The Council of Europe (COE) Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention was opened for signature by Turkey on May 11, 2011. The convention eliminates the shortcomings of the Law No. 6284 on the Protection of Family and Prevention of Violence Against Women, which was

President Erdoğan had stated that Turkey would indeed let go of the Istanbul Convention “if our people want to.” However, not many people, aside from a few fanatics here and there, responded to this statement that was testing the waters. Then stepped in the İsmailağa Congregation with a clear demand from the government: they wanted

“The Amendment to the Lawyers Act and Some Other Laws” recently added to the already busy agenda of Turkey. Although the amendment is getting quite a lot of media coverage, most of the discussions I was able to follow were on a political level and did not get into the actual amendments and their consequences

President Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts to control social media, after having taken care of conventional media, are not a new phenomenon. However, last week he voiced the desire to ban social media, and this is worrying from the freedom of press and expression standpoint. Taking a step back, we realize that by replacing the ownership of

A head-on collision – as the Westerners say – is underway between the bar associations and the members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The reason is the discussions on changes to the bars ordered by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following Ankara Bar’s harsh criticism of Ali Erbaş, chair of Religious Affairs. These so-called