civil society

The U.S. State Department's first-ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) people, Randy Berry, has expressed the U.S.'s concern over the police crackdown on the annual Pride March in Istanbul on June 28. 

Macedonia's opposition Social Democrats, SDMS, want a deal reached on media reforms by October 15, saying fast changes are needed to leave time for media coverage to improve by the April snap elections.

"This is a key issue if we want free and fair elections," Robert Popovski, the head of the SDSM working group on the media, said.

Coup leaders in Burkina Faso announced on Sept.18 they had released the country's interim president Michel Kafando whom they had detained along with the premier and two ministers.

In Skopje on Friday, Johannes Hahn is expected to kick start the so-called High Level Accession Dialogue, HLAD, which was launched in 2012 to keep Macedonia's EU agenda alive but which has been interrupted by the deepening political crisis.

Leading economist Daron Acemo?lu said in an interview with Turkish daily Cumhuriyet that Turkey?s economic problems still come from inside, adding high liquidity in global markets helped Turkey overcome the 2001 and 2008 economic crises but the situation has now changed. 

Turkey's capital braces for a major anti-terror rally on Sept. 17, a few days after a group of business associations, unions and professional chambers had announced to hold a mass rally to condemn of "terror."

In the polyphony of voices insisting on an immediate peace process in Turkey ahead of 'Peace Day,' women's voices can be heard everywhere more insistently and more adamantly, thanks to a number of robust initatives At one of the darkest times in its recent history, with war brewing at home and across the border, Turkey is due to celebrate "Peace Day" twice in September.

Operations caused the deaths of three civilians and injured three others in the southeastern province of Diyarbak?r?s Silvan district on Aug. 18, during a period when a curfew had been declared, according to a human rights report prepared by local civil society organizations. 

As leaders from the Western Balkans and the EU gathered in Vienna for the second leg of the Berlin Process, about 200 civil society activists and members of think tanks and the media discussed their proposals and concerns for the region.

Civil society groups at the Vienna Balkan summit have given several concrete recommendations for governments on how to resolve bilateral disputes and speed up EU integration.

The set of recommendations was presented to the summit by the European Fund for the Balkans, EFB, and the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, BiEPAG.