ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey has so far detained 573 people for social media posts and protests criticizing its military offensive in Syria, the government said on Monday.

Turkish military armoured vehicles arrive at a border village near the town of Hassa in Hatay province, Turkey, January 21, 2018. Baris Kadirhan/Depo Photos via REUTERS

The crackdown, which has extended to the national medical association, has deepened concerns about free speech under President Tayyip Erdogan, who has criticized opponents of the military intervention as “traitors”.

Turkey last month launched an air and ground offensive, dubbed Operation Olive Branch, against the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria’s northwestern Afrin region. Authorities have repeatedly warned they would prosecute those opposing, criticizing or misrepresenting the incursion.

“Since the start of Operation Olive Branch, 449 people have been detained for spreading terrorist propaganda on social media and 124 people detained for taking part in protest action,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The operation has been widely supported by Turkey’s mainly pro-government media and by most political parties, with the exception of the pro-Kurdish opposition.

Last week, a prosecutor ordered the detention of 11 senior members of the Turkish Medical Association, including its chairman, after the organization criticized the incursion, saying: “No to war, peace immediately”.

Erdogan criticized the body as traitors. All of the doctors have since been released on probation, the association said on Twitter. Detention orders have been issued for another 13 people for supporting the medics.

“There are laws that prohibit the glorification of terrorism, support for terrorism through propaganda and media. The prosecutors are implementing the laws,” Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, told reporters in Istanbul at the weekend.

Ankara considers the U.S.-backed YPG, which controls Afrin, to be a terrorist group and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has fought an insurgency in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast since 1984.

Turkey is in the midst of a widening crackdown that began after a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Some 50,000 people have been jailed and 150,000 sacked or suspended from their jobs.

Critics, including rights groups and some Western allies, say Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent. The latest arrests have also drawn criticism from the European Union.

Turkey says its measures are necessary due to the gravity of the security threats it faces.</s>Turkey has so far detained 573 people over social media posts and protests criticizing its military offensive in Syria, the government said on Monday. “Since the start of Operation Olive Branch, 449 people have been detained for spreading terrorist propaganda on social media and 124 people detained for taking part in protest action,” the Interior Ministry said. The operation has been widely supported by Turkey’s mainly pro-government media and by most political parties, with the exception of the pro-Kurdish opposition, according to Reuters.</s>As Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria continues, so too does their policy of arresting anyone seen as even sort of opposed to the attack. 



The Turkish Interior Ministry now says 449 people have been detained for criticizing the war on social media, and 124 more detained for taking part in actual protests.

Riot police detain a demonstrator during a protest against Turkey’s military operation in Syria’s Afrin region, in Istanbul, Turkey

Turkey’s Erdogan government doesn’t have a lot of patience for dissent, or for Kurds.

Unsurprisingly, dissent about a war against Kurds is being cracked down on intensely. Erdogan’s spokesman warned that statements criticizing the war amount to statements “glorifying terrorism,” and that the government is just enforcing the law as written.

With Turkey’s largely state-run media praising the war, public support for it is still relatively strong.

Opposition is mostly in the ethnic Kurdish region, which Turkey is more than willing to crack down on at any rate, and political opponents.

When other NGOs issue statements against the war, as did a medical union in the country, President Erdogan has condemned them as traitors, and arrested 11 of their senior members for a statement calling for “peace immediately.”

With the war continuing and casualties rising, war exhaustion is inevitable. For now,however, expressing opposition to the conflict is a very dangerous crime indeed in Turkey.</s>Iran urged Turkey on Monday to stop its military offensive in Syria, saying the operation in the northern Afrin region breached Syrian sovereignty and would increase tension in the war-damaged country.

Turkey last month launched an air and ground campaign, dubbed Operation Olive Branch, against the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin.

"Turkey should stop its operation and respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

"Turkey’s actions can bring back insecurity, instability and terrorism to Syria," he added.

Qasemi said any solution to the Syrian crisis should be discussed in talks in the Kazakh capital Astana that are sponsored by Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

He said Iran was in continuous talks with both Turkey and Russia about the latest developments in Syria.

Ankara considers the U.S.-backed YPG, which controls Afrin, to be a terrorist group and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has fought an insurgency in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast since 1984.

The Syrian government last week called the Turkish offensive in Afrin an illegal "aggression" and said it would deal with it accordingly.</s>A Syrian man sells food at a street market in the northern Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin on Monday (AFP photo)

AFRIN, Syria — Ammunition belts slung over their shoulders, voices cracking from the chanting, dozens of young Syrian Kurds amassed in Afrin's town square to enlist in the "resistance" movement against a Turkish-backed assault.

They wore mismatched military gear, some in jeans and others with scarves wrapped around their faces.

A few admitted it was the first time they had ever touched a weapon, but said they felt compelled to defend their hometown.

"Afrin is where I grew up, just like my parents and my grandparents before me. This is why it's a duty for me to fight for it," says Asmaa, 19.

The first-year journalism student at Afrin University decided last month to leave her studies behind and respond to a call to arms by local Kurdish authorities.

Town officials called for a "mass mobilisation" of civilians to fight an assault by Turkish troops and allied rebels on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin.

They estimate hundreds have joined so far — some deployed to the frontlines while others have volunteered for hospital shifts or rescue teams that search for survivors after bombardment.

Asmaa, a black-and-white scarf wrapped around her neck, says she enlisted to take part in the fighting.

"Today, I don't see myself as a student. I see myself as a fighter," she says assertively.

The crowd around her splits into two lines — one for young men and one for women — and begin marching through Afrin for an impromptu military parade.

As shopkeepers look on, the youth wave YPG flags and chant, "No to occupation!" and "Long live the heroic resisters!"

"There has been an increasing number of volunteers, and each young man or woman can choose which institution they want to volunteer for depending on their experience and capacities," says Rezan Haddu, a media adviser to YPG in Afrin.

"Some volunteered as YPG fighters, others provide logistical support like food, transportation, and clothes," he tells AFP.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebels began their cross-border assault on the Afrin region on January 20, and most of the fighting has been concentrated along the mountainous frontier.

Ankara has blacklisted the YPG as a "terror" group for its ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has waged a deadly and decades-long insurgency against the Turkish government.

Local authorities had to act quickly to hold off the offensive, says Jinda Tulhaldan, a leader in the Kurdish Youth Movement's Afrin branch.

"We give them a week of military training and teach them how to use weapons," says Tulhaldan.

"We know a week isn't enough, but we were attacked and had to defend our city with whatever we had in front of us."

The Afrin region juts out from Syria's northern Aleppo province, but it is governed under a semi-autonomous system established by Kurdish factions in 2013.

Under that system, people between the ages of 18 and 32 must spend one year in military conscription, says the YPG's spokesman in Afrin, Birusk Hasakeh.

Hasakeh says "hundreds" of recruits had now fully enlisted in the YPG and allied groups, including members of local government who had closed public office and taken up arms.

"Others decided to prepare tea and food to distribute to the fronts, and others are volunteering in the hospitals," he says.

"We were trained in light weapons from the youth centre in Afrin," says Tirij Hassan, a 22-year-old attending the recruitment rally.

"It's the first time I carry weapons, but I'm happy about it because I'll be defending Afrin, its people, and its children."

Turkey says it does everything it can to avoid hitting civilians.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 68 civilians have been killed including 21 children since Turkey launched operation "Olive Branch" last month.

At least three civilians have also been killed by rocket fire from Syria onto Turkish territory.

More than 100 YPG fighters and about the same number of pro-Turkey rebels have also died in the fight, the Britain-based monitor said.

"Turkish warplanes are bombing Afrin. They are bombing civilians and attacking us and our forces," says Farhad Akid, a 21-year-old agricultural engineering student in the Afrin city centre.

"As young men, we've pledged ourselves to resist, to protect Afrin and our people. We won't allow a single Turkish occupier to enter our blessed land."</s>Seven Turkish soldiers were killed in Syrian district Afrin on Saturday, but Ankara says offensive is crucial.

The war in Syria has lasted for nearly seven years. And in that time, many regional and international players have had a direct impact on events on the ground. The United States, Russia, and Iran have all been involved in some way or another.

Turkey is in the middle of a military operation in northern Syria. It wants to push out Kurdish fighters from the area closest to its southern border.

But it has not been an easy fight. On Saturday, seven of its soldiers were killed in an operation near the town of Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled enclave in northwestern Syria. Turkey considers the Kurdish YPG a terrorist organisation and an extension of its outlawed PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party - which it has been fighting for decades.

The Turkish military plans to create a 30-kilometre buffer zone near its southern border.

But how much of a challenge will that be?

Vladimir Sotnikov - Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences</s>Turkey Parliamanentarian of Armenian descent Garo Paylan condemns the latest Erdogan ordered attacks on Syria’s Afrin region and details the growing crackdown on free speech at home in this interview with France 24.

Learning from the lessons of the Armenian Genocide, Paylan said his HDP party is working for “equality, democracy and peace,” in Turkey, and called on the European Union to support the voices for change in the country.</s>Authored by Peter Korzun via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In the heat of the battle for Afrin, Turkey has warned it will go farther to establish control over vast swathes of land in northern Syria. The offensive is supposed to take Turkish forces as far as Syria’s border with Iraq. On Jan. 28, Ankara called on Washington to withdraw its military from Manbij (100 km from Afrin) before it launches an operation to clear that area of Kurdish militias. It’s important to note that the US had provoked Turkey’s action by announcing its decision to set up a new border security force in the areas under Kurdish control. So Washington has created this situation all by itself – a trap of its own making. Having sown the wind, it reaps the whirlwind.

A push to the east will potentially force a confrontation between Turkish troops and the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Kurdish combat units in Afrin missed their opportunity to avoid a worst-case scenario.

Some Pro-Kurdish sources say Russia had betrayed the Afrin Kurds by pulling its peacekeepers out before the Turkish attack began. This is a very misleading statement. Let’s look at the facts. Moscow believes all regions west of the Euphrates should be under the control of the regular Syrian army, because these areas belong to Syria – a territorially cohesive country with a legitimate government. Russia had asked the Kurds in Afrin to interact with Damascus and allow its regular army into the area. They refused. Moscow is still ready to act as a mediator to broker talks on autonomy within Syria. So far that initiative has been rejected. The Kurds have preferred the US as their protector. Now they are on their own. They've made their bed, now they must lie in it.".

The US military has not defended the Kurds in Afrin, claiming it does not regard them as allies on par with the Kurds who are part of the SDF farther east. The US maintains that the Kurds in Afrin did not fight the Islamic State (IS). But even so, those Kurds did protect Afrin and kept their land from being invaded by jihadi militants. Perhaps the US never committed itself to defending the Kurds in Afrin, but it did accept the responsibility of protecting the SDF in Manbij. What will happen now? It is next to impossible to make predictions with any degree of accuracy, but we can contemplate some potential scenarios.

The Turkish Hürriyet Daily News reported that the US and Turkey are in talks over ways to de-escalate the conflict. NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller has confirmed that fact, but it’s not clear how that would jibe with the offensive announced by Ankara to capture the land held by the SDF. In any event, it would be too humiliating for Washington to give in to Turkey’s demand. If the US fails to protect its Kurdish allies, it will have no reason to maintain its military presence in Syria. It will have to leave the country, just as Russia and Syria have requested.

One potential scenario would include inciting a broader uprising of Kurds that would encompass Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. That might reshape the regional map. A development like that is not outside the realm of possibility.

Another consequence – NATO’s cohesion has already been undermined now that Turkey and the US are supporting opposite sides. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the US will either blink first or it will ask NATO to suspend, or even expel, Turkey from that organization, at least as long as President Erdogan is in power. This would naturally push Ankara in the direction of Moscow and Beijing, if it should move from NATO to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. President Erdogan only recently mentioned how tired he was of the whole EU membership process.

A political defeat for the US is the most probable outcome. Washington will have to pay for its lack of a clear action plan in Syria and its inability to fully grasp the situation. Obviously Washington is in a predicament. It is up against a very hard choice.

If the US intends to stay in northern Syria, it certainly needs the Kurds. But if America sides with the Kurds, it will lose Turkey. It might find itself excluded from the entire nation-building process, since it is hostile toward all the major actors: the Syrian government; Russia; Iran; and Turkey. If it abandoned the Kurds, that would be a blow to its credibility in the Middle East, given its recent split with the Palestine Authority over the recognition of Jerusalem.

If the US manages to reach an agreement with Turkey, that will mean farewell to the prospect of Syrian Kurdistan obtaining a special status that would make it an independent state, whether just in practice or perhaps even officially. The Turkish offensive is likely to make the Kurds more willing to negotiate with Damascus. A future alliance with the Syrian government is an alternative that would push the Kurds into the peace process. It would boost Syria’s chances of remaining an undivided state. Moscow could act as a mediator between Damascus, the Kurds, and Ankara. After all, Moscow is one of few capitals where the Syrian Kurds maintain a representative office.

All efforts should be exerted within the framework of the Astana peace process, which is being directed by Moscow, Ankara, and Tehran. Washington has always emphasized that its goal in Syria was to fight against IS. But that jihadist group is now so diminished as to be insignificant in Syria. The mission has been accomplished. Why should Washington expend more time and effort, balanced on the brink of armed conflict with Ankara or with any other actor in Syria? After all, if the Astana peace process succeeds, America’s European allies will heave a sigh of relief as the waves of refugees from Syria abate. The best thing the US could do under these circumstances would be to pull out of Syria, focus on diplomacy, and just give peace a chance.</s>Hundreds of Kurds bused in from across northern Syria demonstrated Tuesday in Afrin to support residents of the enclave that Turkey attacked last month, AFP said. The demonstrators, most of whom had come from Qamishli and Hassakeh, the two main cities in northeastern Syria’s Kurdish heartland, marched in the town center. Ankara fears the consolidation of Kurdish influence along its border and describes the Kurdish militia there as a terrorist group. Many Syrian Kurds feel their forces are being poorly rewarded for doing much of the heavy lifting in some of the toughest battles against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) over the past three years. Protests have been staged in Syria’s Kurdish areas as well as by the Kurdish diaspora in the region and beyond to demand action against Turkey and greater US support.</s>Hundreds of protesters demonstrated in Lebanon Monday against Turkey’s military offensive in Syria’s Kurdish enclave of Afrin, AFP reported. The protesters, some of them refugees and others members of Lebanon’s long-established Kurdish community, gathered near the US embassy on the outskirts of Beirut. “We brought an end to the Islamic State group (IS, formerly ISIS) in the world and now the entire world is against us,” one demonstrator was quoted as saying. The Kurds in Syria were the main partner on the ground for the US-led coalition that has carried out thousands of airstrikes against the jihadists since 2014. Now many feel Washington and its allies in the coalition are doing little to protect them from neighboring Turkey, which is alarmed by the consolidation of Kurdish-held territory along its border with Syria.
Turkey detains nearly 600 people for social media posts and protests opposing the Afrin offensive in Syria.