Around the World briefs
By Associated Press
Turkey formally opens another former Byzantine-era church as a mosque
ANKARA, Turkey | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan formally opened a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque on Monday, four years after his government had designated it a Muslim house of prayer, despite criticism from neighboring Greece.
Turkey formally converted The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, into a mosque in 2020, soon after it similarly turned Istanbul’s landmark Haghia Sophia into a Muslim house of prayer.
Both conversions drew praise from Muslim faithful but criticism from Greece and other countries who had urged Turkey to protect the important Byzantine-era monuments. Both are listed as U.N. World Heritage Sites.
Like Haghia Sophia, which was a church for centuries and then a mosque for centuries more, the Chora had operated as a museum for decades before it was ordered turned into a mosque. The Chora’s formal launch as a mosque, however, was delayed as the structure then underwent restoration.
Erdogan on Monday remotely presided over a ceremony marking the opening of the Chora — as well as other recently-restored structures — from a conference hall at his palace complex in Ankara.
“May it bring good fortune,” Erdogan said during the televised event.
Musa Tombul was among the first worshippers to pray inside.
“I have been waiting for its opening for four years,” he told the state-run Anadolu Agency. “I was honored to pray in such a place.”
“We thank God for showing us these days,” Anadolu quoted another worshiper, Haydar Senbahar, as saying. “Hopefully, we will come here from time to time and perform our prayers.”
The church, situated near Istanbul’s ancient city walls, is famed for its elaborate mosaics and frescoes. It dates to the fourth century, although the edifice took on its current form in the 11th-12th centuries.
The structure served as a mosque during Ottoman rule before being transformed into a museum in 1945.
Greece had criticized the Turkish government’s decision to turn it back into a mosque, accusing Ankara of “insulting the character” of another World Heritage Site.
The decisions to transform Haghia Sophia and the Chora back into mosques were seen as moves geared to consolidate the conservative and religious support base of Erdogan’s ruling party amid an economic downturn.
In 2020, Erdogan joined hundreds of worshipers for the first Muslim prayers in Hagia Sophia in 86 years, brushing aside international criticism and calls for the monument to be kept as a museum. As many as 350,000 took part in the prayers outside the structure.
Thailand’s prime minister wants
to outlaw cannabis, two years
after it was decriminalized
BANGKOK | The prime minister of Thailand, the first country in Asia to legalize cannabis two years ago, said Wednesday that he wants to outlaw the drug again amid concerns that the lack of regulation had made it available to children and increased crimes.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin wrote on the social media platform X that he asked the Health Ministry to amend its list of narcotics to again include cannabis, and issue new rules to allow its use for medical purposes only.
Srettha also ordered local authorities to suppress criminal activities linked to the illegal drug trade and demanded to see progress within 90 days.
After cannabis was decriminalized in 2022, it was initially said that it would be allowed only for medicinal use, but in practice the market was unregulated. It has prompted public backlash and concerns over misuse and crime.
Decriminalization was spearheaded by the Bhumjaithai Party, whose stronghold is in the impoverished northeast where it promised farmers cannabis would be a new cash crop.
In the 2023 elections, all major parties — including Bhumjaithai — promised to restrict cannabis for medical use.
Cannabis advocates and entrepreneurs have opposed a radical rollback, which they claimed would be damaging to the economy. Legal cannabis has fueled Thailand’s tourism and farming sectors and spawned thousands of cannabis retails ranging from shops, trucks to market stalls all over the country.
Australian woman denies murdering her former husband’s relatives with poisonous mushroom lunch
MELBOURNE, Australia | A woman accused of serving her ex-husband’s family poisonous mushrooms pleaded not guilty in an Australian court on Tuesday to three charges of murder and five charges of attempted murder.
Erin Patterson, 49, appeared briefly in Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court by video link from a Melbourne prison, where she has been held since her arrest in November last year. She is accused of killing her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.
All three died in a hospital days after consuming a meal at Patterson’s home in July.
She pleaded not guilty to all charges and will appear at Victoria state’s Supreme Court in Melbourne for the first time on May 23.
Proceedings have been fast-tracked after Patterson dispensed with a committal hearing where a magistrate would have examined the prosecution’s case to ensure there is sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial.
She has not applied to be released on bail during any of her four court appearances.
Erin Patterson is also accused of the attempted murder of her ex-husband, Simon, at that lunch and on three previous occasions dating back to 2021. Simon Patterson did not accept an invitation to attend the lunch.
She has also been charged with the attempted murder of Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkinson.
Ian Wilkinson spent seven weeks in a hospital following the lunch.
Police say the symptoms of the four sickened family members were consistent with poisoning from wild Amanita phalloides, known as death cap mushrooms.
Erin Patterson could face up to 25 years in prison for each attempted murder charge, while murder in the state of Victoria carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Italy’s RAI journalists strike over budget streamlining, complain of censorship and media repression
ROME | Some journalists at Italy’s state-run RAI went on strike Monday to protest budget streamlining and what they said was an increasingly repressive atmosphere in Italy for media under the government of Premier Giorgia Meloni.
The 24-hour RAI strike is the latest protest by Italian journalists against what they say are threats to freedom of the press and expression in Italy, including criminal investigations of journalists and suspected episodes of censorship. Not all journalists participated and RAI newscasts were still airing, though in a somewhat reduced form.
RAI, which controls Italy’s three main public TV channels, has said it is working to transform itself into a modern digital media company and cannot make new hires. In a statement responding to the strike, it said RAI isn’t putting at risk any of the rights or jobs of current staff and is “ever more committed to safeguarding the values of pluralism and freedom of expression.”
The strike came just days after the media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders downgraded Italy five notches in its annual index of press freedom. At No. 46 out of 180, Italy moved into the “problematic” category of countries alongside other EU members Poland and Hungary.
Among other things, RSF cited reports of a proposed acquisition of Italian news agency AGI by a lawmaker of the League party, a coalition partner in Meloni’s right-wing government. The lawmaker already controls three conservative dailies. Last month, AGI journalists went on strike to protest the proposed sale from state-controlled ENI.
RAI television journalists, and RAI radio journalists two weeks ago, are protesting company budget tightening, including hiring freezes, job elimination by attrition and staff reorganization. They say the streamlining has the ultimate aim of “reducing RAI to becoming the megaphone of the government.”
“I am very concerned about what is happening in Italy,” said Daniele Macheda, secretary of the union USIGRAI. At a news conference Monday at the foreign press association, Macheda called the AGI case in particular “a symptom of a system that doesn’t work and risks bringing into difficulty an asset of democracy, which is free and independent information.”
RAI was in the news recently over an episode of alleged censorship when it abruptly canceled a planned monologue by an antifascist writer to air April 25, when Italy commemorates its liberation from fascist rule. The text was highly critical of Meloni, whose party traces its origins in Italy’s neo-fascist movement.
RAI said the contract was canceled for financial reasons. Meloni herself posted the text on her Facebook account, but she has also criticized RAI’s investigative reporting. Most recently, she publicly attacked RAI over an investigative program about the migration deal she struck with Albania to build two migrant processing centers there. The deal has been criticized by left-wing opposition parties and human rights groups.
“Help me send to (Prime Minister) Edi Rama and the Albanian people our solidarity for having been lynched for having merely helped our country,” Meloni told her Brothers of Italy party at a campaign rally April 28.
Journalists in Italy, including at RAI, have long lamented the use of threatened or real defamation lawsuits or criminal complaints by politicians, businesspeople and others who are the subject of investigative reporting.
In recent weeks, the editor of Domani newspaper, Emilio Fittipaldi, was summoned to answer questions by members of Italy’s anti-mafia parliamentary commission about a criminal probe into the source of media leaks about top politicians. Three Domani journalists are currently under criminal investigation by prosecutors in Perugia for their reporting on Meloni’s defense minister and risk jailtime if convicted.
—From AP reports
