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Turkish coup bid crumbles as crowds answer call to streets, Erdogan returns

People demonstrate in front of the Republic Monument at the Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, July 16,

By Nick Tattersall and Ece Toksabay

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – An attempted Turkish military coup appeared to crumble in the early hours of Saturday after crowds answered President Tayyip Erdogan’s call to take to the streets to support him.

Erdogan, who had been holidaying on the coast when the coup was launched, flew into Istanbul before dawn on Saturday and was shown on TV appearing among a crowd of supporters outside the airport, which the coup plotters had failed to secure.

The uprising was an “act of treason”, and those responsible would pay a heavy price, he later told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference. Arrests of officers were under way, and it would go higher up the ranks, culminating in the cleansing of the military.

Gunfire and explosions had rocked both the main city Istanbul and capital Ankara in a chaotic night after soldiers took up positions in both cities and ordered state television to read out a statement declaring they had taken power.

But by early Saturday, Reuters journalists saw around 30 pro-coup soldiers surrender their weapons after being surrounded by armed police in Istanbul’s central Taksim square.

They were taken away in police vans as a fighter jet repeatedly screeched overhead at low altitude, causing a boom that shook surrounding buildings and shattered windows.

A successful overthrow of Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, would have marked one of the biggest shifts in the Middle East in years, transforming one of the most important U.S. allies while war rages on its border. A failed coup attempt could still destabilize a pivotal country.

Before returning to Istanbul, Erdogan appeared in a video call to the studio of the Turkish sister channel of CNN, where an announcer held up a mobile phone to the camera to show him. He called on Turks to take to the streets to defend his government and said the coup plotters would pay a heavy price.

By the early hours of Saturday morning, lawmakers were still hiding in shelters inside the parliament building in Ankara, which had been fired on by tanks. Smoke rose up from nearby, Reuters witnesses said. An opposition MP told Reuters parliament was hit three times and that people had been wounded.

A Turkish military commander said fighter jets had shot down a helicopter used by the coup plotters over Ankara. State-run Anadolu news agency said 17 police were killed at special forces headquarters there.

As the night wore on, momentum turned against the coup plotters. Crowds defied orders to stay indoors, gathering at major squares in Istanbul and Ankara, waving flags and chanting.

“We have a prime minister, we have a chief of command, we’re not going to leave this country to degenerates,” shouted one man, as groups of government supporters climbed onto a tank near Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.

Erdogan and other officials blamed loyalists of a U.S.-based cleric for the coup attempt; his movement denied any part in it.

U.S. SUPPORT

The United States declared its firm backing for Erdogan’s government. Secretary of State John Kerry said he phoned the Turkish foreign minister and emphasized “absolute support for Turkey’s democratically elected, civilian government and democratic institutions”.

The coup began with warplanes and helicopters roaring over Ankara and troops moving in to seal off the bridges over the Bosphorus that link Europe and Asia in Istanbul.

Reuters reporters saw a helicopter open fire in Ankara. Anadolu said military helicopters had fired on the headquarters of the intelligence agency.

In the first hours of the coup attempt, airports were shut and access to internet social media sites was cut off.

Soldiers took control of TRT state television, which announced a countrywide curfew and martial law. An announcer read a statement on the orders of the military that accused the government of eroding the democratic and secular rule of law. The country would be run by a “peace council” that would ensure the safety of the population, the statement said.

Shortly afterwards, TRT went off the air. It resumed broadcasting in the early hours of Saturday.

Anadolu said the chief of Turkey’s military staff was among people taken “hostage” in the capital Ankara, but Prime Minister Binali Yildirim later said he was back in control.

“NOT A TINPOT COUP”

Early in the evening the coup appeared strong. A senior EU source monitoring the situation said: “It looks like a relatively well orchestrated coup by a significant body of the military, not just a few colonels. They’ve got control of the airports and are expecting control over the TV station imminently. They control several strategic points in Istanbul.

“Given the scale of the operation, it is difficult to imagine they will stop short of prevailing.”

One European diplomat was dining with the Turkish ambassador to a European capital when guests were interrupted by the pinging of urgent news on their mobile phones.

“This is clearly not some tinpot little coup. The Turkish ambassador was clearly shocked and is taking it very seriously,” the diplomat told Reuters as the dinner party broke up. “However it looks in the morning, this will have massive implications for Turkey. This has not come out of nowhere.”

Turkey, a NATO member with the second biggest military in the Western alliance, is one of the most important allies of the United States in the fight against Islamic State, which seized swathes of neighboring Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon said there was no impact on operations against Islamic State from the U.S. air base at Incirlik in Turkey.

Turkey is also one of the main backers of opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in that country’s civil war, host to 2.7 million Syrian refugees and launchpad last year for the biggest influx of migrants to Europe since World War Two.

Celebratory gunfire erupted in Syria’s capital Damascus after the army claimed to have toppled Erdogan. People took the streets to celebrate there and in other government-held cities.

Turkey has been at war with Kurdish separatists, and has suffered numerous bombing and shooting attacks this year, including an attack two weeks ago by Islamists at Istanbul’s main airport that killed more than 40 people.

Turkish officials blamed the attempted coup on followers of Fethullah Gulen, an influential cleric in self-imposed exile in the United States who once supported Erdogan but became a nemesis. The pro-Gulen Alliance for Shared Values said it condemned any military intervention in domestic politics.

After serving as prime minister from 2003, Erdogan was elected president in 2014 with plans to alter the constitution to give the previously ceremonial presidency far greater executive powers.

Turkey has enjoyed an economic boom during his time in office and has dramatically expanded its influence across the region. But opponents say his rule has become increasingly authoritarian.

His AK Party, with roots in Islamism, has long had a strained relationship with the military and nationalists in a state that was founded on secularist principles after World War One. The military has a history of mounting coups to defend secularism, but has not seized power directly since 1980.

Prime Minister Yildirim said a group within Turkey’s military had attempted to overthrow the government and security forces have been called in to “do what is necessary”.

“Some people illegally undertook an illegal action outside of the chain of command,” Yildirim said in comments broadcast by private channel NTV.

“The government elected by the people remains in charge. This government will only go when the people say so.”

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Ayla Jean Yackley, Nick Tattersall, David Dolan, Akin Aytekin, Tulay Karadeniz, Can Sezer, Gulsen Solaker, Ece Toksabay, Murad Sezer, Ercan Gurses, Nevzat Devranoglu, Dasha Afanasieva, Birsen Altayli and Orhan Coskun; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Catherine Evans and Mary Milliken)

FBI,Homeland Security chief preparing for violence at political conventions

U.S. security chiefs testify before a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers on Thursday that they were preparing their agencies for the possibility of violence, both from unruly demonstrators and terrorists, at the upcoming Republican and Democratic nominating conventions.

Speaking before the House Homeland Security Committee, Johnson said he was concerned that demonstrations at the events could get out of hand.

In an interview with Reuters following his testimony, Johnson said he knew of no specific or credible threat to either convention but that it was important to be prepared.

Johnson said the Department of Homeland Security would be sending more than 3,000 personnel to each convention.

Recent clashes between attendees and protesters at rallies for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have led to physical assaults and arrests.

The Republican National Convention being held July 18-21 in Cleveland and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia from July 25-28 follow a string of high-profile shootings.

In June, an Islamic State sympathizer committed the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, killing 49 people in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Last week, five police officers in Dallas were killed by a black man angry about police shootings of unarmed black men.

Comey told the committee that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was monitoring the threat of violence at the conventions “very, very carefully.”

“Anytime there is a national spotlight on a political event in the United States, there is a risk that groups that aspire to do just that, engage in acts of domestic terrorism, will be attracted,” Comey said.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Cleveland police keeping low profile for Republican convention

An anti-Trump protester holds his protest sign in front of mounted police outside a rally for Republican U.S. presidential candidate

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – As dozens of Black Lives Matter protesters chanted: “No justice, no peace!” in central Cleveland on Monday, they faced down a wall of police – on bicycles, dressed in polo shirts and shorts.

It was the kind of police presence the organizers of next week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland have long had in mind – respectful of free speech, and orderly. No arrests were made.

Elsewhere in the United States, tensions are high since last week’s deadly attack on police in Dallas, creating scenes like the one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where police in riot gear confronted a woman standing calmly in a flowing dress, an image captured in a photograph that has attracted worldwide attention.

But in Cleveland, where the four-day Republican convention begins on Monday, police are committed to a low profile, avoiding the militarized presence that has become common in recent years since police across the country received free war surplus equipment from the Pentagon.

The Ohio city is sticking with its plan even after the events in Dallas, where a black U.S. veteran of the Afghan war, who had said he wanted to “kill white people,” fatally shot five police officers on Thursday.

The attack came during an otherwise peaceful protest to denounce last week’s police killings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Protests have continued in those states, resulting in hundreds of arrests. Cleveland police have said they will increase intelligence and surveillance as a result of the Dallas attacks.

“(Dallas) affects our planning, but we have planned, we have what-iffed and we have table-topped this for a long time,” the police chief, Calvin Williams, told a news conference on Tuesday. “We don’t want anybody to trample on anybody else’s rights.”

Steve Loomis, the head of the Cleveland police officers’ union, said Cleveland may be too lightly equipped. He also complained about a 28-page General Police Order sent to officers a month before the convention, with instructions on de-escalating conflicts and preserving protesters’ rights, calling it condescending and designed to make officers look weak.

“We have no shields because they think it is too offensive,” Loomis said. “But a brick to the head is offensive to me.”

TRUMP FACTOR

Political conventions are a magnet for protests even under normal circumstances, and Cleveland will have the Trump factor.

Donald Trump, the New York businessman set to receive the Republican presidential nomination for the Nov. 8 election, has stirred passions among supporters and opponents during the campaign with his comments on illegal immigrants and Muslims, and the two sides have clashed at several of his campaign events.

Cleveland’s gun laws will allow people to carry guns openly within the so-called event zone where demonstrations will take place. The New Black Panther Party, a “black power” movement, will carry firearms for self-defense during demonstrations in Cleveland, the group’s chairman said.

The city comes into the convention with less hardware than other places. Cleveland never received any war surplus but has bought one armored vehicle and personal protective equipment for officers, a police spokeswoman said. Otherwise, Cleveland has avoided “controlled equipment” such as bayonets and grenade launchers, which the Defense Department has since recalled from many police departments.

But the city is also keeping secret millions of dollars worth of police purchases until after the convention, citing security concerns.

‘DE-ESCALATION’

Among the publicly disclosed purchases for the convention to date have been 2,000 new sets of personal protection equipment, colloquially known as riot gear.

The U.S. Secret Service and FBI will run security inside the convention hall, while Cleveland police will handle crowd control outside, aided by 3,000 reinforcements, mostly from elsewhere in Ohio.

Jacqueline Greene, co-coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild, a human rights organization, expressed concern the visiting officers may not share Cleveland’s priorities on protecting free speech.

Cleveland and visiting police will be bound by the General Police Order on managing crowds while protecting free speech and assembly rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The order directs police to “rely on de-escalation and voluntary compliance, and without using force, as the primary means of maintaining order.”

Only the police chief or one of his designated subordinates may approve mass arrests.

“One order is to create space,” Loomis said. “That is retreating. When they (protesters) see we are on our heels, it is a victory for them.”

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney)

After Dallas shooting, U.S. Police forces rethinking tactics

Law officers march down a street during protests in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

By Nick Carey

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Police departments across the United States are searching for new tactics for a more difficult era of racial tension, increasingly lethal mass shootings and global terrorism.

After last week’s killing of five officers in Dallas, the deadliest assault on U.S. law enforcement since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, nearly half of America’s 30 biggest cities have issued directives to pair up police officers on calls to boost safety, according to a Reuters survey of police departments.

And one, Indianapolis, said it would consider the use of robots to deliberately deliver lethal force, an unprecedented tactic until Thursday when the Dallas police department used a military-grade robot to deliver and detonate explosives where the shooter was holed up.

While a wave of anti-police protests since the 2014 killing of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, has revived memories of 1960s protests over civil rights and the Vietnam War, Thursday’s shooting marked something different: a willingness to take up arms against police.

Ambushes against police on Thursday and Friday in Tennessee, Georgia and Missouri added to a sense of being under siege and vulnerable at a time when many departments already were grappling with heightened community suspicion over the use of deadly force.

Responding to the Dallas shooting, Denver’s police union wants officers to wear riot gear for local protests and to be armed with AR-15 assault rifles while patrolling Denver International Airport, the union said in a letter to the mayor published in The Denver Post.

The most immediate change is the pairing up of officers. Thirteen of the country’s 30 biggest city police department said they are pairing up officers – a change that could strain already thinly staffed police ranks in some regions.

(The 13 are New York City, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Seattle, Memphis, Boston and Portland.)

In Albuquerque, New Mexico — one of several cities dealing with an officer shortage — pairing officers could mean “possibly longer response times for lower priority calls,” said its police spokesman, Simon Drobik. And for cities with tight municipal budgets, some question whether this expensive strategy can last beyond the short term.

Doubling up officers “is a resource-intense approach and it will be a significant challenge for some police departments to sustain that strategy for very long,” said Thomas Manger, president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), which represents police chiefs from the country’s largest cities.

He predicted over the longer term that police will increase surveillance and expand their security presence at major events across the country. “This will cause complaints about violating people’s constitutional rights to free assembly, but it is the only way to guarantee safety,” he said.

‘TARGETS ON THEIR BACK’

The attack in Dallas came during a demonstration Thursday over the shooting by police of two black men. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot by police in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and Philando Castile, 32, was killed on Wednesday night in a St. Paul, Minnesota suburb.

The Dallas shooting also left seven officers injured.

“We need to figure out a way to ensure that police officers don’t get targeted, because right now they do have targets on their backs,” said Andrea Edmiston, director of governmental affairs for the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents about 241,000 U.S. police officers.

Few of the police forces approached by Reuters said they could discuss specific changes in tactics beyond pairing officers on the beat. Los Angeles and Denver, for instance, declined for safety reasons to discuss tactics.

Indianapolis police spokesman Kendale Adams said his department would consider using a robot to deliver a bomb. “Our team will consider all options in (a) deadly force encounter,” he said in an e-mail.

If every police department had New York City’s resources, the challenges would be much less.

New York police spokesman Stephen Davis said some 1,500 of the city’s 36,000 police officers have received coordinated heavy weapons training.

Davis said there are officers around the clock who can respond to an active shooter situation in an estimated three to five minutes.

“As most active shooter situations last under 10 minutes, that speed is crucial,” he said. “But we are well aware of the luxury that we have with so many resources available to us.”

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement policy group, said that as 90 percent of America’s 18,000 police forces have under 50 officers, many simply cannot afford the kind of staff needed to respond as quickly as needed to mass shootings.

Wexler said the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 had been a milestone for police in realizing that major public events could become targets.

“Police departments will have to deploy additional forces to what have traditionally been low-risk events,” he said, “because those events now have the potential for some extremist or madman to commit violent acts.”

But he said that the best way to reduce deaths from attacks with semi-automatic weapons is to gain the trust of local communities so people will come forward and help prevent attacks. Once an attack starts, there is only so much the police can do.

The MCCA’s Manger said that beyond police strategy and tactics, what America needs is a change of mindset.

“Everyone on both sides needs to take a step back.”

(Additional reporting by Julia Harte in Washington; Editing by Jason Szep and Mary Milliken)

Doctors turn militant over Venezuela’s health crisis

Patients lie in hospital beds in the hallway of Venezuelan hospital

By Corina Pons

MERIDA, Venezuela Reuters) – A dozen doctors hold a hunger strike in the corridors of an Andean city hospital. In another provincial city, hundreds of protesting medics suspend appointments.

In the capital, staff from a pediatric hospital wave placards at the entrance to a hospital pleading for aid.

Not usually active in politics, many of the OPEC nation’s 40,000 doctors are becoming increasingly militant over drastic shortages of medicines, equipment and personnel amid a punishing economic crisis.

With eight out of 10 medicines now scarce, according to the main pharmacy group, protesting doctors are demanding that President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government declare a national health crisis and allow foreign humanitarian aid.

“I started to see patients, both in the operating theater and in the emergency ward, dying for lack of medicines,” said David Macineiras, a 30-year-old orthopedic surgeon and one of 12 doctors who went on hunger strike at the main state hospital in the western highland city of Merida.

“They arrive in bad conditions and we can’t even get adrenaline to deal with a cardiac arrest,” he said, describing the case of a woman who died for lack of adrenaline. Macineiras himself was hospitalized for four days after his hunger strike.

The protests involve a small percentage of doctors, in part because medics – especially younger ones – depend on the state to complete their residencies and studies and so have good reason to avoid conflict.

Doctors who hold high-ranking positions in public health acknowledge there are problems, but insist that none are sufficiently severe as to put patient lives at risk.

Christian Pino, a surgeon at the Merida hospital who also joined the strike, insists the opposite is true.

He recently operated on an elderly woman who due to chronic hospital shortages had to bring her own supplies, including saline solution. It ran out before the operation finished.

“In post-op, we didn’t have any serum to hydrate her, so the patient died,” he said at the hospital where stretchers packed corridors and incubators stood abandoned with handwritten signs saying they were out of service.

In June, Pino read a list of doctors’ demands in Venezuela’s National Assembly before the opposition-led legislature declared a state of medical emergency and approved channels for foreign humanitarian aid.

“I prefer to raise my voice with my colleagues than be an accomplice to this,” Pino said.

But the government-leaning Supreme Court shot down the assembly’s proposal. Government officials deny Venezuela is facing a humanitarian crisis and say there is no need for humanitarian assistance.

Maduro is fiercely proud of health advances under the 1999-2013 rule of socialist leader Hugo Chavez, and he says adversaries are exaggerating the problems now.

“There is no humanitarian crisis, I say it with absolute responsibility,” Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez recently told an Organization of American States meeting on Venezuela.

DEPRESSING DATA

Up-to-date data is hard to find, but what little is available points to a severe deterioration.

Health ministry statistics show that in 2015 for every 100 people discharged from state hospitals, 31 died – a rate six times higher than the previous year. Infant mortality was 2 percent of births last year, 100 times worse than 2014.

It is a huge challenge for the ruling Socialist Party which, under Chavez, ran enormously popular free health projects such as Cuban-staffed clinics in the slums but is now finding its welfare programs stretched.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Venezuela and Guyana were the only countries in South America to see maternal death rates worsen last year.

Health Minister Luisana Melo recently recognized health sector problems but said authorities are working to reduce the rates of infant mortality and death during childbirth.

She said shortages only affect around 15 percent of medicines and that Venezuelans tend to consume more medicine than they need to.

The government says a U.S.-backed “economic war” by political opponents and hostile business groups has caused the crisis, exacerbated by a plunge in the price of oil, which accounts for 95 percent of export revenues.

Huge lines snake around most pharmacies from before dawn, with some people staying all night to stake a place. Rowdy scenes are common, and soldiers guard the crowds.

In Merida, orthopedic surgeon Carlos Hidalgo said he joined the hunger strike after a patient arrived with an open fracture of the tibia and femur and there was no saline solution to clean the wound.

“They went to a kiosk and bought water to wash him with that,” he said. An infection set in and the patient’s leg was amputated.

“That’s why we protested, not because of our working conditions,” said Hidalgo, who makes 16,000 bolivars a month, equivalent to about $25 at the weaker of two official exchange rates and just $16 on the black market.

Some doctors are also worried about their legal liability. Medics in the city of Barquisimeto decided to ask patients’ relatives to sign a permission slip acknowledging the poor conditions they were working under.

At hospitals there, medics have held two strikes this year. Surgeries were halted on a recent day due to lack of gloves.

Idabelias Arias, the head of the emergency ward at a pediatric hospital in Barquisimeto, has had to use basic CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to revive children for lack of adrenaline. “Doctors are doing war medicine here.”

(Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kieran Murray)

U.N. peacekeepers preparing for possible Congo political violence

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Political uncertainty over Democratic Republic of Congo’s next presidential election could spiral into a severe crisis and United Nations peacekeepers are developing contingency plans for widespread violence, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council released on Tuesday, Ban said that under those plans peacekeepers in Congo might need to ask for help from other U.N. missions.

“I am concerned that in the absence of a credible and meaningful political dialogue among Congolese stakeholders, tensions could degenerate into a severe crisis, with a high risk of relapse into violence and instability,” Ban said.

The Congolese government has said it is unlikely it will be able to hold elections in November for logistical reasons but opponents of President Joseph Kabila accuse him of trying to cling to power. The government has denied the claim.

Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, is barred by the constitution from standing for a third term. But a Kabila ally has raised the prospect of a referendum to allow him to run.

Dozens of Kabila’s critics have been arrested since last year as part of what the United Nations and rights groups say is an escalating crackdown on political dissent ahead of a presidential election.

“I urge the government of Democratic Republic of Congo to respect freedom of expression, assembly and information as fundamental rights that are essential to the conduct of free and fair elections,” Ban said.

Dozens died in street protests in January 2015 against a revision to the election code that could have pushed the election back by years.

“(The U.N. peacekeeping mission) MONUSCO is developing contingency plans in the event of widespread violence in the context of the electoral process,” Ban said.

The U.N. Security Council is due to be briefed on the U.N. peacekeeping mission on Thursday.

The overthrow of longtime Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 fuelled years of conflict in the mineral-rich east that sucked in more than half a dozen countries and killed millions of people. U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Congo since 2000.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Turkey’s arrest of prominent activists stirs protest

By Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Supporters of a pro-Kurdish newspaper on Tuesday protested against the arrest of three prominent activists facing terrorism charges in Turkey and said the government was tightening its grip on independent media in a case being watched by the European Union.

About 200 people chanted “The free press cannot be silenced” as riot police stood by outside daily Ozgur Gundem, a day after a court arrested Reporters Without Borders (RSF) representative Erol Onderoglu, author Ahmet Nesin and Sebnem Korur Fincanci, president of Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation.

The three had joined a “solidarity campaign” with nearly 50 other journalists to guest-edit the paper for a day each. Ozgur Gundem focuses on the Kurdish conflict and has faced dozens of investigations, fines and the arrest of a dozen correspondents since 2014. Other guest editors are also being investigated or prosecuted on terrorism-related charges.

“The court, directed by the palace and acting on its orders, once again has signed its name to a shameful decision and arrested our three friends,” editor Inan Kizilkaya said, referring to President Tayyip Erdogan’s office.

The presidency said it would not comment on court cases.

The arrests are a headache for the European Union, trying to keep a deal with Turkey on track to stop the flow of migrants to Europe, despite criticism from rights groups and concern from some European leaders about Turkey’s record on rights.

The EU, which Turkey seeks to join, said the arrests violated Ankara’s commitment to fundamental rights.

Turkey ranks 151 out of 180 nations on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index. It accuses Erdogan, Turkey’s most popular leader in a half-century, of an “offensive against Turkey’s media” that includes censorship and harassment.

“The jailing of Onderoglu and (Fincanci), two of Turkey’s most respected rights defenders, is a chilling sign human rights groups are the next target,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Fincanci, 57, a professor of forensic medicine, is particularly well-known, having won the first International Medical Peace Award for helping establish U.N. principles for detecting and documenting torture.

KURDISH INSURGENCY

Erdogan has vowed to stamp out a three-decade insurgency by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants that flared anew a year ago after peace talks he spearheaded collapsed.

Left-wing Ozgur Gundem, which has a circulation of 7,500, has featured the writings of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s jailed leader, and has published columns by senior rebel commanders. Turkey, the U.S. and EU list the PKK as a terrorist group.

The Index on Censorship says 20 journalists have been detained in Turkey this year. Most are Kurds working in the strife-hit southeast.

“The West, with its entire focus on the refugee crisis, has paved the way for Erdogan’s authoritarianism,” said Garo Paylan, a lawmaker in the Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP), which has Kurdish roots and is the third biggest party in parliament.

Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of the secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper which is often at odds with Ozgur Gundem’s pro-Kurdish stance, on Tuesday took on the symbolic role of editor-in-chief.

Dundar was jailed for five years last month over coverage of alleged Turkish arms shipments to Syrian rebels, but is free pending appeal. He is aware he could be prosecuted again after his stint at the helm of Ozgur Gundem.

“If we don’t stand together, we will all lose. The time is now to support each other,” he told Reuters.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Hundreds arrested in Venezuela after latest bout of unrest

A man shouts during a protest over food shortage and against Venezuela's government in Caracas

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan security forces have arrested at least 400 people after the latest bout of looting and food riots in the crisis-hit OPEC member country, local officials said on Wednesday.

Violence engulfed the eastern Caribbean coastal town of Cumana on Tuesday as looters swarmed over dozens of shops and security forces struggled to maintain control.

There were unconfirmed reports on social media of several deaths in Cumana, the capital of Sucre state, and an opposition legislator from the zone said one man was shot dead.

But regional governor Luis Acuna from the ruling Socialist Party said the reported deaths were unrelated to the looting.

“There were only 400 people arrested and the deaths were not linked to the looting,” he told a local TV station, calling the looters vandals encouraged by right-wing politicians.

“I have no doubt they paid them, this was planned,” Acuna said.

Nelson Moreno, governor of Anzoategui state, which neighbors Sucre, said eight people were also arrested on Tuesday in “irregular” situations, a term that usually refers to looting.

With desperate crowds of people chanting “We want food!,” protests and melees at shops have spread across Venezuela in recent weeks, fueled by severe shortages.

Three people were shot dead in separate incidents last week, with a policeman and a soldier arrested in two cases.

According to a local monitoring group, the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, more than 10 incidents of looting are occurring daily across the nation of 30 million people that is suffering a brutal recession and the world’s highest rate of inflation.

Venezuela’s political opposition says President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez are to blame for failed socialist economic policies. The opposition is pursuing a recall referendum this year in an effort to remove him from office.

But Maduro, 53, says his foes are waging an “economic war” against him and seeking to foment a coup. Government officials say there is not enough time this year to organize a referendum.

Should there be such a vote in 2017 and Maduro loses, his vice president would take over – rather than a new presidential election being held – meaning the ruling “Chavismo” movement would still be in power.

(Reporting by Diego Ore, writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Sarah Dagher; editing by G Crosse)

Baltimore police officer acquitted in Freddie Gray death

Officer Edward M. Nero is pictured in this undated booking photo provided by the Baltimore Police Department

By Donna Owens

BALTIMORE (Reuters) – Baltimore police officer Edward Nero was acquitted on Monday of four charges in the 2015 death of black detainee Freddie Gray, the second setback for prosecutors in a case that triggered rioting and fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams, who heard the case in a bench trial, told a packed courtroom that Nero, 30, had acted as any officer would during Gray’s arrest in April 2015.

Nero is the second officer to be tried and faced misdemeanor charges of second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and two counts of misconduct in office. The first trial of an officer in the 25-year-old Gray’s death ended in a mistrial.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake issued a statement urging calm. The only incident in the immediate aftermath of the verdict involved protesters chasing members of Nero’s family into a parking garage, yelling, “No justice, no peace.”

State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby had charged Nero with arresting Gray without probable cause when he ran from him and other officers unprovoked in a high-crime area. She also contended Nero did not secure Gray in a police transport van. Gray died from a spine injury suffered in the van.

Nero’s lawyers had argued that Gray’s arrest was justified and that the officer had little to do with it. He never touched Gray except when he tried to help him find an asthma inhaler and helped lift him into the van, they said.

During a 25-minute reading of his decision, Williams said Nero acted as a “similarly situated” officer would and that prosecutors had failed to prove their case. He said Nero’s partner, Garrett Miller, had testified that Nero had done little during the arrest.

“Miller stated unequivocally that he was the one who detained and handcuffed Mr. Gray,” he said.

Nero still faces an internal department investigation. There was no response from Mosby’s office since those involved in the case are under a court gag order.

In a statement, defense attorney Marc Zayon said Nero appreciated “the reasoned judgment” of Williams in his verdict and called on Mosby to dismiss charges against the five other officers accused in the case.

Gray’s death a week after his arrest had sparked a day of rioting in which nearly 400 buildings were damaged or destroyed in the majority black city of 620,000 people. The case helped stoke the Black Lives Matter movement and national debate over policing in minority communities.

Baltimore paid Gray’s family $6.4 million in a settlement reached last year.

William Porter was the first officer tried in the case and his trial ended in a hung jury in December. The charges against other officers range from misconduct to second-degree murder.

The hashtag #FreddieGray began trending on Twitter after news of Nero’s acquittal. Some black activists expressed their disappointment.

“#FreddieGray should be alive today,” wrote DeRay Mckesson, a key figure in the Black Lives Matter movement who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Baltimore in April.

Tim Maloney, a Greenbelt, Maryland, lawyer who has handled police misconduct cases, said if prosecutors had been successful, any officer who made an arrest without clear probable cause would be subject to criminal prosecution.

“That would have an incredible chilling effect,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Marcus Howard and Amy Tennery in New York; Writing by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Alan Crosby and Bill Trott)

Venezuela opposition slams ‘desperate’ Maduro state of emergency

By Alexandra Ulmer and Corina Pons

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition on Saturday slammed a state of emergency decreed by President Nicolas Maduro and vowed to press home efforts to remove the leftist leader this year amid a grim economic crisis.

Maduro on Friday night declared a 60-day state of emergency due to what he called plots from Venezuela and the United States to subvert him. He did not provide specifics.

The measure shows Maduro is panicking as a push for a recall referendum against him gains traction with tired, frustrated Venezuelans, opposition leaders said during a protest in Caracas.

“We’re talking about a desperate president who is putting himself on the margin of legality and constitutionality,” said Democratic Unity coalition leader Jesus Torrealba, adding Maduro was losing support within his own bloc.

“If this state of emergency is issued without consulting the National Assembly, we would technically be talking about a self-coup,” he told hundreds of supporters who waved Venezuelan flags and chanted “he’s going to fall.”

The opposition won control of the National Assembly in a December election, propelled by voter anger over product shortages, raging inflation that has annihilated salaries, and rampant violent crime, but the legislature has been routinely undercut by the Supreme Court.

“A TIME BOMB”

Protests are on the rise and a key poll shows nearly 70 percent of Venezuelans now say Maduro must go this year.

Maduro has vowed to see his term through, however, blasting opposition politicians as coup-mongering elitists seeking to emulate the impeachment of fellow leftist Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.

Saying trouble-makers were fomenting violence to justify a foreign invasion, Maduro on Saturday ordered military exercises for next weekend.

“We’re going to tell imperialism and the international right that the people are present, with their farm instruments in one hand and a gun in the other… to defend this sacred land,” he boomed at a rally.

He added the government would take over idled factories, without providing details.

Critics of Maduro, a former union leader and bus driver, say he should instead focus on people’s urgent needs.

“There will be a social explosion if Maduro doesn’t let the recall referendum happen,” said protester Marisol Dos Santos, 34, an office worker at a supermarket where she says some 800 people queue up daily.

But the opposition fear authorities are trying to delay a referendum until 2017, when the presidency would fall to the vice president, a post currently held by Socialist Party loyalist Aristobulo Isturiz.

“If you block this democratic path we don’t know what might happen in this country,” two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said at the demonstration.

“Venezuela is a time bomb that can explode at any given moment.”

(Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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