\u00a0<\/b>Nothing better epitomises today\u2019s Turkey than a celebration that took place in Istanbul at the weekend.<\/p>\n
The occasion was a birthday for a child called Berkin Elvan, who turned 15 on the 5th<\/sup> of January.<\/p>\n This was no ordinary party and he wasn\u2019t there to blow the candles or to cut his cake.<\/p>\n The celebration happened in his absence, outside a hospital where he has been lying in coma since last June.<\/p>\n 14 year- old Berkin was one of victims of the police brutality during last year\u2019s Gezi protests.\u00a0 He was hit by a tear-gas canister as he went to buy bread in Istanbul\u2019s Okmeydani neighbourhood.<\/p>\n Berkin suffered multiple skull fractures and has been battling for his life ever since.<\/p>\n His tearful mother and father were joined by a silent crowd of protestors outside the hospital to cut his birthday cake.<\/p>\n Nobody has been brought to justice for the harm done to their son. Giving up hope on receiving justice from the national courts, they decided to go to the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n While Berkin\u2019s parents were expressing hope that their son will wake up one day, leading international medical associations were appealing to the Turkish president Abdullah G\u00fcl not to sign a bill that would criminalize doctors for providing medical care during anti-government protests.<\/p>\n Campaign group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said that the changes to the legislation would have a chilling effect on access to medical care.<\/p>\n Earlier last month, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover and the World Medical Association (WMA) had urged the Turkish Parliament not to criminalize the provision of medical care by qualified independent practitioners during emergencies after the arrival of a state ambulance.<\/p>\n PHR says that the language used in the bill stating that the emergency services by authorized personnel would only be allowed until the arrival of formal health services and health service becomes continuous, would result in the arbitrary arrest and punishment of emergency medical responders.<\/p>\n If Berkin\u2019s 15th<\/sup> birthday celebration outside an hospital isn\u2019t enough to give you an idea about where Turkey is today, another event on the same day should give you a clue.<\/p>\n A few kilometres away, in\u00a0 a more opulent setting in Istanbulis Dolmabah\u00e7e Palace, more than 40 hand-picked journalists were called to a meeting with the prime minister to be briefed about the latest corruption scandal . The gathering was described as \u201cclosed to the press\u201d.<\/p>\n In a country where the media\u2019s motto becomes \u201cdon\u2019t ask-don\u2019t tell\u201d, who can say Berkin will be the last?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0Nothing better epitomises today\u2019s Turkey than a celebration that took place in Istanbul at the weekend. The occasion was a birthday for a child called Berkin Elvan, who turned 15 on the 5th of January. This was no ordinary party and he wasn\u2019t there to blow the candles or to cut his cake. The celebration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}