Protests Erupt Across Turkey After Killing of Kurdish Lawyer Tahir Elci

Protests erupted in several Turkish cities after a well-known Kurdish lawyer and human rights activist was killed along with two police officers on Saturday in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. Tahir Elci, who was president of Diyarbakir Bar Association, died when gunmen clashed with security forces following a press conference. At least 10 people were injured, including journalists. The exact circumstances of the shooting remain unclear. Video footage from the scene shows Elci, wearing a grey suit, crouching as plain-clothed policemen fire pistols and take cover behind a car. Seconds later, a presumed attacker sprints past as the officers shoot at him. Elci is then seen lying face down on the pavement with blood coming from his head.

An initial forensic report said he had died when a single bullet fired from long range hit him in the back of the neck. One policeman was killed at the scene and another died from his injuries after being taken to hospital. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said in a press briefing that the shootout began when attackers fired on security forces from inside a car. But some opposition figures alleged that Elci had been deliberately targeted by the state. The Diyarbakir Bar Association described his death as a "cowardly assassination" in a press statement, while the pro-Kurdish HDP party said he had been "viciously murdered," and urged supporters to "raise their voice" in protest.

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Turkish police storm critical media group

Turkish riot police stormed the headquarters of critical media outlets in İstanbul shortly after dawn on Wednesday, with journalists from the paper making fruitless efforts to prevent them from entering into the building.

"Dear viewers, do not be surprised if you see police in our studio in the upcoming minutes," an anchor from Bugün TV, which is one of the seized media outlets, said as he narrated the drama unfolding outside the media company. Hundreds of people, most of them journalists from media outlets affiliated with Koza İpek Holding, thronged outside the headquarters of the company to protest the seizure of the media companies by the Turkish government.

Mahmut Tanal, a lawmaker from the Republican People's Party (CHP), tried to negotiate with police chiefs, but the riot police proceeded to enter the building, where four media outlets are operating. Police routinely used pepper spray and frequent brawls erupted as they occupied the building.

A reporter from the newspaper tweeted his bloody hands to show how he was injured while resisting police who tried to occupy his office.

More at Today's Zaman - Bugün TV

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանություն, [hɑˈjɔtsʰ tsʰɛʁɑspɑnuˈtʰjun]), also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, traditionally among Armenians, as the Great Crime (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, [mɛts jɛˈʁɛrn]; English transliteration: Medz Yeghern [Medz/Great + Yeghern/Crime]) was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects from their historic homeland in the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. It took place during and after World War I and was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches to the Syrian Desert. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. The Assyrians, the Greeks and other minority groups were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government, and their treatment is considered by many historians to be part of the same genocidal policy.
It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, as scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. The word genocide was coined in order to describe these events.
The starting date of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace. The majority of Armenian diaspora communities were founded as a result of the Armenian genocide.
Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept this view.
More Info About The Armenian Genocide At Wikipedia

Erdogan's New Turkey: Goodbye Atatürk, Hello Atatürk

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's incumbent president and past prime minister, struggles to escape the shadow of modern Turkey's founder. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk looms large over his country's past, present and future. It is hard to dismantle the figure, the legacy and the lasting authority of Atatürk, very much to Erdoğan's dismay, especially as Erdoğan seeks to radically redefine the country -- from the place of religion in society to a reform of the constitution, including a shift to a presidential system.

For a short moment, a few months ago, it seemed as if Erdoğan had received help from an unlikely source: Adolf Hitler. Hitler and his national socialists were big fans of Atatürk and his "New Turkey" -- so much so that they instituted a minor cult around the Turkish leader in the Third Reich. Hitler's dictum that Atatürk and the Turkish nationalist movement had been his shining star in the darkness of the democratic Weimar Republic in the 1920s, became the official line of the Third Reich.

Reactions in Turkey were not only immediate but also quite positive, primarily newspapers close to the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) -- Erdoğan's party -- that seemed interested in discussing Nazi fandom of Atatürk as a means to discredit Atatürk and his project.

More by Stefan Ihrig at Huff. Post

Turkish President: 'Equality between men and women is against nature'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said equality between men and women is “against nature” at a summit in Istanbul. He sparked outrage with the speech made at a convention organised by women’s groups campaigning to eliminate gender discrimination in all its forms.

“You cannot make women and men equal; this is against nature,” Mr Erdoğan told the meeting full of women including his own daughter, Today’s Zaman reported. “You cannot subject a pregnant woman to the same working conditions as a man. You cannot make a mother who has to breastfeed her child equal to a man. You cannot make women do everything men do like the communist regimes did…this is against her delicate nature.”  The President reportedly claimed that Islam dictated motherhood to be the prime role of women, reciting a hadith saying that “heaven lies at your mother’s feet”.

More at The Independent

Watch live coverage of the Turkey border with Syria near embattled Kobane

Watch a live video feed from Turkey's southeastern province of Sanliurfa near the key Syrian border town of Kobane, which Jihadists have been trying to seize for weeks. The town was the scene of continued fighting over the weekend:

Kurdish defence forces in Kobane managed to repel Islamic State jihadists on Saturday morning after a night of heavy clashes.

The Telegraph

Kurdish Fighters From Turkey Head To Syria To Fend Off ISIS Attack

Hundreds of Kurdish fighters raced from Turkey and Iraq into neighboring Syria on Saturday to defend a Kurdish area under attack by Islamic State militants. As the fighting raged, more than 60,000 mostly Kurdish refugees streamed across the dusty and barren border into Turkey, some hobbling on crutches as others lugged bulging sacks of belongings on their backs.

The large-scale displacement of so many and the movement of the Kurdish fighters into Syria reflected the ferocity of the fighting in the northern Kobani area, which borders Turkey. Militants of the extremist Islamic State group have been barreling through the area for the past three days, prompting Kurdish leaders to plead for international help. Civilians seeking safety began massing on the Turkish border on Thursday. Turkey did not let them in at first, saying it would provide them with aid on the Syrian side of the border instead. By Friday, it had changed its mind and started to let in several thousand.

The numbers grew quickly as more entry points opened, and by late Saturday afternoon, more than 60,000 had poured across the frontier, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said. Even by the standards of Syria's bitter war, it was unusual for so many refugees to flee in such a short time. Their numbers add to the 2.8 million Syrians who have become refugees in the past three years, and another 6.4 million who have been displaced within their own country — nearly half of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million.

More at The World Post

Istanbul's Gentrification Wars

The mass protests surrounding Gezi Park, the corruption scandals, the Soma mining accident — none of these incidents will stop the majority of Turks from electing Recep Tayyip Erdogan as president. Among other things, this means that ambitious development projects will likely multiply — and with them, the controversies Erdogan’s AKP party aggressive policies routinely provoke.

The Gezi uprising that rocked Turkey in June 2013 was sparked by a government project to transform the park in central Istanbul into a gigantic mall. And while a relentless police crackdown has led many of last year’s protesters to abandon hope, the problems at the heart of Erdogan’s vision for Turkey's urban development have not gone away. Those directly affected by the aggressive development of their neighborhoods are often left with only one of two options: to despair, or to fight.

One group that has decided to take the fight to the government is the Revolutionary People's Liberation Front, or DKHP/C. This extreme-left party, labeled a terrorist organization by the EU, is entrenched in many of the disenfranchised neighborhoods that have become targets for ruthless urban development. To stave off the forced relocation of inhabitants, the DKHP/C militants are prepared to combat not only the police, but also violent drug gangs that terrorize their neighborhoods, which they believe are collaborating with the state.

VICE News

Turkey Approves Harsh New Internet Law

Turkey's Parliament approved a law on Thursday that would grant sweeping new powers to the government to censor and monitor the Internet traffic of citizens.

The law, which still requires final approval by the country's president, would permit the government to quickly shutter a website deemed inappropriate, and orders Internet companies to store traffic and other data for two years.

The user data storage provisions of the bill are reminiscent of plans discussed by the Obama administration to require cellular phone companies to store the "metadata" of citizens for a set period of time. That data could later be ordered to be turned over to investigating government agencies, and could be used to track or otherwise monitor phone users. In the U.S., those discussions came in the aftermath of the revelations leaked by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In Turkey, the new law comes amid a difficult period for the country's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has faced challenges to his rule from a popular protest movement, as well as a murky powerbroker with ties to the security state. The government has increasingly responded to attacks on its authority with crackdowns, especially on free speech and the press.

The World Post

Turkish police use chemicals

Police have fired water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets to clear Taksim and Gezi Park of protesters and prevent them from returning. Sporadic clashes have then been taking place around the area. (RT)

@liamoconghaile Shocking! Police adding chemicals into water cannon in #Istanbul #occupygezi http://t.co/xPzhQ1lx1a. Also see GRUP YORUM SEVENLER FORUMU

Turkish police started to use an unknown chemical against the protestors. This chemical is added to the riot vehicles' water tanks. Chemical burns the skin. There are many severely injured people in the hospitals. CNN iReport

Details on Wikileaks-forum

Photos on Occupygezi – Daily Kos – livestream 

Police target every protest refuge, even inside the Hilton Hotel!

Police entered the Hilton hotel in Istanbul to tackle the protesters who have used the facility as a safe-haven, Saturday. Reportedly, the Hilton allowed protesters to seek refuge in its plush lobby and bar, but as tensions continue to rise in the city as the government seeks to regain full control, police entered to clear the hotel.

Turkish Workers Join Mass Protests

Confederation of unions, stage two day strike in solidarity with protestors, against police brutality and for a more democratic Turkey.

“All autistic kids are atheists and atheism is a form of autism”

That’s the opinion of Fehmi Kaya, head of the Health and Education Associations for Autistic Children in Adana, Turkey. Autistic children are atheists, he said, “due to a lack of a section for faith in their brains.”

From TimeTurk (English edition): “Autistic children do not know believing in God because they do not have a section of faith in their brains,” Kaya said, according to daily Milliyet.

Kaya said the underdevelopment of faith sections in the brain caused autistic children to not believe in God. “That is why they don’t know how to pray, how to believe in God. It is needed to create awareness in these children through methods of therapy.” Kaya added that autistic children should undergo treatment to “create areas of faith in their brain.”

Apparently, it’s not the children’s fault. According to Kaya whose degree is in sociology, they are born atheists because of the missing faith section. “Research,” he adds, “says atheism and autistic children are linked. Researchers in the USA and Canada say that atheism is a different form of autism.”

More on the Examiner.com

Cenk Uygur Asks Alex Jones, ‘Have You Ever Sought Mental Health Treatment?

In the video, watch Cenk Uygur of Current TV's interview with an overheated oddball radio host Alex Jones, whose websites Prison Planet and Infowars are America's HQ for paranoid conspiracy theories. In the interview, Jones lets off a lot of steam, including sharing his hatred for nutty right-leaning media rival, Glenn Beck, who he called a “piece of trash” and “bastard.”

Alternet