Türkiye

On Sept. 11, a story broke about a female student taken into custody at one of the most prestigious universities of Turkey, Middle East Technical University (METU). Ezgi Ozen and her friends were protesting a government road project that may destroy 3,000 trees on the METU campus and nearby neighborhoods. Another protester was able to shoot a video of Ozen being handcuffed and escorted to police vehicles. The video shows an officer yelling, “If she resists, her arm will be broken.” Unarmed and relatively small, could Ozen really have “resisted” the police?

2023 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. The symbolism of this date has led to 2023 being set as the “deadline” for many financial, political, and social targets. However, any growth needs to be social for it to be sustainable.

The fundamental question is how to prevent, prosecute, and eliminate violence against women. As long as violence against women is widespread and accepted, there can be no genuine mention of gender equality.

The photo of a woman in a red dress—her dark hair aswirl as police blast her full in the face with pepper spray—has become an international symbol of Turkey's recent protests.

While Erdogan has agreed to meet today with the protest leaders, many expect the demonstrations to escalate after police entered Gezi Park Tuesday, flinging gas canisters and shooting rubber bullets at demonstrators, despite the Istanbul governor's

The local elections in March 2014 will have a vital bearing on the future of Turkish politics. The presence of women in the parliament, although still totally inadequate, went up to 14.5 % in the last elections. However, the status of women in local administrations is truly dismal. Of 2,950 mayors, only 26 are women. Moreover, among village heads, only 65 out of 34,275 are women. This is not even 2%. I had hoped that this situation would be on the agenda of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)

Leyla Zana: Married at 14 to Mehdi Zana, a political Kurd some 20 years her senior who became mayor of Diyarbakir and spent 16 years in jail after the 1980 military coup, she found herself the single mother of two children. Learning Turkish with them as they were schooled, she also found her political voice — and went on to become, in 1991, the first Kurdish woman elected to the Turkish Parliament.