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01.01.2021
Alaattin Çakıcı, the leading figure of organized crime, offered his best wishes for the New Year on social media to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and to Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), not omitting to also wish him a happy birthday…
02.01.2021
Prof. Melih Bulu, founder of the AKP section in the Sarıyer neighborhood in Istanbul and also a candidate at the 2015 elections, was not elected as a deputy, but he was “elected” as director of Boğaziçi University… Erdoğan had directors nominated to five universities although they were supposed to elect their own directors. Melih Bulu’s nomination was particularly ill-received, by the students as well as by the teaching staff.
> Read on Kedistan: Boğaziçi University • A promise of spring in winter?
The People’s Alliance1is preparing for a further step toward the dissolution of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). It is likely that the Alliance will first refer to the principle “political parties may not incite to committing an infraction”, figuring in article 68 of the Constitution, so as to remove HDP’s access to aid from the public treasury, then, in order to request its dissolution, solicit the Constitutional Court according to article 69. (The Constitution of the Turkish Republic)
> Read on Kedistan :
The Turkish regime’s relentless will to destroy the HDP
Turkey • Who Wants the HDP to Disappear?
Will the HDP End Up on the Long List of Prohibited Parties?
Photo: Kampüs Cadıları (Campus witches)
Reactions to Melih Bulu’s nomination as director of Boğaziçi University continue. Indignation shared on social media under the tag #KayyumRektörİstemiyoruz: “We do not want an interim President for a University under trusteeship” turns into demonstrations.
In 2020, men murdered 300 women. The platform “Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız” (We will stop feminicides) published its report for 2020: 300 averred feminicides and 171 suspicious deaths.
03.01.2021
Drawing: Gianluca Costantini
In a press release the teaching staff at Bogaziçi University declared: “This nomination is part of the anti-democratic trend abolishing the election of rectors by the teaching staff”, “we do not accept this nomination, which is in flagrant violation of academic autonomy, scientific freedom and the democratic values of our university.”
04.01.2021
Photo : Zeynep Kuray
Police intervened in student demonstrations at Boğaziçi University in protest against the nomination of “director-tutor”, Melih Bulu. 14 students were taken into police custody.
> Read on Kedistan :
Bogaziçi University – A promise of spring in winter?
05.01.2021
In the early morning, the police made muscled raids on the domiciles of 28 students who “had participated” in the demonstrations. 17 students joined the 14 persons arrested during the demonstrations and were placed under police custody. Five other people were also arrested later in the day. There would currently be 36 people in police custody.
06.01.2021
A new amendment published in the Official Gazette on January 5th, will allow the police to use military material, arms and vehicles, including heavy weapons it does not specifically own but that belong to the Turkish army “in the cases of terrorist incidents, public incidents and acts of violence threatening national security, public order and safety.” The amendment thus authorizes the police, the army and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) to mutually transfer stocks and budgets with no need for additional procedures. The “terrorism” which appears again as a judiciary term extended well beyond the word’s global meaning and already used to prosecute, arrest and imprison any person expressing criticism over the regime and who proves to be a disturbance is newly sanctuarized through this decree, this time in order to “maintain public order”.
An important decision in the instruction of the trial concerning the assassination of Hrant Dink, from the editor in chief of the newspaper Agos: Veysal Şahin and Volkan Şahin, former intelligence agents for the gendarmerie in Trabzon have been arrested, because they were informed about the assassination before it was committed on January 19 2007.
From Edirne prison where he is incarcerated since November 4 2016, the former copresident of the Peoples’ Democratic Party Selahattin Demirtaş signalled his support for the students of Bogaziçi University, on his Twitter account administered by close ones: “Say, what have you done to young people? The tremors of your voices reach all the way over here. Go figure how far they will cause trembling. #BogaziciUniversity”
The rolling hunger strikes that began in prisons on November 27 2020 are ongoing. Prisoners are protesting the violations of detainees’ rights and demand the end of the total isolation imposed on PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, incarcerated in the high security type F prison of İmralı.
07.01.2021
The accusation prepared by Ankara’s office of the prosecutor in the investigation of protests in Kobanê in 2014 was accepted by Ankara’s criminal court. The indictment calls for sentences of “incompressible perpetuity“2for 38 of the 108 people involved, 27 of which are already in prison, 6 under judicial control, and 75 under an arrest order. Among the 108 accused figure the former copresidents of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, are already in prison since November 5 2016.
> Read on Kedistan: Selahattin Demirtaş • Plot against the HDP on Kobanê’s back
“Thousands of people cannot obtain hygienic products for menstruations. We must provide women these necessities for free”. HDP deputy Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit, tabled a draft project on the free supply of hygienic products for women aged 15 to 49.
24 of the 40 students from Boğaziçi University held in custody on previous days have been liberated. The fact they were forced to submit to strip searches figures in the minutes.
Concerning the occupation of the Capitol by Trumpist partisans and extreme-right factions, following the declaration of the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs saying that “he was following development in the United-States with concern”, and “inviting the parties in the United-States to “common sense”, the President of the National Assembly, from Mustafa Şentop, to Ibrahim Kalın, advisor to the Prime Minister, to Fahrettin Altun, Presidential Communication director, to the spokesman for the AKP, Ömer Çelik, all the way to the President himself, a number of personalities repeated the same advice calling on “democracy”.
08.01.2021
Erdoğan, speaking about the protests over Bogaziçi University: “Friends, why should I speak with the students? In my opinion, the students are not involved in this business. In this business, there are terrorists. Unfortunately, look, for example, the President of the Istanbul section of the CHP (Canan Kaftancıoğlu) is there. In any event, she is a militant of the DHKP‑C…“3
In Antalya, Melek İpek, a 31 year old woman, killed her companion, Ramazan İpek, in legitimate defence, after he had handcuffed her and assaulted her for hours, threatening to kill her two children.
> Read on Kedistan:
Turkey • Melek İpek killed the husband who tortured her
Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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