Appeals to annul referendum rejected

EU rights court has no jurisdiction over vote

ISTANBUL, April 20, (Agencies): Turkey’s election authority on Wednesday rejected opposition requests to cancel a referendum that boosted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authority as police detained activists over street protests following the contested poll.

The narrow victory of the ‘Yes’ campaign in Sunday’s referendum handed Erdogan sweeping new powers -- most of which will come into force after 2019 -- but was bitterly disputed by his rivals.

The controversy has stoked further political tensions over the rule of Erdogan, who has dominated Turkey since becoming premier in 2003 then president in 2014.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) had on Tuesday asked that the poll be scrapped over alleged violations.

Although the ‘Yes’ camp won with 51.41 percent, it was a narrower-thanexpected victory with the opposition claiming the outcome would have been reversed in a fair poll.

Ten members of the Supreme Election Board (YSK) decided against annulling the vote, while only one voted in favour, the board said in a statement.

To the dismay of opposition parties and ‘No’ supporters, the YSK made a last-minute decision on Sunday to accept ballot papers in envelopes without an official stamp.

Denounced

International observers from the OSCE and the Council of Europe rights watchdog denounced the move, saying it “removed an important safeguard”.

Bulent Tezcan, CHP deputy leader, told CNN-Turk the YSK’s decision to reject the petitions sparked a “serious legitimacy crisis.”

There have been daily street protests in anti-Erdogan neighbourhoods in Istanbul since Sunday’s referendum, with thousands chanting slogans and banging

stantine, with one attacker killed and a second arrested, a security source said on Thursday.

The military operation on Wednesday evening came just a few weeks after Abu El Hoummam, a senior member of the local affiliate of the Islamic State was also killed in Constantine, the country’s third largest city. (RTRS) pots and pans in an angry show of discontent.

Istanbul police on Wednesday detained 16 leftist activists involved in demonstrations.

Among them was Mesut Gecgel, the Istanbul chairman of the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ODP), a leftwing movement not represented in parliament.

The party said he was detained on accusations of “agitating the public” by claiming the ‘Yes’ vote was illegitimate.

Gecgel’s lawyer Deniz Demirdogen told AFP that anti-terror police raided the suspects’ homes before dawn, saying 16 people were detained so far but arrest warrants had been issued for 38.

Describing the accusations as “strange”, he added: “They are accused of provoking people to question the legitimacy of the ‘Yes’ in the referendum.

Definition

“But there’s no such crime definition in the penal code.”

Speaking in Ankara earlier, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the matter of the election result was closed and warned against further protests.

“Turkey is a state of law... and there can be no talk of anarchy, activities in the street,” he said.

“I call on people not to give in to provocations or get caught up in incitement.”

CHP spokeswoman Selin Sayek Boke vowed that the party would use all means to challenge the result and called for a re-run of the vote.

“We will use all the legal paths and all legitimate democratic rights... No-one should doubt this,” she told reporters in Ankara, saying such steps could even include “withdrawing from parliament”.

But Levent Gok, CHP’s parliamentary group leader, later rejected the idea of boycotting parliament, saying it would use “all legitimate means” to protect the parliament.

Turkey’s leading satirical weekly Penguen meanwhile took a light-hearted but cutting look at the situation by printing

Faceless poll posters in Algeria:

Two Islamist opposition parties in Algeria have posted faceless portraits of female candidates for May’s legislative election, upsetting state authorities which have ordered them to show the faces or be barred from the ballot.

The dispute reflects fear among many Algerians of any revival of political Islam in a country that balances religious conservatism

a blank cover.

Turkey’s justice minister said on Thursday that any opposition challenge to a referendum that expanded President Erdogan’s powers would be rejected by the constitutional court, and Europe’s human rights court had no jurisdiction on the matter.

The main opposition CHP party said on Wednesday it was considering taking its appeal for the referendum to be annulled to Turkey’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights after the country’s electoral authority rejected challenges by the CHP and two other parties. “If the opposition takes the appeal to the Constitutional Court, the court has no other option than to reject it,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told television news channel A Haber.

It will be impossible to tell how many unstamped ballots were accepted in Turkey’s referendum to expand President Erdogan’s powers, or their impact on the tight result, because no records were kept, the head of the bar association said.

Sunday’s referendum narrowly approved granting Erdogan sweeping authority over a NATO-member state which faces conflict on its southern borders and hosts 3 million refugees, making its stability vital to EU neighbours despite worsening relations.

No one should expect Turkey to turn away from its long-stated goal of full membership in the European Union, Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said on Thursday.

Zeybekci told reporters following a conference in Ankara that Ankara’s agenda was still aimed at a full membership in the bloc. Ties with Brussels have been strained in recent months, in the run-up to the April 16 referendum to grant President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers.

with searing memories of its 1990s war against armed Islamist groups that killed 200,000 people. (RTRS)

Al-Qaeda convict arrested:

Turkish media reports say a fugitive who was convicted in absentia for involvement in a 2003 bomb attack against HSBC bank in Istanbul and of membership in al-Qaeda has been arrested.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said the man, identified by his initials Z.C, was arrested Wednesday in a village in the central Turkish province of Cankiri, where he was working as an acting village imam.

The private DHA agency reported that he had escaped to Afghanistan while on trial for his role in the attack. He was later convicted of membership in the al-Qaeda network and sentenced to six years in prison.

The al-Qaeda attacks in Istanbul in November 2003 targeted the HSBC bank, two synagogues and the British Consulate, killing 57 people. (AP)

Turkish police detain editor:

Turkish police Thursday detained the editor of a website that denounced as illegitimate the victory of the ‘Yes’ camp in the referendum on expanding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers, the news site said.

Left-wing website sendika.org said its editor-in-chief Ali Ergin Demirhan was held in a pre-down raid on its offices.

The arrest comes after at least 16 leftist activists involved in demonstrations against the ‘Yes’ victory were detained by Istanbul police on Wednesday. In all, a total of 38 arrest warrants were issued. (AFP)