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Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

reuters.com

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Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#381

Post by svilen_dobrev »

i did a racing-bicycle-with-saddlebags roundabout Marmara sea half an year ago for ~17days. And i am from next country, with somewhat partially related culture/history.

What i observed was that the more and bigger the red flags and Attaturk monuments there are, the better maintained (=funded) the town looked like. The most flashier sported a flag hanging from (near) every balcony, few 10 meter ones hanging from various towers, and several 3-5 meter high statues here or there. Those without any, looked like forgotten shacks.

One night, in Bandirma, there was a ruling-party-preelection event. (Busses bringing) jolly manifesting supporters, jolly horseriders, jolly motorbikers, jolly 4wds and monstertrucks, whatever. Usual rock-concerto after the speeches.

And, there are lots of construction works. Roads (doubling some). Factories. Buildings. Everything. And somewhat visible military presence. On unrelated places.

Some of these things smell familiar. It wasn't that different in my country 40y ago when it was named "People's Republic of"

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#382

Post by hyperman1 »

Hackbraten wrote: post #377
hyperman1 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get from PSD2 to Google/ Apple?

More and more banks have put their money on smartphone apps to implement the 2FA requirement that PSD2 mandates. Turns out that European banks really like that walled-garden thing. Some banks still allow you to use SMS but pressure is mounting to do away with SMS-based 2FA. Other 2FA solutions (e.g. national CAP schemes [0]) are on their way out, too. So are call centers, which used to let you do banking on the phone…

Didn't know that. Thanks. In Belgium, everyone has a card and an authenticator device so the problem doesn't occur.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#383

Post by n4r9 »

eru wrote: post #357
n4r9 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK's recent prime minister Boris Johnson was born in the US two British parents who happened to be studying in Manhatten at the time. They all moved back here a few months later. The idea that he could be some sort of US sleeper agent is hilarious, though.

Well, formally the Prime Minister is just some random bloke appointed by king to help him run the country. The PM doesn't even need to be a member of parliament! Now the king, that guy can't even be catholic! And until recently, couldn't even be female with living brothers.

Tradition does dictate that the PM is an MP, and tradition in UK parliament is pretty binding. However, an MP does not even need to be a British citizen: an Irish or a Commonwealth citizen can become an MP and go on to command the confidence of the house.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#384

Post by reisse »

Quarrel wrote: post #376
throwaway2037 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Arnie is a great example, especially because he was a governor for two terms for one of the richest and most populous states, California. If he was allowed to run for president, he would be an excellent candidate. As a modern compromise, I think the US should allow people who moved to the US before a certain again (maybe 10 or 12) or have lived in the US for 20+ years. If you want to go a little further, you…

> The Australia law caused a bunch of trouble in the last 10 years It has, although the case you mention isn't really my main worry. In theory some random rogue state (Hello North Korea!), can just grant all of the Australian parliament citizenship. Suddenly they're all ineligible under the constitution. That said, I assume modern scholars would make the definition more robust than the 19th C definitions used in Aust…

> In theory some random rogue state (Hello North Korea!), can just grant all of the Australian parliament citizenship. Suddenly they're all ineligible under the constitution.

It's funny how Russia, of all the countries, had this problem - there are a lot of immigrants from ex-USSR countries, and some of these countries make it very hard to relinquish citizenship. For example in Ukraine this is done only by a presidential order, after a long bureaucratic procedure, and the last such order was signed in 2021. So Russia had to invent a mechanism which allows to write an affidavit certifying you would not exercise any rights given to you by foreign citizenship, and with such an affidavit your citizenship is considered "effectively relinquished" by Russian authorities.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#385

Post by alephnerd »

weinzierl wrote: post #349
alephnerd wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the 2000s, depending on how overtly conservative you were and who was in govenenent (coups, counter-coups, and fits of "democracy" happened every couple years), you might not have been allowed to attend at all. An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. Unsurprisingly, once conservative Turkish politicians like Erd…

"go to Istanbul Airport sometime and count how many un-hijabed vs hijabed women work as the bathroom cleaning staff." Out of curiosity, what is the ratio?

Every single one I saw wore a hijab. The cleaning staff earned less than the customer facing shop and restaurant staff (who were almost all hijabless).

Istanbul Airport is right next to what used to be Istanbul's Dharavi (a megaslum). Most residents were migrants and ethnic minorities. This was also the neighborhood that Erdogan grew up in, and helped propel him to power.

A major reason he kept winning elections was because he enacted a massive urban housing program that helped convert those slums into normal neighborhoods with public services (and also helped siphon money to AKP aligned construction conglomerates).

And it's people from those backgrounds that were doing the menial work at IST (eg. cleaning staff)

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#386

Post by throw0101a »

r721 wrote: post #278

>Confirmed: Live metrics show #Turkey has restricted access to multiple social media platforms including X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok; the incident comes as Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and dozens of others are detained in events described by the opposition as a "coup" https://x.com/netblocks/status/1902230361968427206 >Turkey detains Istanbul mayor Imamoglu in corruption probe https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-detai…

> Prosecutors accused him of corruption and aiding a terrorist group, calling him a "criminal organisation leader suspect".

* https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yren8mxp8o

> Authorities also closed several roads around Istanbul and banned demonstrations in the city for four days in an apparent effort to prevent protests following Imamoglu’s arrest.

* https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/19/turkiye-police-deta...

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#387

Post by WOTERMEON »

kelnos wrote: post #298
breadwinner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

United States from the 1890s to the 1960s required voters to pass a literacy before they could vote. We should bring back this rule. Voters should have a minimum level of knowledge about the world, science and democracy in order to vote. This would have prevented the current disaster which threatens not just our democracy, but by denying climate change, the entire planet.

If you've seen some of the kinds of poll tests that were administered, especially during the Jim Crow era, you'd change your tune. These tests can very easily be structured to be ambiguous, and can be graded in such a way to disqualify whatever groups of people you want.

Right but now you can have ways to remove bias. Like automated assignment and grading

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#388

Post by alphazard »

It's interesting that people seem to think the problem is "politically motivated" revoking of degrees, rather than the degree requirement itself.

It's like no one thought even a single step ahead about the consequences of a degree requirement. It just moves power to the people that give out degrees. Some people are clearly only pretending not to understand this, but a significant amount seem to really not understand it.

This extends to other areas of economics and politics too, where most proposed systems only move or concentrate power and don't have the desired effect at all. I'm not sure where the educational failure here is. It seems like the only people that engage with these problems honestly and seriously are cryptocurrency developers and cryptographers. I would imagine mainstream economists are only pretending not to understand. Meanwhile some large fraction of the population really does think you can just declare by fiat that presidents have to be more educated and it will just work.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#389

Post by hattimaTim »

hagbard_c wrote: post #14
ReptileMan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

India is quite big. Any Indians around here want to comment on whether these shenanigans are common there? I have the impression they're not but maybe I'm wrong. Talking about India, Lex Fridman interviewed Modi [1] recently, worth a listen or read. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43405546

[dead]

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#390

Post by upofadown »

setopt wrote: post #112
upofadown wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they revoke someone's degree in either country? Do they break into someone's house and steal the piece of paper? A degree is awarded by the institution but I don't see how they could then claim that they did not meet the requirements for the degree retroactively absent some proof of academic misconduct. What possible difference would such a renovation make to anyone outside the university?

> What possible difference would such a renovation make to anyone outside the university? In some places, potential employers call the university to verify that you have the degree you claimed to prevent fraud. If so, the university can simply tell them the degree had been revoked thus blocking you from a job offer if it requires it.

Sure but wouldn't the institution have to justify the revocation? If it was, say, due to supporting the wrong faction in the Middle East the employer might not support the revocation. Without justification, couldn't the degree holder sue the institution for some sort of defamation?
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