bayram and Ramazan Tekin, who were forcibly disappeared under police detention 28 years ago.
Turkey Today – 08.11.2024
President Tayyip Erdoğan congratulated the judiciary on the appointment of trustees to municipalities.
People calling themselves police officers pulled a gun on journalists and tried to detain Yeni Yaşam Newspaper employee Veysi Akören.
5 people were detained in house raids in Mardin.
Prisoner in the Kobanê Case Aynur Aşan, has been subjected to a disciplinary investigation in the prison to which she was forcibly transferred because she objected to strip searches.
Journalist Furkan Karabay has been detained in a dawn raid on his home after over criticizing İstanbul’s chief prosecutor on social media.
President Tayyip Erdogan and Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides held an informal meeting on the sidelines of a summit in Hungary.
Turkey Today – 07.11.2024
The protestor who went viral on social media for his speech during protests following the appointment of a trustee to the Batman Municipality was taken into custody under torture by the police.
The appeal against the arrest of Esenyurt’s Mayor Ahmet Özer (CHP), who was removed from office and replaced with a trustee under the accusation of “membership in a terrorist organization,” was rejected.
President Erdogan tells his French counterpart Macron that Turkey is acting with strategic perspective towards full EU membership and underlines the need to revitalize process.
President Erdoğan has congratulated Donald Trump for his victory in the United States presidential elections, calling him a “friend.”
The streaming platform MUBI Turkey said it decided to cancel FEST Istanbul after the district governor’s office banned the screening of “Queer” movie “hours before the start of the festival.”
Turkey Today – 06.11.2024
At least 2 journalists were detained while covering protests against the appointment of trustees.
MHP chair Bahçeli called for legal regulation to allow President Erdoğan to run for office once again. He said “If terrorism is eradicated from our lives, if inflation is crushed, is it not a natural and right choice for our president to be elected once again?”
Targeting DEM Party Co-Chair Tuncer Bakırhan’s statement regarding the trustees IYI Party Chair Musavvat Dervişoğlu threatened by saying “You will be treated the same way the Republican state treated Sheikh Sait.”
4 prisoners are on hunger strike in Sincan Prison for 54 days against the violations of their rights.
Gülistan Al, who is being held in Kayseri Bünyan Women’s Closed Prison, stated that she was subjected to verbal harassment and insults by gendarmes.
Turkey Today – 05.11.2024
Following the appointment of a trustee to the CHP-led Esenyurt District Municipality in Istanbul, trustees were also assigned to the Municipal Council. As a result, there is now no elected official remaining in the municipality.
The police used water cannons and pepper spray on protesters and detained At least 92 people during demonstrations against the appointment of trustees.
A new investigation was opened against Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer, who was replaced by a trustee, with the allegation of “financing an illegal organization”.
One of the first official acts of the trustee in Batman was to abolish the Kurdish section of the homepage.
16 bar associations issued a written statement condemning the appointment of trustees.
DEM Party and CHP MPs unfurled banners reading “Trusteeship is a coup against the will of the people” at the Parliament’s Plan and Budget Commission.
MHP chair Devlet Bahçeli has repeated his proposal that Abdullah Öcalan should address parliament to announce the dissolution of the PKK.
Turkey Today – 04.11.2024
The Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that trustees were appointed to 3 DEM Party municipalities, citing ongoing investigations and penalties against the co-mayors.
Abdullah Güler, deputy chair of the AKP’s parliamentary group, said, “These practices will continue and are continuing within the legal framework.”
DEM Party Co-Chair Tülay Hatimoğulları stated that the trustee appointments discredited all the talks about peace that had dominated the political scene for the past month.
Batman Co-Mayor Gülistan Sönük, who was replaced by a trustee, said: “We did not and will not accept this plundering and usurping regime.”The suspicious deaths of 5 prisoners in Iğdır Type S Closed Prison in recent years have been publicized. DEM Party MP Yılmaz Hun called it “A special policy in Iğdır Type S Prison,”.
Turkey Today – 03.11.2024
President Erdoğan has filed a lawsuit against CHP chair Özgür Özel and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, demanding to be paid one million liras ($29,132) per each, for their remarks during a rally held against the removal of Esenyurt district mayor.
CHP member Gül Çiftci visited Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer in prison and Özer “thanked everyone who defended democracy and the will of the people since 30 October”.
Speaking at the Izmir congress of her party, DEM Party Spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan said to the state authorities: “If you have a politicisation programme, the address is Mr. Abdullah Öcalan in İmralı Island Prison.”
Turkey Today – 02.11.2024
PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was given a new 3-month “disciplinary punishment” on 16 October 2024, preventing him from seeing his family.
Prisoners Mehmet Savur, Selahattin Elma, Hayati Engin and Mehmet Şirin Gümüş, whose release was delayed due to their solitary confinement sentences, were released following the violation decision of the Constitutional Court.
In the 1023rd week of their protests, Saturday Mothers demanded justice for 8 people, including 3 children, some of whose bones were found 29 years after they were detained in Dargeçit 29 years ago.
4 of 20 people who were detained in house raids in Istanbul on 30 October were arrested on the allegation of “being an illegal organisation member”.
Turkey Today – 01.11.2024
The Parliament has begun budget discussions with deputies from the CHP missing, as the party boycotted the recent trustee appointment to a district municipality in Istanbul under their administration.
CHP’s former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has called on his party to quit the Parliament and “return to the nation” after the party’s Esenyurt district mayor was arrested and replaced by a trustee by the government.
Stating that the meeting in İmralı after 43 months does not mean that the isolation has been lifted, IHD Amed Branch Chair Ercan Yılmaz said: “It is important to open dialog channels, but the actors should be in positions to play their roles here.”
The house where Jinnews reporter Derya Ren was staying with Pirha News Agency reporter Kamber Yıldız in Adiyaman was raided by gendarmes.
A court sentenced Dilruba Kayserilioğlu to 11 months and 20 days in prison for “insulting the President” with her comments on a street interview. She was previously given another sentence for “insulting a segment of the public” over the same remarks.