ISTANBUL // The death toll from Turkey's anti-government protests rose to five yesterday, raising fresh questions about the tactics of the security forces.
The death of Ali Ismail Korkmaz, a 19-year-old university student, came amid allegations of harassment of witnesses to last month's police crackdown on protesters and of families of those affected by the violence.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in June after the police's heavy-handed response to a rally against government plans to develop Gezi Park in Istanbul.
The police brutality sparked countrywide demonstrations as Turks took to the streets to oppose what they say is prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian government.
Local media and a rights group said that Korkmaz died yesterday after being attacked by unknown assailants while fleeing police firing tear gas in the central Anatolian city of Eskisehir on June 2.
While the circumstances of his and the other deaths are not yet clear, they highlight the harsh tactics used by Turkish security forces on those opposed to the government, and the impunity with which they are carried out.
"The police as the representative of the state can kill you," said Zozan Pehlivan, a 31-year-old student and anti-government demonstrator in Istanbul. "It doesn't matter what you protest … the police can kill you and nothing will happen."
In addition to Korkmaz, protester Mehmet Ayvalitas was hit by a car that drove into a crowd of demonstrators in Istanbul. Abdullah Comert was killed after being hit by a police tear-gas canister in Antakya, a city in the south of the country. In Ankara, Ethem Sarisuluk, 26, was shot in the head by a pistol-wielding police officer.
A police officer in the southern city of Adana also died after falling off a bridge while chasing protesters.
But Sarisuluk's death in particular has drawn the ire of those opposed to the government. In a video of the killing on June 1, a lone police officer fires his pistol in the direction of the demonstrators. One of the nine millimeter bullets hits Sarisuluk in the head and he collapses.
Onur Kaya, a 35-year-old protester from Istanbul, said that even if the officer had panicked, he should not have fired his weapon. Mr Kaya said that the killings made him more intent on protesting.
"It is very difficult to tell if [the shooting] is intentional or not, but he definitely committed a crime, it is for sure a misconduct and abuse of power."
Despite the evidence presented by the video, it took three weeks for the police officer who shot Sarisuluk to appear in court, according to Kazim Bayraktar, a lawyer from the Ankara Bar Association who is advising the family.
The court ruled that the officer acted in self-defence because the protesters were throwing rocks at him.
"It shows that the political force in the country is protecting the police," Mr Bayraktar said. He said that Sarisuluk and other protesters threw rocks at the officer because he was kicking a demonstrator.
Sarisuluk's brother, Mustafa, said that that several witnesses to the killing were now in jail. They face charges that mean, "trouble for years to come", he said.
Mustafa added that his family had been under pressure from the government to remain quiet about Sarisuluk's death. They have received threatening phone calls and are being watched by plain-clothed police, he said.
The family is planning to pursue the case in the European Court of Human Rights.
In a similar example of disproportionate use of force by Turkey's security forces, an 18-year-old Kurdish man, Medeni Yildirim, was killed on June 28 by gendarmerie while protesting against the renovation of a gendarmerie outpost in Lice, a district in the south-east province of Diyarbakir.
According to Serdar Celebi of Turkey's Human Rights Association, gendarmerie fired from inside the outpost at the unarmed demonstrators.
"No one warned anyone," Mr Celebi said, disputing a government claim that security forces tried to disperse the demonstrators using non-lethal means.
"They were not gassed or pepper-sprayed. They went right for the guns."
Anger at Yildirim's raises the possibility of protests breaking out in the Kurdish-majority region.
The pro-Kurdish BDP political party, which supported but did not join the protests originating in Gezi Park, had called just before Yildirim's death for nationwide demonstrations to pressure the government to advance stalled peace negotiations with Kurdish militants.
The government is currently negotiating with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to end a 30-year conflict that has killed an estimated 40,000 people. There are concerns among observers that any large-scale Kurdish demonstrations could derail the peace talks
On Tuesday, the BDP offered more explicit support for the protests related to Gezi Park and called for detained protesters to be released.
"It is clear that the Turkish government is worried about a Kurdish version of the Gezi Park events," said Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an analyst for the Jamestown Foundation in Istanbul.
Galip Enserioglu, a Diyarbakir MP from Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said that security forces should be more careful, "but the people should also be more cautious they not do anything to endanger the [Kurdish] peace process".
Ms Pehlivan, the demonstrator in Istanbul, who is also Kurdish, said that while the circumstances of Sarisuluk's and Yildirim's deaths are different, the response from the authorities was the same. She said that any demonstrations by the Kurds or Gezi Park protesters were in the "same spirit".
"Peace will not come to Kurdistan without stopping the violence of police in Istanbul, in Ankara, in Izmir," she said.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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The years Ramadan fell in May
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Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
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On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
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RACE CARD
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UK-EU trade at a glance
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Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
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Fixtures and results:
Wed, Aug 29:
- Malaysia bt Hong Kong by 3 wickets
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Thu, Aug 30:
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Sat, Sep 1: UAE v Hong Kong; Oman v Singapore; Malaysia v Nepal
Sun, Sep 2: Hong Kong v Oman; Malaysia v UAE; Nepal v Singapore
Tue, Sep 4: Malaysia v Singapore; UAE v Oman; Nepal v Hong Kong
Thu, Sep 6: Final
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- Area carpets or rugs are the easiest way to segregate spaces while also unifying them.
- Lighting can help define areas. Try pendant lighting over dining tables, and side and floor lamps in living areas.
- Keep the colour palette the same in a room, but combine different tones and textures in different zone. A common accent colour dotted throughout the space brings it together.
- Don’t be afraid to use furniture to break up the space. For example, if you have a sofa placed in the middle of the room, a console unit behind it will give good punctuation.
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Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
Friday’s fixture
6.15pm: Al Wahda v Hatta
6.15pm: Al Dhafra v Ajman
9pm: Al Wasl v Baniyas
9pm: Fujairah v Sharjah
.
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
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Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
What's in the deal?
Agreement aims to boost trade by £25.5bn a year in the long run, compared with a total of £42.6bn in 2024
India will slash levies on medical devices, machinery, cosmetics, soft drinks and lamb.
India will also cut automotive tariffs to 10% under a quota from over 100% currently.
Indian employees in the UK will receive three years exemption from social security payments
India expects 99% of exports to benefit from zero duty, raising opportunities for textiles, marine products, footwear and jewellery
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Hotel Silence
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
Pushkin Press
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Picture of Joumblatt and Hariri breaking bread sets Twitter alight
Mr Joumblatt’s pessimism regarding the Lebanese political situation didn’t stop him from enjoying a cheerful dinner on Tuesday with several politicians including Mr Hariri.
Caretaker Culture Minister Ghattas Khoury tweeted a picture of the group sitting around a table at a discrete fish restaurant in Beirut’s upscale Sodeco area.
Mr Joumblatt told The National that the fish served at Kelly’s Fish lounge had been very good.
“They really enjoyed their time”, remembers the restaurant owner. “Mr Hariri was taking selfies with everybody”.
Mr Hariri and Mr Joumblatt often have dinner together to discuss recent political developments.
Mr Joumblatt was a close ally of Mr Hariri’s assassinated father, former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The pair were leading figures in the political grouping against the 15-year Syrian occupation of Lebanon that ended after mass protests in 2005 in the wake of Rafik Hariri’s murder. After the younger Hariri took over his father’s mantle in 2004, the relationship with Mr Joumblatt endured.
However, the pair have not always been so close. In the run-up to the election last year, Messrs Hariri and Joumblatt went months without speaking over an argument regarding the new proportional electoral law to be used for the first time. Mr Joumblatt worried that a proportional system, which Mr Hariri backed, would see the influence of his small sect diminished.
With so much of Lebanese politics agreed in late-night meetings behind closed doors, the media and pundits put significant weight on how regularly, where and with who senior politicians meet.
In the picture, alongside Messrs Khoury and Hariri were Mr Joumbatt and his wife Nora, PSP politician Wael Abou Faour and Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon Nazih el Nagari.
The picture of the dinner led to a flurry of excitement on Twitter that it signified an imminent government formation. “God willing, white smoke will rise soon and Walid Beik [a nickname for Walid Joumblatt] will accept to give up the minister of industry”, one user replied to the tweet. “Blessings to you…We would like you to form a cabinet”, wrote another.
The next few days will be crucial in determining whether these wishes come true.
Uefa Nations League: How it Works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
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