The Turkish government has proposed a new law which will ban the use of the words and terms聽鈥淜urdistan鈥, 鈥淜urdish city/cities鈥 and 鈥淎rmenian Genocide鈥 in parliament.
Parliamentarians who use these words or terms will be fined 12,000 Turkish liras (about $4500) and be banned from participating in three聽sessions in the Grand Assembly.
Carrying placards, which opposition parties often do to criticise the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, will also be banned.
Hundreds of thousands of people rallied in the Turkish city of Istanbul after a 280-mile Justice March against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The demonstration was in response to the widespread jailings and dismissals authorised by the Turkish government after last year鈥檚 failed coup attempt.
The media crackdown in Turkey by the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has grown in the aftermath of a failed coup in July last year.
Jailed reporters find themselves caught in a quagmire as they face legal limbo and deal with made-up charges, inhumane treatment and solitary confinement.聽
Raqqa, the de facto ISIS capital in Syria, is on the verge of falling. The rapid advance of the left-wing Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since they entered the city on June 6 contrasts with the slower advance of forces of the Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdistan governments in Mosul, the ISIS capital in Iraq, which the pro-government forces entered in February.
However, the June 18 downing of a Syrian fighter jet by a US war plane, after the former attacked SDF positions near Raqqa, is just one indication that eliminating ISIS will not end the violent multi-sided war in Syria that spawned it.
The mood in Turkey is low, and not just among those who oppose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Even some of his supporters are disoriented by developments in the country.
In the aftermath of the failed coup of July 15 last year, Erdogan orchestrated the dismissal of tens of thousands of government employees. The figures from the ongoing Turkish purges are startling.
Turkish war planes launched air strikes against Syria and Iraq on April 24.
For months local and foreign forces have been closing in on the main ISIS strongholds: the cities of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.聽Turkey is a NATO member and recognised as an ally against ISIS by the US-led coalition of Western powers in Iraq and Syria, that includes Australia.
But the Turkish air strikes did not target ISIS. Instead, they were aimed at the terror group鈥檚 most consistent opponents 鈥 left-wing Kurdish-led revolutionary forces.
Thousands of opposition supporters chanted, 鈥淲e know we won, we know they lost, we are not afraid鈥, in the streets of major cities after Turkey鈥檚 President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed victory in the April 16 referendum to strengthen presidential power.聽
Late in the evening police attacked opposition demonstrators outside the headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
In January last year, many thousands of academics around the world signed the statement 鈥淲e will not be a party to this crime鈥, which called for peace in Turkey.
The statement was issued in solidarity with courageous academics in Turkey who had formed the Academics for Peace group and were working for an end to state terror in Turkish Kurdistan. The group pushed for the resumption of peace talks between the Turkish government and the Kurdish liberation movement, the Kurdistan Workers鈥 Party (PKK).
United States warships in the Mediterranean Sea launched a large cruise missile strike against government-held airfields in Syria on April 7. They fired about 60 Tomahawk missiles on the Shayrat air base near Homs in central Syria as the US government called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to be removed from power.
One year after European Union leaders signed a deal with the Turkish government to cut off the wave of desperate refugees seeking to reach Europe鈥檚 shores, the policy has caused even more death and suffering.
A Turkish court has handed down a two-year, nine-month and 22-day jail sentence to a Kurdish artist because of her painting of a Kurdish village being razed by Turkish security forces.
Zehra Dogan, an ethnic Kurd聽from Diyarbakir in south-eastern Turkey, was given the sentence by the Second High Criminal Court of Mardin province after having been arrested last July. The painting in question shows the destroyed cityscape of Nusaybin, with Turkish flags draped across blown-out buildings.
The Kurdish-led left-wing Peoples鈥 Democratic Party (HDP), which won 13.2% of the vote in 2015 national elections to become the third largest parliamentary group, has faced growing repression as the Turkish regime of Recep Tayyip Erdo臒an has turned increasingly dictatorial. Last year, all of the HDP鈥檚 59 MPs were hit with arrest warrants, amid mass arrests of voices critical of the government.