Turkish war

News in Brief

In late January, amid ongoing mass arrests, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan secured parliamentary approval for constitutional reforms that will widen his powers as president, and may allow him to stay in power until 2029.

Back in 2013, according to Foreign Affairs, Erdogan calculated that he could win these changes by making peace with the Kurdish PKK insurgency, and securing Kurdish political support for his presidential ambitions.

He gave up on that in 2015, and switched to making war on the Kurdish minority and mobilising nationalism instead. After the failed coup against him last summer, Erdogan began a huge wave of repression in which over 120,000 people have lost their jobs, and over 40,000 have been arrested.

Hundreds of arrest warrants have been issued just for installing the byLock ‘secure’ messaging app, supposedly only used by followers of Fethullah Gülen, blamed for the coup attempt.

The repression is being documented by Turkey Purge:
www.turkeypurge.com