The Turkish Prime Ministry announced on Wednesday they had responded to the deadly cross-border shelling from Syria by immediately firing back on Syrian army positions. Parliament also passed a motion allowing the government to send troops abroad if necessary amidst a flurry of international responses.

According to the report by the Assembly for Worker Health and Work Security, at least 83 workers died in September.

An artillery shell fired from Syria during the clashes between government forces and the Free Syrian Army there landed on a house in the district of Akçakale in the southeastern province of Urfa today. A mother and her four children lost their lives, while another 13 people were injured. Akçakale Mayor Ayhan complained about the frequency of bombs landing in the area due to the ongoing conflict across the border.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) refused to provide accreditation for a number of dissident dailies to attend its party congress on Sunday. The move drew sharp criticism from journalist associations, while columnist and IPI member Kadri Gürsel called it an act of discrimination.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) emphasized nationalist and islamic references during a party congress over the weekend, but Associate Prof. Cengiz Aktar from Bahçeşehir University believes the AKP’s grasroots constituency has other ideas.

Police arrested B.B., a 15 year old high school student, for participating in a demonstration involving the use of molotov cocktails in August. B.B. has already spent nearly a month behind bars, while the only “evidence” officials have cited for his arrest is that his cell phone was turned off at the time of the demonstration.

An Istanbul court ruled to sentence two prison guards and a warden to life-time imprisonment in the case of journalist Engin Çeber who was tortured to death while under custody in 2008.

The court delegation ordered defendant lawyers out of the courtroom in the ongoing Istanbul Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) suit yesterday. Following the lawyers’ objections, gendarmerie troops then forcibly expelled them outside.

Some 20 mainstream daily newspapers in Turkey issued a declaration against the publication or airing of their news reports by internet sites, news portals and broadcasting stations. Such a move would push internet publications back into the underground, the Federation of Internet Media and Informatics (İMEF) cautioned however.

The International Publishers Association (IPA) has called on Turkish authorities to drop the charges against Ragıp Zarakolu, a publisher and a Nobel Peace Prize candidate nominee, as well as his son Deniz Zarakolu who is currently serving jail time.

A court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır ruled to release anthropologist Müge Tuzcuoğlu and eight more suspects pending trial in the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) suit. Tuzcuoğlu criticized efforts to garner support against such trials through the use of personal imagery and emphasized the institutional nature of such crackdowns.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu stressed the need to establish a buffer zone to create a safe haven for refugees inside Syrian borders while speaking to the BBC on Friday. Davutoğlu, however, did not respond to a question about the fact that such a move could amount to a declaration of war.

A court in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak ruled to acquit Ayhan Kiraz yesterday, clearing him of charges pertaining to a cartoon he had drawn in response to a spat between the Education and Science Workers’ Union (Eğitim-Sen) and the religious establishment in the district of Çaycuma.

The Council of State stayed the execution of a verdict to relieve Siirt Mayor Selim Sadak of his duties after he received a prison sentence on terrorism related charges. The Kurdish mayor believes the court’s latest decision was influenced by public pressure.

An explosion took place in the southeastern province of Dersim at 18:00, killing six troops and one bystander.

Law enforcement officials took nearly 40 people under custody in raids conducted across Turkey this morning, including the offices of the Human Rights Association (İHD) in the southern province of Mersin.

Despite the introduction of elective Kurdish and Circassian language courses into school curricula as part of the government’s education reform, demand for these classes have so far fallen short of expectations. The reason has to do with the policies of school administrations and a boycott by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP,) critics argue.

The “Balyoz” (“Sledgehammer”) coup plot trial finally reached a conclusion on Friday. Former members of Turkey’s top brass received hefty sentences of up to 20 years in prison, including ret. Gen. Çetin Doğan, ret. Adm. Özden Örnek and ret. Gen. İbrahim Fırtına.

A court in the eastern province of Van decided to release Murat Aydın, a reporter for the Dicle news agency (DİHA,) and Bulanık Deputy District Mayor Ali Topçu on Tuesday. Aydın and Topçu had entered prison on October last year within the scope of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) trials.

The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) published its annual report for the year 2011. Law enforcement officials subjected some 724 prisoners to torture and ill-treatment during the aforementioned period, the report said. That figure represents an increase in the frequency of such human rights violations.