Who is behind the provocation?
That’s the big question these days in Turkey. There has been violence on the streets in two cities, resulting in four dead policemen, a few dead civilians, burnt police cars, roads blocked with overturned cars and angry crowds. Some person or some group, it is believed, must have provoked the violence. What makes emotions heat up as much as they …
Stone throwing kids: problem unsolved
Kids that throw stones at the police during demonstrations in the south east of Turkey (and in other places where many Kurds live, like in Adana and Mersin) will no longer be charged with being a member of a terrorist organization or for making propaganda for terrorists. The 196 children now serving a prison sentence for that offence will be …
Drooping and almond-shaped moustaches split Turkey
ISTANBUL – The type of moustache worn by the military personnel that will fight in special units against the Kurdish separatist movement PKK, leads to heated debate in Turkey. It shouldn’t be men with moustaches pointing down, says governing party AKP, because they are ‘bad MHP militants’. Opposition party MHP wants an apology now, and turns up the heat a …
Kurds return to Iraq from Turkey
ISTANBUL – Part of the group of PKK members and Kurdish-Turkish refugees from northern Iraq that returned to Turkey last year today started to move back to Iraq. This is according to the online version of the Turkish paper Radikal on Monday, based on reports from Kurdish news agency Firat.
The ‘peace group’, as they called themselves, returned to Turkey last …
This is the first blog post that I have put online working from an office. It was weird this morning, after my morning run: I showered, got completely dressed, put my computer in a bag along with the files of stories I’m working on at the moment, and closed the door of my apartment behind me.
I’ve been working from home …
It’s the beginning of the end for Istanbul’s famous night life, some say. The municipality has announced that they want to reduce the noise pollution that night clubs alongside the Bosporus create, and make them turn off all the music after midnight. You see, the Bosporus has two sides when it comes to music and dance. One: it offers a …
Dutch in Turkey: ‘I want to go home’
Live in Turkey with your loved one: very romantic of course. Or is real life tougher than that? Yes. For Maaike, Ralph, Barbara and Charlene there is hardly any romance left. They want to return to Holland.
(more pictures will be published later!)
Maaike Dekkers (31) lives in Evrenseki on the south coast:
‘IF WE COULD GO TO …
No, I am most certainly not getting into the judicial details. The news is plainly that the Constitutional Court annulled parts of changes that the government made to the constitution, and that the remaining changes will be put to a referendum in September. This referendum will be a test case for governing party AKP: how much support will there be …
Short skirt, high heels? Décolleté, modest or deep? Bare shoulders? Or is it better to choose long dresses with sleeves, long trousers, up-to-the-neck shirts? Choosing the right clothes in Istanbul isn’t easy. Or is it?
Last week the patriarch of the Greek Ecumenical Church in Istanbul complained about ‘naked women’ on the street in the neighbourhood where the patriarchate is located, …
Turkish writer convicted because of his characters
ISTANBUL – The Turkish writer Mehmet Güler was sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment because characters in his book allegedly made propaganda for the PKK. This story appears in the Thursday edition of Hürriyet.
Güler’s book ‘Decision harder than death’ was published last year but was soon withdrawn from the market on charges of propaganda for a terrorist organisation. The book is …
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