Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

Syrian government forces enter Afrin to repel Turkish Invasion

By

Syrian state television showed a convoy of pro-government fighters entering the Kurdish Afrin region in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) on Tuesday to help fend off a Turkish assault.

The fighters wearing camouflage fatigues waved weapons and Syrian flags from their vehicles as they crossed through a checkpoint that bore the insignia of a Kurdish security force.

“One Syria, one Syria!” some of them chante

“We have come to tell our people in Afrin that we are one,” said a fighter interviewed on state television, referring to the government stance that Syria must remain one country and internal partitions caused by the war must be eradicated.

State news agency SANA accused Turkish forces of shelling territory near the crossing where the “popular forces” entered Afrin.

Earlier on Tuesday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Russia had stepped in to block a deployment of pro-government forces in Afrin, where Ankara is seeking to destroy the Kurdish YPG militia.

Erdogan later said in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Damascus would face consequences if it struck a deal with the YPG and said the Afrin operation would continue, CNN Turk reported.

On Sunday, a Kurdish political official said Damascus had agreed to send Syrian troops into Afrin to help fend off the month-old offensive by Turkey and allied Syrian insurgents.

The Syrian government and the YPG have mostly avoided direct conflict during the war, but they espouse very different visions for Syria’s future. Each controls more ground than any other side in the conflict.

Turkey began its Afrin operation with allied Syrian fighters, seen as mercenary warriors for Turkey, last month against the YPG, which Ankara sees as a threat along its border with links to the Kurdish PKK insurgency at home.

Turkey is using YPG as pretext to invade the Syrian Kurdish region in order not allow Kurds to establish an autonomous region in Syrian Kurdistan, analysts say.

U.S. regards the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, as key ally against Islamic State IS and the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and has provided them with arms, air support as well as the military advisers. The YPG has seized swathes of Syria from IS.

Syria: Turkish invasion of Afrine turns to confrontation with Syrian regime

By

The Turkish offensive against a Kurdish militia in Afrine on Tuesday took a dramatic turn with the deployment of pro-Syrian regime forces in the Kurdish enclave, immediately targeted by Turkish fire.

The arrival of pro-regime forces in a semi-autonomous Kurdish region that has escaped Damascus’ control since 2012 marks a major development adding to the complexity of the civil war that has ravaged Syria for almost seven years.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “hundreds of combatants were deployed” Tuesday afternoon in the Afrine area.

“Popular forces have entered the district of Afrine,” said Rojhad Rojava, a Kurdish defense official in the local administration.

The forces, whose imminent arrival was announced on Monday by the official Syrian media, will be deployed along the Turkish border, said the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that Ankara considers “terrorist” “. Turkey desperately wants to chase Afrine’s YPG in favor of its offensive which came on Tuesday in its second month.

Shortly after arriving in Afrine, pro-regime forces were targeted by Turkish artillery, according to the official Syrian news agency Sana.

In Ankara, state media reported “warning shots” against these forces.

Tonight (prorégime forces) tried to head for Afrine with some pick-ups, but after artillery fire they were forced to back off. This case is closed for the moment, “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters.

As a threat to Damascus, however, Erdogan said in the morning that his army “will block (it) the road” to any outside reinforcement arriving at Afrine. But Syrian loyalist forces deployed there a few hours later.

Erdogan also said that Turkish forces will soon besiege the city of Afrine. His plans may, however, be thwarted by the latest developments.

It was unclear in the immediate term if the Syrian deployment was made with the endorsement of Moscow, a key ally of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and who controls the airspace in northern Syria , an important lever that can allow him to put pressure on Ankara.

Moscow may have tacitly given the go-ahead to the Afrin offensive, it has not failed to show its bad mood towards Ankara by closing the airspace to its aircraft for several days after a Russian aircraft was shot down in an area of ​​northern Syria where Turkish military observers are expected to enforce a de-escalation zone.

Russia and Turkey are cooperating closely on the Syrian issue, even though they support opposing sides in the conflict. Erdogan moved closer to Moscow after being frustrated by US support for the YPG, which has become their spearhead on the ground in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

Although he admitted to having lost 32 soldiers, Ankara repeats that the offensive is going “as planned”.

The Turkish forces have so far taken control of more than 40 villages, but most of these are in border areas in the north of the Afrine region.

“As we act to avoid endangering our security forces and taking into account civilians, it may seem that we are moving slowly,” Erdogan agreed.

Some 205 pro-Ankara fighters and 209 YPG members have been killed since the start of the operation, according to the OSDH, which also reports 112 civilians killed, which Ankara denies.

On the diplomatic front, the offensive has heightened tensions between Ankara and Washington. So much so that Turkey is already threatening to advance towards Minbej, about 100 kilometers east of Afrine, where US troops are deployed alongside the YPG.

In an effort to ease the tension with a US ally in NATO, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made a weekend visit to Ankara during which he held marathon talks. with Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu.

At the end of this visit, Washington and Ankara agreed to work “together” in Syria to overcome their crisis, with “in priority” the search for a solution for Minbej.

Turkish-Russian missile deal puts NATO on edge

By

Turkish-Russian missile

Turkish-Russian missile

Ankara has inked a defense deal with Moscow that could further derail ties with its NATO allies. How will they react? And could the deal still be reversed? Teri Schultz reports from Brussels.

As relations continue to fray over the clashes between Turkey and American-backed Kurdish forces in the northwestern Syrian region of Afrin, Ankara’s ties with Moscow are strengthening, exacerbating the tension with Washington.

Despite months of warnings from NATO allies both publicly and privately, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has finalized his decision to upgrade his country’s air defense with a$2.5 billion (€2.03 billion)-investment in a Russian surface-to-air missile system, the S-400 “Triumf.”

It’s not clear whether the Turkey-Russian sale is past the point of no return. Even NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wouldn’t hazard a guess ahead of this week’s defense ministers’ meeting. He said Turkey needs to clarify the status of the contract.

Stoltenberg said that Ankara is also discussing missile-defense cooperation with the Franco-Italian EUROSAM consortium that came in second to Russia’s bid. The US defense giant Raytheon also vied for the contract.

NATO diplomats speaking off the record due to the sensitivity of the subject said they believe the decision can still be reversed. There’s a precedent for that: In 2013 Turkey announced it would choose China’s Precision Machinery to supply its its first long-range air and anti-missile program. NATO allies protested vociferously and Ankara scrapped the program.

‘Not a bluff’

But no one should expect the same outcome this time, warned Tulin Daloglu, publisher and chief editor of the online Turkish current affairs magazine Halimiz.com. “Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400s is not a bluff,” she told DW. “It is a shout out to Washington that it is crossing a red line” with its longstanding support to Kurdish groups that Ankara views as terrorist organizations, such as the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.

Officials speaking critically of the Turkish move are always careful to add that military purchases are any government’s unilateral decision. Nonetheless, the displeasure is evident. “The principal of sovereignty obviously exists in acquisition of defense equipment,” General Petr Pavel, chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, said last fall, “but the same way that nations are sovereign in making their decision, they are also sovereign in facing the consequences of that decision.” NATO officials were quick to explain Pavel wasn’t threatening retaliation, but rather underlining that the Russian “Triumf” would be forced to stand alone in Turkey, as it could never be integrated into NATO’s system.

Russian system best plugs ‘vulnerability’

“The objective here is not to push the envelope or to create problems for NATO itself — Turkey has other objectives,” explained Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Istanbul-based think tank, the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. “The purchase of the S-400 came from a perceived vulnerability in Turkey’s air defenses, which is real, and the Russian offer was the best one on the table in terms of its delivery and ability to address that gap. But of course this is creating problems.”

Ulgen’s Carnegie colleague Marc Pierini described to DW more specifically what some of those problems will be on on the practical side. He pointed out the Turkish Air Force will not know how to operate the S-400s, so they will need Russian “instructors”, who Pierini envisions “camping out in Turkish Air Force headquarters,” where of course there is plenty of NATO-related information.

That’s not all. “In any missile interceptor you have something equivalent to the identification ‘friend or foe,'” Pierini explained, “so you have to connect your airplanes to these systems so that they’re not going to be shot down. So what do you do? Give access to the F-16 and F-35 operators in the Turkish Air Force to the Russians’ software in these missiles? And vice versa, do you give Russian instructors access to software in the Turkish Air Force airplanes?”

Turkish author Livaneli: We are like intellectuals of Nazi Germany; who resists, who reconciles with the regime, who silences

By

Turkish author and poet Zülfü Livaneli:

Turkish author and poet Zülfü Livaneli:

Translated from Turkish

Through traversed the political atmosphere in Turkey intellectuals, the situation likened Livaneli intellectuals living in Nazi Germany, “Some resist, while others compromised by the regime to continue to work, others are ignoring shut up,” he said. Livaneli, “Are you thinking of going to Turkey?” To the question “What ever happened to us where we’re going. People who live with honor must die in honor. “

Writer Zülfü Livaneli has commented on the latest book “Unrest” about the story of Ezidi woman Meleknaz, who lived the IŞİD persecution, in an interview with Ezgi Atabilen from the Republic about the issue of the uneasiness of the intellectuals from the political atmosphere in the country.

For the referendum, “I am very afraid of provocations, from incitement to propaganda for the next few months. Because neither side sees it as a battle between life and death, “said Livaneli, Turkey likened to Nazi Germany in the Second World War, today’s enlightened intellectuals. Livaneli said, “Some are resisting, some agreeing with the regime to continue, some coming from silence.”

Some of the interviews with Livaneli are as follows:

The poster of the book was not allowed to hang on the metro because of the OHAL. Perhaps people were worried that they would realize that they were ‘restless’?

There are so many human rights violations … It is not so important to prohibit the banner of a book so painfully. But today, book banners are forbidden, tomorrow books will be banned. The cover says ‘Restless’ and it’s my name. They did not put this banner and said to the people, “No, you are peaceful”. It is already clear that we went one step by step. But they banned the posters, so they did not interrupt. ‘Restlessness’ reached 250 in 15 days.

You presidential referendum process where Turkey will take?

It is no use other than to sharpen the people in a country that already has a camp. The struggles in the parliament, that nerve and anger create a microcosm. Now think of it spreading to society, which will be. I am very afraid of provocations, from incitement to propaganda for the next few months. Because both sides see it as a war of death and death.

Do you think the possibility of civil war?

We do not have much civil war tradition. But there are major conflicts. For example, 5 thousand people died in the ’80s conflict. Every day on the streets people were killing each other. I was looking in history in Turkey until the edge of the cliff carefree people behave, but I see that the brakes at the last moment. Now it seems to me like it will be.

‘We will remain what we are, honest people have to die honorably’

We’re talking about going from Turkey in all these alternative scenarios would you consider it?

No. I was imprisoned three times after 12 March on various, silly charges. The fourth time I was going to jail, my friends decided to go abroad. They were not going to live much anymore, we were in the situation. At that time there were blobs to the ground, electricity supplies, and Palestinian hangers and so on. It was a terrible time. I stayed in Sweden for five or six years. Then I went to Paris, for a total of 11 years. But then I was 20, I was not a well-known person. My situation is different now. There are people in the society who know me and love me. “Livaneli also left, he left the country,” I said. It would be to break the hopes of those people. It is both unfair and selfish. So we will stay here whatever comes. People who live honorably have to die honorably.

‘We are still in the barbaric period …’

Who gave people the right to torture animals? Anyway, if people can stop killing other living things, it will stop killing them. Especially in the Middle East are people constantly cutting each other’s heads? All these people saw that in their childhood the feet of the animals were tied and their heads cut off. One day the people will kill and eat other living things will definitely be closed and our period will be mentioned as the period of barbarism again.

‘A lot of my friends were killed’

I’m restless too. I was in military prison in my 20s. I came to the age of 70 guarding my friends in front of the prison. We talked to Yaşar Kemal every day. The persecution, justice … went without seeing that an environment where human dignity was held high was established. Tariq Akan is also like our other friends. We probably will not see the end of this …

Of course people are tired. I saw too many bumps. More than 50 friends were killed. All writers, writers, journalists, scientists … These people were imprisoned, miserable. But we’re here again. We’re doing our duties. We are again today like the intellectuals of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Some resisting, some reconciling with the regime to continue, some coming from silence. But if you are a recognized human being and you can communicate with the community, then seeing them is a compromise. Turkey is a country with people changing their lives newsletters …

Source: http://gazetekarinca.com/2017/02/livaneli-nazi-almanyasi-aydinlari-gibiyiz-kimi-direniyor-kimi-rejimle-uzlasiyor-kimi-susuyor/

Turkish officials meet Armenian community representatives

By

Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and Istanbul Governor Vasip Şahin met the representatives of the Turkish-Armenian community on Feb. 8 to evaluate the situation after the Istanbul Governor’s Office has canceled elections for the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, Agos reported.

Soylu said he would discuss the community’s concerns with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

The meeting follows a letter sent to the Armenian Patriarchate by Istanbul Governor’s Office. The letter said Patriarch Mesrob II Mutafyan is alive and the necessary conditions in the election process had not been met, which meant keeping Mutafyan in the position.

The Patriarchate sent a letter to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, in which they expressed their wish to hold an election for a new patriarch.

The move has drawn a fierce reaction from the Turkish Armenian community. The Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos said the letter was “historic” in terms of charting the relationship between the Armenian community and the state in an editorial published on Feb. 8.

“The Justice and Development Party has openly intervened in the traditions of the church and told them they cannot elect their own patriarch,” the article said.

Hollywood star Bradley Cooper becomes victim of Turkish propaganda

By

Hollywood star Bradley Cooper became a victim of ridiculous propaganda of Turkish media.

Turkey’s leading media reported that during the operation in Africa, former US Special Forces member Eddie Bragdon, who was fighting in the Kurdish YPG, was killed. The news was attached to the photo of “terrorist” in a military uniform.

This information have attracted great interest from users of social networks. The Turkish political analsyt Bora Bairaktar has even placed this picture on his social network page.

But social media users and analysts quickly pointed out that the man in the picture was actually U.S. actor Bradley Cooper appearing as he did in his role as late Navy SEAL veteran Chris Kyle in the 2014 film American Sniper.

In this regard, Turkish users of social networks demand from the media to stop the false and  ridiculous propaganda.

KURDISH YPG AMBUSH ELITE TURKISH MOUNTAINEER TROOPS

By

By Haider Al-Kufawi,
Turkish President Erdogan confirmed 8 troops were killed in operation ‘Olive Branch’ against the YPG in Afrin. This came hours after the YPG press office released shocking pictures showing the bodies and equipment of elite Turkish troops. Local sources say that the YPG is planning further ambushes to kill specifically elite troops to drain the Turkish force invading Syria.
Turkey has responded swiftly by deploying its gunships to the Afrin region to provide constant air support to troops on the ground. Turkish forces continue to advance into Afrin but casualties in ambushes may force a rethink of current military plans.

Turkey’s Invasion ground forces enter Syria’s Kurdish-held Afrin: State media

By

Turkey says its military forces have crossed into Syria’s Kurdish enclave of Afrin. Ankara began an air assault to take the area, held by the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), on Saturday.

Turkish forces crossed the border into Syria’s Afrin district on Sunday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said.

At a news conference in Istanbul, he said Turkey’s military aimed to create a security zone some 30 kilometers (18 miles) inside the war-ravaged country.

The state-run Anadolu news agency also reported the arrival of Turkish forces in the enclave as part of an operation codenamed Olive Branch, adding that airstrikes and artillery shelling that targeted the area, which began on Saturday, were continuing.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped the offensive would be completed in “a very short time.”

YPG denies reports

Turkey’s claims were immediately denied by a Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, spokesman, who said Turkish forces and their rebels tried to cross into the province but failed, after fierce clashes erupted.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported fighting between the two sides on the northern and western edges of Afrin, but said that Turkish troops had failed to advance.

Although Ankara has not released figures on the number of Turkish troops involved in the offensive, SOHR’s director Rami Abdurrahman said some 10,000 Syrian fighters have been readied.

The apparent ground assault comes a day after Turkey launched an air assault against the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia, which controls the northwestern corner of Syria, and which Ankara regards as a terror group linked to a more than three-decade insurgency in its southeast.

Saturday’s airstrikes and artillery fire were backed by pro-Turkey Syrian rebels who were engaged in a “comprehensive” ground operation against the YPG, Andadolu said.

SOHR said six civilians, including a child, were killed in Saturday’s airstrikes on Afrin.

Rockets hit Kilis

Early on Sunday, four suspected YPG rockets struck the central-southern Turkish town of Kilis from across the Syrian border, the town’s governor said.

Governor Mehmet Tekinarslan said the rockets hit two houses and an office, slightly injuring a woman, before Turkish artillery returned fire.

“No one lost their life,” Tekinarslan was cited by the Dogan news agency as saying. “They can fire one rocket at us and we will fire 100 back. There is no need to worry.”

While Erdogan has vowed to crush the Kurdish militia, the YPG is the major force within the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, which is leading the fight against the “Islamic State” (IS) militant group in Syria.

The decision has sunk US-Turkey ties to new lows and forced other nations to urge an immediate end to the offensive.

“This fighting … must stop,” French Defense Minister Florence Parly told France 3 Television on Sunday, adding that the new conflict could “deter Kurdish forces who are at the side” of the international coalition battling IS.

France also called for United Nations action to help minimize the “humanitarian risks” as the fighting escalates in Syria.

“Ghouta, Idlib, Afrin — France asks for an urgent meeting of the Security Council,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Twitter.

The ministry said in a statement that Le Drian spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, by phone Sunday. He called on Turkish authorities to “act with restraint in a context where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating in several regions of Syria,” the statement said.

mm/jlw (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

No safety in exile as Turkish dissidents attacked abroad

By

Turkish dissidents attacked abroad

Turkish dissidents attacked abroad

Pinar Tremblay,

Outspoken Kurdish-German soccer player Deniz Naki was the victim of an armed attack in his car in Germany on Jan. 7. Naki was unharmed in the attack, which was not his first. He has been verbally and physically harassed multiple times by Turkish ultra-nationalists. Naki has a tattoo that reads “azadi,” “freedom” in Kurdish, and is not shy about showing his support on social media for Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State or for the two academics who are on hunger strike demanding their jobs back. On his other arm Naki has a tattoo of his parents’ hometown of Dersim, which has a Kurdish-Alevi majority. In 2017 Naki was prosecuted for his social media posts allegedly in support of terrorism. He was given a suspended jail sentence.

The shots fired at Naki on a German freeway came just two weeks after People’s Democratic Party lawmaker Garo Paylan told the press he has been informed by Western officials that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) keep a list of dissenters to target. Several comments were shared on social media asking if this was the first of a series of assassinations. After the attack Paylan said, “The German and Turkish governments need to work together to take precautions against possible hate crimes.” It is not yet known who was behind the assault against Naki, but the German press reported that groups associated with the ultra-nationalists referred to as “Turan” or “Grey Wolves” have continued threatening Naki on social media since the attack. The pro-government Sabah Daily’s Europe edition ran a piece claiming the attack was a farce orchestrated by Paylan and that no one took Naki’s account seriously.

Al-Monitor surveyed a diverse group of Turkish dissidents who live in Europe and the United States and asked if they have observed any changes in the tone and intensity of harassment.

Amed Dicle, an occasional Al-Monitor contributor, is a Kurdish journalist who has dual citizenship and lives in Europe. He said, “I travel comfortably in Iraq and Syria, but not in Europe. Last week, I was told by officers [in the EU] to be careful. Particularly they warned me not to travel alone and to avoid trains. We are also cautioned not to travel to Germany frequently. It is not just me — a few other friends received similar warnings.”

A group of young Kurdish and Alevi college students in Berlin who hold Turkish passports concurred with Dicle. One of these students told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “We call them Nazi Ottomans. They are the unemployed, disenfranchised Turkish youths. Most of them do not even speak Turkish properly but they try their best to intimidate us. We believe they are getting paid by mainland Turks.” Their alleged photos have circulated on social media as well.

Barbaros Sansal, a prominent fashion designer and political activist who has suffered physical attacks and recently served jail time in Turkey for his outspoken criticism of the government, told Al-Monitor, “On July 15, 2017, at an Italian restaurant on Grote Markt in Brussels, I was having dinner with a politician and Belgian activist friend. Four thugs with Turkish flags came to the plaza and started harassing us with slurs and threats. We tried to prevent the restaurant owner from calling the police, because we did not want to complain about fellow Turks. But other diners were disturbed. The police came and took them into custody and I could go home only with a police escort. In September 2017, at Gent, Belgium, while I was having dinner, the thugs had made a plan to attack the restaurant but police intelligence stopped them. I again had to travel back with police escort. In November 2017, at the Berlin airport, a Turkish passenger tried to charge at me and my two female friends and police intervened. They leave threatening messages on my phones regularly. Dissidents in Europe are under surveillance and attack by teams commanded from Ankara.”

Arzu Yildiz is a journalist who decided to live abroad after being stripped of parental rights for her criticism of government policies. Yildiz left behind a toddler and a newborn baby. She told Al-Monitor, “No one who challenges the Turkish government is safe today. You are not safe if you are abroad, either. People are kidnapped from the streets even abroad, boarded on private planes and taken to Turkey. Embassies, consulates or even mosques have become entities to keep track of Turks abroad. Take the attack by Erdogan’s bodyguards in Washington, DC, for example. Yes, some of those who threw the punches were arrested, but how about those who gave the order?”

Aykan Erdemir is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. He is a former lawmaker for the Republican People’s Party and in November, Turkish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him over mind-boggling allegations of supplying falsified documents to a New York court. He said, “Over the years, harassment and insults from pro-AKP social media accounts have evolved into threats of physical violence or death. Recently, one such account even went as far as to threaten to decapitate me. The intimidation campaign on social media goes alongside, and in an eerily coordinated manner, with the smear pieces in the pro-AKP news outlets. Meanwhile, I have observed that many of my dissident friends have made their social media accounts private or simply deleted them. This is an unfortunate indicator that intimidation and threats deliver results in Erdogan’s Turkey.”

Al-Monitor asked Fuad Kavur, a film director and producer who has lived in England since 1963, about how the challenges are different now from in 1980s, when Turkey experienced a military coup and several political dissidents had sought refuge in Europe. Kavur was denied permission to shoot his movie, “Memed My Hawk,” in 1980s Turkey. The movie was banned and censors made sure there was no Turkish news published about its international achievements. In 2018, things have changed, but not by much. Kavur said, “We will shoot the movie ‘Ataturk’ in Hungary. It has been an exceptionally long haul marked by not-so-discreet ‘interest’ by Ankara. Moreover, a week ago, I was horrified to read in Hurriyet Daily News about a pro-government Turkish journalist openly advocating for Turkey’s intelligence service to bump off a few dissidents.”

Al-Monitor posed the same question to Ayse Cavdar, an anthropologist and journalist who has been living in Germany for almost two years. She said, “Although our destination is the same, our stories differ significantly from those told by the previous generation. First, the conditions now are different. The problems are no longer generated by one agency. Today, all [Turkish] institutions have collapsed. They are corroded. And also, now it is a lot easier to get the news from Turkey. There is no need to wait for a letter or the newspaper to arrive. Now I can get news from each neighborhood or district daily.” Cavdar added that she is aware of the talk of Turkish nationalists in Germany hunting down dissidents. She said, “Those who will carry out the threats will be German citizens/denizens with Turkish heritage” in what she called a “contagious disease spreading from the wreckage of the Turkish institutional collapse.”

The punitive measures against dissidents have no limits. For example, Fatma Tunc, the wife of dissident writer Aziz Tunc, was recently forbidden from leaving the Istanbul airport. The authorities confiscated her passport and told her she has “dangerous family members.” Tunc’s son and husband live in Germany and she was on her way to visit them. Police told her, “Have your son and husband come back to Turkey.”

As Cavdar emphasized, political dissidents share one sentiment: Even if one lives in comfortable conditions in the free world, life can still be difficult when one feels a deep shame and sorrow for her homeland.

Beyond all these coordinated efforts to intimidate dissidents lies a paradox: Erdogan repeatedly tells his audiences that he does not care about the views of other countries or dissidents, whom he labels as traitors and liars. Why, then, this endless effort to silence them?

Pinar Tremblay is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and a visiting scholar of political science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona