A Bomb in Ankara & more–3rd Oct 2023

Merhaba from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Turkey Update from the 3rd of October twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Turkey.

On Sunday the 1st, two terrorists attacked the Interior Ministry building in Ankara, the country’s capital. The security personnel caught the terrorists before they entered the building, preventing a brutal attack. However, one of the attackers activated a bomb and there was an explosion.

Fortunately, no civilians were around. On the day of the attack, the Turkish parliament had its opening ceremony after the summer break at the Grand National Assembly building, which is near the Interior Ministry. That’s why the building was empty and the surrounding area was less busy than usual.

The Interior Minister reported that the security personnel at the scene were injured but they weren’t in a critical condition and that they will have a full recovery in no time. The Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK, reportedly said the attack was its own doing.

The government imposed a broadcast ban on reports of the bombing, probably to prevent misinformation. However, not having the details of the incident makes the public panic even more.

Speaking of bans on news…

On Wednesday the 25th, the airport police detained Musa Özsoy, the owner of the social media account ‘Food Detective’ or ‘Gıda Dedektifi’ which informs the public about unhealthy ingredients in packed and processed foods, unveils how brands trick people into thinking certain products are healthy, among others. Reportedly, the police arrested him on charges of brand defamation following the legal complaints of Ülker, one of the food giants in the country that is also closely associated with the government. However, on the Food Detective’s Twitter account, he revealed that the court hadn’t notified him of a lawsuit against him beforehand.

The police let him go after testifying. Özsoy said that the company was spending the money it should spend on making its products healthier, on lawsuits and legal expenses.

Some cultural news..

On Sunday the 29th of September, the Antalya Municipality canceled the Golden Orange Film Festival, a prestigious festival that has been going on for the last sixty years. Before the cancellation of the festival, it removed the film “The Decree” or “Kanun Hükmü” from the line-up. The movie is about two civil servants who were dismissed from their jobs with a decree following the coup attempt in Turkey back in twenty sixteen. According to the decree, the government could dismiss whoever it wanted from their jobs without giving a reason in order to clear the government posts of the members of the crime organization that carried out the coup attempt—so many people were fired.

While some were actually guilty, a lot of people were dismissed for ridiculous reasons like having a bank account in a bank that was associated with the coup-doers or having a specific book in their houses because the author is a known partner of the organization. Even though the movie isn’t exactly based on a true story, it still represents a reality that many people lived after the coup attempt.

The organizers of the festival said that the Culture and Tourism Ministry told them to remove the film from the list of movies that would be screened because some people who took part in the film were still facing a lawsuit. However, many directors, as well as the judges of the film festival, started resigning from the festival in protest. They said that the removal of the movie posed a serious threat to artistic freedom. Following the backlash, the festival added the film back to its line-up. However, this time the Culture and Tourism Ministry announced that it was removing its support from the festival, saying that the event was doing “terrorist propaganda”. The next day, the municipality canceled the festival altogether.

Let’s talk about politics. On Sunday the 1st of October The Workers’ Party of Turkey, or TİP, held the Freedom March to protest against the imprisonment of its parliament member Can Atalay. Since he is an MP, he should enjoy parliamentary immunity. The march started after the Court of Appeals, the top court in the country, upheld the prison sentences of the Gezi prisoners. Erken Baş, the head of the TİP, said that the party would march for every person who participated in these demonstrations. He said that the Gezi protests were one of the most peaceful, humane, and righteous protests in the world and that the ruling Justice and Development Party was trying to intimidate the public through the judiciary system.

Some updates on international relations…

On Thursday the 28th of September the new chair of the United States’ Foreign Relations Committee talked about the F16 Jet sale deal between Turkey and the US. The previous chair prevented the sale citing Turkey’s objection to Sweden joining NATO, the country’s human rights records, and Turkey flying jets through Greece’s airspace. The new chairman said that he would look over the case again, but that there was a lot to be considered about the deal—not just Sweden’s NATO bid.

Moving on to some news on education…

The rectorate of the Middle East Technical University canceled the Evolution Conference citing that the conference hall will be under renovation on the date the forum was scheduled to take place. Reportedly, the rectorate canceled the same conference for the same reason back in twenty nineteen as well. Evolution is a controversial topic in Islam, as Islamic teachings say that the human race came from Adam and Eve. Evolution theory, on the other hand, says that monkeys and humans have a common ancestor. So, the cancellation of the event was called into question as it might spread a non-Islamic ideology. The organizers of the conference said that the cancellation of the forum was a manifestation of anti-evolutionism.

Back in August, Trendyol, an e-commerce giant in Turkey, reportedly dismissed over fifty warehouse workers for unionizing. Trendyol didn’t pay the workers their compensation. The workers have been holding protests against the company ever since. Last week, the protest grew bigger and reached a larger scale. Now, many celebrities, as well as many people, are inviting everyone to deactivate their Trendyol accounts and to #BoycottTrendyol.

Some funny news…

Late on Wednesday the 25th, a man who saw the chain lights of the StarLink satellites in the sky called the police, fearing a possible alien invasion. He was probably relieved -or maybe disappointed- when the police told him that they were just satellites.

Still on the funny news train…

So, last week, the Trabzon municipality opened a new cemetery area in the city that has a sea view and is close to a mosque. When the municipality put the burial spots in the cemetery up for sale, many showed up to purchase them. They waited for hours to beat other prospective buyers and get the best spots with the sea view. Usually, the government uses the lottery method to divide the land between the people who applied for a spot to make sure it's fair. However, this time they let the people pick their own spots. Naturally, that caused a lot of tension between people. Reportedly, one person even ended up in the hospital.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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