Draft law reduces leading bar associations’ authority, leads to creation of rival groups, the ICJ and Human Rights Watch said today. The Turkish government’s plan to allow for multiple bar associations appears calculated to divide the legal profession along political lines and diminish the biggest bar associations’ role as human rights watchdogs, they added.
The current bar associations have not been consulted, and 78 bars out of 80 signed a statement opposing the plan.
Read more here.
A panel by Alliance of MENA Socialists, March 1, 2020
Watch the panel here.
Zoe Zhao: Sociology PhD student working on issues of gender, digital labor and transnational social movements. Having volunteered for several NGOs and social movement networks in China and the US, she hopes to contribute to contemporary transnational organizing via activist scholarship.
Anna Nizhnik: Associate Professor, Russian State University for the Humanities. Socialist feminist, publisher, activist. Specializes in Literary Gender Studies and Women’s History.
Ecehan Balta: Holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, master’s degree and PhD in Political Science. She has been an ecosocialist feminist activist for around 30 years. She is a member of Baslangic (A Start) Collective founded after the Gezi uprising in 2013 as a combination of movements from different political origins. She is also a member of Socialist Alternative, a Turkish section of ISA (International Socialist Alternative).
Moderated by Fatemeh Masjedi: Iranian academic historian and activist based in Berlin. Member of the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists. She was a political prisoner in Iran because of her women’s rights activities.
