Police impose restrictions on Turkey’s business capital, including road blocks and slow Internet. Members of the country’s main opposition party take to streets, while CHP party leader confirms that the mayor will be its candidate in the next presidential election. So far, the President’s Office has not released any statement. Human rights groups call the charges politically motivated.

After days of violence and more than a thousand dead, including some Christians, the al-Sharaa government has declared the operation against the Alawites on the west coast of the country over. Damascus also signed a merger agreement with the Kurds. For the archbishop of Homs, peace requires an international presence and the end of sanctions. So far, the authorities have not fulfilled their promises.

A Kurdish source in Diyarbakir told AsiaNews that this is “the end of an era and the beginning of a new phase". The Kurdish leader yesterday met with a delegation in prison, giving them a message in which he calls on the party to lay down its arms and dissolve itself. However, the picture is still one of great uncertainty, with "two different groups”, one wants an “end to the clashes”, while the other believes that the Kurdish question “will continue to be a big problem in Turkey.”

The report by Open Doors ranks the country among the top 50 in the world with the most cases of abuse, violence, targeted attacks and murders. The minority is the “most persecuted” and in the last year the phenomenon has increased. Protestant communities and historical groups such as Chaldeans, Armenians and Assyrians are in the crosshairs. The “Grey Wolves” in schools to convey clearly neo-Ottoman programmes.

The apostolic administrator notes that red tape and the lack of legal recognition of the Church are major problems. A torchlight rally was held at 4 am in Antakya to mark the moment when the main quake struck. The main opposition party slams the government, claiming that only 30 per cent of the promised reconstruction has been completed.

A post-earthquake reconstruction project threatens to cause a radical demographic change. The area is located in Hatay province and is the only one left following the forced displacement of residents from the Musa Dagh region in 1915. New housing and shopping centres are planned. New government clampdown on opponents and critics, İmamoğlu also in the crosshairs.