Electoral districts of Turkey

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted a draft law changing the organization and duties of the Supreme Board of Elections (YSK) on Nov. 21.

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has once again called on the country's Constitutional Court to release its jailed lawmaker Enis Berberoğlu. 

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Istanbul lawmaker Sezgin Tanrıkulu has questioned a protocol signed between the Education Ministry and the Ensar Foundation, an Islamic-inspired children's group that was previously embroiled in a major child abuse scandal.

Abdulkadir Yüksel, a ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lawmaker for the southeastern province of Gaziantep, died after suffering a heart attack in the capital Ankara on Sept. 25, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported. He was 55.

Yüksel had immediately been rushed to the Güven Hospital after suffering a heart attack but could not be rescued despite all medical efforts.

The third hearing in the Cumhuriyet trial, in which 20 executives and journalists from the critical Turkish newspaper are being tried, including editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, reporter Ahmet Şık, columnist Kadri Gürsel and cartoonist Musa Kart, began on Sept. 25 at Istanbul's Çağlayan Courthouse.  

An Istanbul court ordered the release of journalist Kadri Gürsel on Sept. 25 in the third hearing in the Cumhuriyet trial, in which 20 executives and journalists from the critical Turkish newspaper are being tried, including editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and reporter Ahmet Şık at Istanbul's Çağlayan Courthouse.

The Kurdish-question focused People's Democratic Party (HDP) held a grand meeting in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır titled "Justice, Conscience and Democracy" in protest of the current state of democracy in Turkey and arrests of its lawmakers.

Turkey's Union of Education Workers (Eğitim-Sen) and Alevi Bektaşi Federation, a leading umbrella organization of the Alevi community, held a rally in Istanbul's Kartal district on Sept. 17, demanding a "secular, scientific and public education free-of-charge in the mother tongue."

Upon an order from the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office, Ankara police on Sept. 15 detained Celal Çelik, a lawyer for the leader of the social democratic main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Kemal Kıçıldaroğlu. 

A mob of 20 to 25 people attacked a burial ceremony in a public cemetery in the Gölbaşı district of the Turkish capital Ankara on Sept. 13 when the body of Hatun Tuğluk was being lowered into her grave, according to eyewitness reports. Shouting slogans of not wanting the body of a terrorist buried in the cemetery, they attacked the people who were there for the funeral.