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Turkey
Turkey

Erdogan's Global Witch Hunt, With A Little Help From Interpol

Erdogan poster in Bursa, Turkey
Erdogan poster in Bursa, Turkey
Depo Photos/ZUMA
TurkeyCUMHURIYETSourcesWORLDCRUNCHIdeasDIE WELTCountries
Stuart Richardson

-Analysis-

Even as the European Union has wavered on whether to let Turkey into its exclusive grouping, Ankara has flexed its muscles within the bloc. It has done so by using a shared tool and resource to fight crime: Interpol.

Last Saturday, Spanish authorities arrested author Dogan Akhanli after Turkey issued an Interpol arrest warrant — a so-called "red notice" — for the writer, a German citizen of Turkish origin. Ankara has not publicly stated its motive for the arrest but Akhanli, a critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has previously infuriated officials for his work on the Armenian genocide, a massacre that Turkey has sought to downplay.

Just weeks before Akhanli's arrest, Ankara had issued another "red notice" to Interpol, again in Spain, for Hamza Yalcin, a 59-year-old Swedish-Turkish journalist. Both writers are now being held in Spain, as the courts there decide whether they should grant Turkey's request for extradition.

Since the failed coup attempt on July 15 last year, Turkey has cracked down on officials, teachers, journalists and virtually anyone suspected of dissent in the country. But now it's also reaching far beyond its borders, emboldened by its status as a crucial player in the ongoing fight against terror group ISIS and amid an unprecedented migration crisis. In addition to the international Interpol warrants, Erdogan has been urging voters to boycott Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, among other groups, in upcoming elections in Germany, as video footage released by Turkish media outlet Cumhuriyet shows. "All of these parties are Turkey's enemy," he declared in the clip.

A condemnation with no action may reflect an implicit tolerance for his remarks.

His statements quickly drew Germany's ire. "We will not be dictated here by anyone, including President Erdogan," retorted Merkel, according to a report published in the German newspaper Die Welt. "We refuse to tolerate any kind of interference in the forming of our opinions."

Is her response enough? A condemnation with no action may reflect an implicit tolerance for his remarks. If Europe won't threaten Erdogan with sanctions and punitive measures, the Turkish president certainly won't stop using international organizations for his global witch hunt.

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CUMHURIYET
Cumhuriyet ("The Republic") is a Turkish-language daily newspaper founded in 1924 and headquartered in Istanbul. In 2015, the center-left paper was awarded the Freedom of Press Prize by NGO Reporters Without Borders for its stand against the government's mounting pressure.
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Premium stories from Worldcrunch's own network of multi-lingual journalists in over 30 countries.
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DIE WELT
Die Welt ("The World") is a German daily founded in Hamburg in 1946, and currently owned by the Axel Springer AG company, Europe's largest publishing house. Now based in Berlin, Die Welt is sold in more than 130 countries. A Sunday edition called Welt am Sonntag has been published since 1948.
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Green
Environment

The Unsustainable Future Of Fish Farming — On Vivid Display In Turkish Waters

Currently, 60% of Turkey's fish currently comes from cultivation, also known as fish farming, compared to just 10% two decades ago. The short-sightedness of this shift risks eliminating fishing output from both the farms and the open seas along Turkey's 5,200 miles of coastline.

Photograph of two fishermen throwing a net into the Tigris river in Turkey.

Traditional fishermen on the Tigris river, Turkey.

Dûrzan Cîrano/Wikimeidia
GreenTurkeyEconomySourcesOksijenfeatured-postCountries
İrfan Donat

ISTANBUL — Turkey's annual fish production includes 515,000 tons from cultivation and 335,000 tons came from fishing in open waters. In other words, 60% of Turkey's fish currently comes from cultivation, also known as fish farming.

It's a radical shift from just 20 years ago when some 600,000 tons, or 90% of the total output, came from fishing. Now, researchers are warning the current system dominated by fish farming is ultimately unsustainable in the country with 8,333 kilometers (5,177 miles) long.

Professor Mustafa Sarı from the Maritime Studies Faculty of Bandırma 17 Eylül University believes urgent action is needed: “Why were we getting 600,000 tons of fish from the seas in the 2000’s and only 300,000 now? Where did the other 300,000 tons of fish go?”

Professor Sarı is challenging the argument from certain sectors of the industry that cultivation is the more sustainable approach. “Now we are feeding the fish that we cultivate at the farms with the fish that we catch from nature," he explained. "The fish types that we cultivate at the farms are sea bass, sea bram, trout and salmon, which are fed with artificial feed produced at fish-feed factories. All of these fish-feeds must have a significant amount of fish flour and fish oil in them.”

That fish flour and fish oil inevitably must come from the sea. "We have to get them from natural sources. We need to catch 5.7 kilogram of fish from the seas in order to cultivate a sea bream of 1 kg," Sarı said. "Therefore, we are feeding the fish to the fish. We cannot cultivate fish at the farms if the fish in nature becomes extinct. The natural fish need to be protected. The consequences would be severe if the current policy is continued.”

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