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The Dutch government banned rallies in support of Turkish referendum for sake of its own election expediency, citing national interest, while the Turkish government exploits this same fervor, felt by its nationals living in the Netherlands, in order to curry favor toward expanding executive powers through the upcoming national referendum, Ozturk Yilmaz, a deputy chair responsible for foreign relations at the Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP), told Sputnik.

On Monday, Turkey sent the Netherlands two diplomatic notes, one that criticized the treatment of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was prevented from meeting with Turks residing in the Netherlands on Saturday after he was not allowed entry over security concerns as well as a second over the "disproportionate" Dutch police response to a gathering that protested his ban. Additionally, Turkish Family and Social Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya was denied entry to the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam on Saturday.

"There are two upcoming elections. On Wednesday, there are parliamentary elections in the Netherlands. Political parties are struggling [against] each other for the power. There is also a [constitutional] referendum to take place in Turkey. That means both sides, Turkish government and authorities of the Netherlands, are acting with the mindset of the referendum and elections for the domestic consumption," Yilmaz said with regard to the Dutch government’s ban of rallies protesting the actions taken against Turkey.

Yilmaz condemned the actions of Dutch authorities toward Turkish ministers as being undiplomatic, unfriendly and very rude. He stressed that such actions violate the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic and Consular Relations.

"[Dutch] Prime Minister [Mark Rutte] is trying to turn things against [the far-right Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) under leadership of Geert] Wilders by playing on national concerns of the Dutch. He is using the weapons of Wilders against Wilders … In Turkey, there is also a referendum and Turkish ministers are going there [to the EU] just to make propaganda for AKP [the Justice and Development Party]. And these are the ministers who are working and using the government’s resources for the ‘yes’ [referendum] campaign. So this is also unacceptable," Yilmaz added.

Ankara, in turn, promised reciprocal actions and sanctions against the Netherlands, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan named the Dutch authorities’ behavior as "Nazism."

Yilmaz stressed that along with condemning the actions of the Dutch, the Turkish CHP party does also not accept how the Turkish government is handling the relations with the West and the entire world through threats. He added that such threatening language would not be welcomed anywhere.

Parliamentary elections in the Netherlands are set to be held on March 15. Wilders’ PVV, well known for its anti-migrant and anti-Islamic sentiment and for prioritizing national interests, was the front-runner of the election race for weeks. People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) headed by incumbent Rutte managed to take the lead only in past days.

Ankara has been seeking support for a constitutional amendment among Turks living abroad that would enlarge the powers of the Turkish president over the legislature and judiciary. The Turkish referendum on constitutional changes is scheduled for April 16.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)

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According to the WHO, the eastern provinces of Batman, Hakkari, Siirt and Iğdır, the western province of Afyon, the southeastern province of Gaziantep, the Central Anatolian province of Karaman and the southern province of Isparta all suffer from bad air. The two remaining cities in the top 10 are Tetovo in Macedonia at number one and Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina at number five.

If the European list excludes Turkey, the top 10 reads Tetovo, Tuzla, Skopje (Macedonia), Zywiec (Poland), Pszczyna (Poland), Dimitrovgad (Bulgaria), Pljevlja (Montenegro), Rybnik (Poland), Bitola (Macedonia) and Wodzislaw Slaski (Poland).

Tetovo in Macedonia has the worst PM2.5 air pollution in Europe, according to the WHO data.

The data showed that Zabol in Iran has the worst air overall. Zabol is followed by Gwalior and Allahabad in India and Riyadh and al-Jubail in Saudi Arabia. Ten cities from India, four cities from China, three cities from Saudi Arabia and one city each from Cameroon and Pakistan constituted the top 20 list.

When the list of selected global cities with most polluted air in Europe is examined, Istanbul ranks first. Istanbul is followed by Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest and Jerusalem.

According to WHO, billions of people in cities around the world are exposed to dangerous air, but pollution levels vary. The WHO data showed that some 12.6 million people die each year due to air and environment pollution.

When cities in the United States and Canada are examined, the state of California dominates the list with most polluted cities. The highest ranking goes to Visalia and Porterville.

In North and South America, Coyhaique in Chile ranks worst, while Lima in Peru comes out worst for major cities in the region.

Bamenda in Cameroon tops the pollution list for Africa – which ranking eighth worst in the world – while Kampala in Uganda ranks worst for major African cities.

By contrast, cities in New Zealand and Australia at least match the WHO’s recommended levels.

The Indian capital Delhi remains the worst major Asian city for PM2.5 air pollution. The worst Middle Eastern city on the list is Riyadh.

February/15/2017

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​The moment journalist Ahmet Şık, held in terror-related pre-trial detention for 46 days, gets to see his daughter during 1st court hearing on 15 February 2017.

More than a thousand sign petition in support of English PEN’s former writer-in-residence and other writers unlawfully detained in Turkey

Please take a moment to share the petition with friends and colleagues and on social media – #FreeAhmetŞık

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfdngjcprJ_0RcRiwHoTR5H1oa8QOdAPCFUx-cxrEVLSbseeg/viewform

Leading writers and PEN members including Hari Kunzru, Roberto Saviano, Ali Smith, Sarah Waters and Irvine Welsh are among the hundreds of people to have added their voices to a petition calling for the release of renowned investigative journalist Ahmet Şık.

Following his detention on 29 December 2016, Ahmet Şık was charged and arrested and is now being held in pre-trial detention. Şık is accused of making terrorist propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Gülen movement (FETÖ), which the government has blamed for the failed coup attempt in July 2016. He has also been charged under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for ‘publicly denigrating the Republic of Turkey, its judiciary, military and security forces’.

Fellow investigative journalists Khadija Ismayilova, Lydia Cacho, Sandra Rodriguez Nieto, and Jerome Starkey – themselves no strangers to being persecuted for their work – are also among those to have added their support. Ismayilova, who knows Şık personally, described him as ‘one of the brightest minds in Turkey’. Other key supporters include Adonis, Hanan Al Shaykh, Monica Ali, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, JM Coetzee, Ariel Dorfman, Victoria Glendinning, Arthur Golden, Sir David Hare, Josef Haslinger, Elfriede Jelinek, AL Kennedy, Ian McEwan, Andrew Motion, Neel Mukherjee, Chigozie Obioma, Ihor Pavlyuk, Philippe Sands, Elif Shafak, Andrew Solomon (PEN America), George Szirtes, Mario Vargas Llosa and Ai Weiwei.

The petition urges the Turkish authorities to release Şık, whom signatories believe to be held on politically motivated charges, immediately and unconditionally and calls for him to be granted full access to his lawyers and his family.

Describing how Şık was ‘initially held in solitary confinement in filthy conditions in Metris Prison…and reportedly denied access to clean drinking water for three days’, supporters are also calling on the authorities to ensure that he is not subject to any ill-treatment while he remains in detention.

The petition continues:

The detention of award-winning investigative journalist Ahmet Şık once again highlights the growing post-coup crackdown in Turkey.

In March 2016, Ahmet Şık launched his report Journalism Under Siege (published by English PEN, Free Word and ARTICLE 19, in partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists), detailing the ‘unprecedented crisis’ facing Turkey’s independent media. Since then, and particularly in the wake of the attempted coup, the situation for writers and journalists has deteriorated even further. In the report, Şık named 39 imprisoned journalists: that number more than tripled over the course of 2016 and, at the time of writing, over 150 journalists and writers are now detained in Turkey, including Şık himself.

While recognising the right of the Turkish authorities to bring those responsible for crimes committed during the attempted coup to justice, we call on the Turkish authorities to safeguard freedom of expression, human rights and respect their obligations under international law during the declared state of emergency, and to release Ahmet Şık and all journalists and writers held solely in connection with their peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression.

Support the campaign :

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Turkey’s unemployment rate rose to 12.1 percent in November 2016, marking the highest such rate since March 2010, official data showed on Feb. 15.

The number of unemployed persons aged 15 years and above rose to 3.7 million in November 2016, 590,000 more than the same period of the previous year, pushing the unemployment rate to 12.1 percent with a 1.6 percentage point increase, according to Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) data.

While the youth unemployment rate, including persons aged 15-24, was 22.6 percent with a 3.5 percentage point increase, the unemployment rate for persons aged 15-64 was 12.3 percent with a 1.6 percentage point increase.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was also announced at 11.8 percent with a 0.1 percentage point increase.

The number of employed people was 27.07 million in November 2016, up 391,000 from a year earlier. The labor force participation rate (LFPR) was 52.1 percent, up 0.9 percentage point or 980,000.

According to analysts, the rise in the participation to the labor force had an impact pushing up the unemployment rate, noting that a declining trend in the jobless rate was not expected in the short term.

“The limited recovery in the industrial employment in the fourth quarter of 2016 was in compliance with the slight recovery in economic activity. However, we do not expect a decrease in the unemployment rate in the short term until the yields of the recently-launched ‘employment incentives’ are seen,” said İş Investment Economist Muammer Kömürcüoğlu, as quoted by Reuters.

The government’s “employment mobilization” campaign, which will start in early March, is planned to create 2 million new jobs, according to top officials.

Depending on the extent to which the private sector takes part in the campaign, some decrease can be seen in the unemployment rate, analysts say.

“The change in the participation to the labor force will play a key role. If participation increases, we will see a slight decrease in the unemployment rate. At the end, we do not expect any permanent decline in the unemployment rate until economic activity sees a strong recovery,” said Kömürcüoğlu.

According to TÜİK data, the number of agricultural employment decreased 101,000 persons while the number of non-agricultural employment increased 491,000 persons in this period. According to the distribution of employment by sector; some 18.7 percent was employed in agriculture, 19.6 percent was in industry, 7.4 percent was in construction and 54.2 percent was in services.

Employment in agriculture decreased by 0.6 percentage point, industry decreased by 0.5 percentage point and construction decreased by 0.1 percentage point while services increased by 1.1 percentage point.

February/15/2017

HDP

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“The space for democratic debate in Turkey has shrunk alarmingly following increased judicial harassment of large strata of society, including journalists, members of parliament, academics and ordinary citizens, and government action which has reduced pluralism and led to self-censorhip. This deterioration came about in a very difficult context, but neither the attempted coup, nor other terrorist threats faced by Turkey can justify measures that infringe media freedom and disavow the rule of law to such an extent. The authorities should urgently change course by overhauling criminal legislation and practice, re-develop judicial independence and reaffirm their commitment to protect free speech” said today Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, while publishing a Memorandum on freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey based on the findings of two visits to the country that he conducted in April and September 2016.
The Commissioner regrets that tangible progress concerning media freedom and freedom of expression which was painstakingly achieved by Turkey in co-operation with the Council of Europe, was halted and reversed in recent years, leading to an already alarming situation at the time of the Commissioner’s visit in April 2016. “In particular, the overly wide application of the concepts of terrorist propaganda and support for a terrorist organisation, including to statements and persons that clearly do not incite violence, and its combination with an overuse of defamation, has put Turkey on a very dangerous path. Legitimate dissent and criticism of government policy is vilified and repressed, thus shrinking the scope of democratic public debate and polarising society.” This situation has significantly worsened under the on-going state of emergency which confers almost limitless discretionary powers to the Turkish executive to apply sweeping measures, including against the media and NGOs, without any evidentiary requirement, in the absence of judicial decisions and on the basis of vague criteria of alleged “connection” to a terrorist organization.

Media pluralism and independence, in particular, have been casualties of these developments characterised notably by the use of state resources to favour pro-governmental media, pervasive internet censorship, arbitrary exclusion of media and journalists, takeover or closure of media outlets critical to the authorities, violence and reprisals against media workers and the incarceration of over 150 journalists.

The Commissioner also underscores that this deterioration goes hand-in-hand with the erosion of the independence and impartiality of the Turkish judiciary. “While this problem affects the whole judiciary, it is in particular the role of the criminal judges of peace that is the most concerning, because these formations have transformed into an instrument of judicial harassment to stifle opposition and legitimate criticism and are now at the origin of some of the most obvious violations of the right to freedom of expression.”

The Commissioner urges the Turkish political leaders in the strongest possible terms to change course and to display the responsibility and tolerance expected in a democratic society. They must redevelop the political will necessary to tackle the very long-standing systemic issues suppressing freedom of expression, including on the Internet, and finally execute the numerous judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, some of which date decades back.

“A first step is to lift the current state of emergency and reverse the numerous unacceptable infringements of freedom of expression, and in particular media freedom and academic freedom, that it engendered. In addition, the Turkish authorities must completely overhaul the Criminal Code and the Anti-Terrorism Law so as to align law and practice with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Beyond these deficiencies, it is crucial to change a judicial culture where judges and prosecutors interpret and apply laws in a way that consistently undermines freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey.”

Full text:

CommDH(2017)5_EN.pdf

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