Trafficking of Women in the Balkans: A Modern-Day Slavery
Over the past decade, “trafficking in persons” or “human trafficking” for commercial sexual exploitation has been one of the fastest growing areas of international organized criminal activity. In simplest terms, human trafficking is “a cruel, ruthless, and cynical form of human exploitation, a serious crime, and a gross violation of human dignity.”1 In legal terms, [...]
Latvians reject Russian as their second official language
Here we are again. It is exactly 21 years and one month since the last time when Latvian people had to stand up for their fundamental values. In those cold winter days of January 1991, Latvian people were united in their common effort to regain their independence, freedom of speech and democracy. It had to [...]
Chalk vs. Tablet: Can FATIH Project Revolutionize the Turkish Education System?
In many ways, and by any standard, Turkey is a vibrant country. Those who follow events in Turkey closely would definitely agree, as they must nowadays have difficulty with following the dizzying pace of events and making sense out of them. To be more concrete and specific, it would be appropriate to mention a few [...]
A story of a renewal gone terribly wrong
Note: Aron A. Nemeth wrote an interesting article on the developments in Hungary a month ago (Troubles with Viktor: Latest developments in Hungary). Writing from a different perspective (he is a native Hungarian), I do feel that there is a lot of reason to worry about the state of democracy in Hungary and after recent changes [...]
Is European economic prosperity really dependent on mass immigration?
The purpose of this article is to overview the issues and arguments surrounding the question of mass immigration to Europe. Its analysis is conceptually and in the use of available data focused on the last decade of immigration to what is now the European Union of 27 member states. In doing so, it takes a [...]
Troubles with Viktor: Latest developments in Hungary
Once a genuine liberal democrat, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban is slowly tightening his party’s grip on the Parliament and with it on his native country as a whole. However, Hungarians are a persistent bunch and they proved to the world many times that in the long run, it is them who hold the winning [...]
Last interview with Vaclav Havel: To bomb Belgrade was a tough decision
We publish the last interview given by the late Czech President Vaclav Havel, which was given to our contributor Jakub Janda in December 2011 on the issues of civic heroism, human indifference and what turned out to be one very frustrating translation. It is exclusively available in English only at our magazine.* Jakub Janda [...]
Turkish Women’s Movement
It is known that cultures have deep impact on societies and ‘directs’ its people. Cultures consist of long-term practices, traditions, customs, proverbs and more. Moreover, cultures usually shape the way people live. The culture in Turkey has limited the Turkish Women’s Movement, but has not destroyed it. However, cultures can be changed very slowly. For [...]
Women in Turkey: Are They Born to Suffer?
I have never been exposed to domestic violence. Even though I still clearly remember how my dearest brother employed innovative and semi-sadistic tactics to provoke me for another round of a brotherly scuffle, or how my stubborn babysitter threatened me to make me finish a mountain of rice on my plate, I cannot identify my [...]
EU referenda: The right answer to Europe’s ills
The following is the answer I provided at Debating Europe’s latest discussion on the question of EU membership referenda. As a convinced supporter of direct/participative democracy, I couldn’t but approve of their need. But they are not only required at the national level, for countries such as Britain to decide on their membership, but also [...]
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