The Netherlands: Dutch jihadi bride: 'Is she a victim or a suspect?' - by Harriet Alexander, and Anna Mees

She was a blonde-haired, blue eyed Catholic girl whose family was a pillar of the Dutch town of Maastricht. He was a smiling, bicycle-riding Dutch former soldier - a man considered such an asset to his country he was encouraged to try out for their elite special forces.

And yet the marriage of Sterlina Petalo and Omar Yilmaz was, for their families, anything but a cause for celebration.

Yilmaz, 26, was one of the most high-profile Europeans to become a jihadi, travelling to Syria to live in the Islamic State and fight on behalf of the extremists. He gloried in the teenage fantasy of war - posting a series of Instagram photos of himself pouting at the camera on a motorbike, amid bombed-out buildings in his combat fatigues, AK47 slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. Miss Petalo was a recent convert to Islam, who fell in love with Yilmaz after seeing him on television, picturing him as a Robin Hood figure.

Last week their story took a remarkable twist when it was revealed that Miss Petalo had in fact returned to her hometown - after her mother travelled to the Turkish-Syrian border to bring the 19-year-old home from the jihadist-held city of Raqqa.

“Sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” said her mother, Monique Verbert. “She rang me and said 'Take me home.’ But she could not leave Raqqa without help.”

The pair arrived back in the Netherlands on Wednesday, said Annemarie Kemp, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office. Clad in a niqqab, with only her eyes showing, the teenager - who has changed her name to Aicha - was photographed being driven through the town on her way to custody.

“Upon her arrival, Aicha was detained at once on suspicion of crimes threatening state security,” said Ms Kemp.

Miss Petalo is being held in a police cell - the prosecutor, Roger Bos, ruled on Friday that she should be detained for questioning for three more days. Mrs Verbert, 49, an administrator for BP, argued that her daughter’s flight to Syria was little more than teenage infatuation. Today Monday November 24 the court will decide whether to press charges.

Note EU-Digest: Every civilized human being should condemn the violence and terror IS is using to instill fear and terror in the areas where they operate. In that same breath one should also condemn social media and the International Press for publicizing these horrific scenes of barbarism, including the decapitation of body parts. This is pure commercially based sensationalism, which can only lead to popularizing these horrific acts in the minds of susceptible young people - case in point Ms Petalo who acted upon her teenage fantasy of a "glorified" war and followed this "insanely obsessed man" into certain disaster. 

Kudos to her mother for taking the proper action to bring her daughter back to reality and safety.   
 Read more: Dutch jihadi bride: 'Is she a victim or a suspect?' - Telegraph

EU-Turkish Relations: Erdogan victory puts icy Turkey-EU relations in deep freeze - by Luke Baker

Sunday's resounding victory by the ruling AK Party in Turkey's local elections, undiminished by what some call an authoritarian turn by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, is likely to put already cool relations between Ankara and Brussels in the chiller.

After months of revelations of high-level corruption and the furore caused by the government's blocking of Twitter and YouTube, Turkey finds itself at sharp odds with the European Union, which it has been negotiating to join since 1999.

Too much has been invested in the process to call talks off - trade, energy and infrastructure links make it as hard to break off as to push ahead. But the EU is very unlikely to nudge Ankara's accession hopes along until Erdogan shows he is prepared to protect civil liberties, justice and the rule of law - and govern like a mainstream European prime minister.

As if to underline that point, the European Commission delivered a terse statement within hours of final results showing AKP won 46 percent of the nationwide vote, a significantly higher tally than many expected.

"Following the overall worrying developments which have taken place over the past three months,  Turkey ... now urgently needs to re-engage fully in reforms in line with European standards," a Commission spokeswoman said.

"It also needs to reach out to all citizens, including those which are not part of the majority vote, in order to build the strongest possible engagement on reforms needed to make progress on EU accession."

There is scant evidence Erdogan is listening, or feels he needs to. As leader of a country of nearly 75 million people which acts as an energy and trade hub and an anchor in an often unstable region, he sees Turkey as holding an upper hand. He might be right, but he could also be terribly wrong.

His attitude to EU membership since coming to power has been summed up as "Europe needs Turkey more than we need them". That self-confidence will only have been reinforced by Sunday's results, which give him a powerful  mandate.

"He'll be feeling 500 feet tall today, which makes him ruthless and able to do anything', said Amanda Paul, a Turkey expert at the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think-tank.

"It's a lot of power in the hands of a man who has become increasingly unpredictable and authoritarian," she said, suggesting it would have an impact on EU relations.

Read more: Erdogan victory puts icy Turkey-EU relations in deep freeze | Reuters

Turkey: AKP faces tough test in Turkey's local polls - by Osman Kaytazoglu

Turkey is going to the polls in local elections on March 30. The vote comes amid allegations of government corruption and bribery, debates about a so-called "parallel state", and with government moves to block Twitter and YouTube heavily criticized.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party [AKP] have come out of each general election since the party was first elected to power in 2002 with more votes than before, securing nearly 50 percent of the vote in 2011 general elections.

But this election may represent the AKP’s biggest challenge to date, and is being described as a litmus test for upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. The main parties fielding candidates are Erdogan’s AKP, the main opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Justice and Development Party (BDP).

The local elections first garnered attention with anti-government Gezi Park protests in June 2013, when thousands of people descended on a park in central Istanbul against the municipality’s gentrification plans.

The elections have been dominated by a new scandal that began on December 17 last year, when three AKP cabinet ministers’ children were arrested on corruption charges, and several government figures were implicated in graft probes.

Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republic People’s Party (CHP), has tried to make sure the graft probe remains at the centre of the election process. "The state’s conscience woke up on December 17," CHP leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said, referring to when the first arrests were made.

Erdogan blamed rival Fethullah Gulen, the US-based head of the Gulen movement, for the recent controversies, and their feud has dominated the headlines. Erdogan described the Gulen movement as "a threat to national security" and called the Gulen movement "a terrorist organisation".

Recent opinion polls show that people are confused about the public AKP-Gulen feud. While 60 percent of Turkish people believe the corruption allegations are true, 57 percent also think that the graft probe is a coup attempt targeting Erdogan.

Ahead of the polls, various audio recordings have also leaked, with the latest reportedly showing top government and security officials discussing launching military operations into Syria. The Turkish government banned Twitter and YouTube over these leaks.

Read more: AKP faces tough test in Turkey's local polls - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Turkey: Move to block YouTube ahead of elections points to growing censorship

The Turkish authorities’ move today to block access to YouTube on the eve of Sunday’s elections, and not long after they restricted access to Twitter, smacks of a wider pre-meditated crackdown on freedom of expression, Amnesty International said.

According to media reports, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited national security concerns when it sought an administrative order to block the video-sharing platform – allegedly to prevent further circulation of a taped recording of discussions between senior Turkish officials on Syria.

“The Turkish government appears to be itching for pretexts to close down websites because of their capacity to mobilize dissenting opinion and broadcast embarrassing material,” said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International's researcher on Turkey.

“Coming just days before Turkey goes to the polls and in the wake of Prime Minister Erdoðan’s strident criticism of YouTube, this is clearly nothing more than a crude attempt at government censorship that will only generate deeper distrust and frustration.

“Even if the Turkish authorities have legitimate concerns about some of the content that might appear, it is completely disproportionate to enforce a blanket YouTube ban in the entire country. Access to YouTube must be restored immediately and the authorities must stop blocking sites that expose abuses and provide a platform for dissenting views.”

Read more: Turkey: Move to block YouTube ahead of elections points to growing censorship | Amnesty International