Free Republic

A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court. Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed. “We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding...

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding...

On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding Fathers drew inspiration from Greek philosophers and statesmen to form the...

The man who took Turkey from a secular nation to an Islamist one may finally have driven his people to take extreme measures against him. Last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s Islamist president, arrested a political rival. That sparked several days of protest, and, today, it’s seemingly culminated with protestors invading the presidential palace. The big question is whether this ends with a brutal response or the end of Erdoğan’s reign. Obviously, I have no answer to that question, but I can provide a little, very superficial background to help make some sense of what’s happening in Turkey today. Today’s...

Protests have erupted across Turkey against Erdogan’s oppressive Islamist government. Footage of massive protests, after Erdogan imprisoned his opposition candidate. EU is actually stepping in. Transcript linked below video.

Imamoglu, the popular 53-year-old mayor, was seen as the next opposition party candidate for the Turkish presidency and was expected to be nominated on Sunday. Charges for the arrest, which Imamoglu and his party reject, include terrorism and organized crime. In a statement, Imamoglu's Republican People's Party flatly rejected the charges against the Istanbul mayor, calling the move a coup. The Turkish lira fell to a record low against the dollar and the country's benchmark stock index dropped by as much as 7% following the surprise arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — a rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and a popular figure, had basked in the glow of what he often jokingly dubbed his political miracle — the only person to have beaten Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party in not one, but three local elections. On Wednesday, dozens of police officers raided his residence around dawn and detained him for questioning as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. Many see the arrest as part of a broader campaign to undermine the mayor and eliminate a key challenger to Erdogan before the next presidential elections. The...

Residents of the Greek island of Samos strongly opposed a proposition by the Greek Migration ministry to build a new refugee camp on their island. The residents gave a thundering “no” to the proposal. The heads of the local community in Mitilinious called an open community on the village square to discuss building a new refugee camp on the grounds of a local army camp. The local Syriza MP was invited to the gathering but he never appeared. Mr Michalis Aggelopoulos, declared their opposition on behalf of the local community, and their heads, including the mayor. Their opinion was cheered...

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the closure of the U.S. military base in Alexandroupoli, Greece, according to the Greek newspaper Dimokratia. However, the reports remain unconfirmed by Greek defense officials. The reported decision from Trump may indicate a shift in U.S. military strategy in the region against Russia and has reportedly raised concerns among Greek officials. US military base in Alexandroupoli and Türkiye’s concerns. The U.S. base in the region was a major source of tension between the U.S. and Türkiye. However, U.S. officials repeatedly reassured Türkiye that the U.S. forces’ deployment in the area was not against the...

This week the European Union is expected to announce a complete import ban on Russian oil. Hungary, in its first real act of defiance, is threatening to veto this; Germany, after some hemming and hawing, has finally decided it can survive such a ban. Assuming Hungary’s objections are eventually overcome, at first blush this looks like yet another energy “own goal” by the people obsessed with soccer. The U.S. has already issued this ban. Because European industry is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas, the conventional wisdom is that the EU Commission is just petulant and incompetent. Are they...

The Russia Hoax was never about Russia. It was always a cover story to unleash a legal assault on Team Trump, the sole aim of which was to look for, and create, secondary crimes (e.g., decades-old loan applications [Paul Manafort], a misremembered timeline [George Papadopoulos], raiding the son of a top-tier target [Michael Flynn] to compel a guilty plea, or the ever-reliable "lying" charge [Roger Stone]). That's it in the shell of a nut. A single sentence. And guess what: that single sentence is the current legal strategy for the Democrats, the Deep State, and the NeverTrump Republicans for the...

Confused about Putin's motives? Look at Ukraine Eighteen months ago, when Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, confusion prevailed in the West. Today, as Russia sends troops, armor, and aircraft to Syria, we are once again perplexed. On Monday President Vladimir Putin provided the explanation: Russia’s intervention is aimed to defeat ISIS and reduce the flow of refugees to Europe. A review of the last major Russian intervention, in Ukraine, might help us to evaluate this claim. The superficial links between the two conflicts are obvious. For the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, a ceasefire is holding. This has allowed...

The Russians called the EU’s bluff by pulling out of the project instead of accepting the EU’s conditions and are cutting deals with China and Turkey instead.By Alexander Mercouris ~ Russia Insider The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully. In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s. Briefly, at that period, the assumption was that Russia would become the great supplier of energy and raw materials to Europe....

Netanyahu: ‘Hamas are the new Nazis’. "The core of new antisemitism is the attempt to ... undermine [Israel's] right to self-defense," Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said. JNS Staff. (Jan. 27, 2025 / JNS). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called on the “civilized” world to up its effort to combat Jew-hatred, while labeling the Hamas terror group the “new Nazis.” “On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I call on all civilized nations to confront antisemitism wherever it appears—on college campuses, city streets or international forums like the [International Criminal Court],” Netanyahu tweeted. “Founded in the shadow of the Holocaust, the...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israel must withdraw its forces from Syria or it will cause “unfavorable outcomes for everyone.” “The aggressive actions of the forces attacking Syrian territory, Israel, in particular, must come to an end as soon as possible,” he said during a meeting of his party in Ankara. “Everyone should take their hands off Syria and we, along with our Syrian brothers, will crush the heads of Islamic State, the YPG and other terrorist organizations in a short time.”

Athens: Turkey’s fiercest rival Greece is now equipped with Rafale fighter jets. The Hellenic Air Force has officially completed the acquisition of 24 Rafale fighter jets. Greece received the last Rafale aircraft at Tanagra Air Base on 9 January. .....

Within Iran and its terror proxies severely weakened, is a new adversary to Israel emerging? Turkey’s Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is notorious for his anti-Israel rhetoric and is now building up his military as well. Erdogan just announced that Turkey will expand its long-range ballistic missile stockpile and its navy and there are concerns that Erdogan could soon begin his own nuclear program as well. All of this comes as an Israeli government commission just warned that an eventual war with Turkey could be on the horizon. Could this be a prophetic showdown, with Syria as the trigger? Watch...

Multiple reports from northern Syria on Thursday indicated the U.S. military is reinforcing its presence in Syrian Kurdistan, or Rojava, potentially building a new base in the city of Kobani.The regional outlet Kurdistan 24 reported on Thursday that “a convoy of 50 trucks carrying Bremer walls entered Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)-controlled areas in northeastern Syria (Rojava) on Thursday.” Citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a non-governmental organization (NGO), Kurdistan 24 reported that the convoy was headed to the Kurdish city of Kobani, on the Turkish border.“Sources from the observatory indicated that the delivery is part of ongoing efforts...

Recent reports in the Arabic and Turkish media and social media claim that Turkey intends to establish new military bases in Syria as part of a defense agreement with the new Syrian government formed by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) under the leadership of Ahmed Al-Sharaa (aka Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani). Turkey has been the primary supporter of HTS, which has a jihadist background “Damascus and Ankara are drafting a mutual defense agreement that includes the establishment of two bases in Homs and Damascus and the deployment of an air defense system against Israeli attacks.”