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Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Turkey

The Capture of Turkey’s Universities Under the AKP
Students at Istanbul University protest in support of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, whose diploma was canceled and who was then detained on March 21, 2025. A banner and placards proclaim, “the university does not bow down” and “there is no liberation alone.” Berkman Ulutin/dia images via Getty Images
Academic Freedom

The Capture of Turkey’s Universities Under the AKP

How the AKP transformed an expanded university system into a terrain of political control.
Ayça Alemdaroğlu • 11 min read
Dirty Work—The Hidden Machinery and Human Toll of Europe’s Broken Recycling Trade
An illegal dump in Adana, Turkey in 2020. Plastic packaging from popular British supermarkets like Sainsbury's and French frozen food retailer Picard is ending up being dumped illegally in the Turkish countryside. (Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images)
Migrant Workers

Dirty Work—The Hidden Machinery and Human Toll of Europe’s Broken Recycling Trade

As Europe sends increasing amounts of illegal waste to Turkey, activists and investigators are revealing how the country’s state-backed recycling boom depends on fraud, off-the-books subcontracting and a rising death toll of migrant laborers.
Adnan Khan • 15 min read
Deportation as Punishment and the Everyday War on Migrants from Turkey to the United States
A woman crosses into Syria from Turkey through the Kassab crossing on December 27, 2024. Aaref Watad/AFP via Getty ImagesMembers of the MIT Graduate Student Union demonstrate outside the John F. Kennedy Federal Building on April 1, 2025 to demand the Trump administration cease attacks on the 1st Amendment and immediately release union members, including Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
MER Article

Deportation as Punishment and the Everyday War on Migrants from Turkey to the United States

At dawn on December 9, 2024, hundreds of Syrian refugees gathered at Turkey's Cilvegözü and Öncüpınar border crossings into northern Syria to return home following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government. Wrapped in blankets and clutching their children and possessions, they waited in anticipation, some
Fulya Pınar • 13 min read
Kurdish Decolonial Ecologies
The Tigris river passing through the Hevsel gardens of the World Cultural Heritage site in Diyarbakir. Mehmet Masum Suer/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesA destroyed mansion in the Dabanoğlu neighborhood in 2024, courtesy of the author.
MER Article

Kurdish Decolonial Ecologies

On my return to Diyarbakır in the Kurdish region of Turkey, also known as Amed (Northern Kurdistan) in the winter of 2024, I found a post-siege city, in which the conversion of the old Christian district of Sur into an open-air shopping mall was partially complete. Neighborhoods I
Umut Yıldırım • 11 min read
A Deadly Trade—Refugee Labor in Turkey and Europe's Plastic Waste
Workers separate waste at a recycling factory, Antalya, Turkey, 2021. Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesHayat and Khalid load plastic into a dilapidated shredder at the plastic recycling factory where they live and work in the Cebeci industrial district of Istanbul. Photo courtesy of the author.Hayat takes a rest from shredding plastic waste to call his mother in Afghanistan at the plastic recycling factory where he lives and works in the Cebeci industrial district of Istanbul. Photo courtesy of the author.Naseem in the converted storage closet he shared as a bedroom with Hayat and Khalid. Naseem has managed to leave Turkey, arriving in Europe in the summer of 2023 after more than a year living and working in the factory. Photo courtesy of the author.
Current Analysis

A Deadly Trade—Refugee Labor in Turkey and Europe's Plastic Waste

China's ban on plastic waste imports and EU efforts to curb migration have converged in Turkey, enabling a dangerous industry.
Adnan Khan • 16 min read
The Kurdish Women's Movement and Turkey's Transnational 'Feminicide'
Demonstrators hold portraits of victims of the December 23, 2022 Enghien Street shooting in Paris, as well as those of the La Fayette street murders in 2013, to express solidarity with the Kurdish community, Paris, December 26, 2022. Julien De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images

The Kurdish Women's Movement and Turkey's Transnational 'Feminicide'

[su_dropcap style="simple" size="4"]O[/su_dropcap]n January 9, 2023, thousands of demonstrators from across Europe gathered in Paris to participate in marches organized by Kurdish groups. Demonstrators were mourning a triple killing of Kurdish activists that occurred in Paris just two weeks
Elif Genc, Anna Özbek • 14 min read
Transnational Repression Against Exiled Women Activists
A projection on the Louvre Museum in Paris by Amnesty International depicts jailed Saudi human rights activists including Loujain Al-Athloul (C) and reads “Mr Macron, demand their release,” ahead of the virtual G20 summit in November 2020. Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images

Transnational Repression Against Exiled Women Activists

In Spring 2011, as the uprising against Bashar Al-Assad erupted in Syria, Sana, the daughter of Syrian exiles living in Canada, began engaging in online activism. Her support for the revolution rapidly gained traction among fellow Syrians and a widening global audience. But as her voice grew louder, she
Noura Aljizawi, Siena Anstis, Marcus Michaelsen • 13 min read