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This Week
Youngsters Jailed as Terrorists
Turkey has tried to position itself as a bridge between East and West, a moderate and modernizing Islamic nation with a booming economy. In Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, the graceful domes and minarets of Ottoman-era mosques sharing the skyline with the angular glass and steel of new skyscrapers has become a metaphor for the country’s success.
But there is another Turkey. Pulitzer grantee Jenna Krajeski travels to the barren brown hills of the country’s southeast where the government is locked in a seemingly endless low-intensity conflict with the local Kurdish majority. In a particularly harsh crackdown a few years ago, Turkish authorities rounded up dozens of young people who had participated in anti-government demonstrations. Some were as young as 12. They were charged as "terrorists" and received long prison sentences. A few years later, the government had a change of heart and released most of these youngsters. But as Jenna discovered, this change of heart may have come too late.
Looking Ahead In Egypt
Life after Hosni Mubarak has not turned out the way many Egyptians expected. Egypt’s military still rules with an iron grip and democratic reforms have been stalled. Pulitzer grantee Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a young Egyptian-American journalist, moved to Cairo last May to experience the transition firsthand. He talks about the long road ahead in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.
Searching for Clean Water
Ameto Akpe files from Makurdi, a Nigerian state capital where one neighborhood has been waiting for water to flow in its pipes for 26 years. The blog post is the first in-country report from the joint initiative between American and West African journalists to highlight water and sanitation issues in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Liberia.
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Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer's Millstone Lecture at Saint Louis University School of Law is a lively look at who we are and where we stand in today's rapidly evolving journalistic ecosystem.
Until next week,
Tom Hundley
Senior Editor
[email protected]