ANKARA: Turkey on Saturday renamed the road where the new US embassy is to be located after the American black Muslim civil rights campaigner Malcolm X, its latest use of a politically-loaded name for the street of a foreign mission.
The new embassy building, located in the Cukurambar district on the western outskirts of Ankara, is on what is currently named 1478 Street.
But a meeting of the Ankara city council unanimously decided to change the name to Malcolm X Street.
According to the construction contractors BL Harbert, the new complex is due to be finished in 2020.
The name change comes after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who regards himself as a champion of rights for Muslims around the world, met the daughters of Malcolm X on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last month.
The statement by the Ankara municipality noted that Erdogan had promised to the daughters that the name of Malcolm X would “live on” in the Turkish capital.
Turkey has on two occasions in recent months changed the name of embassy streets in Ankara to press home a political point.
In February, the street in Ankara where the current US embassy is located was renamed Olive Branch (Zeytin Dali in Turkish) Street after Turkey’s offensive against a Kurdish militia inside Syria that alarmed Washington.
And a similar step was taken when tensions with the United Arab Emirates flared after Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan retweeted a post on Twitter critical of the former Ottoman rulers of the region.
In response, Ankara renamed the street where the UAE embassy is located after the Ottoman governor of the time.
Malcolm X, who remains a hero for many blacks and Muslims in the United States, was assassinated in 1965 by gunmen with links to the the same radical black pride group that he joined in the 1950s.
Turkey changes road name for new US embassy to ‘Malcolm X Street’
Turkey changes road name for new US embassy to ‘Malcolm X Street’
- The change after Turkish President Erdogan met the daughters of Malcolm X during the UN General Assembly in New York
Amnesty says Algeria unlawfully returned Tunisia asylum seeker
- Amnesty International said Makhlouf was handed over to Tunisian police on January 18 without prior notice to him or his lawyers, in a move the group called “unlawful refoulement”
TUNIS: Global rights group Amnesty accused Algerian authorities on Monday of breaching international law by forcibly returning a political dissident to Tunisia, even though he was a registered asylum seeker.
Seifeddine Makhlouf, a former parliamentarian and critic of Tunisian President Kais Saied, was reportedly sentenced to prison for “plotting against state security” before his return to the North African country.
Makhlouf, who is the leader of the Al Karama party, sought asylum in Algeria in July 2024 after facing detention in Tunisia, and registered as an asylum seeker with the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Amnesty International said Makhlouf was handed over to Tunisian police on January 18 without prior notice to him or his lawyers, in a move the group called “unlawful refoulement.”
“Makhlouf’s forced return is a violation of the principle of non-refoulement,” Amnesty’s MENA deputy chief Sara Hashash said in a statement published by the group.
“By handing him over to Tunisian authorities without allowing him any opportunity to contest the decision or assessing the risks he faces in Tunisia... Algeria has breached its obligations under international human rights law, including the Refugee Convention,” she added.
Saied froze parliament in July 2021 and seized far-reaching executive powers in what critics have called a “coup.”
Since then, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Amnesty said Makhlouf was later imprisoned in Algeria for irregular entry and placed in administrative detention, during which he was denied access to the UN refugee agency.
The rights group said Makhlouf was arrested upon his arrival in Tunisia to serve sentences handed down in his absence.
Reports said a Tunisian court sentenced Makhlouf on January 13 to five years in prison for “plotting against state security.”
The Amnesty statement called for “verdicts rendered in absentia to be quashed and for a new and fair trial to be held before an independent and impartial court.”
Hashash warned that Makhlouf’s case reflects wider regional repression, calling his extradition “particularly alarming given the escalating crackdown on dissent in Tunisia, where the judiciary has been increasingly weaponized to silence political opposition.”
She said that Algeria’s actions “set a dangerous precedent,” adding that “bilateral cooperation now takes precedence over the most fundamental principles of international human rights and refugee law.”
