Turkish mothers take up civil disobedience

May 27, 2017 By administrator

Protesters, including Veli Sacilik (2nd L) and Nuriye Gulmen (4th L), take part in the Yuksel Resistance, Ankara, Turkey, picture uploaded May 3, 2017. (photo by Facebook/Nuriye Gülmen)

By Pinar Tremblay, Columnist

On May 22, Turkish social media was rocked by a picture of a woman being kicked and dragged on the street by police officers. The woman was the mother of scholar Veli Sacilik, who was standing in solidarity with Nuriye Gulmen and Semih Ozakca, teachers who are on hunger strike.

Sacilik, just like Gulmen and Ozakca, was dismissed from his government position without any explanation or due process after the July 15 coup attempt. Indeed, currently there are more than 100,000 government employees who were dismissed. Amnesty International succinctly described the process as “professional annihilation.”

Gulmen started a sit-in in front of a statue in the heart of Ankara. The sit-in has now turned into the Yuksel Resistance (for its location on Yuksel Street, which is closed to car traffic) with a heavy police presence and blocked-off streets. The statue, which was erected in the 1990s, is of a woman sitting and reading a human rights declaration. Ankara-based journalist Unsal Unlu said that over the years this statue has been exposed to the highest amount of gas due to protests.

Gulmen started sitting in front of this monument all alone on Nov. 9, 2016, with a sign that read “I want my job back.” She was taken into custody almost every day for months along with Ozakca, Sacilik and a few others.

Out of desperation, Ozakca and Gulmen announced on March 11 they would be starting a hunger strike — with liquids and Vitamin B1 medication allowed — until they got their jobs back.

On May 21 around 1 a.m., they were taken into custody from their homes by special operations police.

Sacilik told Al-Monitor, “I was standing to protest Ozakca and Gulmen’s arrests, and I always ask my mom not to come or to stay far when the police charge. But once they started spraying gas at us in the police bus, she got upset and screamed my name.” That is when they charged at Kezban Sacilik, who is almost 70 years old. The videos show her being pushed down, dragged and kicked by officers who are younger than her son. Sacilik told Al-Monitor, “This wasn’t the first time. My mom protested about my arm being severed by a bulldozer 17 years ago and she was beaten by the police then. Since then she says, ‘I will not wear a skirt when I go out of the house.’”

Indeed, a quick look at the peaceful protesters, including lawmakers, presents a picture without any skirts. On May 19, Sacilik, Gulmen and Ozakca’s mothers were brutally attacked and taken into custody at a sit-in at Yuksel Street. They all had pants and tennis shoes on, anticipating this could happen.

One seasoned female activist told Al-Monitor, “The police are attacking women by dragging them by their hair, kicking them in their crotch, pushing on their breasts. These are women who are simply here to say ‘hi,’ to say ‘we support you’ or to give a flower. The government is systematically against women, voices of women and women who are out in the public domain. Perhaps it is beauty that bothers them. I mean look at their supposed legislation destroying all greenery, turning children’s parks into parking lots for cars, cutting down centuries’ old olive trees, and erasing the beautiful decorations and colors on historic mosques with acid. Women, flowers, laughter, beauty and peace are their nemesis. That must be why they are ordering these young police officers upon us.”

Sacilik concurred. He added that Gulmen, as a female, was the recipient of the worst sort of cruelty. In all of the arrest videos, we see the police targeting Gulmen first and worst.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s battle with mothers dates back to 2006 when he told a farmer who was complaining about insufficient government assistance, “Get lost, take your mother and get lost.” This hatred peaked during the 2013 Gezi Park protests. In the early stages, the government asked the mothers to call their sons and daughters back home. When the mothers came out to stand in solidarity with their kids, they were attacked.

Berkin Elvan, a 15-year-old victim of police brutality during the Gezi protests who became a symbol of resistance upon his death, was declared a terrorist by Erdogan in March 2014. Erdogan in the same speech had the crowds boo Elvan’s grieving mother. She and other Gezi families joined in Gulmen’s and Ozakca’s quest for justice as well. It was not only Gezi families. Families of victims of the 2014 Soma mine explosion, who still have not received any sort of compensation for their dead husbands or sons, showed their solidarity along with several others around the country.

When Gulmen and Ozakca were arrested this week, only four newspapers in Turkey had the courage to publish the news. The prosecutors are seeking 20-year prison terms.

As Ozakca’s wife and mother joined the pair in their hunger strike, they were taken into custody and later released.

Gulmen’s mother said, “Before they arrested my daughter, we learned that the police officers visited her uncles and told them to convince my daughter to stop her resistance or she will be put in prison. When the police broke our door, I pleaded with them about her condition. I told them they [Ozakca and Gulmen] are already struggling, please leave them in our care, they will die in prison. The police replied, ‘We are taking them to keep them alive.’” On May 24, Sacilik told Al-Monitor, “We fear the authorities will wait until they are unconscious then start force-feeding them. We also anticipate that they will soon arrest us as well.”

Briefly before the arrest was finalized, Gulmen told her friends, “We are most likely to be arrested because it looks like the order is from the top.” The questions posed to the pair by the authorities demonstrate assumption of guilt. For example, “Are you trying to spread your operations to generate Gezi-like protests?” “What is the real purpose of these presumably innocent rights-seeking protests?” “What kind of [financial] benefits were offered to you to carry out this hunger strike?”

On May 25, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu made a rather angry public announcement blaming the media for sharing “cute photos” of Gulmen and Ozakca. He said they were terrorists, therefore they could not be trusted in the education profession. How they were able to secure a government job as terrorists was not explained. Soylu presented a mind-boggling argument that the pair was not on a real hunger strike. “They go to their protest place at 9 a.m., and they eat and drink at night.” Gulmen and Ozakca, taken into custody on the 76th day of their hunger strike, have lost dozens of pounds and were too weak to walk without assistance.

Erdogan and his men fear opposition of all sorts and act in unimaginable ways to stay in power. On the one hand, the government took more than 10 months to revoke Fethullah Gulen’s special passport and is releasing prominent members of the Gulen movement from jail one by one for reasons such as varicose veins or sleep apnea. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of families are forced into destitution while the public is told to believe all people anti-Erdogan, including mothers, are terrorists.

Pinar Tremblay is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and a visiting scholar of political science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is a columnist for Turkish news outlet T24. Her articles have appeared in Time, New

Turkish Writer Exposes Persecution of Jews in Turkey

May 4, 2017 By administrator

by Harut Sassounian, Publisher, The California Courier,

Israel National News published an extremely interesting article written by Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut on the discrimination and persecution that Turkish Jews have suffered since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923.

This is an important exposé since the Turkish government has gone to great lengths for many decades to deceive the international community that there is great tolerance for Jews in Turkish and that Jews lived in a democratic society which protected their civil and religious rights. The aim of this Turkish propaganda campaign was two-fold: To keep Israeli leaders and American Jews happy so they would support Turkish interests in Washington and enlist the political lobbying clout of American Jews in Washington to counter congressional efforts to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The Turkish government back in 1992 commemorated with a big splash the 500th anniversary of Jews fleeing from Spain and relocating in Turkey. Ankara co-opted many of the Jewish community leaders, including the Chief Rabbi, into propagating this false historical narrative. When I wrote an editorial back then exposing the lies of that celebration, I got a letter from the head of the commemorative events, asking why I wanted to cast a negative light on their celebration.

Interestingly, that Jewish leader did not contest any of the facts in my article on the persecution of Jews in the Ottoman Empire throughout the centuries.

Bulut’s article is significant because it describes the persecution of Jews not centuries ago but during our own times in ‘modern’ Turkey! The article begins with a news item from the Turkish Milliyet newspaper reporting that dozens of historic Jewish synagogues “run the risk of disappearing forever.”

One of the main reasons why these synagogues are disappearing is that the majority of the Jewish community of Turkey has departed from Turkey fleeing from “systematic discrimination and campaigns of forced Turkification and Islamization.” Bulut reports that in 1923, at the beginning of the Turkish Republic, there were 81,454 Jews in Turkey. That number has dwindled to “fewer than 15,000.” The last of Jewish schools was shut down by the Turkish government in 1937, according to Bulut.

Here is the list of the major episodes of Turkish persecution and discrimination against Jews and other non-Turkish minorities in recent decades, as compiled by Turkish journalist Bulut:

— The Turkish Law of Family adopted in 1934 forced Jews and other non-Turks to abandon their ethnic names and adopt Turkish sounding names.

— “Jews were deprived of their freedom of movement at least three times: in 1923, 1925 and 1927.” Bulut also mentions that “during the Holocaust, Turkey opened its doors to very few Jewish and political refugees and even took measures to prevent Jewish immigration in 1937.”

— Hate speech and anti-Semitic comments are very prevalent in Turkish society and the media. Activities in support of Israel by the Jewish community were banned by the Republic of Turkey.

— The Turkish government has assigned secret code numbers to individuals of Jewish, Armenian and Greek descent. That way the government can track them down and expose their background when necessary.

— “Laws that excluded Jews and other non-Muslims from certain professions:” The Republic of Turkey banned these minorities from holding government positions. “Thousands of non-Muslims lost their jobs,” according to Bulut.

— Prohibition of the use in public of all languages except Turkish. The “Citizen Speak Turkish” campaign in the first years of the Republic mainly targeted the Jewish community, according to Rifat Bali, the leading scholar of Turkish Jewry.

— “The Jews of Eastern Thrace were targeted by pogroms from June 21-July 4, 1934. These began with a boycott of Jewish businesses, and were followed by physical attacks on Jewish-owned buildings, which were first looted, then set on fire. Jewish men were beaten, and some Jewish women reportedly raped. Terrorized by this turn of events, more than 15,000 Jews fled the region.”

— The conscription of non-Muslims in the Turkish Army (1941-42). “On April 22, 1941, 12,000 non-Muslims (also known as “the twenty classes”), including Jewish men — even the blind and physically disabled — were conscripted. But instead of doing active service, they were sent to work in labor battalions under terrible conditions for the construction of roads and airports. Some of them lost their lives or caught diseases.”

— “On Nov. 11, 1942, the Turkish government enacted the Wealth Tax Law, which divided the taxpayers in four groups, as per their religious backgrounds: Muslims, non-Muslims, converts (‘donme’), i.e. members of a Sabbatean sect of Jewish converts to Islam, and foreign nationals. Only 4.94 percent of Turkish Muslims had to pay the Wealth Tax. The Armenians were the most heavily taxed, followed by Jews. According to the scholar Başak İnce, ‘the underlying reason was the elimination of minorities from the economy, and the replacement of the non-Muslim bourgeoisie by its Turkish counterpart.’”

— “During the 6-7 September 1955 government-instigated attacks against non-Muslim communities in Istanbul, Turkish mobs devastated the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish districts of the city, destroying and looting their places of worship, homes, businesses, cemeteries, and schools, among others.”

— “Murders of Jews: Yasef Yahya, a 39-year-old Jewish dentist was brutally murdered on August 21, 2003 in his office in the Şişli district of Istanbul, many Jewish lawyers and doctors in Istanbul removed the signs on their offices in order not to have the same fate as Yahya.”

This list of continued harassment and persecution of Jews and other minorities should be sent to the international media each time that the Turkish government misrepresents its record of mistreatment of the Jewish community in Turkey.

It is a shame that the Israeli government does not whisper a single word of criticism in the face of such persecution of fellow Jews in Turkey. On the contrary, Israeli officials cowardly buckle under pressure from Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide and ban this crime against humanity from Israeli TV and academic conferences.

Turkish trolls reportedly behind ticket scams/hacks against “The Promise”

April 22, 2017 By administrator

Social media users across Facebook have come to complain about ticket scams and hacks they experienced when trying to purchase tickets for the Armenian Genocide-themed movie “The Promise”, a representative from the Armenian National Committee of America said in a Facebook post.

The war drama centers on a love story involving a medical student (Oscar Isaac), a journalist (Christian Bale), and the Armenian woman (Charlotte Le Bon) who steals their hearts. All three find themselves grappling with the Ottomans’ decision to begin rounding up and persecuting Armenians during the first genocide of the 20th century.

“Theaters in Boston, Framingham and Racine are experiencing in-advance sales, followed by late refund requests by purchasers of these sales, resulting in half-empty venues,” Aram Suren Hamparian said.

“Troubling, but not surprising, given Ankara’s shameful legacy of denial – from Capitol Hill all the way to Hollywood,” Hamparian said, suggesting that Turkish trolls are behind the scams.

One moviegoer said all the best seats were sold out as he was trying to buy tickets one week before the actual screening.

“I bought seats along the sides of the theater for my family. At the movie, every single one of the best seats were empty when we got there. When we asked the theater why a sold-out movie would have every single one of its best seats empty, they simply told us ‘it seems like those seats were purchased and refunded at the request of those who bought them.’ This way, people who want to see the movie cannot see it, yet the record will show at the end of the day that the movie was only barely half-full,” Dikran Kherlopian from Framingham said in a Facebook post.

As reported earlier, the picture appeared to be the target of a concerted campaign by Turkish cyber trolls who hoped to destroy it before it is widely released in cinemas.

The film currently has more than 120,000 reviews on IMDB.com, the online movie ranking website. That is almost double the number of reviews for Beauty and the Beast, which was released last month and seen by millions around the world.

Related links:

Aram Suren Hamparian’s Facebook

The 1915 deportations depicted in the works of a Turkish painter #ArmenianGenocide

April 20, 2017 By administrator

Turkish painter Arzu Basharan

Turkish painter Arzu Basharan has opened another exhibition entitled “There” to spotlight the topic of deportations starting from the times of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 to the recent cases of forced migration in Syria and Turkey’s Diyarbakir.

Ermenihaber writes, Bashara’s painting style includes distinct dots of color and various accessories applied in patterns to form an image, that transfers the topic of deportation. In an Interview with Turkish medyascope.tv, Basharan has told her exhibition is the record of all the past occurrences related to the Armenian Genocide, Rwanda and Bosnian massacres, as well as the recent developments in Diyarbakir.

The Artist has next stressed that the idea of raising the topic came to her after Hrant Dink’s assassination, adding, the exhibition is not limited down to the tragic events of the 1915, but also covers the human stories of our days in Syria and Diyarbakir, who are forces to leave their houses in search of peace and shelter.

The source adds, that the exhibition at 44 Art Gallery of Istanbul will be open until May 15.

Chemical Agent Sarin Smuggled From Turkey To ISIS In Syria – Turkish MP VIDEO

April 8, 2017 By administrator

A Turkish MP has claimed that Islamic State terrorists in Syria received all the necessary materials to produce deadly sarin gas via Turkey.

The MP Eren Erdem says that the Syrian Government did not have sarin gas and insists there are grounds to believe a cover up has taken place.

Erdem, from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), made the claims in parliament, citing evidence from an abruptly-closed criminal case.

He argues that the West purposely blamed Syrian President Assad for the August 2013 sarin attacks, using it as part of the pretext to make US military intervention in Syria possible.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) member, Erdem, brought up the issue for public discussion in parliament last week, citing evidence from an abruptly-closed criminal case. He accused Ankara of failing to investigate Turkish supply routes used to provide terrorists with toxic sarin gas ingredients.

“There is data in this indictment. Chemical weapon materials are being brought to Turkey and being put together in Syria in camps of ISIS which was known as Iraqi Al Qaeda during that time,” Erdem told RT.

Sarin gas is a military-grade chemical that was used in a notorious attack on Ghouta and several other neighborhoods near the Syrian capital of Damascus in 2013. The attacks were pinned on the Syrian leadership, who in turn agreed to get rid of all chemical weapons stockpiles under a UN-brokered deal amid an imminent threat of US intervention.

https://youtu.be/MoQPtub9eLs

Addressing parliamentarians on Thursday, Erdem showed a copy of the criminal case number 2013/120 that was opened by the General Prosecutor’s Office in the city of Adana in southern Turkey.

The investigation revealed that a number of Turkish citizens took part in negotiations with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) representatives on the supply of sarin gas. Pointing to evidence cited in the criminal case, he said that wiretapped phone conversations proved that an Al-Qaeda militant, Hayyam Kasap, acquired sarin.

“These are all detected. There are phone recordings of this shipment like ‘don’t worry about the border, we’ll take care of it’ and we also see the bureaucracy is being used,” continued Erdem.

Based on the gathered evidence Adana authorities conducted raids and arrested 13 suspects in the case. But a week later, inexplicably, the case was closed and all the suspects immediately crossed the Turkish-Syrian border, Erdem said.

“About the shipment, Republic prosecutor of Adana, Mehmet Arıkan, made an operation and the related people were detained. But as far as I understand he was not an influential person in bureaucracy. A week after, another public prosecutor was assigned, took over the indictment and all the detainees were released. And they left Turkey crossing the Syrian border,” he said.

“The phone recordings in the indictment showed all the details from how the shipment was going to be made to how it was prepared, from the content of the labs to the source of the materials. Which trucks were going to be used, all dates etc. From A to Z, everything was discussed and recorded. Despite all of this evidence, the suspects were released,” he said.

“And the shipment happened,” Erdem added. “Because no one stopped them. That’s why maybe the sarin gas used in Syria is a result of this.”

Speaking to RT, Erdem said that according to some evidence Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation was also involved, with some unconfirmed reports pointing in the direction of a government cover up, with Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag’s involvement.

Certain evidence suggests Bozdag wanted to know beforehand from the sarin gas producer when and if the Islamists will use the chemical weapon.

“When I read the indictment, I saw clearly that these people have relationships with The Machinery and Chemical Industry Institution of Turkey and they don’t have any worries about crossing the border. For example in Hayyam Kasap’s phone records, you hear him saying sarin gas many times, saying that the ateliers are ready for production, materials are waiting in trucks which were supposedly carrying club soda,” he told RT.

The parliamentarian said that now he feels like there is a witch hunt against him, after he confronted the justice minister. Bozdag, according to Erdem denied only the part that he wanted to get notified about the operations beforehand.

Furthermore, Erdem argues that the West purposely blamed the regime of Bashar Assad for the August 2013 attacks and used it as part of the pretext to make US military intervention in Syria possible. The MP said that evidence in Adana’s case, according to his judgment, proves that IS was responsible.

“For example the chemical attack in Ghouta. Remember. It was claimed that the regime forces were behind it. This attack was conducted just days before the sarin operation in Turkey. It’s a high probability that this attack was carried out with those basic materials shipped through Turkey. It is said the regime forces are responsible but the indictment says it’s ISIS. UN inspectors went to the site but they couldn’t find any evidence. But in this indictment,

we’ve found the evidence. We know who used the sarin gas, and our government knows it too,” he said.

At the same time, Erdem also accused the West and Europe in particular for providing “basic materials” to create such a powerful chemical weapon.

“All basic materials are purchased from Europe. Western institutions should question themselves about these relations. Western sources know very well who carried out the sarin gas attack in Syria. They know these people, they know who these people are working with, they know that these people are working for Al-Qaeda. I think is Westerns are hypocrats about the situation,” he concluded.

Source: http://yournewswire.com/chemical-agent-sarin-smuggled-from-turkey-to-isis-in-syria-turkish-mp/

Germany investigating 20 alleged Turkish spies

April 7, 2017 By administrator

The German Interior Ministry is looking into people allegedly spying on Fethullah Gulen supporters. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed last year’s attempted coup on Gulen followers.

The German Interior Ministry said Thursday it is questioning 20 individuals for allegedly spying on followers of an exiled preacher accused of being responsible for the attempted coup in Turkey in 2016.

“At the moment, a total of 20 accused and persons unknown are under investigation over suspicions that they worked as secret service agents on the orders of the Turkish government, and spied on followers of the Gulen movement,” said Germany’s interior ministry in a response to a query from Linke party lawmaker Sevim Dagdelen.

The German Interior Ministry told Associated Press news agency that it was investigating 16 known suspects as well as four others. It would not say how many were still in Germany.

German prosecutors said in March they were analyzing claims that Turkish agents were spying on followers of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames of being behind the attempted coup in Turkey last year which left hundreds dead. A raid on four homes of Islamic clerics affiliated with the union of Turkish-Islamic cultural organizations in Germany (DITIB) was conducted by Germany in February. They were believed to have passed information about Gulen followers in Germany to the Turkish consulate.

It is unknown whether any of the 20 people accused by the German Interior Ministry are Islamic clerics or imams.

Gulen is currently living in the US in self-imposed exile and has denied involvement with the failed coup. In the wake of the coup tens of thousands of Turks have been arrested or removed from state positions in Turkey.

Germany and Turkey in war of words

Germany’s relationship with NATO ally Turkey turned sour after the attempted coup. Germany condemned the crackdown on alleged coup conspirators by Erdogan, while Erdogan has made wild accusations against Germany, including one of Germany becoming a “haven for terrorists.”

Turks are currently voting on a referendum to give Erdogan more powers while Turkey is in a state of emergency. Germany blocked campaign events by Turkish ministers in March, which lead Erdogan to accuse Germany of using “Nazi” methods to silence supporters. Germany condemned the accusation.

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/germany-investigating-20-alleged-turkish-spies/a-38332089

Irvine, California: Mayor Donald Wagner Remove Turkish April 23, Heritage day resolution from city council Agenda

April 5, 2017 By administrator

Irvine Mayor Donald P. Wagner

Statement of Mayor Donald P. Wagner, Regarding Turkish Heritage and Children’s Day,

Beginning yesterday, council members and staff began hearing from members of the Armenian community in opposition to a routine item on the consent agenda for tonight’s council meeting. The item is a resolution commemorating April 23 as Turkish Heritage and Children’s Day. This was the eighth straight year this resolution has come before the council; all seven prior appearances of this resolution were approved unanimously without objection from the Armenian community. For that reason, city staff and I believed the resolution was inoffensive and appropriate for the consent calendar.

Because of what we have heard over the last day, however, it is now clear to me and to the entire council that the choice of date for the Turkish Heritage resolution is deeply troubling to our residents and friends of Armenian heritage. April 23 is the day before the longstanding date for remembrance of the Armenian genocide. I have co-authored six resolutions during my service in the legislature recognizing and remembering the first – but sadly not last – genocide of the Twentieth Century. Neither I nor anyone on this council wishes to ignore or downplay the historical significance of that genocide.

For that reason, I have removed the Turkish Heritage resolution from tonight’s agenda. It is not going to be before us, and I will not sign such a resolution. Instead, staff is asked to work with all stakeholders in this matter to find an appropriate date to recognize Turkish heritage that is also sensitive to the concerns of those among us of Armenian heritage.

U.S. Arrests Top senior executive of Turkey’s largest state-owned banks in Iran Sanctions Probe

March 29, 2017 By administrator

by Isobel Finkel and Christian Berthelsen

March 28, 2017, 9:01 AM PDT March 29, 2017, 1:17 AM PDT

(bloomberg) A senior executive at one of Turkey’s largest state-owned banks was arrested in the U.S. on charges of conspiring to evade trade sanctions on Iran, escalating a case that has prompted diplomatic tensions and political maneuvering between the two countries.

Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a deputy chief executive officer at Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, is accused of conspiring with Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader, to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Iran and its companies.

Atilla was taken into custody Monday night, a prosecutor told a magistrate judge at a hearing on Tuesday. Atilla didn’t enter a plea or make any statements during the brief court appearance and was ordered held without bail. The bank’s shares plummeted on Tuesday in Istanbul.

Zarrab has close ties to the administration of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who raised the banker’s arrest with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden last year and accused the U.S. of ulterior motives in bringing the case.

Atilla’s detention comes at a delicate time in U.S.-Turkish relations. Turkey is historically one of the West’s strongest allies in the Middle East. But Zarrab’s arrest and divergent strategies over Syria’s civil war and its fallout have raised tensions between U.S. and Turkey.

Turkey’s economic minister, Nihat Zeybekci, criticized the way U.S. arrested Atilla.

“At the very least, if there was a situation like this, they could have shared it with Turkey in advance,” Zeybekci said in an interview with Bloomberg. The banker “could have been invited to testify,” he said.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he’ll raise the issue in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Turkey on Thursday.

Halkbank said in a public filing to the Istanbul stock market on Wednesday that it had launched an investigation in conjunction with Turkish authorities and that information about the case would be shared with the public as it becomes available. Halkbank shares sank 11 percent as of 9:55 a.m. in Istanbul, the biggest decline since July 18 on heavy volume.

Lira Slumps

The Turkish lira weakened as much as 1.2 percent against the U.S. dollar following news of the arrest.

Atilla is accused of protecting and hiding Zarrab’s ability to provide access to international financial networks, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. Zarrab is suspected of providing gold and currency to Iran through the bank, while creating false documents to make the transactions appear to be food so they would fall within humanitarian exceptions to the sanctions law, according to the court papers.

The U.S. relies on wiretapped conversations involving Zarrab, Atilla and several informants, who aren’t named, to support its case against the banker, including Zarrab’s reference to the allegedly fake food shipments.

“Do you know what’s stirring the pot?” Zarrab asked one of the confidential informants in a 2013 phone conversation, according to the U.S. “The document you turned in. They wrote Dubai as the origin of the wheat. The man says wheat doesn’t grow in Dubai.”

Zarrab’s Lawyers

Zarrab has hired almost 20 of New York’s elite white-collar criminal defense lawyers to represent him — including former New York Mayor and U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Michael B. Mukasey, the former U.S. attorney general. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman scheduled a hearing for April 4 and asked defense lawyers to explain Giuliani and Mukasey’s role in the case.

Prosecutors claimed the hiring of Giuliani and Mukasey might present a conflict of interest because their firms also represent some of the banks alleged to be victims in Zarrab’s case.

Mukasey’s son, Marc, has been widely speculated as a candidate to become the New York U.S. Attorney under Trump, after the firing of Preet Bharara earlier this month. Prosecutors said in a court filing Monday that Giuliani and Mukasey were hired to try to reach a settlement in the case, though neither will be involved in court proceedings.

Bharara led the investigations of Zarrab and Atilla. His firing brought relief to members of the Turkish government and caused a jump in the shares of Halkbank. Cavusoglu on Wednesday accused Bharara of ties to Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based preacher Erdogan accuses of orchestrating the failed July 15 coup.

Royal Holdings

Zarrab, owner and operator of Royal Holdings A.S., is accused of using his multibillion-dollar network of companies in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to induce U.S. banks to process transactions for Iran’s benefit.

The U.S. has said it has evidence that Zarrab paid millions of dollars in bribes to Turkish government officials and top executives at Halkbank, which allegedly helped Zarrab process the payments.

Zarrab was a key figure in a 2013 scandal, in which Turkish prosecutors accused him of bribing the country’s cabinet ministers in a gold-trading operation worth at least $12 billion, a charge he denied. Erdogan called the investigation a coup attempt, and all charges against Zarrab and members of his administration were eventually dropped.

Suleyman Aslan, the former CEO of Halkbank, was among dozens arrested as part of a December 2013 probe into gold smuggling, money laundering and bribery in government tenders. Aslan was taken into custody after police raided his home and found $4.5 million stuffed into shoe boxes — money the CEO said was intended as “charitable donations.”

He was later released and charges were dropped, as they were against all the suspects. The prosecutors who brought the charges were either arrested, sacked or fled. While there were no charges against Atilla at the time, Turkish prosecutors cited transcripts of his conversations with Zarrab as evidence against him.

Turkish opposition TV starts broadcasts from Germany

March 18, 2017 By administrator

A Turkish opposition television channel has started broadcasting from Germany. The channel hopes to highlight anti-democratic practices in Turkey.

A group of Turkish opposition journalists has started television broadcasts from the German city of Cologne in an effort to provide independent and objective news in Turkey.

Arti TV, Turkish for Plus TV, went live on Friday evening with the slogan “for a free and independent media and a democratic Turkey.”

The channel brings together several prominent opposition journalists, academics and politicians.

Among those at the station are journalists who lost their jobs and fled to Germany amid a crackdown on media under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

More than 100 journalists in Turkey are in prison, around 150 media outlets have been shut and nearly 3,000 journalists have lost their jobs in a sweeping crackdown on freedom of speech in the wake of last July’s failed coup attempt. Germany’s attention has recently focused on German journalist Denis Yucel, who is among the reporters imprisoned in Turkey.

The immediate goal of the opposition broadcaster is to prevent a referendum from passing next month. Voters will decide on a set of constitutional changes designed to dramatically expand Erdogan’s powers.

Arti TV is available online and via satellite.

In addition to Arti TV, the group of journalists established the artigercek.com news and analysis portal in February.

The television channel is funded by the Netherlands-based Arti Media Foundation and the founders hope to receive funding in the future from the German government.

Merkel’s chief of staff mulls ban on Turkish politicians entering country

March 15, 2017 By administrator

(DW) Chancellery Head Peter Altmaier has said Germany would be legally entitled to ban Turkish politicians from campaigning in Germany. The threat came after Turkish President Erdogan accused Germany of Nazi practises.

Germany could ban Turkish politicians from entering Germany, Angela Merkel’s chief of staff threatened in an interview published on Wednesday.

Peter Altmaier said Germany still had plenty of legal options amid an escalating row with Ankara over Turkish referendum campaigns within Germany.

“We are firmly opposed to Nazi comparisons and grotesque allegations,” the CDU politician told the newspapers of the Funke Mediengruppe.

“Turkey always attaches great importance to the fact that its honor is not violated. Germany also has an honor.

“We will take a close look at what is responsible and what is not. An entry ban would be a last resort. But we reserve the right to do that.”

The countries’ relationship became especially fraught after Germany cancelled several Turkish political rallies, citing public security concerns.

Altmaier’s home-state of Saarland prohibited on Tuesday all foreign officials from holding campaign rallies, with the policy immediately targeting Turkish officials.

Responsible for Srebenica

Turkish President Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the bans as “fascist” and reeking of “Nazi practices” infuriating the German government. Turkey likewise attacked The Netherlands for its similar bans, accusing it of being responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide of 8,000 Bosniaks.

Erdogan’s aggressive rhetoric and European campaigning came one month ahead of a referendum to greatly expand Erdogan’s powers – a referendum in which expatriate Turks can vote.

Altmaier said international law allowed all countries, including Germany, to ban the entry of foreign government officials in extreme circumstances.

“It’s never happened in Germany, as far as I know,” he said. “But the fact that Germany has not made full use of its options under international law is no ‘free pass’ for the future.”

Mass arrests

German politicians were highly critical of mass arrests and dismissals in Turkey following a failed military coup last July. Critics claim a successful referendum would erode political checks and balances, but Erdogan says the powers are essential to maintain stability in Turkey.

Particularly inflammatory was Turkey’s treatment of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, who was arrested in Ankara last month, amid claims he was working as a German spy.

aw/ (dpa, Reuters, AFP)

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