"We Disapprove" is the name and theme of a signature campaign launched by the Artists Initiative. With their campaign the artists take a stance against the oppression of all opposition groups including artists. Renowned Turkish artists like Edip Akbayram or Levent Kırca support the campaign.

The French Constitutional Council found the draft bill on the criminalization of the denial of genocide contrary to the constitution. The members of the French parliament who applied to the council announced to lift the law.

Murat Polat died as the result of torture in a military prison during his military service in 2005. 30 soldiers were tried, among them also commanders. At the end of the trial, one private was sentenced to imprisonment.

The ratio of women working in the print media ranges at around 15 percent; only one publications director is female. Nurcan Akat, Turkey's first female general publications director, told bianet, "the situation of newspaper staff is deplorable" and explained the reasons.

The Greek Baklahorani Carnival was celebrated in big style for the first time since 71 years in Istanbul on 26/27 February. A costumed crowed took over Taksim Square on Sunday; a masked parade took a cheerful course from Feriköy to Tatavla (Kurtuluş) on Shrove Monday.

Istanbul Deputy Tuncel demanded to depose the management of the Pozantı Prison from office. İHD Branch Chair Tanrıverdi told bianet that the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission confirmed that the prison was not suitable for children and juveniles.

Skulls, bones and clothes belonging to eleven people have been found in a mass grave in Dargeçit (Mardin). Six people who disappeared in police custody in 1995 were supposedly buried in the mass grave.

RedHack hacked the POLNET police network and the Ankara Police Directorate and seized and published denunciations, complaints and other correspondence related to the worries of sensitive citizens.

Conscientious objector Savda was arrested and taken to prison upon the approval of a five-month prison sentence on charges of "alienating the public from military service". Amnesty International Turkey and the Human Rights Foundation condemned his arrest.

Juveniles detained because they "threw stones" during demonstrations were put in cells together with convicts who allegedly abused and raped them dozens of times at the Pozantı Prison in Adana.

Advocators for freedom of expression from Turkey and abroad expressed their solidarity with detained writer Ragıp Zarakolu in Ankara on 25 February. PEN International Head Schoulgin and Nyegard from the Norwegian Publishers Association sent solidarity messages.

The Human Rights Foundation announced that the finding of human remains in the Mardin Dargeçit mass grave proved right the allegations that have been putting forward for 17 years. The organization demanded the opening of another 253 mass graves.

The investigation about the police officers who beat students in the course protests against the Prime Minister was stalled. Despite visual records the prosecution decided to drop procedures due to a "lack of concrete evidence".

None of the twelve detained defendants, among them several journalists, was released at the hearing of the MKLP trial on 23 February. The next hearing was scheduled for 29 May.

According to an analysis of the Committee to Protect Journalists, "A critical journalist in Turkey these days needs a lawyer on standby. The press is laboring under a creaking judicial system".

After a series of changes in the personnel of the police and the judiciary pursuant to the summoning of MİT officials to give their statements, now the MİT Istanbul Regional Chairman was deposed form office.

Three young people who protested PM Erdoğan while he was on his way home from his office in the Dolmabahçe Palace were taken into custody on 22 February. One day before, another protestor was beaten by Erdoğan's bodyguards and taken into custody.

Oda TV defendant Yurdakul was released from the Silivri Prison due to health reasons after eleven months of detention. Yurdakul had shared a cell with journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener.

According to a proposal of the AKP, compulsory education shall be divided into three sections of four years. After finishing the first four years of primary school, children could be employed as apprentices when they are eleven years old.

I would like Turkish language to understand how genuinely beautiful, colorful and really meaningful is Bianet's opening page on February 21, 2012.