Turkey intensified its crackdown over ongoing anti-government protests yesterday, arresting the lawyer of the jailed Istanbul mayor and two more journalists in connection with the country’s biggest wave of unrest since 2013.
Nine days after the arrest and subsequent jailing of popular Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, thousands of demonstrators protested on the streets on Thursday night, despite a growing sense of fear.
Overnight, police raided more homes, with Imamoglu writing on X via his legal team that his lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan had been “detained on fictitious grounds.”
Photo: AP
“As if the coup against democracy was not enough, they cannot tolerate the victims defending themselves. The evil that a handful of incompetent people are inflicting on our country is growing,” he wrote. “Release my lawyer immediately!”
It was not immediately clear on what grounds Pehlivan had been detained, but opposition broadcaster Halk TV said it was linked to allegations of “laundering assets originating from a crime.”
The Istanbul Bar Association said 20 minors had been arrested between Saturday last week and Tuesday on charges of contravening a ban on protests.
Of that number, 13 had been released, but seven were still in custody, it said in a statement on X, adding that it was “closely following” the matter.
Turkey’s repressive response to its worst bout of street unrest since 2013 has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised concerns over Ankara’s handling of the protests, and French President Emmanuel Macron denounced its “systematic attacks” on opposition figures and freedom of assembly.
Police also detained two Turkish women journalists in dawn raids on their homes, the Turkish Journalists’ Union wrote on X.
The Turkish authorities had on Wednesday detained BBC journalist Mark Lowen who had been covering the protests, holding him for 17 hours before deporting him on grounds he posed “a threat to public order,” the broadcaster said.
The move came just hours after the authorities released the last of 11 journalists arrested in dawn raids on Monday for covering the protests.
So far, more than 1,879 people have been detained since March 19, Turkish Minister of Interior Ali Yerlikaya said on Thursday.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS