A senior astrophysics professor in Turkey appears to be the latest target of what academics and scientists in that country say is an ongoing campaign by its conservative government to intimidate secular intellectuals.

Turkey recently launched a campaign to retrieve Turkish children in European countries who have been taken from their parents and given to Christian couples, starting the process by taking back children from gay and lesbian couples.

An overwhelming majority of Turkish people want secularism to be included in the country's new charter, a recent survey conducted by KONDA for the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) has revealed.

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has continued its attempt at step-by-step Islamisation of the country by removing "Atatürk's reforms and principles" and "secularism" from the wording of the parliamentary oath in its submission to the Constitutional Conciliation Commission.