Constitution of Turkey

The United States has called on Turkey to respect and ensure essential freedoms over concerns on human rights issues and freedoms in the country.

Austria has announced that it has no intention of allowing Turkish ministers to conduct a propaganda campaign on its territory for changes to the Turkish constitution.

"We will try to ban these due to security considerations," stated Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern to the biggest Austrian media ORF.

A change in the system is much more important than writing a constitution, and it leads to far more important consequences. 

Shouldn't we vote acknowledging the issue without being lured with demagogical discourses that are in favor or against?

The people who should be the primary ones informing us are first and foremost constitutional lawyers.

A delegation of the Venice Commission, headed by Honorary President Hanna Suchocka, has arrived in Turkey to hold talks with Turkish authorities on the recent constitutional amendments.  

The visit is conducted within the framework of the preparation of an opinion on the constitutional amendments requested by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Six months after Turkey declared a state of emergency there is great concern for the independence of its justice system and the rule of law. Nevertheless, there are signs of hope. Ulrich von Schwerin reports from Ankara.

With 339 for and 142 against the proposed constitutional changed the alterations to the Turkish Constitution were approved by the Turkish Parliament.

There are 18 articles that are changing. There is going to be a referendum in April where the Turkish people will be asked to decide for themselves if they approve of these changes or not.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault had a short and mildly toned discussion on the "state of emergency," known as OHAL in Turkey.

A new civilian constitution is the best answer to coup plotters, Turkey's top judge has said in an indirect address to the government.

For us who live in Turkey, our trial with the freedom of expression never ends. Especially after having lived through the deep darkness of the 1980s and the 1990s and having begun tasting the relative freedoms of the 2000s, when we see our freedom of expression issues restarting today, one unavoidably gets desperate. 

Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu's visit to Strasbourg yesterday to address the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) came at a moment when critical voices about the state of fundamental freedoms in Turkey have become louder and harsher. The deterioration in freedom of expression, press freedom and the rule of law was widely covered by two reports issued last week by the European Par