The worst mine disaster in Turkey’s history took place in 2014, when an explosion ripped through a coal pit in Soma, near the small Aegian city of Manisa in western Turkey. A total of 301 workers were killed, with hundreds more injured. Since then, 51 people have been indicted, including executives and staff of the Soma Company, one of the country’s largest coal producers. However, no-one has yet been sentenced. The families of the victims of what became known in …

Fevziye Buğa looks like a typical 70-year-old retiree from rural Turkey, someone who spends her days working in the garden and baking cakes for her grandchildren. But Buğa’s appearance is deceiving – she is also a fierce and effective environmental activist, whose efforts to prevent a power station being built near her village of Pınarca have made her well-known across the country. In 2016, when the Turkish government decided to build a coal-fired plant in Buğa’s municipality of Çerkezköy in …

Crowded close to each other, the potted trees in slatted wooden containers seem out of place on the steps in front of the Galata Tower, one of Istanbul’s most prominent landmarks. Indeed, the plants are not there for decoration. Their purpose is to prevent people from gathering on the steps to sit and drink beer, a popular nightly occurrence until just three years ago. In 2015, plants replaced the young crowds on the iconic steps. The official explanation was that …

When 28-year-old Turkish journalist Hülya Emeç applied for political asylum in Switzerland this January, she hoped her request would be approved quickly. Five months later, she is not so sure. “I may have to wait for two more weeks, or two more years,” she said. Emeç is one of thousands of Turkish citizens who have applied for political asylum in European countries following the failed coup attempt in July 2016. The Ankara government imposed a state of emergency immediately after …

“When a bomb exploded close to my school, my father told me that I would have to leave and go to Turkey,” he said. “Crossing the border wasn’t really hard. There were many refugees fleeing Syria at that time, and I was one of them.” Once in Istanbul, he was reunited with his older brother who helped him find a job in a shoemaking workshop. Ahmed found himself working long hours in harsh conditions gluing various shoe components together. Four …

Gözde Demirbilek, 22, was stunned when she first heard about the decision to ban all public activities of the LGBTI community in Turkey’s capital Ankara. “I had a lump in my throat and felt paralysed,” said the activist and editor, who works at online LGBTI newspaper KaosGL.org. The ban, announced on November 18 last year, applies to all public LGBTI events, including film screenings, theatre plays, exhibitions and round table discussions. Demirbilek described widespread fears that it was only the …

Bored one night in a hotel room in a Turkish city, freelance interpreter Sebla Küçük began translating a series of live tweets from American reporters covering a November 2017 legal hearing in New York. The case seemed curious to her, involving a Turkish-Iranian gold trader accused of evading US sanctions against Iran. She never imagined it would turn her into an instant internet sensation. Almost overnight, the 34-year-old’s Twitter followers jumped from 50 to 15,000 and in just one month, …