Perspectives wanted the following: “An analysis on the Freedom of Speech Barometer and the number of detained within the last three months under the anti-terrorism code and the reasons for detention“. I can only answer the second part of the question in one way: “How can I know why?” I also think only the Ministry of Justice can accurately answer this question as the data are not accessible to the public. Never be blinded by the rather good “Law on the Right to Information”, enacted upon pressure by the EU.

You may wonder who the Sarikecilis are: Sarikecilis are a glorious clan of the Oghuzes, who live in tents woven with goat hair, who herd and live with goats, who do not have a regular place to live either in the summer nor in the winter, who spend winter months around Mersin and the summers around the mid-Taurus Mountains, who love their mountains, forests, rivers, who protect their habitats, who love their country, and who have been maintaining a culture they brought from Central Asia to Anatolia one thousand years ago.

The haphazard modernization project that encountered three military coups, settled into a completely different course in the 2000’s. A new page was turned together with the AKP government. Many undebatable issues become openly debatable, liberalization found a political equivalent, representation of different segments comes into question, and most importantly, military tutelage is perceived as a risk factor for society and culture. AKP kicked off its mission by contributing to democratization in Turkey. Accordingly, this meant a period of economic stability through which public wealth would multiply.

For the third time since the end of the Cold War, the “Turkish model” was offered to countries undergoing change as the solution best adapted to Western interests. That Turkey warmed up to this potential outside its role as a “model”, that Erdogan, a devout leader, should, on his North African tour, state his preference for the secular state created favorable repercussions in the West. The AKP government of Turkey also established close links with Islamist parties poised to take power, helping them organize and generate practical outcomes.

The Turkey Representation of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung has been supporting graduate students with a scholarship program since 2008 with the aim of supporting progress in rural development and energy and helping young people put together long-term policies in these areas as the decision makers of the future. We provide scholarships for a maximum of three semesters starting with the second or third semester to graduate students who have chosen rural development or alternative energy as the core topic of their research and who want to write their master on these topics.

Just as change does not necessarily mean progress, political scheming in Hatay fell short of raising the city to the level of the rest of Turkey. We residents are people who live freely in peace and security regardless of what religion or sect we belong to. Our lives had no traces of blood, tears, grudges, hatred, suspicion or fear. Our level of tension would be less than one percent of the tension existing in the Southeastern province. It is apt to use a well-worn adage: In peace, children bury their parents; in war, parents bury their children.

The city of Al Bab to the northwest of Aleppo that the Syrian regime had been forced to totally withdraw from was like a test ground where one could clearly observe the difficult and painful steps the people had to take in order to build democracy. The townspeople of Al Bab were engaged in a struggle to plot the course of their own destiny when a bloody battle was raging in Aleppo only 35 km away. Who will emerge victorious from the fighting in Aleppo would doubtless determine the fate of the smaller Al Bab.

Turkey’s traditional security-centered policies to deal with the Kurdish problem became stuck during the rule of the AKP governments that enjoyed a powerful majority in parliament for ten years. Instead of laying groundwork for a peaceful solution along the lines of social consensus, democracy and liberties, the AKP governments chose to raise false hopes by means of so-called “reforms” and “initiatives” and to rely on policies which, in essence, were security-centered in spite of strong support they had in parliament and international circumstances that were favorable to democratization and liberties such as the process of full membership in the EU, not to mention possibilities served up by political developments in the Middle East.

The region’s economy is directly tied to the volume of trade with neighboring countries and border trade. When Gaziantep is added in, 40% of the exports to Iraq are made via Southeast Anatolia. Gaziantep alone accounts for 30% of total exports. Profiling the economic relations between the provinces in the region and neighboring countries by taking Iraq as an example, we see that 50% of the exports from Diyarbakir go there, with ores and metals taking the lead in volume at 38%. Marble probably makes up 80% of this amount.

Worldwide, annual pesticide use is 3 million tons on average, whereas it is around 33 thousand tons in Turkey. Actually, this number does not mean anything; one has to delve further. Around 700 grams (Reference 1) of pesticides per hectare are used in Turkey. In comparison, the Netherlands, which has the highest pesticide use in Europe, uses nearly 13 kilograms and in Finland, the country with the lowest pesticide use, it is around 1.2 kilograms. From this perspective, the amount of pesticides used in Turkey seems quite low. However, this is not the case.