Hamdi Firat Buyuk

The self-exiled cleric created an organisation of global clout before falling foul of President Erdogan – who from then on conducted a relentless crackdown against its supporters.

From Georgia to Turkey, Hungary and Republika Srpska, governments have increasingly been trying to target ‘foreign influences' – putting forward legislation that critics claim is intended to prevent public scrutiny and curb media freedom.

After the government removed three mayors from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party due to alleged terror ties, the DEM Party and other opposition parties accused it of 'stealing municipalities it could not win in an election'.

Political analysts tell BIRN that with Trump back in the White House nationalist leaders in Serbia, Bosnia and elsewhere will feel emboldened to proceed with their agendas.

The presence of high-level delegations from the Balkans at COP29, the UN's latest climate summit in Baku, cannot disguise their foot-dragging in the fight for a greener future.

The arrest of nvestigative journalist Furkan Karabay for his reporting and social media posts was 'the latest example of the increasing criminalisation of reporting on the judiciary' in Turkey, six media advocacy groups have said in a joint statement.

Mayors of Ankara and Istanbul Mayors slate new investigations into opposition-held municipality finances as a politically-driven judicial operation.

The COP29 climate change summit in Baku has proven a lucrative side hustle for the host – gas-producing, oil-rich Azerbaijan – with Balkan visitors lining up to strike deals.

Turkish lawyers and the country's main opposition party slated a probe into lieutenants who chanted a secularist slogan at their graduation ceremony, calling it an attack on freedom of expression and on the state's founding values.

Ministry says hundreds have been detained in nationwide police operation targeting the movement formerly led by recently-deceased cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the Turkish government claims tried to stage a coup in 2016.