Free Republic

It’s easy to see why the American Left loved Sami al-Arian. Leftists hate Israel, too. Longtime FrontPage readers will remember Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who for years was a darling of the Leftist intelligentsia. IPT News reported Monday that he has resurfaced, but that the stalwart old Jew-hater hasn’t changed: while he has reined in his rhetoric a bit and speaks in a more civilized manner, he is still calling for Israel’s destruction, which would result in the murder of millions of Jews. Back in 1991, during a speech in Chicago, al-Arian screamed: “The Quran...

MOSCOW - The Russian and Egyptian Navy are preparing to conduct maneuvers, the first of their kind in the Black Sea. According to the press office of the Russian Southern Military District, representatives of the two armies held a three-day conference in Novorossiysk on the preparation of the joint exercises "Friendship Bridge - 2020", which will be held for the first time in the Black Sea. The Black Sea is an inland sea located between the southeastern part of Europe and Asia Minor. It connects with the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus Strait and the Sea of ​​Marmara, and it...

The government of Syria has begun plans to construct a smaller-scale replica of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul(formerly Constantinople) in the country’s Hama province, in response to the decision of the government of Turkey to convert the historic 6th century cathedral into a mosque for a second time. Hagia Sophia, which was first constructed as a Christian cathedral in the medieval Byzantine Empire, was turned into a mosque upon the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire. It was later converted into a museum shortly after the foundation of the modern-day Republic of Turkey, and Turkish President Recep...

Boston-born Thomas Whittemore, a friend of Turkish reformer Atatürk, uncovered the gems that had been hidden for 500 years.If Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia gets turned into a mosque, as many expect it will, its precious Byzantine mosaic icons are likely to be covered up during Muslim prayers. The mosaics were plastered over for centuries when the former cathedral of the Church of Constantinople served as a place of Muslim worship. On July 10, in an address to the nation, Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced that Hagia Sophia would be reopened for Muslim worship on July 24. The Turkish Council of...

...The decision of the High Administrative Court opens the way for Hagia Sophia to become a mosque again, that will fill many Turkish Muslims with joy; after all, they have been waiting for so long to “break the chains” of Hagia Sophia and enter the place for free as they do with any other place of their faith. ...That, however, is not the view from outside Turkey. As the issue started gathering momentum this year, especially following the special celebrations organized in front of the monument for the 567th anniversary of its conquest. Christians around the world, Byzantine scholars or...

MUSLIM WOMAN tries to set airline seat on fire, threatens to blow up the plane DECEMBER 18, 2019 BY BARENAKEDISLAM The reason? This Turkish Muslim passenger was forced her to extinguish her cigarette. She’s the one in the full-face covering body bag in blue. The SUN A Pegasus Airlines flight from Istanbul to Tymbou, Northern Cyprus airport was canceled after a Muslim woman threatened to blow up the aircraft this morning, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported. According to Hurriyet, the woman argued with other passengers and kept lighting cigarettes in the plane before security forces arrived. She held up a picture...

Istanbul (AFP) - Dozens of women protested in Istanbul on Saturday to denounce rising violence against women and the government's failure to stop brutal attacks across the country. They gathered in the Kadikoy neighbourhood on the Asian side of Istanbul, recounting harrowing stories of women recently murdered across the country, including Emine Bulut, whose killing by her ex-husband in August sparked outrage. "Stop the murder of women!", "Stop male violence!" and "Do not watch violence, do something," they shouted.

“There are but 155 years left … at which time … the world will come to an end,” wrote Christopher Columbus in his book “Libro de Las Profecias,” composed in 1502 between his third and fourth voyages. Columbus continued: “… The sign which convinces me that our Lord is hastening the end of the world is the preaching of the Gospel recently in so many lands.” Though his predictions were off, Columbus’ writings revealed his motivation for setting sail on his first voyage Aug. 3, 1492, with the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria. He sought to find a sea...

Oh dear, it looks like a popular candidate – who is a thorn in the side of Turkey’s ruling party – won the mayoral election in Istanbul Sunday…for the second time. Supporters of Republican People's Party candidate for Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, celebrate in the city after the elections re-do on Sunday. ISTANBUL—An opposition candidate has won a repeat ballot for Istanbul mayor Sunday, ending President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s quarter-century grip on the megalopolis and exposing troubles at his long-dominant ruling party.Mr. Imamoglu had defeated the AKP candidate in the initial March municipal ballot, but electoral authorities had voided the...

Turkey’s main opposition claimed a decisive victory on Sunday in Istanbul’s re-run election, dealing one of the biggest blows to President Tayyip Erdogan during his 16 years in power and promising a new beginning in the country’s largest city.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Islamist president of Turkey, attained national office after first serving as mayor of Istanbul, the mega-city that contains roughly 20% of the population of Turkey and which accounts for a third of that nation's GDP.  Now the city that birthed his national career has rejected the his party's candidate for mayor in a stinging rebuke. Bloomberg reports: Turkish opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu won the redo of the Istanbul mayor's race by a landslide on Sunday, in a stinging indictment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's economic policies and increasingly autocratic ways. According to state-run Anadolu news agency, Imamoglu...

ISTANBUL — Opinion polls show opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu pulling ahead of his rival from Turkey's ruling party in his bid to recapture the post of Istanbul mayor. He briefly held the position before electoral officials revoked his mandate and forced a new election next month.Citing technical irregularities earlier this month, the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) canceled the results of Istanbul’s March 31 mayoral election in which Imamoglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) squeaked out a victory with a winning margin of just 13,729 votes out of the 8.5 million ballots cast. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has controlled the...

Our “ally” in Turkey continues to blaze a trail toward a future for his country that looks less and less democratic by the day. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s PK party didn’t fare all that well in the country’s recent round of parliamentary elections. They didn’t lose power, but there was definitely a shift in the electorate and opposition parties fared better than in previous years. One place where Erdogan’s candidates did especially poorly was in the major city of Istanbul. Erdogan’s party’s candidate for mayor was defeated there by Ekrem Imamoglu of the CHP party. That apparently didn’t sit well...

Turkey has been a mess for years under the increasingly despotic and incompetent leadership of Turkish President Erdogan. The economy has been declining and suffering major problems with inflation and a decline in the value of the local currency, the lira, and Erdogan has launched increasingly vicious crackdowns on the opposition while breaking ties with former allies like the United States. The Turkish people have finally gotten sick of this, and Erdogan’s party suffered a major electoral defeat last week in several major Turkish cities. Erdogan responded to his defeats about as well as you’d expect, and throwing around hysterical...

A day after local elections, a mayor-elect from the opposition Felicity Party (SP) was physically assaulted by the former mayor of Diyarbakır’s Çüngüş district, a ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) politician, the T24 news website reported. SP mayor-elect Ali Suat Akmeşe was injured along with another party member and a policeman. They were airlifted to a hospital in Diyarbakır. According to a local SP official, the injured party member is in critical condition. “The AKP chairman [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan], ministers and [AKP ally] Devlet Bahçeli terrorized the society with their political messages and sowed the seeds of anger,” he...

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party said Tuesday that it had submitted challenges to election results that showed its candidates had been defeated in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s largest cities, in local elections two days earlier that dealt a rare setback to Erdogan at the ballot box. The Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has repeatedly prevailed in elections since 2002 and was the leading vote-getter on Sunday. But its losses in major cities — including Istanbul, Turkey’s financial capital — were a significant symbolic defeat for Erdogan and threatened to weaken his powerful party machine, analysts said.

Turkey's top electoral body on Monday annulled the results of the March 31 vote in Istanbul, which opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu narrowly won, and scheduled a re-run for June 23. The loss of Istanbul — and the capital of Ankara — in Turkey's local elections were sharp blows to Erdogan and his conservative, Islamic-based Justice and Development Party, or AKP... The controversial decision has increased concerns over democracy and the rule of law in Turkey

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Istanbul election board has rejected a bid by Turkey’s ruling AK Party to annul the local election in the city’s Buyukcekmece district, an AKP official told Reuters on Friday, after the opposition narrowly won the vote in the city.

The editor of the Washington Post said that Erdogan who failed in the local elections has now refused to make concessions on Russian missiles or Syrian Kurds. Trump's administration will have no choice but to treat him as a rival. The editor wonders how Erdogan will react to the people's rebuke to him,The editor of the Washington Post talks about the results of local elections in Turkey, which he sees as a referendum on Erdogan's increasing authoritarian leadership.The editor notes that Erdogan used all his cheap tools that would have led the country to explosion in an attempt to rally...

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party on Sunday was facing defeat in local elections in the Turkish capital, Ankara, and possibly even Istanbul, its largest city, a result that shook the nation as Mr. Erdogan suffered the first major electoral setback of his decade and a half in power.The municipal balloting around the country came nine months after national elections that extended Mr. Erdogan’s hold on power. It was closely watched as a barometer of his standing with voters after Turkey’s economy fell into recession and he assumed sweeping new executive powers.Mr. Erdogan claimed victory over all in the...