Our summer interns Hamlet Tamazian, Bobby Avakian, Matt Hanessian and Alex Azarian wrote about the Gezi Park protests and Erdogan’s tightening grip on Turkish society last year. Check out their writings here and here. gettyimages: ISTANBUL, TURKEY – MAY 31: Turkish protesters set a fire as they battle police to mark the one-year anniversary of the Gezi Park protests on May 31, 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey. The original protest over the removal of trees to convert a downtown park

By: Hamlet Tamazian & Bobby Avakian The American spotlight on the unrest in Turkey has faded since the worst of the Taksim Square riots, Gezi Park protests, and anti-Erdogan rallies. However, there is still much turmoil in Turkey and the region, and new problems are developing – making old issues more complex. Still, the democratic and human rights progress made during the protests has registered a permanent cultural shift among the people of Turkey. The Turkish government is

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan (left) tells Israeli President Shimon Peres (right), “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill,” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. January 29, 2009 By Taniel Koushakjian August 22, 2013 In the latest development of the Turkish government’s increasingly anti-Israel posture, this week Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan made the audacious claim that Israel was behind the Egyptian military’s ouster of Muslim

By AAA Intern Robert Avakian During the week of June 24th, the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) held two hearings that highlighted situations requiring the attention of the Armenian-American community – the war in Syria and the protests in Turkey. HFAC Chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) oversaw the hearing, entitled “Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle.” Chairman Smith and other sitting members hammered the State Department official witness on the inactivi

By: AAA Summer Interns – Robert Avakian, Hamlet Tamazian, Matt Hanessian, and Alex Azarian Turkey’s economy has grown tremendously over the last decade, but the fundamental rights and freedoms of Turkish citizens have not kept pace. A day before the beginning of the Taksim Square protests a report titled “Why Turkey is Thriving” was published. The report applauded Turkey’s economic achievements and went so far as to state that other countries should learn from Turkey’s exampl