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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made no secret of his desire to extend his campaign to suppress criticism and dissent beyond Turkeys borders. But now, his government is leaning on the management of Twitter to do his dirty work for him, by demanding that the company silence an American expert in Washington.

Michael Rubin, an outspoken scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has been a thorn in the side of the Erdogan government and his Justice and Development Party for many years. Rubin has also been the target of a lawsuit filed by the Turkish president in Turkey accusing him of making insults and supporting a terrorist organization.

Now, Erdogan is taking his effort to squelch Rubins criticism to a new level. Twitter notified Rubin on Monday that it had received a court order from Turkey demanding the shutdown of his Twitter feed, on the grounds thatit had violated the personal rights of the Turkish president.

The court order, dated June 16, said that Twitter had seven days to comply, appeal, or face various consequences under Turkish law, including possible fines. On June 26, Twitters legal team alerted Rubin of the court order, saying the company was still evaluating its options. Aspokesperson for Twitter declined to comment further on the case and said the only reason an account would be suspended is if it violates Twitters rules. As of Wednesday, Rubins Twitter feed was still active.

Erdogan has threatened Twitter before. In 2014, he restricted access in Turkey to the social media site, after users began spreading recordings that purported to reveal admissions of corruption by Erdogan and his inner circle. Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, suggested a complete ban on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

We will wipe out all of these, he said at a rally. The international community can say this, can say that. I dont care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is.

Rubin makes no apologies for his very public criticism of Erdogan, his party, his alleged corruption and his crackdown inside Turkey on freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and all manner of political dissent. Since last years attempted military coup against Erdogan, Rubin has stepped up his activity. This year, he began tweeting in Turkish and writing articles using information sourced to members of the Turkish opposition and even Turkish journalists who have been banned inside Turkey or chased out of the country.

Its a test case for Twitter, because there are a lot of journalists in exile who have taken to Twitter, Rubin told me. If Twitter were to cave to this, it would have a chilling effect on diaspora journalism, not just with regard to Turkey.

Just three months before the coup attempt, Rubin wrote an article entitled, Will there be a coup against Turkey? which speculated that discontent among some parts of the military might spill over into an attempt to oust Erdogan. That was a lucky guess, admittedly, he said.

Since the coup, Rubin has doubled down on his criticism of Erdogans clampdown on civil society and his attempts to press the United States for extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric in exile in Pennsylvania whom Erdogan accuses of orchestrating the coup.

Last month, Rubin tweeted in Turkish: To support Erdogan is not to support Islam or Turkish dignity. Supporting Erdogan means supporting corruption and Turkeys collapse. Just last week, Rubin tweeted out a link to a Dropbox file that contains a document spelling out a counter-narrative to Erdogans claims about the coup attempt, written by secular nationalist military officers who dispute the official account.

Rubin has received death threats from pro-Erdogan Twitter users, but he has no intention of stopping, he said.

Hes an Ottoman snowflake; he cant handle criticism whatsoever, he said. Just because he can make people shut up inside Turkey doesnt mean he can stop all discourse outside Turkey.

Viewed in isolation, the Erdogan governments campaign against Rubin seems petty and overbearing. But his story is not an isolated event. The Turkish government is pushing the limits of attacking external critics all over the world.

In March, the Turkish government pressured Germany to prosecute a comic who made a satirical video insulting Erdogan. German Chancellor Angela Merkel received criticism for allowing the investigation to go forward under a little-used law criminalizing insults to foreign leaders. Ultimately, prosecutors declined to press charges.

In April, a Turkish prosecutor opened an investigation into whether 17 foreign nationals were involved in instigating last years coup, including former CIA director John Brennan, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.

During Erdogans visit to Washington in May, members of his personal security detail were reportedlycaught on videobeating up peaceful protesters in a public park. The D.C. police department later charged several members of Erdogans security team for the alleged assaults.

The Turkish Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

If Twitter does what Erdogan wants, that would set a dangerous precedent and not just in Turkey. What the new generation of autocrats wants is to be able to suppress criticism not only at home but also around the world.

Gaye Gunes contributed reporting to this article.

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Turkey wants Twitter's help in suppressing an American critic - Washington Post

The Latest on the lead-up to the G-20 summit in Hamburg (all times local):

9:40 a.m.

Germany's foreign minister says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked permission to hold a rally to address Turks in Germany on the sidelines of the upcoming G-20 meeting in Hamburg, a request that could further inflame tensions between Berlin and Ankara.

The dpa news agency reported Thursday that Sigmar Gabriel said, while on a trip to Russia, that Turkey had officially requested permission for Erdogan to make the appearance while in Germany for the July 7-8 summit. It wasn't clear whether permission would be granted.

German local authorities' banning of campaign rallies by Turkish ministers earlier this year contributed to tensions between the two countries, which were also inflamed by other issues like Turkey's jailing of two German journalists.

9:35 a.m.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she hopes for a "clear signal" from next week's Group of 20 summit in favor of free markets and against isolationism.

Merkel told the German parliament Thursday that "protectionism cannot be a solution" to the world's problems. She said she also hopes for a commitment to the multilateral trade system when the leaders of the G-20 economic powers meet in Hamburg July 7-8.

The Trump administration's "America first" approach to trade has caused widespread concern elsewhere, as has its decision to withdraw from the Paris accord on climate change.

Merkel said that discussions about climate issues in Hamburg won't be easy and there is no point glossing over disagreements.

She added that those talks must "serve the substance and aims of the Paris accord."

9:20 a.m.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the European Union is "more determined than ever" to make the Paris accord against climate change a success following the U.S. decision to withdraw from the agreement.

Merkel stressed in a speech to the German parliament Thursday that the EU stands fully behind its commitment to the agreement. She said that "the Paris agreement is irreversible and it is not negotiable."

Merkel will host a summit of the leaders of the Group of 20 economic powers in Hamburg on July 7-8.

Ahead of that summit, she is hosting a meeting of the European leaders who will take part in the summit later Thursday at the chancellery in Berlin.

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The Latest: Erdogan wants to address rally in Germany - ABC News

Ten months in prison have provided Ahmet Altan with plenty of time to pore over the evidence meant to link him and his brother Mehmet to a plot aiming to overthrow the Turkish government.

His work as a journalist aside, he eventually concluded, the states proof rested on a single assertion.

We are said to know the men who are alleged to know the men who are alleged to have directed the coup, he told the judge as his trial began last week. I believe this summary sounds ridiculous even to you.

The Altan brothers, a pair of prominent columnists who have been held in pretrial detention since their arrest in September, are among the 150 journalists and writers jailed in Turkey following a failed coup attempt last summer.

Together with Nazli Ilicak, a veteran journalist and commentator, the brothers are accused of complicity in the coup and acting on behalf of a terrorist organization charges they deny. They each face three aggravated life sentences plus another 15 years in prison.

Ahead of last weeks trial, the press freedom advocacy group Article 19 criticized the charges as politically motivated.

State prosecutors, on the other hand, claim the brothers were sending subliminal messages in a television show hosted by Ilicak, which aired the day before the attempted coup. On the program, the journalists had criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Mehmet Altan had commented on Turkeys long history of military coups.

We are said to know the men who are alleged to know the men who are alleged to have directed the coup. journalist Ahmet Altan

This, prosecutors say, is proof that they knew of the plot that would unfold the following night, during which a faction of the military took over bridges and airports, bombed parliament and killed more than 240 people.

After the coup, the state arrested thousands of civil servants and fired many more, arguing they had links to the coups supposed mastermind, the Pennsylvania-based imam Fethullah Glen. Soon, however, the purge spread to include academics, writers, journalists, politicians and critics of any affiliation.

Rights groups have urged Turkey to release all journalists to little avail. Erdogan and his ministers have repeatedly claimed that there are no journalists in prison at least not for their reporting.

Only two of the 177 people in prison who declared their profession to be journalism have yellow press cards, Erdogan said earlier this month, referring to the government-issued press accreditation, which critical and Kurdish journalists are often denied.

One of these 177 is in prison for murder, while the rest are there because of their ties to terrorist organizations, he said.

Turkey has a long history of putting journalism on trial, imprisoning reporters under successive military regimes as well as under Erdogans AKP government. In the past decade, Erdogan himself has sued thousands of critics for insulting him, among them many journalists.

The precise number of journalists currently in Turkish prisons varies: Most press freedom groups say that at least 150 editors, reporters and columnists are behind bars, while some put the number above 200.

Either estimate crowns Turkey the worlds leading jailer of journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey accounted for a third of all journalists imprisoned worldwide in 2016.

Most of those journalists were arrested after the coup attempt, and are awaiting trial. Few have made an appearance before the court. Many have yet to learn the exact charges against them. As of June, no journalist charged with links to the coup plotters has been convicted of a crime.

Many more editors and reporters have found themselves unemployed. An estimated 2,500 media workers lost their jobs since the attempted coup as more than 160 media outlets were shuttered by decree.

Besides media conglomerates linked to Glen, Kurdish outlets have also been hit hard. They, at least, are used to crackdowns: In the past, Kurdish journalists in particular often ended up on trial for terror propaganda if seen to write or speak sympathetically about the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought the Turkish state for decades.

But since the failed coup, virtually every journalist arrested has been accused of terror-related crimes, as the government has declared Glens opaque movement a terrorist organization meaning that anyone accused of even the slightest links to the group or the coup attempt will face terror charges.

The evidence against them is often paper-thin, or based on their work for media organizations associated with Glens movement. The indictments against many journalists, including the Altan brothers and Nazli Ilicak, include their professional contacts and correspondence with suspected Glen supporters as proof of their guilt.

All my relationships with the people that you mention were within the framework of my job as a journalist, Ilicak said in her defense statement last Monday, her voice rising in anger. At the time she spoke with them, she added, they were not yet declared members of a terrorist organization.

Only two of the 177 people in prison who declared their profession to be journalism have yellow press cards.One of these 177 is in prison for murder, while the rest are there because of their ties to terrorist organizations." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The courtrooms public gallery was crowded with press freedom advocates, journalists and relatives last week. Together with the Altan brothers and Ilicak, more than a dozen other journalists were on trial, albeit on slightly different charges. The majority were fugitives, tried in absentia.

Few observers thought they would be granted a fair trial. Turkeys courts, weakened by the sacking of some 4,000 judges and prosecutors, have gradually lost their independence.

Judges who rule in favor of defendants charged with links to the coup attempt risk losing their jobs. Earlier this year, a court ordered the release of several journalists a decision that was swiftly reversed, followed by the suspension of the judges involved.

Observers were therefore not surprised when, on Friday evening, the court decided to keep Ilicak and the Altan brothers in pretrial detention until their trial resumes in September.

The judge made no other comment before adjourning, but his decision to keep the journalists in jail signaled that he sided with the prosecutor ruling that bail could not be granted given the existence of a flight risk and strong suspicion of a crime having been committed.

Zia Weise reported from Istanbul.

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Turkey jails more journalists than any other nation. Those in detention are all terrorists, Erdogan says. - PRI

The Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has seized control of at least 50 Syriac churches, monasteries, and cemeteries in Mardin province, report media sources from Turkey:

The Turkish-Armenian daily Agos reports:

In 2016, the Transfer, Liquidation and Redistribution Committee of Mardin Governorate transferred to primarily the Treasury as well as other relevant public institutions numerous churches, monasteries, cemeteries and other assets of the Syriac community in the districts of Mardin.

The Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation appealed to the decision yet the liquidation committee rejected their appeal last May. The churches, monasteries and cemeteries whose ownerships were given to the Treasury were then transferred to the Diyanet.

Inquiries of the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation revealed that dozens of churches and monasteries had been transferred to the Treasury first and then allocated to the Diyanet. And the cemeteries have been transferred to the Metropolitan Municipality of Mardin. The maintenance of some of the churches and monasteries are currently being provided by the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation and they are opened to worship on certain days. Similarly, the cemeteries are still actively used by the Syriac community who visits them and performs burial procedures. The Syriacs have appealed to the Court for the cancellation of the decision.

"We started to file lawsuits and in the meantime our enquiries continued" said Kuryakos Ergn, the Chairman of Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation. Ergn said they would appeal to the court for the cancellation of nearly 30 title deed registries.

Included in the seizure is the 1600-year-old Mor Gabriel Monastery:

In the petition filed to the court it has been noted that the properties subject to the court case had been, since ancient times, under the possession and ownership of the Foundation and the significance of Mor Gabriel Monastery has been underlined; "Its history dates back to the 4th century AD. The Monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in the world which is still active and is one of the most ancient religious centers of Syriacs and the entire world with its history of more than 1600 years.

Midyat Syriac Deyrulumur Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation had been established on the basis of the imperial order of Sultan Abdlmecid Han during the Ottoman Empire in 1267 Islamic calendar (1851/1852 Gregorian calendar) and its status was redefined, became a legal entity, on the basis of the Foundations Law of 13.06.1935 with no 2762.

The Foundation had been recognised as "a religious community foundation" on the basis of a Regulation issued in 2002 by the Directorate General of Foundation and was included in the List of Religious Community Foundations drafted same year. Foundations that I'm not included in this list are in not recognised as religious community foundations."

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Erdogan Seizes 50 Syriac Churches and Monasteries, Declares Them Turkish State Property - PJ Media

On a sweltering afternoon in Istanbul last summer, loud noises woke the Turkish novelist Asl Erdoan from a nap. Open, police! Open, or we will break the door, a voice called. When Erdoan, an award-winning writer, unlocked her door, the cold muzzle of an automatic rifle was placed against her chest. Soldiers in black masks and bulletproof vests barged in, shouting Clean! as they moved through each room. Erdogan, who is fifty years old, was alone in her apartment. The men, Turkish special forces soldiers, left after the arrival of dozens of members of the Turkish counterterrorism forces. As Erdoan watched, men scoured every corner of her apartment. Erdoan, who is not related to the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, was informed that she was going to be charged with supporting terrorism. The basis for the criminal case, she was told, was her five years of writing articles and serving on the advisory board of a daily newspaper, zgr Gndem , which the Turkish government said was linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, and which was shut down in 2016 but later remerged under a different name. After spending seven hours searching through the thirty-five hundred books in Erdoans home library, the officers took six books on Kurdish history with them as evidence.

Later, the judge asked me about those books, Erdoan recalled in an interview earlier this month, in Istanbul. Is it a crime to read about Kurds in this country? Arent they a part of this nation? Not to read about them should be a crime, she said, as she calmly smoked a cigarette.

When Erdoan was arraigned before a judge and told the charges she faced, she fainted. She was charged under Article 302 of the Turkish penal code: disrupting the unity and integrity of the state. She was held in solitary confinement for the next five daysthe first two of which she was deprived of waterand then jailed with other female prisoners. On Erdoans hundred and thirty-third day in prison, she was given her first opportunity to defend herself in court. Looking thin and tired, she delivered a statement to the judge hearing her case: I will read my testimony as if there is still rule of law in this country, she declared. The courtroom microphone was off, though, and the journalists present could barely hear her. Later that night, Erdoan was released from the Bakrky state prison, in Istanbul, to a cheering crowd of family and friends. She is out of prison but barred from travelling outside the country, and her trial resumed last week. It was her fourth court appearance since December. She faces a life sentence if convicted.

In a separate trial that began last week, seventeen journalists stand accused of serving as the media arm of the failed July, 2016, coup . They include Ahmet Altan, age sixty-seven, a prominent novelist and journalist; and his younger brother, Mehmet Altan, sixty-four, a distinguished academic and the author of forty books. Prosecutors initially accused the Altans of sending subliminal messages to the plotters of the failed coup. It was the first time in my career that I heard this term, their lawyer, Veysel Ok, told me, smiling. It was probably so for the prosecutor who wrote the indictment as well.

All told, the brothers have spent nearly three hundred days in jail awaiting trial. Based on the charges currently filed against them, the brothers each face three life sentences if convicted. They stand accused of attempting to overthrow the Turkish Grand National Assembly, attempting to overthrow the Government of Turkey, attempting to abolish the constitutional order, and committing crimes on behalf of an armed terrorist organization without being a member. Prosecutors are using phone records, and articles the Altans wrote about various topics, among other things, as evidence against them. The oldest article dates back to 2012, four years before last summers failed coup. After five consecutive days of hearings, the judge ruled last Friday to continue the pretrial detention of all defendants. The trial is adjourned until September 19th.

Writing in Turkeychronicling current events in particularhas always been a dangerous undertaking. But the crackdown carried out by the Turkish government since the failed coup is the largest one in decades. There are an estimated hundred and sixty-five journalists, writers, and other members of the media behind bars in Turkey today. The government has shuttered close to a hundred and seventy-nine newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and TV channels. Turkey ranks a hundred and fifty-fifth, out of a hundred and eighty nations, in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders. Government officials can call a media ban at any time, severely crippling peoples access to information. Access to Wikipedia is currently blocked nationwide. Access to Twitter and YouTube has been blocked in the past.

Cumhuriyet , one of Turkeys oldest newspapers, and one of its few remaining opposition-news outlets, is also under assault. In a separate trial, set to begin July 24th, nineteen staff membersmost of whom have been held in pretrial detention since Octoberwill stand trial, accused of links to terrorist organizations.

Eugene Schoulgin, a seventy-six-year-old Norwegian novelist and the vice-president of PEN International, has observed the trials of journalists, human-rights activists, and writers in Turkey over the last twenty-five years, and said that his meetings with government officials and civil-society groups during his most recent trip, in February, left him bereft. There was a time when I had found a glimpse of light. Turkey was a country which I imagined was going, although slowly, in a democratic direction, Schoulgin said in an e-mail. What I saw was both the same as in many years yet at the same time something completely new. In the short run, I have nearly no hope for Turkey.

Other segments of Turkish society have been targeted as well. An estimated forty-seven thousand people have been arrested since the failed coup. At least a hundred and forty-five thousand people working in various fieldseducation, law enforcement, civil-society institutionshave been fired or suspended from their jobs. Many Turks today live in a constant state of vigilance. Who might be targeted next?

The state of emergency that overrides certain judicial procedures and was declared after the coup as a temporary measure is still in effect. Last month, President Erdoan said that it would be lifted when the country achieved welfare and peace. Ok, the Altan brothers attorney, told me that new regulations on prison conditions have gone into effect as well. He said that lawyerswho previously had unlimited access to their clientsare now entitled to one video-monitored hour a week, with a guard standing by.

During the interview, Asl Erdoans hands were seldom still, either motioning while she spoke or cupping a pack of tobacco. At her trial this week, she demanded the right to travel abroad, which was granted. But it remains unclear whether the government will return her passport. In September, she is to receive the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, in Germany; previous winners include the Belarusian investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich and the Syrian poet Ali Ahmad Said Esber, who uses the pen name Adonis. With the travel ban, the humiliation lingers, Erdoan said. Her trial will continue on October 31st.

After her release from prison, Erdoan told me, she didnt return to her apartment for several months. Nightmares hindered her ability to write. In prison, she reread poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Celan, and from the prison library she borrowed Shoah, the text of Claude Lanzmanns documentary about survivors of the Holocaust, from 1985. Some of her own books were available at the prison library, too. Lately, her work has found new readers at home and abroad, and the Times profiled her this spring. Her book The Stone Building and Other Places will be published in the U.S. in November.

At the end of our interview, I asked Erdoan about her state of mind. I keep asking myself, What is this hatred that this country has toward its writers? she said. If a country has begun to be fearful of its writers, it means it has a serious problem with facing reality. Only heavily totalitarian regimes burden themselves with their writers. By cutting off the writer, the academic, the journalist of your countryyou actually cut off your own language. So, I ask: What is this hatred about? By hating me, you actually show the hate you have for yourself. Because I am you. Whether you like it or not. I am Turkey. Whether you accept it or not, we are the language and the conscience of this country.

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Turkey's Writers Face Yet More Trials - The New Yorker