ISTANBUL: In the last day before Turkey’s crucial referendum on whether to expand the president’s power, both “yes” and “no” campaigners addressed flag-waving supporters Saturday in Istanbul and Ankara.
At stake is the future of Turkey’s political system, with supporters saying the constitutional changes will herald a period of stability and prosperity, and detractors warning the reforms could lead to an autocratic one-man rule by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Opinion polls indicate a tight race, and fierce campaigning took place Saturday right up to a 6 p.m. ban.
Erdogan has long championed the idea of changing Turkey’s system of government from parliamentary to presidential. He is calling on his countrymen to vote Sunday to approve 18 constitutional changes that would, among other things, abolish the office of the prime minister, handing all executive power to the president.
“The new constitution will bring stability and trust that is needed for our county to develop and grow,” Erdogan told supporters Saturday in Istanbul’s Tuzla district. He also appealed to voters of other parties to approve the changes so “Turkey can leap into the future.”
“Is it a ‘yes’ for one nation? Is it a ‘yes’ for one flag? Is it a ‘yes’ for one homeland? Is it a ‘yes’ for one state? Yes, yes, yes!” he said.
Erdogan said the proposed reforms could help counter a series of threats, including a failed military coup last year and a string of deadly bombings, some attributed to the Daesh group. Fighting also resumed in 2015 between security forces and Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country.
But critics argue that Erdogan, who has been at the helm of Turkish government as prime minister or president since 2003, will simply cement his hold on power with even fewer checks and balances if the “yes” side wins.
“Turkey is at a junction. We will make our decision tomorrow. Do we want a democratic parliamentary system or do we want a one-man regime?” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, asked supporters in the capital, Ankara.
In Istanbul on Saturday, thousands of “no” supporters waving Turkish flags marched along the Bosphorus.
The opposition has complained of a lopsided campaign, with Erdogan using the full resources of the state and the governing party to dominate the airwaves and blanket the country with “yes” campaign posters. “No” campaigners say they have recorded more than 100 incidents of intimidation, beatings and arbitrary detentions.
Erdogan has painted supporters of the “no” campaign as people bent on destabilizing the nation, accusing them of siding with those blamed for the July 2016 attempted coup.
“Sunday will be a turning point in our struggle against terrorism,” Erdogan said.
The referendum comes as Turkey is still under a state of emergency declared after the failed coup. Some 100,000 people, including judges, lawyers, teachers, journalists and police, have been dismissed from their jobs. More than 40,000 people, including opposition pro-Kurdish legislators, have been arrested. Hundreds of news outlets and non-governmental organizations have been shut down.
“We want peace, freedom, democracy. We will have these with a ‘no’ vote tomorrow,” Pervin Buldan, a lawmaker from the opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, said at a rally in the predominantly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir.
Security will be high for Sunday’s vote, with nearly 34,000 police deployed in Istanbul alone. The Daesh group has called for attacks against the referendum.
On Saturday, Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency said 49 people, including 41 foreigners, were detained on suspicion of planning attacks during the vote.
Yes or No? Final day of campaigning before tight Turkey vote
Yes or No? Final day of campaigning before tight Turkey vote
Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.
2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA
- The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night
Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike
- The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
- Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.
HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’
BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Monday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a US-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review.”
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement.
HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack,” it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates,” the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.”
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions,” it added.
The watchdog said it contacted Boeing and Woodard but received no response.
In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.
In November last year, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.
Lebanese rights groups have said five more journalists and photographers working for local media have been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast
CAIRO: Egyptian authorities rescued 16 people after a tourist boat sank off its Red Sea coast, three security sources told Reuters on Monday, as search operations continued for the remaining passengers and crew members.
The boat, Sea Story, was carrying 45 people, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 14 crew, on a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam, according to a statement by the Red Sea Governorate.
Governor Amr Hanafi said some survivors were rescued using a helicopter and have been taken to medical care. Efforts to locate more survivors were ongoing in coordination with the Egyptian navy and army.
The governorate said a distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) and that the boat had departed from Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday, with plans to return to Hurghada Marina on Nov. 29.
The Red Sea is a popular diving destination renowned for its coral reefs and marine life, key to Egypt’s vital tourism industry.
