Turkish Opposition Sues Erdogan Government for Supporting Terrorism

March 8, 2016 By administrator

Turkey’s main opposition party has filed a lawsuit against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing Ankara of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.”

The Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey’s main opposition party, has filed a criminal complaint against senior officials of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), including President Erdogan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Chief Hakan Fidan.

The complaint accuses Ankara of being complicit in violence caused by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara itself considers a terrorist organization, as well as the group’s accumulation of weapons, for political gain.

“More fatally, just in order to go through election periods calmly, the terrorist organization’s activities of transferring and piling up weaponry, both in rural areas and in urban centers, were openly overlooked,” CHP Deputy Chair Bulent Tezcan said as part of the filing.

The complaint cites the fact that only eight out of 290 requests to conduct anti-terror operations by the Turkish Armed Forces were granted during election periods.

As evidence, Tezcan cited a secret meeting between leaders of the AKP and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The complaint follows statements made by CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, accusing the AKP of aiding terrorist organizations by “overlooking the stockpiling of weapons by the PKK.”

Highlighting unrest within the Turkish government, the nation’s highest court opened its own investigation into government links to the PKK last summer. This followed a criminal complaint by the ruling AKP against the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Critics claim that the AKP’s complaint is political, attempting to force the HDP to comply with the Erdogan government.

Southeastern Turkey has been engulfed in violence as Turkish security forces crackdown on Kurdish communities to root out militant groups. The government’s actions have been roundly criticized by a number of rights groups.

“If we cannot solve the Kurdish issue in democratic ways, I am sure the next generation of the Kurds will be very radical,” Mehmet Yuksel, a representative of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, told Sputnik.

“We already see youths of old that are much more radical. They already think that the political ways are not the solution.”

Turkey: Erdoğan takes main opposition leader to court for compensation over ‘insult’

January 18, 2016 By administrator

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to court for his remarks describing him a “sham dictator,” and asked for compensation for non-pecuniary damages, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
In their petition filed to the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance on Jan. 18, Erdoğan’s lawyers quoted Kılıçdaroğlu’s speech delivered during a convention of his party on Jan. 16, and said their client’s “honor and reputation” was targeted by Kılıçdaroğlu’s “extraordinarily weighty insults.”
“There is no public interest in the speech subject to the case. The defendant did not taken public interest into account while criticizing our client; he has exceeded the boundaries of criticism and attacked the personality rights of our client, while it was possible to make criticism with expressions other than these unfair and unlawful expressions,” the state-run Anadolu Agency quoted the lawyers as saying in their petition, demanding that Kılıçdaroğlu pay 100,000 Turkish Liras for non-pecuniary damages.
The complaint filed by Erdoğan’s lawyers followed a probe launched by prosecutors earlier on Jan. 18 into Kilichdaroglu for the same remarks.
In September 2015, a local court in Ankara ordered Kılıçdaroğlu to pay 20,000 liras in compensation to Erdoğan for insulting the head of state.
Erdogan took Kilichdaroglu to court over playing leaked tape recordings involving corruption claims that engulfed former government officials during his tenure as prime minister, before he was elected as president in August 2014.

Armenia: Keeping Protests Alive: Opposition forces to take rallies to provinces

December 12, 2015 By administrator

A coalition of opposition parties and groups disputing the outcome of last Sunday’s constitutional referendum will stage rallies in Armenia’s provinces next week. This was announced during a Friday rally in Yerevan’s Liberty Square held by activists and supporters of the “New Armenia” Public Salvation Front (NAPSF).

Addressing a crowd of several hundred, NAPSF leaders again slammed the government over what they claimed was a fraudulent vote and said they were determined to continue to seek a regime change through street demonstrations.

According to the Central Election Commission (CEC), more than 63 percent of voters favored the government-backed reform under which Armenia will become a parliamentary republic, with 32 percent casting their votes against it.

Leading opposition groups in Armenia consider the changes to be a ploy designed to keep President Serzh Sargsyan in power beyond 2018 when the pre-amended version of the Constitution would have barred him from seeking a third consecutive term. Government representatives, however, deny any ulterior motives behind the amendments.

Representatives of the government and the ruling Republican Party have also dismissed allegations of widespread fraud made by opposition members and some local observers. They say separate violations and irregularities observed during the process could not impact the overall outcome of the ballot.

NAPSF leaders, meanwhile, announced that they will continue to have daily “informational” meetings in Liberty Square in the coming days, while on December 16 and 17 they are going to take their rallies to the provinces of Armenia before a “big rally” in Yerevan scheduled for December 18.

Meanwhile, another opposition alliance formed around the main opposition Armenian National Congress has filed a formal application with the CEC demanding that the outcome of the December 6 referendum be recognized as null and void.

So far, rallies called by the opposition forces in Yerevan have been attended by a few hundred to a few thousand, and in general have lacked the show of mass support that bolstered the opposition in 2008 and 2013 presidential elections.

Source: Armenianow

Turkish Opposition MP Set to Reveal Evidence Linking Erdogan to (ISIS) Daesh Oil & “Erbil connection”

December 3, 2015 By administrator

Eren Erdem, a lawmaker from the Republican People’s Party, Turkey’s largest opposition party, says that he may have found the evidence linking President Recep Erdogan’s son-in-law to the dirty oil trade with Daesh.

Commenting on the sensational allegations put forth by Russia on Wednesday that Turkish President Recep Erdogan and his family are directly connected to the trade of dirty oil, Erdem revealed that he is ready to publicize information next week linking Berat Albayrak, President Erdogan’s son-in-law and the Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, to the Daesh oil trade.

In the course of his press conference, covered by Sputnik Turkey, Erdem explained that on the basis of his investigation, which is still in progress, “I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists.”

The lawmaker told media that “there is one company, headquartered in Erbil, which in 2012 acquired oil tankers, and which is currently being bombarded by Russian aircraft. I am now studying this company’s records. It has partners in Turkey, and I am checking them for links to Albayrak.”

Erdem noted that he will conclude his investigation next week, after which he will hold a press conference bringing the information before the public. “This investigation is aimed at trying to figure out which illegal operations are taking place in our country’s oil trade,” he emphasized.

Moreover, he noted that since he began discussing the possible linkage between Albayarak and Daesh oil, he has been subjected to an all-out informational attack by pro-government media.

“Today, the Takvim newspaper called me an American puppet, an Israeli agent, a supporter of the [Kurdish] PKK, and the instigator of a coup…all in the same sentence. I am inclined to view this attack on me as an attempt to belittle my significance, to attack my reputation in the eyes in the public, given that my investigation is a real threat to the government. Such a sharply negative reaction suggests that my assumptions are fair, and I am moving in the right direction to find the truth.”

Ultimately, the lawmaker noted that the state-connected media’s reaction “have only convinced me further on the need to carry this investigation through to the end.”

Source:sputniknews

In the course of his press conference, covered by Sputnik Turkey, Erdem explained that on the basis of his investigation, which is still in progress, “I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists.”