NY Times urges Turkey’s Erdogan: “Don’t Discard the Mask of Democracy”

NY Times highlights possible plan to shut down critical media

Demonstrators wave Turkish flags as they gather outside the İstanbul Courthouse to protest the detention of a number of people including the editor-in-chief of Zaman daily and an executive of Samanyolu television on Dec. 19, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)

May 23, 2015, Saturday

MAHIR ZEYNALOV / WASHINGTON (todayszaman.com)

The New York Times has urged the US and other NATO allies to ask Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to turn away from “destructive path,” highlighting the prevailing fear among journalists that he might be preparing to shut down critical media outlets, including this newspaper. 

In an editorial titled “Dark clouds over Turkey,” the newspaper pointed to fear of critics that a new crackdown is starting to ensure that the ruling party he founded wins in upcoming parliamentary elections slated for June 7. Erdoğan didn’t make it secret that he wants to see the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to win necessary number of seats to expand his presidential powers.

The World Condemns the 1915 Turkish/Ottoman Genocide of Armenians

1915, Victims of the Armenian Genocide

 

ON THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE,
ONCE MORE, WE CONDEMN THOSE RESPONSIBLE!
HISTORY WILL NOT ALLOW THEM ESCAPE FROM BEING TRIED!

On 24th April 1915 the Ottoman government massacred one and a half million Armenians. 24th April 2015 is the 100th Anniversary of this genocide. This genocide committed a century ago has been systematically denied by the Turkish state, which is a continuation of the Ottoman government. All the efforts and exertions of the Turkish state were not enough to erase this genocide from the memory of humanity within the past century. Human history has never forgotten this genocide.

The greatest fear of the Turkish state is: with the acceptance of the genocide, being tried at an international court, to pay remuneration and to return the assets, usurped from Armenians, to their descendants. It is no longer possible for the Turkish state that has been trying for a century to rid itself of this issue and to hide the Armenian genocide.

AlJazeera: Bringing Awareness to the Armenian Genocide

Al Jazeera, March 10, 2015

Ronald Grigor Suny, a professor at the University of Michigan, discusses the 1.5 million people killed from 1915-1922

Kurdish Women Fighters in Kobane

An increasingly famous Kurdish feminist army, the YJA Star militia (“Union of Free Women”, with the “star” symbolizing Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, actively fighting IS (formerly called ISIS).

 

After Gezi: Erdoğan And Political Struggle In Turkey

‘After Gezi: Erdoğan and political struggle in Turkey’ chronicles a year of uprisings, resistance and repression since the Gezi uprising in Turkey.

http://http://vimeo.com/109212806

from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.

Political struggles over the future of Turkey have left the country profoundly divided. Former prime minister, now president, Tayyip Erdogan, has fuelled the growing polarization through his authoritarian response to protests, his large-scale urban development projects, his religious social conservatism, and most recently, through his complicity in the Islamic State’s war against the Kurdish people in Northern Syria.

VICTORY TO THE HEROIC WAR OF RESISTANCE OF KURDISH PEOPLE IN KOBANI AGAINST ISIS!

US, UK and French imperialist powers raised, fed and armed the reactionary groups such as Al Nusra Front and ISIS in order that they would fight the Assad regime on their behalf. Only when they realised that these groups are not capable of overthrowing the Assad regime, they began to distance themselves from them until their interests in Iraq were threatened. Now they wish to be seen as standing against ISIS.

US imperialism created al-Qaeda to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, but then when al-Qaeda started contradicting with US interests, they turned on them. Following the capture of Mosul by ISIS, having realised that their imperialist dominance is threatened by ISIS they have now, through NATO, started an international coalition against ISIS.

The only reason why the Turkish state did not want to be part of the international coalition is because of its close relations with ISIS. The whole world should know that the resolution passed on October 2, 2014 by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, is not against ISIS. This official resolution that allows Turkish soldiers to be sent to Syria and Iraq is in fact directed against the Kurdish people in Kobani and Rojava (section of Kurdish homeland in Syria) who declared autonomy in the region. This official resolution allows Turkish state to set up a buffer zone on the border of Syria and declare a no-fly zone. The resolution further emphasises that in Syria, the PKK poses a serious threat, clearly revealing the main purpose of the resolution and the intentions of the Turkish state.

100,000 Protest Erdogan Visiting Germany

“Soma was not an accident. It was murder!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source:  revolution-news

Turkish Court Orders 47 Arrests Ahead of Gezi Anniversary Protest

 [Nearly one year after the massive Gezi Park protests in Istanbul — and only weeks after the country-wide rebellions at the death of hundreds of miners at Soma — Turkey’s government is launching yet another round of arrests and repression while the people’s solidarity, resistance, and commemoration of the year since the upsurge which Gezi marked, declares the coming weeks of struggle. — Frontlines ed.]

Hurriyet Daily, 27 May 2014 –– A Turkish court ordered the arrest of 47 suspects in the Gezi Park case on May 27, while the pioneers of last year’s protest called for a May 31 rally in Taksim to mark the anniversary of Turkey’s largest-ever civil uprising.

A total of 255 suspects, including seven foreigners, have been on trial since May 6 on charges ranging from “violating the Meeting and Rallies Law” to “resisting police” and “supporting a criminal.”

Turkey: Coal Mine Capitalists and Erdogan Government kept Miners in Harm’s Way

Soma, Turkey mine disaster creates widespread anger at Erdogan. Cartoon by Carlos Latuff

Hundreds of Miners Die, Turkish Government Sides with Company

May 20, 2014 / Emre Eren Korkmaz, Labor Notes

Coal miners in Soma waited for news from rescuers after the biggest workplace disaster in Turkey’s history. The prime minister has sparked renewed protests by defending the company, which had boasted of its cost-cutting business model. Photo: Hilmi Hacaloğlu (VOA).
People in Turkey are sad and angry.
At least 300 workers lost their lives in the May 13 mine accident in Soma, a small town 300 miles from Istanbul. It was the biggest workplace disaster in Turkish history.
But instead of punishing management and promising to improve safety, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has openly defended the company.
Not just in Soma but in all parts of the country, people are angry and mobilizing against the government. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has reacted with police violence, pepper gas, and water cannons.
A May 15 general strike called by several union federations was one of the biggest strikes in years. Last summer, protesters defending Istanbul’s Gezi Park against bulldozers touched off national protests against the Erdoğan regime and its pro-business agenda, with significant union participation.

Turkey erupts in protest over death of 274 coal miners as crowds demand government resign

[Capitalism kills, again.  Notoriously unsafe working conditions (defended by Prime Minister Erdogan) led to an explosion and a mining industry mass murder.  The miners work like slaves, their lives in constant jeopardy, while the owners-exploiters take it all to the bank.  When hundreds died in this accident, and hundreds more injured, thousands gathered in grief and anger, and protests erupted and continue across Turkey.  Scroll through the pictures below. — Frontlines ed.]

By Emma Glanfield and Ted Thornhill, Daily Mail, 13 May 2014

Anger and grief boiled over into violent protests across Turkey, as officials announced at least 274 miners died in an explosion and fire in the town of Soma – the country’s deadliest mining disaster.

Nearly 450 other miners have been rescued, the mining company said, but the fate of an unknown number of others remained unclear.

Mass graves were being dug in the town, as it prepared to bury those who were brought to the surface by nightfall, in line with Muslim tradition.

Tensions were high as hundreds of relatives and miners jostled outside the coal mine waiting for news, countered by a heavy police presence.  In downtown Soma, protesters mostly in their teens and 20s faced off against riot police in front of the ruling NKP party headquarters.

The protesters smashed the party’s office windows with rocks and some in the crowd shouted that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a ‘murderer!’ and a ‘thief!’ .

And in Istanbul, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of mine owner Soma Komur Isletmeleri A.S. , Erdogan, coal mining,

Down with imperialist aggression against Syria! USA, hands off Syria!

[The following is a recent statement from revolutionary Maoists in Brazil, detailing their analysis of the ever-growing civil war in Syria as a proxy war by contending imperialist powers for control of the Middle East.  It is an important contribution to the international debate among revolutionaries, over the shifting relations and aggressions, direct and indirect, by leading powers in the world imperialist system. — Frontlines ed.]

Proletarians and oppressed people of the world, unite!

Declaration of the Revolutionary Front for the Defence of the People’s Rights – Brazil

About the recent situation in Syria

In the last months, the imperialist Yankee has intensified its manipulations and provocations to justify its military invasion in Syria. The US propaganda machine is once again creating smokescreens to justify to the world public yet another predatory war. “To defend democracy,” “human rights”, “stop use of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction;” these are the new smokescreens of the Yankee imperialism in its counter-revolutionary offensive, reviving the “War on Terror”. These were also the same pretexts used to justify the aggression towards Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, Libya, and many other countries. by the very forces  who are the most responsible for countless massacres and use of weapons of mass destruction in human history; imperialism, mainly Yankee.

Since 2011, the people in Syria are subjected to imperialist predatory war that currently is conducted in the form of a civil war. The armed forces of Assad’s regime (sustained politically, economically, and militarily by Russian imperialism) and the self-proclaimed ‘Free Syrian Army’ (mercenary forces directly controlled by the USA through their intelligence services and regional allies) are the contenders of this inter-imperialist dispute on the Syrian territory. In this war all kinds of horrors against the masses have been practised, without this having motivated attention or outcry from the well know”international institutions”.

ATIK: “WE CONDEMN THE MASSACRE OF THE FASCIST MILITARY JUNTA AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT!”

[An important statement by the organization of migrants from Turkey in Europe, issued 16 August 2013. — Frontlines ed.]

The attacks against the masses who gathered on the squares in Egypt in defiance of the military coup have turned into a massacre. Hundreds of people who took to the squares against the fascist military coup are killed, thousands are injured during the attack. And while these brutal attacks continue with all its barbarism, state of emergency was declared in many cities in Egypt.

As the deepening contradictions in Egypt are not being resolved, they have put the country in a more complex situation. As is known, the people of Egypt now more impoverishing and suffering from more repression have toppled the Hosni Mubarak regime with the rebellion started two years ago. However the spontaneous peoples uprising lacked revolutionary leadership and the  Egyptian army attempting to control the uprising, supervised the elections and the Muhammed Mursi administration came to power. As it is its nature, also this administration in its core continued the rule of the previous administration. Upon this the masses have risen again.

Following this uprising the army was once more activated to prevent the growing popular opposition to flow into a revolutionary stream. With this aim, the coup on behalf of the Supreme Military Council was committed and the leadership was seized. Muhammed Mursi was arrested on 3rd July. As a result the narrow minded organization Muslim Brotherhood have lead the masses within their influence spheres to demonstrations. The backward segments in the government will  use doctrines based on religion and nationalism on the poor layers of the people for their own gain. In fact,  this is what the Muslim Brotherhood Movement (Muslim Brotherhood) is doing.

This coup in Egypt is not independent from the imperialists. In fact, the coup by the Supreme Military Council was made with the directives of the US.  The current situation is clearly reflecting this. Following this the US imperialist has not been able to conceal the support they have given the coup in Egypt. Therefore the intervention was not even called a coup, and a declaration that they will continue with the annual financial aid was issued. Although the EU and US imperialists have “condemned” the junta’s attacks, massacring hundreds of people, this was merely to justify themselves. Despite these condemnations the role they played in this massacre cannot be camouflaged.  On the contrary, they have played a determining role in the coup and the massacre of the masses.

Taksim Commune: Gezi Park And The Uprising In Turkey

By Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh, Global Uprisings, August 5th, 2013

This short documentary tells the story of the occupation of Gezi Park, the eviction on July 15, 2013, and the protests that have continued in the aftermath. It includes interviews with many participants and footage never before seen.

Since the end of May 2013, political unrest has swept across Turkey. In Istanbul, a large part of the central Beyoğlu district became a battle zone for three consecutive weeks with conflicts continuing afterward. So far five people have died and thousands have been injured.

The protests were initially aimed at rescuing Istanbul’s Gezi Park from being demolished as part of a large scale urban renewal project. The police used extreme force during a series of police attacks that began on May 28th 2013 and which came to a dramatic head in the early morning hours of Friday May 31st when police attacked protesters sleeping in the park.

Over the course of a few days, the police attacks grew to shocking proportions. As the images of the heavy-handed policing spread across the world, the protests quickly transformed into a popular uprising against the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his style of authoritarian rule.

The Turkish Spring

“The Turkish Spring” by Kahlil Bendib, (www.bendib.com)

 

Turkey: Police detain protesters as thousands gather at Taksim Square

Hurriyet, ISTANBUL, Saturday,June 29 2013

[Protestors are detained by the plainclothes police officers during an anti-government protest at Taksim Square in Istanbul. REUTERS photo]

Thousands of protesters have gathered at the Taksim square June 29 to denounce the government’s response to the Gezi Park protests, a week after another demonstration was quelled with water cannons and tear gas. The demonstration has been carried out peacefully without tension and most of the protesters dispersed after a couple of hours following police’s warning to end the gathering.

Riot police pushed them away from the square with shields and slow moving water cannon trucks although no water was fired. Announcements were made for protesters to return to their homes.

However, part of the protesters remained in the surroundings of the Taksim area as police entered the side streets chasing the protesters who were gathering back. More than ten protestors were detained, according to Hürriyet. Live footages showed officer in plainclothes taking the protesters into custody.