Italy is being accused of paying off Libyan militias linked to people smugglers in order to stop trafficking migrants across the Mediterranean for a month.

The claim, which coincides with an 86 percent fall in the number of asylum-seekers reaching Italy this month, compared to August of last year, comes as European and African leaders met in Paris to discuss how to stem the migrant flow roiling Europe.

According to Middle East Eye, a London-based news site, the Italian government has been paying off local brigades in the city of Sabratha, 80 kilometers west of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The alleged payoffs involve cash, aid and equipment, and are channeled through the city’s municipal authorities, which are controlled by the militias, the site claims.

Earlier this month, the Italian Development Cooperation Agency announced it shipped 11 tons of aid to Sabratha University Hospital. Italian government spokespersons are refusing to respond to the payoff allegations, but last week the Reuters news agency reported an armed group has been stopping migrant boats from setting off across the Mediterranean from Sabratha beaches.

There have also been reports that trafficking from nearby Zawiya has come to a virtual standstill. The trafficking trade may have been disrupted, too, by the arrest in recent days of Fahmi Salim Musa Bin Khalifa, nicknamed the “king of smuggling,” by a mainly Islamist militia, known as the Rada Special Deterrence Force, in Tripoli.

A Rada statement said, “He is considered to be one of the biggest smugglers across the [Mediterranean] Sea, and owns transporters. He is also very active in sending death boats [migrant boats] across the [Libyan] shores of Zuwara and Sabratha.” Zuwara is a port city in northwestern Libya, 60 kilometers from the Tunisian border.

Drop in crossings

In explaining the sharp drop in numbers during July and August, Italian authorities say weather conditions have been highly changeable in what is normally peak season for crossings, but the weather has been highly favorable, according to seafarers.

Another explanation offered has been the Libyan coast guards have been more effective in their interdiction efforts, because of training and equipment offered by the Italian navy. An Italian warship is docked at Tripoli’s port.

According to analysts, some coast guard units are also tied to the militias.

On Saturday, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti met mayors from southern Libya to renew a commitment to fight people trafficking as part of an agreement signed earlier this year between Rome and the internationally recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj, who heads one of Libya’s three rival governments.

The meeting focused on helping to shape economic alternatives to human trafficking and contraband smuggling in Libyan towns that profit from the migrant trade. “Youngsters in those areas and the whole of Libya deserve a future of hope, free from the threats of criminal organizations,” Italy’s Interior Ministry said in a joint statement with the Libyans.

“Libya looks forward to the timely support of Italy and the European Union,” the statement continued.

From Libya to Italy

Since 2014, more than 600,000 migrants have reached Italy by sea from Libya, where people smugglers linked to dozens of mainly town-based militias have operated with impunity in the turmoil that has engulfed the country since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Italy’s coalition government of Paolo Gentiloni has been stepping up efforts to curb the migrant influx.

Last month, Italian authorities introduced a code of conduct for NGOs operating humanitarian migrant rescue vessels in the Mediterranean.

The charities were accused of at best acting as a “pull factor,” encouraging asylum-seekers to risk the perilous crossing and, at worst, actually coordinating with the people smugglers and facilitating the trafficking.

Five of eight aid groups that operate migrant rescue ships, which pick up about 40 percent of the migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, have refused to sign up to the code, which discourages them from patrolling in Libyan territorial waters.

Paris meeting

At the meeting Monday in Paris, Italy was to push the European Union to try to replicate with Libya a deal struck last year with Turkey that largely shut down the migrant route through the Balkans.

Analysts warn such a deal would be unworkable when it comes to Libya, given its lack of an effective central authority. The Italians, with German support, have been pushing for a concerted interdiction effort along Libya’s southern borders.

Minniti also met Monday with the interior ministers of Chad, Libya, Mali and Niger to discuss strengthening controls on sea and land borders. Rome wants the U.N. refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration involved in setting up migrant centers in Niger and Chad.

Meanwhile, with full migrant centers, Italian authorities are considering using property confiscated from the mafia to house asylum-seekers.
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The European Union and Britain start a third round of Brexit negotiations on Monday, with London looking to move discussions to the future relationship and Brussels demanding more clarity on the terms of the divorce first.

Almost five months after the two-year divorce process began, the Brexit discussions have made little headway, interrupted by a British general election as well as the summer. As things stand, Britain has little idea what relationship it will have with the other 27 countries of the EU past the Brexit date of March 2019.

On the EU side, the frustration is increasingly evident. On Monday, Germany’s main business lobby group criticized the British government for what it called an unclear stance on the future. The head of the Federation of German Industries — an influential group in the EU’s biggest economy — said that “appreciable progress can hardly be expected” during four days of talks this week.

Dieter Kempf said that there doesn’t appear to be a single agreed British government position. He added that British proposals on customs arrangements after the U.K. leaves the EU would require “disproportionately high bureaucratic effort” and are impractical for companies.

Kempf said that the U.K. must make clear statements on the terms of its withdrawal.

The EU has insisted that key issues of the withdrawal must be dealt with before any post-Brexit discussions can begin. Britain is hoping those discussions can begin as soon as October.

The bloc says that is impossible until there has been “sufficient progress” in agreeing terms of the divorce, including how much Britain must pay to settle its existing commitments to the EU.

Britain’s Brexit minister, David Davis, acknowledged that this week’s talks will be mainly technical, but urged EU negotiators to show “flexibility and imagination.”

“We want to lock in the points where we agree, unpick the areas where we disagree, and make further progress on a range of issues,” he said Monday.

In recent weeks Britain has released a series of position papers on aspects of Brexit ahead of the resumption of talks, but they received a muted reception from Brussels.

Meanwhile, Britain’s main opposition Labour Party announced Sunday that it backs the U.K. staying in the EU single market, which guarantees tariff-free trade, and customs union during a “transition period” of several years after Brexit, arguing that would give much-needed certainty to businesses and consumers. In return for remaining a member of the single market, Britain would have to agree to abide by the EU’s four freedoms, including the freedom of movement within the bloc. And by remaining in the customs union, Britain would not be able to carve out its own trade deals, possibly with the United States.

The government has also called for a transition period, but insists Britain will be out of the single market and customs union once Brexit actually takes place.

Geir Moulson contributed from Berlin. Lawless wrote from London.
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Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has named a restructured Cabinet with a goal of increasing the country’s economic growth from 3.8 to 5 percent in four years.

Rama on Sunday told his Socialist Party leadership that his Cabinet would be reduced from 20 to 14 ministerial posts, making it “a smaller but more cooperative one.”

The new structure merges the finance ministry with the economy ministry, and the energy ministry with the transport and infrastructure ministry. A new ministerial post has been created to oversee the Albanian diaspora and to coordinate with businesses.

Most of the appointees are holdovers from the previous government, but serving in different positions. Four are new appointments. The new Cabinet preserves an equal number of women and men.

The left wing Socialists secured a second mandate in a June election, winning 74 seats in the 140-seat parliament and can run the government without allies.

The opposition Democratic party won 43 seats while the Socialist Movement for Integration Party that was in Rama’s governing coalition in the previous mandate secured 19 seats. Four other seats were won by a smaller political grouping.

The Democrats said the Cabinet picks represented “the return to power of the former communist elite” that would lead to “deepening Edi Rama’s and a small group’s private reigning.”

Rooting out corruption, fighting drug trafficking, improving pay and lowering unemployment are some of the key issues in Albania, a NATO member since 2009 that wants to launch membership negotiations with the European Union next year.

The new Cabinet will be subject to a vote when parliament convenes early next month.
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A Jordanian official said Sunday that Jordan is negotiating with Germany over the legal status of German troops to be stationed in the kingdom, amid reports that disagreements delayed deployment.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Germany seeks immunity in Jordan for 250 soldiers who are part of the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State group extremists. The report says Jordan balked at the demand.

The Jordanian official said talks with Germany are “subject to international diplomatic rules” and “equal mutual treatment.” He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters on the issue.

Germany’s Defense Ministry played down the report saying the negotiation process is ongoing and that “we are in fruitful talks with Jordan.”

“We already started the deployment… and are expecting to be fully operational by October,” said a spokesman for the German Defense Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Germany chose Jordan after previous host Turkey prevented German lawmakers from visiting the troops there.
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A 51-year-old German woman died Sunday from injuries suffered in the Aug. 17 vehicle attack in Barcelona, raising the overall death toll in Spain’s recent attacks to 16, health officials in Catalonia said.

The woman died in the intensive care unit of Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar, according to the regional health department.

The latest death raises the toll to 14 in the van attack in Barcelona’s popular Las Ramblas boulevard. Another man was stabbed to death in a carjacking that night as the van driver made his getaway, and another woman died in an Aug. 18 vehicle-and-knife attack in the nearby coastal town of Cambrils.

More than 120 people were wounded in the attacks. Authorities say 24 remain hospitalized, five of them in critical condition.

On Saturday, an estimated 500,000 peace marchers flooded the heart of Barcelona shouting “I’m not afraid” — a public rejection of violence following extremist attacks, Spain’s deadliest in more than a decade.

Emergency workers, taxis drivers, police and ordinary citizens who helped immediately after the Las Ramblas attack led the march. They carried a street-wide banner with black capital letters reading “No Tinc Por,” which means “I’m not afraid” in the local Catalan language.

The phrase has grown from a spontaneous civic answer to violence into a slogan that Spain’s entire political class has unanimously embraced.

Spain’s central, regional and local authorities tried to send an image of unity Saturday by walking behind the emergency workers, despite earlier criticism that national and regional authorities had not shared information about the attackers well enough with each other.

In a first for a Spanish monarch, King Felipe VI joined a public demonstration, walking in Barcelona along with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other officials. A separate anti-violence rally was held in the northern town of Ripoll, home to many of the attackers.

Eight suspects in the attacks are dead, two are jailed under preliminary charges of terrorism and homicide and two more were freed by a judge but will remain under investigation.

 
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Britain’s main opposition Labour Party is announcing a policy shift which opens the possibility of the country remaining in the European Union’s single market and customs union for several years as part of a “soft” Brexit, a spokesman said on Saturday.

The party would propose the same “basic terms” as Britain’s current relationship with the EU during a transition period following Brexit in 2019, and after that for all options to be open, a spokesman for Labour said.

His comments came in response to a report in Britain’s Guardian and sister newspaper Observer in which shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer backed “continued membership of the EU single market beyond March 2019, when Britain leaves the EU,” so that Labour would become the party of a “soft Brexit” and offer a smoother economic outcome.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party would also “leave open the option of the UK remaining a member of the customs union and single market for good, beyond the end of the transitional period”, the paper said.

However, a longer-term arrangement would only be considered if a Labour government could by that point have persuaded the rest of the EU to “agree to a special deal on immigration and changes to freedom of movement rules,” the paper said.
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Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is also a former governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, has accused the authorities of Georgia and Ukraine of planning to accuse of planning a coup in Georgia.

Saakashvili wrote on Facebook on Saturday that the Georgian authorities “in complete coordination with officials in Ukraine” were planning to make the accusation soon.

“They promised [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko that they would file the charges before September 10,” he wrote.

Saakashvili said the charges would give Ukrainian authorities “a legal basis” for detaining him if he entered Ukraine.

He added that the charges were risible and politically motivated.

Earlier the same day, Nika Gvaramia, the head of Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television, said he believed charges of plotting a coup might be filed against Saakashvili.

Background

Saakashvili, 49, once a lauded pro-Western reformist, served two terms as Georgia’s president, from January 2004 to November 2013.

His popularity declined toward the end of his second term, in part because of a five-day war with Russia during which Moscow’s forces drove deep into the South Caucasus country, and his long-ruling party was voted out of power in a 2012 parliamentary election.

In 2015, Saakashvili forfeited his Georgian citizenship by accepting an offer from his old college friend, Poroshenko, to become governor of Ukraine’s southwestern Odessa Oblast province — a post that required Ukrainian citizenship.

Saakashvili, who harbors Ukrainian political ambitions, resigned as governor of Odessa in November 2016, complaining of official obstruction and corruption. He accused Poroshenko of dishonesty and said his central government had sabotaged democratic reforms required for membership to the European Union and NATO.
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Several people have reportedly been detained in Moscow at a sanctioned demonstration in support of internet freedom.

One demonstrator was detained on Saturday while wearing a T-shirt reading, “Putin is worse than Hitler,” referring to President Vladimir Putin.

Several other demonstrators were detained while wearing symbols supporting equal rights for the LGBT community.

Some at the rally, which had been approved by local officials, shouted, “Russia will be free,” and “Russia without censorship.”

According to Moscow officials, about 1,000 people attended the rally.

Similar demonstrations were held in several other Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Izhevsk and others.

Demonstrators were calling for changes to legislation restricting the internet that were included in the so-called Yarovaya package of laws — named after conservative State Duma member Irina Yarovaya.

Last month, Russia’s parliament approved legislation that forbids the use of certain web tools that allow internet users to access certain websites that have been banned by officials.

Protesters also called for the release of people jailed for purportedly disseminating “extremist” material via the internet and for the resignations of the leadership of Roskomnadzor, the state agency that monitors and regulates the internet.
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The EU’s commissioner for migration says Brussels may withhold development aid and impose trade and visa restrictions on migrant-source countries in Africa and Asia to force them to take back failed asylum-seekers.

In an interview with Britain’s The Times published Saturday, Dimitris Avramopoulos said EU chiefs “are considering stopping funding of major development projects. We invested in these regions to create opportunities and keep people there.”

He said countries which failed to cooperate with repatriations could face blanket visa restrictions. Germany recently threatened to withhold visas from the ruling elites of migrant-source countries that do not accept returnees.

But Avramopoulos appeared to indicate a much broader visa embargo is now being contemplated, saying “thousands of foreigners, from diplomats and doctors to students and researchers” would be impacted by the travel restrictions now under discussion.

“The EU is not afraid to make use of leverages in trade or visa policy. Let’s be honest: it is neither good for Africa nor for Europe that so many people cross the Mediterranean,” he said.

This is the first time EU commissioners have threatened to block access to European markets in response to a long-running migration crisis that’s roiling the continent and threatening to upend traditional party politics and empower populist nationalists.

The “hard borders” approach now being considered is being condemned by humanitarian NGOs, which often embrace a “no border” ideology.

On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron of France will chair talks featuring European and African leaders in Paris in a renewed bid to thrash out a more effective strategy to stem migrant flows. African leaders are likely to argue they need more development aid.

Italy’s dilemma

The following day EU national leaders will hold one of their regular summits in which the migration issue will figure prominently.  Both Italy and Germany have national elections in coming months and Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni and Germany’s Angela Merkel will likely want to show voters they are shutting down migrant routes.

Italy will push the EU to try to replicate with Libya a deal that was struck with Turkey last year, which largely shut down the migrant route through the Balkans. But analysts say such a deal would be unworkable when it comes to Libya given the lack of an effective central authority in the northern Africa state.

The migration influx has morphed into a political crisis for Italy’s left-leaning coalition government. In municipal elections earlier this year the coalition lost ground to center-right parties such as Matteo Salvini’s Northern League, which has called for a “stop to the invasion.”

Italy’s right-wing Forza Italia party has campaigned for the denial of landing rights to NGO ships carrying migrants. And even the maverick radical Five Star Movement is moving to an anti-immigrant position, calling for a halt to any new migrants being lodged in Rome.

Gentiloni has accused fellow EU nations of “looking the other way,” and not doing enough to assist Italy with the surge in migrants crossing the Mediterranean. A burden-sharing system across the EU has failed with just a few thousand taken off Italy’s hands by other EU member states.

Libya has become the main gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from across sub-Saharan Africa, and also from the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria and Bangladesh. Many are fleeing war and persecution, but most who are using Libya are seeking to escape poverty. Italy has become the main point of arrival of those rescued off the coast of Libya.

As the economic migration has grown, with only a small proportion of asylum-seekers coming from countries engulfed in war, so sentiment in Italy has shifted with Italians becoming enraged at the strain the influx is having on the country’s migrant facilities, which are now all full, and the appearance of migrants even in far-flung villages.

600,000 asylum seekers

This week, police evicted more than a hundred Eritreans and Ethiopians from an abandoned office building near Rome’s central railway station. The occupants — who had been given refugee status — complained that Italy doesn’t help asylum-seekers integrate, fails to house them and provide language classes.

In fact, the Italian authorities do, housing many in villages across the country, providing months-long language tuition and up to 45 euros a day per refugee. But many refugees bolt the system, preferring to live in large cities such as Rome, Naples, Milan and Bologna and to try their luck.

The sheer numbers — more than 600,000 asylum-seekers have entered Italy since 2014 — are overwhelming. And the assistance asylum-seekers do receive is increasingly infuriating ordinary Italians in villages migrants are sent to for temporary periods. “I don’t get that money from the government and we are struggling as well — we don’t have enough jobs for our kids and now migrant kids will be competing for the few jobs that are around,” says Anna-Maria Bianchi, a mother-of-two from a Lazio village just north of Rome.

The only good news as far as Italian authorities are concerned is that there has been a fall-off in the rate of new arrivals this August and July. Official figures show arrivals in Italy from North Africa dropped by more than 50 percent in July from a year earlier and August arrivals are down even further, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The decline is being put down to several factors — from changeable sea conditions to a heightened Libyan coastguard presence and a reduction in humanitarian rescue-refugee operations.  There are also several probes by Italian authorities, who say NGOs have been colluding with people-traffickers. 
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday the alliance would closely watch Russian military exercises in western Russia and Belarus next month, urging Moscow to be transparent about the drills.

The maneuvers, the largest in years, with tanks, naval and air units operating in and around the Baltic and North Sea, have raised NATO’s concern that the official number of troops participating might be understated.

‘Watching very closely’

“We are going to be watching very closely the course of these exercises,” Stoltenberg told reporters after meeting Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on a visit to check on the deployment of the U.S.-led alliance’s forces in the country’s east.

“All countries have the right to exercises of their armed forces, but the countries should also respect the obligation to be transparent.”

Russia has said that 13,000 troops will participate in the Sept. 14-20 drills, which under an international agreement is the limit for not requiring the presence of external observers. Western estimates have put the number of troops involved much higher.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday the drills were purely defensive and concerns about troop numbers were “inflated hype of an artificial nature” in Western media.

“We would like to emphasize that it is precisely these actions which lead to increased military tension in Europe,” the ministry said in a statement.

More meetings

Stoltenberg will meet with Polish, Turkish and Romanian foreign ministers later on Friday before visiting NATO troops in Poland’s Orzysz, about 57 kilometers (35 miles) south of Russia’s Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad, where Moscow has stationed nuclear-capable missiles and an S-400 air missile defense system.

“[The NATO deployment] is a clear signal that an attack on one ally is an attack on the whole alliance,” Stoltenberg said. “The matter here is to prevent conflicts and not to provoke them.”
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A man armed with a knife was detained Friday evening outside London’s Buckingham Palace, and two police officers were injured while arresting him, police said.

The Metropolitan Police force says two officers suffered minor injuries while detaining the suspect, who is being held on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and assaulting police.

Police said the officers did not require hospital treatment. No other injuries were reported.

A large number of police vehicles could be seen in the Mall, the wide road outside the palace.

Police said it was too early to say whether the incident was terrorism-related.

Buckingham Palace is one of London’s main tourist attractions, and the London home of Queen Elizabeth II.

The queen, however, usually spends August in Scotland at her Balmoral estate with family members.

Police stepped up patrols around major U.K. tourist sites after attacks with vehicles and knives earlier this year on Westminster Bridge, which is near Parliament, and London Bridge.

Buckingham Palace, which is surrounded by tall gates, has seen past security breaches. Last year, a man convicted of murder climbed a wall while the queen was at home, and was detained in the grounds.

In 1982, an intruder managed to sneak into the queen’s private chambers while she was in bed. Elizabeth spent 10 minutes chatting with him before calling for help.

A palace spokeswoman said the palace did not comment on security issues.
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A court in Azerbaijan on Friday jailed the head of an independent news agency pending an investigation on tax evasion charges, a move that the opposition denounced as an attack on the freedom of speech in the ex-Soviet nation.

The court in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, put Turan news agency director Mehman Aliyev in prison for three months. He was arrested on Thursday night.

Tax authorities have accused Aliyev of failing to pay the equivalent of nearly $22,000 in taxes in 2014-2016.

Turan has denied the charges. It said in a statement that its bank accounts have been blocked by authorities, forcing it to halt operations starting Sept. 1.

International rights groups have repeatedly criticized the oil-rich Caspian nation for cracking down on independent media and opposition activists.

The opposition Musavat party and National Council movement criticized Aliyev’s arrest as the latest attack on media freedom and called for his release.

“The tax agency has been used as a weapon against independent media,” the National Council said in a statement.

 
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A bitter exchange of words erupted between France and Poland on Friday after French President Emmanuel Macron sharply criticized Poland’s opposition to plans to change European Union rules on “posted workers” — the cheap labor from eastern countries sent to more prosperous EU nations.

On a trip Friday to Bulgaria, Macron said the Polish reluctance to reform the bloc’s labor rules is “an illustration of the mistakes made by this government.”

His comments came on the final leg of a three-day visit to Central and Eastern Europe that has included meetings with Austrian, Czech, Slovak and Romanian leaders but not with Polish officials.

“Poland has decided to isolate itself from Europe and its refusal to revise this directive doesn’t change my confidence in [getting] a positive outcome” on the rules change, Macron said, adding Poles “deserved better.”

“The [Polish] prime minister will have difficulty explaining why it’s good to pay the Poles badly,” Macron said.

Poland is the largest source of posted workers, about 300,000 to 400,000 a year. Critics say having posted workers leads to lower wages and fewer jobs for workers from wealthy nations and reduces the taxes coming in to fund social programs in wealthy nations.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo hit back, calling the French leader’s criticism “arrogant,” advising him to “mind the business of his own country.” She also accused France of trying to “take apart one of the pillars of the EU” — the free movement of workers among the bloc’s 28 nations.

“The future of Europe will not be decided by the president of France, or by any other individual leader, but jointly, by all the member states,” she said.

Later Friday, Poland’s deputy foreign minister urgently summoned a French diplomat to express his “indignation” over Macron’s criticism of the Polish government.

On Thursday, Szydlo vowed to defend “Poland’s interests and Poland’s workers,” but added that “all member states are putting their heads together” over the issue.

Posted workers, while abroad, continue to pay into the tax and social security systems of their home countries, allowing their employers to hire them for less than workers in Western countries where government taxes are generally higher. The largest number work in construction, but many also work caring for the elderly.

Macron, said Poland “cannot be the country that gives Europe its direction.”

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said it was important not to violate the EU’s basic principle of free movement when it considers changes to rules on posted workers. He said new rules should seek a balance between the older and newer EU members, such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania.

Radev said he shared Macron’s “anguish about social dumping.”

“Bulgaria is against all social security fraud,” he said.

Bulgaria’s prime minister said he regretted divisions that have emerged in the EU over the issue.

“Poland and Hungary are our friends and it is fatal that there is such confrontation in the European Union,” said Prime Minister Boyko Borisov Friday after talks with Macron.

Borisov said officials would discuss the issue with Szydlo when she visits Bulgaria in September. He said Bulgaria wanted a solution on posted workers before it takes over the rotating presidency of the EU on January 1, 2018.

An estimated few thousand Bulgarian workers have relocated to other EU states working in construction, trucking and shipbuilding.

Macron and Borisov also discussed business, investment and Europe’s passport-free Schengen travel zone, which Bulgaria wants to join. Bulgaria also wants to join the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international organization representing many of the globe’s advanced economies.

The leaders discussed defense issues and Bulgaria’s plans to upgrade its military, spending 1.8 billion euros ($2.12 billion) on new hardware between 2017 and 2029.

Scislowska reported from Warsaw, Poland. Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw also contributed to this report.
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Nearly 1,000 people were forced out of their jobs Friday in Turkey, joining more than 150,000 people who have been fired as part of an ongoing government crackdown following a failed coup last year. The opposition is increasingly rallying around two purged educators who have been on a hunger strike for more than five months.

“Semih, Nuriye, we are with you,” protesters chanted earlier this month in the heart of Istanbul. It was the latest show of support for Professor Nuriye Gulmen and schoolteacher Semih Ozakca, two protesters who are in their fifth month of a hunger strike over the firing of educators during the government crackdown.

The Istanbul protest did not last long. Dozens of heavily armed riot police and plainclothes police officers began making arrests. With the condition of the two hunger strikers deteriorating, the crackdown on their supporters is intensifying.

The interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, has ruled out concessions.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we are not sending our children to schools to be educated as terrorists. We can’t surrender our children to the hands of the terrorists for their education.”

Gulmen and Ozakca were fired for alleged ties to Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for masterminding the coup attempt. Like many people fired since the start of the crackdown, Gulmen and Ozakca say they are staunchly secular and oppose Gulen. Gulen denies the government’s accusation against him.

Gulmen and Ozakca, however, are critical of the government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. With their hunger strike becoming an increasing focal point of opposition to the crackdown, the two were jailed on terrorism charges.

Political scientist Cengiz Aktar says the crackdown on Gulmen and Ozakca and their supporters is driven by panic.

“It’s done out of irrationality and fear. They don’t realize by doing so, they are making these two unlucky fellows heroes,” Aktar said. “If they happen to die, which I really hope not, things will get worse. People will take up this issue more strongly. Others may follow suit. Other hunger strikers may follow suit, and it may become something uncontrollable.”

Protests in support of Gulmen and Ozakca continue. Their names can be seen in graffiti on walls and pavement in towns and cities across Turkey. Despite the risks, demonstrators remain defiant.

“I am extremely worried, I am so worried, even I am losing weight because I don’t enjoy existing while this is happening,” one woman said. “We will definitely find a way of continuing to exist. Not just exist, but to resist and get a strong win in the end. What we are fighting for is justice, human rights. It’s a good cause.”

Tensions are further fueled by reports that authorities are planning to force feed Gulmen and Ozakca.
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