Eurasia Outlook

Eurasia Outlook is a new Carnegie Moscow Center blog with quite a wide range of contributors and topics. Recent English-language posts include a comparison of the protests in Turkey and Russia by Lilia Shevtsova, an American Interest op-ed on the surge of new authoritarianism throughout the world, and a discussion by Dmitri Trenin of the interconnection between economic and political factors in the process of civic awakening.

The blog also publishes material in Russian, French and several other languages. In the Russian-language section Alexey Malashenko considers the demise of Egypt's President Morsi, and points to the lessons that will inevitably be drawn from it by leaders of other nations in the region:

За ситуацией в Египте пристально наблюдают в соседних странах. И поражение местных исламистов (если это, конечно, поражение, а не временное отступление) эхом отзовется в Тунисе, Ливии, в некоторых других государствах, в том числе в Турции.

BBC Statement Regarding BBC Reporters in Turkey

Date: 24.06.2013Last updated: 24.06.2013 at 12.01

Category: Corporate

BBC Global News Director, Peter Horrocks, has issued the following statement.

The BBC is very concerned by the continued campaign of the Turkish authorities to discredit the BBC and intimidate its journalists.

A large number of threatening messages have been sent to one of our reporters, who was named and attacked on social media by the Mayor of Ankara for her coverage of the current protests.

The BBC and all its journalists are committed to providing impartial and independent journalism. It is unacceptable for our journalists to be directly targeted in this way. There are established procedures for making comments and complaints about BBC output and we call on the Turkish authorities to use these proper channels.

BBC Press Office

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/statements/bbc-reporters-turkey.html

Protests in Turkey and Russia compared

At Global Voices, Daniel Alan Kennedy discusses points of contact between the mass demonstrations in Turkey and the democratic protest movement in Russia:

Turkey is a popular holiday destination with Russians, who are drawn there by its beaches, proximity, low prices and a visa-free travel agreement with Russia. Last year alone nearly 3 million Russians visited Turkey. While some interest in current events there can therefore be chalked up to concerns for non-refundable travel packages, Russia itself has been no stranger to street protests in the last two years. Many Russians were quick to draw parallels: both between the two protest movements and the two political leaders.

While among supporters of the Russian opposition "comparisons of Erdogan to Putin abounded, particularly on Twitter", Kennedy points out that pro-Putin Russians were more reluctant to back Erdogan, partly because of the latter's position on Syria. More support for Erdogan came from Russian-speakers in the Central Asian republics, where what they perceive as Erdogan's "steadfastness" contrasts with the indecision of their own local leaders.

Reactions of a different kind come from Russians of a center-right persuasion: at Sputnik & Pogrom, Yegor Prosvirnin writes that while the Turkish opposition movement turned the whole of Turkey into "one gigantic field of battle", their Russian counterparts meekly complied with the officially permitted marching routes and moaned on their blogs about the Russian protests being "lost" (слит). What's needed, according to Prosvirnin, is an injection of the spirit shown by the protesters of Taksim Square, transposed into classical Russian terms:

There is no need for elections. No need for any protests. What's needed are 1000 Russians. Not you - [Mayakovskian] clouds in trousers - but real Russians of pre-revolutionary quality who understand who they are, what they are, what to live for and what to die for. Not clowns in fancy dress with processional banners, not dickheads in black uniforms, but those who in the Land of my Birth [Родина] (I don't say  "our",  the post-Soviet proletariat has no fatherland) advanced with both banners and uniforms. Only a thousand are needed, and the country of decomposing Soviet monsters and insufficiently Europeanized white-ribboned phantoms will fall at their feet.

Не надо никаких выборов. Не надо никаких протестов. Надо 1000 русских. Не вас — облаков в штанах — а настоящих, дореволюционного качества русских, понимающих, кто они, зачем они, зачем жить и зачем умирать. Не ряженых клоунов с хоругвями, не мудаков в черных униформах, но тех, кто на моей Родине (не говорю «нашей», у постсоветского пролетария нет отечества) двигали и хоругвями, и униформами. Всего лишь тысячу, и страна разлагающихся советских чудовищ и недоевропейских белоленточных призраков ляжет к ногам.

Taksim Solidarity - Press Release

The Taksim Solidarity website has issued the following statement:

June 18th, 2013 Press Release

19 June 2013

SO MANY DEAD AND INJURED AND HUNDREDS UNDER POLICE CUSTODY

Cutting the trees at Gezi Park, attacking people camping at Gezi at the crack of dawn with water cannons and tear gas, using rubber bullets and spraying millions of protesters with chemicals was not the end of police violence. It is still full on, now with the help of thugs armed with sticks and knives.

Four people have already died during the protests, hundreds were injured and disabled. Ethem Sarısülük was shot with a bullet in Ankara. Now the government has started a “witch hunt”. Hundreds of Turkish citizens, who claimed their park, insisted on their demands and asked for more freedoms have been collected from their homes in the early hours of the morning. Police brutality in the form of custody and arrests is forced upon people exercising their democratic rights. Members of trade associations, unions and political parties are being arrested far and wide. There is an atmosphere of oppression and fear.

253 people have been arrested in Istanbul and 142 in Ankara. The number is on the rise all over the country. We demand the immediate release of everyone under police custody and an end to this anti-democratic policy. We expect health reports on the 7822 people -59 of whom are in critical condition – injured as a result of police violence. Those responsible for this severe picture and the deaths of 4 people should be held accountable, deposed and taken to court.

Responding to democratic protests with police violence followed by mass custody and arrest operations is an all-too-familiar state tradition in Turkey. The current government is doing this on an unprecedented scale. Every coup d’etat, every authoritarian episode had brought along mass arrests in Turkey. The Gezi Park resistance had risen above these outdated authoritarian methods with its popularity, pacifism, legitimacy and creativity. Marches, pots and pans, human chains, and “standing people” have all been transformed into platforms of democratic response.

The demands which started off in Taksim are widely shared now. There is no going back. Tree cutters returned to the park through the council planting new trees and flowers. A proper explanation and apology would have been more meaningful than this perfunctory self-criticism.

Those who suggested that they could do whatever they wanted with the trees, with the park have now realised that they cannot ignore the demands of the people anymore. We are looking forward to a declaration about the cancellation of the development (Topçu Kışlası) project and the deposal of those responsible for it. The use of tear gas and other human health hazards should be banned immediately and those in custody should be released. This is the way to social peace.

Taksim Solidarity will be following up on these demands shared by millions and support the injured and those under police custody. We will be loud and clear in our demands until the wounded are well and those under custody free.

TAKSİM SOLIDARITY

http://taksimdayanisma.org/18-haziran-basin-ve-kamuoyuna-duyuru?lang=en

Standing Man

http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/galeridetay.aspx?cid=70179&rid=2&p=1

Turkey links

Scott Peterson (CS Monitor), on Recep Tayyip Erdogan's view of the Taksim Square protesters.
Sebnem Arsu (NY Times), on how Davide Martello lost his grand piano.
Bel Trew (Ahram Online), on Two Days in Taksim 
Joe Parkinson and Emre Peker (WSJ), on violence and polarization in Turkey.
Edhem Eldem (NYT), on the dangers of Turkey's False Nostalgia.

Taksim protest continuing

Although Taksim Square has been closed, and according to Turkey's European Union minister anyone entering it will be considered a supporter of a terrorist organization, protesters plan to attempt to retake the square today. #1MilyonBugunTaksime.

Erdogan issues another threat

Sounding remarkably like his adversary Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria, Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued another threat to the Taksim Square/Gezi Park protesters at the end of a long, ranting speech to some 50,000-60,000 of his supporters at a rally in Ankara today. The protesters must clear the square by tomorrow, Sunday, when he is to address another AKP rally there, he said, or the police will clear it for them.

The question asked by some observers now is why Erdogan is apparently provoking an open confrontation in this direct and polarizing way.

A Twitter hashtag has started - #1MilyonYarinTaksime - One Million to Taksim. It's already trending, together with #turkey.

Police are now attacking people on the Square with water cannons and teargas. They also appear to be sweeping the Park. http://rt.com/on-air/istanbul-protest-tear-gas/
Woman are banging pots and pans in side streets: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yomgashum1

BBC suspending partnership with Turkey's NTV

Via BBC Media Center:

BBC Worldwide Director, Peter Horrocks, has issued the following statement:

Date: 14.06.2013Last updated: 14.06.2013 at 19.45

Category: Corporate

“The BBC is suspending its partnership with NTV in Turkey with immediate effect following NTV’s decision not to transmit the BBC programme Dunya Gundemi [World Agenda] today.

"Any interference in BBC broadcasting is totally unacceptable and at a time of considerable international concern about the situation in Turkey the BBC’s impartial service to audiences is vital.”

Further information

BC Türkçe will continue to cover global events – including the events in Turkey – on all platforms, providing its audiences with independent, impartial and balanced reports and analysis.

Its TV programming will continue to be available for viewing via the website bbcturkce.com. BBC Türkçe will continue to engage with its audiences via social media, on Facebook and Twitter.

Taksim Solidarity: resistance to continue

An announcement on the Taksim Solidarity website says that the Gezi Park protest is to continue. Unmet demands include release of detainees and investigation of officials responsible for deaths. The struggle will be widened from a local ecological protest to a national and international movement "against all forms of injustice and victimization."

Turkey: Novaya Gazeta reporter arrested and beaten

Arkady Babchenko, author of A Soldier's War, an account of his experience of serving with the Russian army in Chechnya, has been arrested and beaten by Turkish police in Istanbul:

Via rian.ru:

According to a statement, posted on the newspaper’s website, Babchenko was taking photographs of police cars when a group of people in civilian clothes approached him and demanded that he ceased. Shortly after, they grasped his arms and attempted to detain him.

“When I tried to wrench myself from their grasp, they pulled me to a back alley and started beating me,” the paper quoted Babchenko as saying. “I’m in hospital at the moment. I’m unable to walk.

There is video footage of the arrest:


 Update: Babchenko has now been released, and no charges have been brought by the Turkish authorities. He will not be deported from Turkey, Novaya Gazeta reports.

Further update: Turkish police are now insisting that Babchenko leaves Turkey in the near future, according to Grani.ru.

Gezi Radyo

Gezi Radyo broadcasts in Turkish and English:

http://geziradyo.org/

From Independence Square to Taksim Square

At Global Voices, Veronika Khokhlova looks at the Istanbul protests through the eyes of a Ukrainian journalist:

Turkey has long been a popular vacation and business travel destination for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, but few of these visitors can boast much knowledge of the Turkish politics. Now, however, as the anti-government protests and police brutality in Turkey are making top headlines globally, many Ukrainians have started to follow the situation there with much interest, expressing support and admiration for the peaceful protesters, noting similarities with the 2004 Orange Revolution as well as with more recent events in Ukraine, and wishing for the political awakening of the Ukrainian people.

occupygeziradio

The web site occupygeziradio presents live English-language audio interviews with people at the protests in Turkey. The interviewees are a cross-section of the Turkish public - a teacher, a student, a businessman, a trader, a sales manager, an engineer, and so on, and they give their immediate views and impressions of the events as they are unfolding.

New IHH flotilla to sail in late July

Via Ynetnews:

The next flotilla is due to sail in the second half of July, IHH said. The group invited the international media to inspect all goods on board before the convoy sails to "demonstrate their commitment to total transparency".

Israel says the IHH has links to Muslim militants, which the group denies.

Turkey's role in the Gaza conflict

Israeli sources say it appears likely that the demonstrators who used knives. clubs and other weapons to attack IDF soldiers aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara are themselves Turkish nationals, and belong to an Islamist group connected with global jihadi networks. In fact, around 400 of the 700 people who sailed in the 6-vessel convoy were Turks. A recent TIP release notes that

The IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi - “humanitarian relief fund”)…has provided financial support to Iran-backed Hamas and has ties to global jihadi networks and the Muslim Brotherhood – a global umbrella Islamic organization of which Hamas is a branch – as well as mujahideen groups in Afghanistan.

In 2006, a study conducted by the Danish Institute for International Studies showed that the IHH was involved in planning an al-Qaeda attack against Los Angeles International Airport in 1999. IHH reportedly acquired forged documents, enlisted operatives and delivered weapons to al-Qaeda in preparation for the attack, which was ultimately foiled.[6]

The Danish study also cites a French intelligence report which stated that in the mid-1990s the IHH sent a number of operatives into war zones in Muslim countries to get combat experience. The report said that IHH transferred money and “caches of firearms, knives and pre-fabricated explosives” to Muslim fighters in those countries.[7]

Israeli officials have expressed concern that Islamist groups that endanger Israeli national security now have considerable influence within the Free Gaza movement, the group that organized the flotilla. According to the group’s own mission statement, “We agree to adhere to the principles of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance in word and deed at all times.”[8]

6] “IHH, which plays a central role in organizing the flotilla to the Gaza Strip, is a Turkish humanitarian relief fund with a radical Islamic anti-Western orientation,” Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, May 26, 2010, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e105.htm

[7] “IHH, which plays a central role in organizing the flotilla to the Gaza Strip, is a Turkish humanitarian relief fund with a radical Islamic anti-Western orientation,” Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, May 26, 2010, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e105.htm

[8] “Our Mission,” Free Gaza Movement Web site, Jan. 30, 2009, http://www.freegaza.org/en/about-us/mission

[9] Wilson, Scott, “Israel says Free Gaza Movement poses threat to Jewish state,” The Washington Post, June 1, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/31/AR2010053103445.html

The release goes on to stress the links that are believed to exist between the IHH and Turkey’s ruling party, the AKP, observing that in recent years the Turkish government has moved away from cooperation with Israel and has adopted a less friendly stance on several issues, including a conciliatory approach to Iran on the question of sanctions and the Iranian nuclear program.

While in themselves the actions and statements of a self-styled humanitarian organization might not be thought to present a significant challenge to the security of other states, including Israel, the IHH group’s connections both with militant Islamists and with the Turkish government party do give considerable cause for concern. In particular, the news that the Turkish Navy is reported to be considering sending a naval escort for the next two boats carrying pro-Palestinian demonstrators presents the possibility that such an action could spark a major conflict between Turkey and Israel. That the Mavi Marmara incident was a deliberate provocation there seems little doubt – hopefully it did not mark the first stage in a planned series of escalations. Western peace activists who have joined the convoys need to be careful that their activities do not end in starting a regional war.

Update (4.25pm): Turkey’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutogu has said in Ankara that “it’s time calm replaces anger”.