Ein Istanbuler Bezirk wählt eine Bürgermeisterin von der Opposition, trotzdem regiert dort nun ein Mann von Erdoğans AKP. Der Fall zeigt, mit welchen Mitteln der geschwächte Präsident um die Macht kämpft.

In der Türkei haben so viele immer wieder von einem Land ohne Erdoğan geträumt und mussten doch zusehen, wie die Demokratie bis zur Unkenntlichkeit verblasste. Jetzt ist da eine neue Oppositionspartei. Und wieder hoffen sie.

Bereits zum dritten Mal verurteilt der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte die Türkei wegen des Umgangs mit dem inhaftierten Aktivisten. Die fehlende Unabhängigkeit der Justiz im Land sei „systemisch“.

Nearly a decade after I watched him defy Erdoğan at great personal cost, the ex-NBA player is using his hard-won freedom to turn transgender people into a punchline

Nine years ago, I watched Enes Kanter ask America to take him in. It was May 2017, inside the National Basketball Players Association’s offices in midtown Manhattan. Kanter had just returned from a frightening detention at Bucharest airport, where Romanian border police told him Turkey had canceled his passport. He’d just turned 25, an NBA center with a green card and no country he could safely call home.

“I’m open for adoption,” he joked from the head of a table in a nondescript conference room, addressing a dozen reporters hastily summoned by his manager. Then he turned serious: “My next move is to just become an American citizen.”

Präsident Erdoğan lässt ein Gesetz verabschieden, das PKK-Mitgliedern eine Amnestie in Aussicht stellt. Die Kritik daran ist allerdings selbst unter vielen Kurden lauter als der Jubel.

Under Özgür Özel, the CHP became Turkey’s most popular party. Now his Yeni (New) movement is growing fast

In May this year, police in Ankara stormed the headquarters of the Republican People’s party (CHP), the oldest political party in Turkey. Officers used teargas to enforce a controversial appeal court decision that reinstated the CHP’s 77-year-old former leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu – seen as less of a threat to the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP). CHP members aligned with Kılıçdaroğlu’s successor, Özgür Özel, placed furniture at the building’s entrance, creating a barrier to prevent police from entering. It didn’t work. Hours later, party members loyal to Özel were physically removed from the premises.

Entering the offices of Turkey’s leading opposition party in such a fashion was a spectacular act with historic consequences. Last Friday, Özel and 90 CHP deputies resigned from their party and declared the founding of the New (Yeni) party. The CHP had served as Turkey’s main opposition since 2002. But not any longer: with the exodus of members to the New party, the CHP is reduced to just 44 legislators in the 600-seat parliament, its third smallest party out of seven.

In ihrem Überlebenskampf setzen Erdoğans Gegner auf die „Yeni Parti“.  Aber haben sie überhaupt noch eine Chance?