Al Qaeda suspects arrested in Turkey

ISTANBUL – The police this week arrested more than 150 people in a raid against terror organisation Al Qaeda. The operation was speeded up for fear of terrorist attacks in the country. According to Turkish press agency Anatolia on Friday, around 120 suspects were arrested in more than ten provinces.

Before 2003 Al Qaeda was not known to be present in …

Arzu Erbas an ‘angel’ in Turkish press

ISTANBUL – An ‘Angel of goodness,’ she is called in the Turkish press, the crèche owner of Turkish descent, Erzu Erbas, who was murdered in Amsterdam on Monday night. Several Turkish newspapers report on the Turkish émigrée and mainly focus on the fact that she helped poor people in Turkey with the income she earned in the Netherlands.
Arzu appears on …

Violent Turk sentenced to give flowers

ISTANBUL – A Turkish judge sentenced a man convicted of domestic violence to give his wife a weekly bouquet of flowers for the next six months. He also has to read five books on raising children, writes daily Hürriyet today.
For the last four years Turkish judges have had the possibility of handing out alternative punishments. Lately more and more sensational …

Families of murderers flee Turkish village

ISTANBUL – A hundred and twenty people from twelve families have fled from Bilge, the Turkish village where on Monday night 44 people were murdered at a wedding ceremony. The families fear for their lives, as they have ties  to the gunmen and they have been threatened with revenge.
Since the killings the families fleeing the village in the southeast of …

Stone-throwing children could be jailed for 58 years

ISTANBUL – Prison sentences of up to 58 years are being demanded by prosecutors for six children aged between 13 and 16 years.  The children threw stones at the police during demonstrations in October over the alleged mistreatment in prison of PKK leader Öcalan. This is the story according to several Turkish newspapers.
The children were part of a group of …

Karataş was one of Turkey’s most notorious terrorists

ISTANBUL – With the death of Dursun Karataş, who died in the Netherlands last Monday of cancer, one of Turkey’s most notorious terrorists has left the stage. Karataş, leader of the far-left DHKP-C, lived in various European countries with a false identity since he escaped from an Istanbul prison in 1990. Whether the death of Karataş also means the end …

Violence troubles Turkish universities

Turkish universities are troubled by violence. In one and a half months nine violent incidents, with several wounded victims, made it to the national media. This is assumed to be only the tip of the iceberg. “Violence is a problem in the whole of Turkish society and universities are no exception”, says political scientist Koray Caliskan, a teacher Bosporus University, …