Lefteast
With Turkey’s parliamentary elections on Sunday fast approaching, all eyes are on the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) contesting its first ever election as a party, rather than a coalition of nominally independent candidates: a momentous decision on the part of the party leadership, which stands to gain clout in parliament and solidify its position as […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: this article by Daniel Johnson was originally published on Jacobin. Already a country hostile to workers, Turkey has now effectively banned the strike. For a moment in May 2014, following a mine explosion that killed 301 coal miners in the western Turkish city of Soma, international attention was focused on the plight […]
Özgecan Aslan’s story was close to the heart. We have all been that girl trying to get home at night in the dark, alone. We are all too familiar with shorter breaths, raised heartbeats and sweaty palms, prompted by an instinct of being in danger. In this very instant, while everything else is tuned out, […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: The attempted rape, murder, and burning of 20-year-old university student Özgecan Aslan on Feb. 11th touched a nerve in a society where male-on-female violence has been a chronic problem. Massive demonstrations throughout Turkey followed soon after, but what will it take to stem the surge in femicide over the last […]
In early January 2015, a group of Turkish journalists from Bolsevik.org visited the ruins of Kobani. They talked to Enver Müslim, co-president of the canton. Here is what they heard and saw: Let’s start with the first attacks of ISIS. Why do you think that they started to attack Kobani? E.M: Kurdish people have long been […]