On the 15th of July, something that few could have predicted happened: late on Friday evening, a faction within the Turkish military attempted to seize power in Turkey. The situation in Turkey was chaotic; soldiers closed off the Bosporus Bridge…
Continue reading The Turkish Coup Attempt From a Liberal Activist’s Perspective
The EU-Turkey deal was celebrated by politicians all around Europe as an example of successful European cooperation on a highly pressing issue. It seems to have been effective in discouraging illegal crossings from Turkey to Greece. But is this really…
Migrants in dire conditions, arriving at Europe’s borders, have been in the news for more than two years now. European states claim to be on top of the situation. But are they? Are they doing enough? And are they doing the…
Continue reading How to Address the Root Causes of Refugee Flows – Laura de Vries and Bas Vos
Last week I started writing this blog in the beautiful North Shan State in Myanmar, where I gave a one-week training on internal party organisation and campaigning to a group of twenty senior politicians. This is part of the curriculum…
Continue reading IFLRY President’s Update from Myanmar – Pauline Kastermans
It a pleasure to address you on behalf of Dutch liberal democratic party D66. Today I was asked to share some thoughts with you regarding the recent Dutch no vote on the EU-Ukraine Association Treaty, the refugee crisis and finally…
For those of you who haven’t seen this yet: Below you’ll find the video of IFLRY’s 2016 spring general assembly in Istanbul. The video was recorded and edited by Mustafa Aslan of our Turkish member organisation 3H movement.
With Dutch journalist Ebru Umar, who was released from arrest by the Turkish authorities yesterday, still being denied her right to leave the country, we decided to subtitle this video by Alvise Pérez. Alvise was attending IFLRY’s General Assembly Istanbul,…
Continue reading Speaking up in the streets of Istanbul – Alvise Pérez
Dear liberal friends, First of all, thank you for your support! As newly elected IFLRY president, I am happy to introduce to you the other newly-elected members of the bureau: General Secretary Tone Bjørndal, from our member organisation Young Liberals…
Continue reading Introducing the new IFLRY Bureau – Pauline Kastermans
Over the last years, Turkish media has been repressed and manipulated by the government. A number of events have made this clear: In 2013, when the Gezi Park protests took place. The only tool the opposition could use to get…
In her introductory speech for the Women’s Rights Award 2016, Anne Brasseur, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, underlined how important fighting for Human Rights is. “Betraying and losing our values is betraying and losing…
