US decries Washington brawl during Turkish president's visit

WASHINGTON - The United States on Wednesday said it was voicing its "strongest possible" concern to Turkey over a street brawl that erupted between protesters and Turkish security personnel during President Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Washington.

Police said the fighting outside the Turkish ambassador's residence on Tuesday injured 11 people, including a Washington police officer, and led to two arrests for assault. At least one of those arrested was a protester.

"We are communicating our concern to the Turkish government in the strongest possible terms," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

A video posted online showed men in dark suits chasing anti-government protesters and punching and kicking them as police intervened. Two men were bloodied from head wounds as bystanders assisted dazed protesters.

Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham said at a news conference on Wednesday that police had a good idea of most of the assailants' identities and were investigating with the Secret Service and State Department.

Turkey's official Anadolu state news agency reported that protesters were chanting anti-Erdogan slogans as the president entered the residence after meeting US President Donald Trump to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants.

"Police did not heed Turkish demands to intervene," the news agency said, and Erdogan's security team and Turkish citizens moved in and "dispersed them."

The Turkish Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

Tens of thousands of Turks have been detained as Erdogan cracked down on the press and academia following an attempted coup in 2016. Trump made no mention on Tuesday of Erdogan's record on dissent and free speech.

House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, a California Republican, called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson "to hold individuals accountable" for the attack.

In a statement, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser called the violence "an affront to D.C. (District of Columbia) values and our rights as Americans."

Mehmet Tankan, 31, said he was one of a dozen protesters outside the ambassador’s residence chanting slogans condemning Erdogan for supporting Islamic extremists and opposing political rights for Turkey’s Kurds when the brawl broke out.

Seven security personnel, some of them carrying firearms, rushed up and began punching him, bruising him all over his body, Tankan said by phone.

Tankan said the violence was worse than when Erdogan visited Washington in 2016 and scuffles erupted between his security detail and demonstrators.

“The next time they could kill us easily. I’m scared now too, because I don’t know how it will affect my life here in the United States,” said Tankan, who lives in Arlington, Virginia.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati, Julia Harte and Ian Simpson; Writing by Ian Simpson; Editing by Richard Chang and Tom Brown)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Twin bombing outside Istanbul soccer stadium kills 29, wounds 166

ISTANBUL - Two bombs exploded less than a minute apart, killing 29 people and wounding 166 outside a soccer stadium in Istanbul on Saturday night, in a co-ordinated attack on police shortly after a match between two of Turkey's top teams.

First a car bomb exploded outside the Vodafone Arena, home to Istanbul's Besiktas soccer team, leaving flaming wreckage on the street. Forty-five seconds later, a suspect wearing explosives detonated them while surrounded by police in an adjacent park, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told a news conference.

President Tayyip Erdogan described the blasts as a terrorist attack on police and civilians. He said the aim of the bombings, two hours after the end of a match attended by thousands of people, had been to cause the maximum number of casualties.

"Nobody should doubt that with God's will, we as a country and a nation will overcome terror, terrorist organisations ... and the forces behind them," he said in a statement.

The attack shook a soccer-mad nation still trying to recover from a series of deadly bombings this year in cities including Istanbul and the capital Ankara, some blamed on the Islamic State jihadist group and others claimed by Kurdish militants.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the blasts came less than a week after Islamic State urged its supporters to target Turkey's "security, military, economic and media establishment".

"It was like hell. The flames went all the way up to the sky. I was drinking tea at the cafe next to the mosque," said Omer Yilmaz, who works as a cleaner at the nearby Dolmabahce mosque, directly across the road from the stadium.

"People ducked under the tables, women began crying. Football fans drinking tea at the cafe sought shelter, it was horrible," he told Reuters.

Turkey is a member of the NATO military alliance and part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State. It launched a military incursion into Syria in August against the radical Islamist group. It is also fighting a Kurdish militant insurgency in its own southeast.

VICTIMS MAINLY POLICE

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the first explosion, which came around two hours after the end of the match between Besiktas and Bursaspor, was at an assembly point for riot police officers. The second came as police surrounded the suicide bomber in the nearby Macka park.

Two of those killed in the blasts were civilians. The other 27 were police officers, including a police chief and another senior officer, Soylu said. He said 17 of the wounded were undergoing surgery and another six were in intensive care.

Soylu also said 10 people had been detained based on evidence from the detonated vehicle, but gave no indication of who the authorities thought might be behind the attack.

A Reuters photographer said many riot police officers were seriously wounded. Armed police sealed off streets. A police water cannon doused the wreckage of a burned-out car and there were two separate fires on the road outside the stadium.

Bursaspor said none of its fans appeared to have been injured. Both it and Besiktas condemned the bombings.

"Those attacking our nation's unity and solidarity will never win," Sports Minister Akif Cagatay Kilic said on Twitter. Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan, also writing on Twitter, described it as a terrorist attack.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg condemned what he described as "horrific acts of terror", while European leaders also sent messages of solidarity. The United States condemned the attack and said it stood with its NATO ally.

The bombings come five months after Turkey was shaken by a failed military coup, in which more than 240 people were killed, many of them in Istanbul, as rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and fighter jets in a bid to seize power.

Istanbul has seen several other attacks this year, including in June, when around 45 people were killed and hundreds wounded as three suspected Islamic State militants carried out a gun and bomb attack on its main Ataturk airport. (Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Ece Toksabay, Tuvan Gumrukcu, Umit Bektas in Ankara, Osman Orsal in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by David Dolan, Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Turkey pulls plug on 20 radio, TV channels in post-coup emergency decree

ISTANBUL - Turkey has ordered the closure of 20 television and radio stations, including one that airs children's programs, on charges they spread "terrorist propaganda", adding to fears that emergency rule is being used to stifle the media.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants a three-month state of emergency, imposed after a failed coup attempt in July, to be prolonged past October so authorities can eradicate the threat posed by a religious movement blamed for the attempt, as well as Kurdish militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.

The banned channels are owned or operated by Kurds or the Alevi religious minority, according to Hamza Aktan, news editor at IMC TV, a news broadcaster slated for closure. He cited a copy of the decision obtained by his channel, which was based on powers given the government in a decree issued in July.

"This has nothing to do with the coup. It is an effort to silence the last independent media covering the Kurdish issue and violations committed by the state," Aktan told Reuters.

IMC has aired reports looking at security forces' conduct during 14 months of military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has killed thousands.

Among the 12 shuttered television channels are Govend TV, which plays folk music, and Zarok TV, which airs Kurdish-language children's cartoons. The decision also shut 11 radio stations for harming national security, Aktan said.

"Turkey is targeting a wide swath of cultural and political expression by shuttering minority broadcasters," Robert Mahoney of the Committee to Protect Journalists said. "When the government sees even children's programming as a threat to national security, it is clearly abusing its emergency powers."

RULE BY DECREE

An official at the Radio and Television Supreme Council, the state watchdog, confirmed 20 stations were being closed.

Erdogan argues the state of emergency is helping authorities swiftly root out supporters of the military uprising by bypassing parliament to enact laws and suspend rights.

Turkey blames US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen for masterminding the coup in which 240 soldiers, police and civilians were killed trying to stop rogue troops who had commandeered fighter jets and tanks to bomb parliament and shoot protesters. Another 100 people behind the putsch were killed.

Some 100,000 state employees suspected of links with the Gulen movement have been purged, and 32,000 people are in jail for their alleged role in the coup. Gulen denies involvement.

Authorities have also targeted the media, arresting dozens of members of the press to make Turkey the world's biggest jailer of journalists and shutting down scores of media outlets.

Aktan and other IMC staff continued airing segments on Friday while waiting for police to arrive at their offices. Other stations on the closure list were raided and sealed off on Thursday, newspapers and CPJ said.

IMC, founded in 2011, has faced other punitive measures. In February, its satellite feed was cut while prosecutors investigate if it supports the PKK.

Aktan denied any links between IMC and the militants, citing the channel's principles of objectivity.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Turkey rounds up plot suspects after thwarting coup against Erdogan

ISTANBUL/ANKARA - Turkish authorities rounded up nearly 3,000 suspected military plotters on Saturday and ordered thousands of judges detained after thwarting a coup by rebels using tanks and attack helicopters to try to topple President Tayyip Erdogan.

For several hours overnight on Friday violence shook Turkey's two main cities, as the armed faction which tried to seize power blocked a bridge in Istanbul and strafed the headquarters of Turkish intelligence and parliament in Ankara.

At least 265 people were killed. An official said 161 of them were mostly civilians and police officers, while the remaining 104 were coup supporters.

But the coup attempt crumbled as Erdogan rushed back to Istanbul from a Mediterranean holiday and urged people to take to the streets to support his government against plotters he accused of trying to kill him.

"They will pay a heavy price for this," said Erdogan, launching a purge of the armed forces, which last used force to stage a successful coup more than 30 years ago. "This uprising is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army."

Among those detained were top military commanders, including the head of the Second Army which protects the country's borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran, state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Hundreds of soldiers were held in Ankara for alleged involvement in the coup, leaving police stations overflowing.

Some had to be taken under armed police escort in buses to a sports stadium. Reuters footage showed some of the detainees, hand-cuffed and stripped from the waist up, sitting on the floor of one of the buses.

The government declared the situation under control, saying 2,839 people had been rounded up, from foot soldiers to senior officers, including those who formed "the backbone" of the rebellion.

Authorities also began a major crackdown in the judiciary over suspected links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, removing from their posts and ordering the detention of nearly 3,000 prosecutors and judges, including from top courts.

Erdogan has blamed the coup on supporters of Gulen, who he has frequently accused of trying to foment uprising in the military, media and judiciary.

Ten members of the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors and two members of the Constitutional Court have already been detained, officials said.

OBAMA'S SUPPORT

A successful overthrow of Erdogan, who has ruled the country of about 80 million people since 2003, would have marked another seismic shift in the Middle East, five years after the Arab uprisings erupted and plunged Turkey's southern neighbor Syria into civil war.

However, a failed coup attempt could still destabilize the NATO member and major U.S. ally that lies between the European Union and the chaos of Syria, with Islamic State bombers targeting Turkish cities and the government also at war with Kurdish separatists.

U.S. President Barack Obama expressed support for Turkey's government and called on all sides to avoid action that would lead to further violence or instability.

French President Francois Hollande said he expected a period of repression in the aftermath of the failed coup.

Erdogan, who had been holidaying on the southwest coast when the coup was launched, flew into Istanbul before dawn on Saturday and told thousands of flag-waving supporters at the airport that the government remained at the helm.

A polarizing figure whose Islamist-rooted ideology lies at odds with supporters of modern Turkey's secular principles, Erdogan said the plotters had tried to attack him in the resort town of Marmaris.

"They bombed places I had departed from right after I was gone," he said. "They probably thought we were still there."

Erdogan's AK Party has long had strained relations with the military, which has a history of mounting coups to defend secularism although it has not seized power directly since 1980.

His conservative religious vision for Turkey's future has also alienated many ordinary citizens who accuse him of authoritarianism. Police used heavy force in 2013 to suppress mass protests demanding more freedom.

He commands the admiration and loyalty of millions of Turks, however, particularly for raising living standards and restoring order to an economy once beset by regular crises, which grew 4.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter.

The violence is likely to hit a tourism industry already suffering from the bombings, and business confidence is also vulnerable.

SMARTPHONE ADDRESS

In a night that sometimes verged on the bizarre, Erdogan frequently took to social media, even though he is an avowed enemy of the technology when his opponents use it and frequently targets Twitter and Facebook.

He addressed the nation via a video calling service, appearing on the smartphone of a CNN Turk reporter who held it up to a studio camera.

He also urged Washington to deport Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States. The cleric, who once supported Erdogan but became a leading adversary, condemned the attempted coup and said he played no role in it.

"As someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to such an attempt. I categorically deny such accusations," Gulen said in a statement.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had not received any request to extradite Gulen.

SOLDIERS SURRENDER
Gunfire and explosions had rocked both Istanbul and Ankara through the night after soldiers took up positions in both cities and ordered state television to read out a statement declaring they had taken power. However, by dawn the noise of fighting had died down considerably.

About 50 soldiers involved in the coup surrendered on one of the bridges across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul after dawn on Saturday, abandoning their tanks with their hands raised in the air. Reuters witnesses saw government supporters attack the pro-coup soldiers who had surrendered.

By Saturday afternoon, CNN Turk reported that security forces had completed an operation against coup plotters at the headquarters of the military general staff. Security sources also said police detained about 100 military officers at an air base in the southeast.

Neighboring Greece arrested eight men aboard a Turkish military helicopter which landed in the northern city of Alexandroupolis on Saturday, the Greek police ministry said, adding that they had requested political asylum.

At one stage military commanders were held hostage by the plotters and by Saturday evening -- 24 hours after the coup was launched -- some operations against rebels were continuing.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said soldiers at the Incirlik air base, used by the United States to launch air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria, were involved in the attempt. He said Turkey would resume operations with the U.S.-led coalition once the anti-coup operations were completed.

LAWMAKERS IN HIDING

The coup began with warplanes and helicopters roaring over Ankara and troops moving in to seal off the bridges over the Bosphorus, which separates Europe and Asia in Istanbul.

Turkish maritime authorities reopened the Bosphorus to transiting tankers after shutting the major trade route from the Black Sea to the Aegean for several hours for security and safety reasons.

In the early hours of Saturday, lawmakers hid in shelters inside the parliament building, which was fired on by tanks. An opposition deputy told Reuters that parliament was hit three times and people had been wounded.

When parliament convened later in the day, the four main political parties -- running the gamut from Erdogan's right-wing Islamist-rooted AK Party to the left-of-center, pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) -- came together in a rare show of unity to condemn the attempted coup.

A Turkish military commander also said fighter jets had shot down a helicopter used by the coup plotters over Ankara.

Momentum turned against the coup plotters as the night wore on. Crowds defied orders to stay indoors, gathering at major squares in Istanbul and Ankara, waving flags and chanting.

"We have a prime minister, we have a chief of command, we're not going to leave this country to degenerates," shouted one man, as groups of government supporters climbed onto a tank near Ataturk airport.

Kerry said he had phoned the Turkish foreign minister and underlined "absolute support for Turkey's democratically elected, civilian government and democratic institutions".

FLIGHTS RESUME

Flag carrier Turkish Airlines resumed flights on Saturday, though some foreign carriers canceled weekend flights.

At the height of the action, rebel soldiers took control of TRT state television, which announced a countrywide curfew and martial law. An announcer read a statement on the orders of the pro-coup faction that accused the government of eroding the democratic and secular rule of law. Turkey would be run by a "peace council" that would ensure the safety of the population, the statement said.

Turkey is one of the main backers of opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war and hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees. It was a departure point last year for the biggest influx of migrants to Europe since World War Two.

Turkey has suffered numerous bombings and shootings this year, including an attack two weeks ago by Islamists at Ataturk airport that killed more than 40 people, as well as those staged by Kurdish militants.

After serving as prime minister from 2003, Erdogan was elected president in 2014 with plans to alter the constitution to give the previously ceremonial presidency far greater executive powers.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun, Humeyra Pamuk, Ayla Jean Yackley, Nick Tattersall, David Dolan, Akin Aytekin, Tulay Karadeniz, Can Sezer, Gulsen Solaker, Ece Toksabay, Murad Sezer, Ercan Gurses, Nevzat Devranoglu, Dasha Afanasieva, Birsen Altayli, Asli Kandemir; Additional reporting by Sue-Lin Wong, Ben Blanchard and Rozanna Latiff; Writing by David Stamp and Dominic Evans; Editing by Timothy Heritage, Andrew Heavens and Catherine Evans)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Attempted coup in Turkey carried live on social media, despite blockages

SAN FRANCISCO - The attempted military coup in Turkey exploded across social media late on Friday despite restricted access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube during the first hours of the putsch.

Immediately after the coup attempt began, two groups that monitor internet shutdowns reported that it was difficult or impossible to access social media services. Twitter said it suspected an "intentional slowing" of its traffic.

YouTube said it was aware of reports that its site was down in Turkey although it was not experiencing any apparent technical difficulties, indicating that an order to restrict access came from within Turkey.

But later in the evening it appeared that service had been restored.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an avowed enemy of social media who has frequently made Twitter and Facebook a target, addressed the country via a FaceTime video call that was shown on TV.

He also tweeted: "I call our nation to the airports and the squares to take ownership of our democracy and our national will" and retweeted posts from the prime minister and the official presidency account condemning the coup.

At the same time, both supporters and opponents of the coup inundated social networks with commentary and images, many of them live videos.

A map showing all Facebook Live videos showed dozens of live streams coming out of Turkey, including videos of hundreds of people gathered out on the streets. On Twitter, users shared images and videos of scenes in Istanbul and Ankara, with gunshots heard in the background of some videos.

Turkey's military said on Friday it had seized power, but the prime minister said the attempted coup would be put down.

During the initial phases of the coup attempt, it was difficult or impossible to access social media for many users except by using a "virtual private network" to bypass local internet providers, local residents and monitoring groups said.

Hotspot Shield, an app that allows users to connect to virtual private networks, said it saw a more than 300 percent increase in new downloads in Turkey within two hours of the coup becoming public knowledge.

The Turkish government under Erdogan has repeatedly moved to block social media in periods of crisis and political uncertainty. It was not immediately clear whether the government or another actor ordered blockages late on Friday.

Data from CloudFlare, which provides internet traffic and security services to websites, showed a 50 percent drop in internet traffic coming out of Turkey, the company's chief executive, Matthew Prince, said on Twitter.

Turkey has throttled social media at least three times this year, said Access Now, a digital rights advocacy group.

"People in Turkey will need access to information and, if there is violence, access to emergency services - all of which depend on stable communications channels," Access Now said in a statement.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com