Newsflash! Governing party AKP is about to change the infamous penal code article 301! Many papers put it on the front page and the press outside Turkey also picked up the story. I recall how last December the same news was spread around. I rushed to write an article on how different human rights activists […]
Today, the Istanbul International Film Festival opens. Tomorrow at 4 p.m. the festival would really start for me: I have a ticket for ‘Kaotik Ana’. It’s on top of a whole pile of tickets I bought beforehand. Finally finally finally I’m going to a film festival in Istanbul. I let a few other festivals pass […]
At their protest they carry a portrait of Safiye Ayla. She passed away ten years ago, ninety years old, but in her young years she was Atatürks favorite singer. She became successful also because of her performances on TRT, the Turkish state broadcaster. The portrait says everything about the unrest that has built up at […]
I surprised myself by getting very, very happy yesterday night around seven, when a news site announced:” Izmir kazandi!” (Izmir has won!). Izmir, so the site said, had been elected to organize EXPO 2015, beating Milan. Somehow, I felt so happy for Turkey. Especially on this day, when in the afternoon such bad news emerged: […]
The call to prayer that blares out over the city from dozens of minarets, the shrieking of big flocks of seagulls, the horns of the ferries over the Bosporus: these sounds are inextricably bound up with Istanbul. I would like to add a sound: a deep and massive singing, a monotonous but sometimes also melodious […]
Who is the man that filed a complaint against the AK Party in the Constitutional Court? A ‘typical Turkish prosecutor’, that’s the most emotionally neutral description of Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the highest public prosecutor in Turkey. Yalcinkaya filed a complaint against governing party AKP because the party is allegedly the focal point of anti-secular activities. The […]
I would like to write something about flowers in Istanbul. About how I walked in a cemetery where spring had burst forth and the graves were loaded with tulips and narcissuses. About a competition held by the Istanbul municipality, in which a hundred residents can win 300 liras by giving lots of love, care and […]
It was one of the first times that I went to a market in Turkey. I had just picked up my first Turkish words, my beloved was going to cook that night and one of the things I was going to buy was onions. Not too much. So I said to the onion vendor at […]
Once again youtube in Turkey has been blocked. The biggest problem according to many people: Turkish judges don’t understand the internet. (published in daily newspaper De Pers) It’s ridiculous, says economy student Hatice, to think you protect Atatürk by banning the whole of youtube because of one insulting video. Turkey closed the popular video website […]
The newspaper “Cumhuriyet” has a new TV spot to boost the sales of their daily. You see a young, modern Turkish woman getting covered in black Islamist chador. Then you hear her saying with a male voice: “It’s me who decides on what to wear, of course”. A voice-over says: “Women of the republic are […]