Monday, May 11, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Obama Got Played
More on "Whats in a word":
There's a post at Jim Meyers Borderlands about why Obama's speech on April 24 upset the Turkish Government so much, even though Obama didn't use the word "Genocide".According to Hürriyet, during Barack Obama's visit to Turkey in early April of this year, Obama threatened to make good on his campaign pledge to recognize as a 'genocide' the events of 1915, in which at least several hundred thousand (and possibly more than one million) Ottoman Armenians perished. Every year, the president of the United States makes an address on April 24, the day in which these events are commemorated, and every year there is speculation over whether or not the word 'genocide' will be used in the address. In not using the word 'genocide' in his address, Obama was sharply criticized by Armenian groups and others for having 'turned his back' on the pledge. As a quid pro quo for Obama's using the term, apparently, the Turkish government had agreed to speed up the pace of talks with Armenia—with Turkey offering the initial concession of agreeing (it seemed) to soon open the border with Armenia. As I discussed in an earlier post on this site, Turkey's apparent willingness to open the border with Turkey without first realizing progress on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan infuriated both government and opposition figures in Baku. Following Baku's protests over the perceived direction of the Turkish-Armenian talks, the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border has been delayed.
The prospect of an American role in the talks and a possible agreement between Obama and the Turkish government of the sort described by Hürriyet would also explain the Turkish government's anger over Obama's use of the term "Meds Yeghern" in his April 24 speech, which Ankara described as "unacceptable." "Meds Yeghern" is the term which Armenians themselves use to describe the events of 1915, and at least some voices in Turkey have suggested that this term could perhaps become an acceptable compromise term in place of 'genocide.' Nevertheless, Ankara's strong reaction to Obama's use of this term, which included the Foreign Ministry's demand to see US Ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey for consulation, perhaps makes a little more sense if seen in the context of a deal in which Ankara thought Obama had agreed to avoid using terminology that would upset the Turkish government.
Actually the most telling sentence in the above post is : Following Baku's protests over the perceived direction of the Turkish-Armenian talks, the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border has been delayed.
Because this is how Turkey treats human rights, language recognition, the "question" (Kurdish, Armenian) issues:
Progress on any issue is promised and then ripped away at the last moment. Just like what Lucy did with that football. If Obama thought something was going to change, if he thought that engaging in absurd linguistic contortions to make Erdogan, Gul, and all the Pasha's happy was going to result in something REAL, like the opening of the border between Turkey and Armenian... he got played.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Writers and Journalists jailed and Tortured: the list goes on
Some Items I've simply copied from INFO-TURK about writers and journalists recently jailed for their work. A couple were in French and I've roughly translated them. THIS IS JUST FOR THE MONTH OF APRIL.
Lawyer of imprisoned reporter Abdurrahman Gök to file complaint for torture and maltreatment
Servet Özen, the lawyer for Dicle News Agency (DIHA) reporter Abdurrahman Gök, says that an objection to his arrest has been rejected. He says that he will file a complaint for torture and maltreatment of his client after seeing the medical file.
Gök was taken into custody while covering the Newroz celebrations in Siirt, southeastern Turkey. On 25 March 2009, he was taken to the Siirt Criminal Court, which ordered his arrest for spreading PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) propaganda. He was later taken to a Siirt prison.
Another reporter from DIHA, Celal Kalpak, who was at the Newroz celebrations in Siirt, told BIANET what he witnessed: "When Gök was taken into custody, we were at the exit of the celebration area. The police harassed him and then took him into custody. When I objected, a police chief said, 'Your friend has thrown stones at the police.' I told him that that was not credible, that Gök was just covering the event as a reporter, and that the detention was arbitrary."
Kalpak said that there were different accusations leveled at Gök all the time. "First they said that he had thrown stones at the police. When that was not credible, they said that he had manipulated the crowd; finally, they said that he was taken into custody for terrorist propaganda because he had copied down the slogans shouted and written on placards and because he had been linked to Roj TV."
Özen has argued that Gök suffered torture and mistreatment when he was taken into custody. His medical report from the Siirt State Hospital is currently with the prosecution. His lawyer has announced that as soon as he is able to examine them, he will file a criminal complaint against those responsible.
DIHA has also called for the release of its reporters Ali Bulus, Mehmet Karaaslan, Faysal Tunç and Behdin Tunç, who are all in prison for alleged connections to the PKK. It is not yet clear whether the arrests were related to their journalistic activities. (BIANET/IFEX, April 14, 2009)
WRITER IRFAN KARACA GETS PRISON SENTANCE
İrfan Karaca the author of the book “Ape Musa’s Little Generals” where he tells the story of children who distribute “Özgür Gündem” newspaper, has been given 1 year and 3 months prison sentence for “making propaganda for a terrorist organisation”.
The book was published by Berçem Publishing House in March last year. Ankara High Criminal Court Num.11 condemned Karaca. İrfan Karaca said they would appeal against it and added “It is completely unjust. The book tells the stories of children who sell Özgür Gündem newspaper in Diyarbakır in 1990s. How could it be propaganda for a terrorist organisation? This judgement proved that freedom of expression is still under threat in Turkey.” (antenna-tr.org, April 27, 2009)
jOURNALIST INDICTED FOR ANTI-MILITARIST ARTICLE
Gaziantep Public Prosecution Office wrote an indictment against Yasin Yetişgen the responsible editor of local “Çoban Ateşi” newspaper over an article “Mum don’t send me to army” written by Berkant Coşkun and published on 8 November 2007. Yetişgen is charged with “alienating the people from military service and insulting the memory of Ataturk”.
Yetişgen is charged over the parts of the article which reads:”If today’s Kurdish movement is called a terrorist movement then Mustafa Kemal’s movement would not be immune from the same definition. The only difference is that Mustafa Kemal was not arrested.”
The court issued on 15 April an arrest order for Yetisgen since he did not turn up for the previous hearings.
The next hearing is on 16 July 2009 at 09:00.
(antenna-tr.org, April 27, 2009)
NOVELIST CHARGED
The Turkish writer Nedim Gürsel will be held on 5 May before an Istanbul court for "denegrating the religious values of the people" in his novel "Daughters of Allah," the author said in an interview Saturday with the AFP.
"You reproach me for having denigrated the religious values of the population, under Article 216 of Turkish Penal Code, this charge is punishable by six months to one year in prison," said Gürsel, present this week - author of "Close Encounters of the book and wine" of Balma, a suburb of Toulouse.
"This is a novel, people tend to forget," said Gürsel, "and what is negative about the prophet is expressed by its enemies."
For the novelist, director of research at CNRS on Turkish literature, "we must have the freedom to take a critical look at religion, and my position is clear: I respect the faith and believers."
"More worrying" according to him, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, an administrative agency under the authority of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "has resulted in a report while the court did not ask" .
"The management of religious affairs should not decide on a work of art, is not within its competence," said Mr. Gürsel who divides his time between France and Turkey.
According to the author of "Daughters of Allah", published in March 2008 in Turkey and a French translation released in October at Threshold, "Mr. Erdogan said recently at the delivery of a literary prize that Turkey 's is a country that saw its writers, or the trial removes any credibility to his speech. "
Mr. Gürsel considers that "this case falls very badly because everyone thought that Turkey had made progress on freedom of expression", has also added the author of "Turkey is a new idea in Europe" published this week in France by Editions Empreinte time.
An ardent defender of the entry of Turkey into the European Union, Mr. Gürsel has not said he was "worried" about the outcome of this trial because he has "confidence in the justice of (his) country that is Independent
GUN TV
Prosecution to Gün TV
Ahmet Birsin the general coordinator of a local TV station in Diyarbakır region has been arrested and kept in custody in Diyarbakır Anti-Terror Branch on suspicion of "PKK membership".
It has been reported that Diyarbakır Public Prosecution service has been secretly working to uncover "PKK’s Turkey Coordination team made up of 8 members" for over a year. Prosecution office has been following the bank transactions and communications of the suspects.
51 people brought to Diyarbakır
Police raided and searched Gün TV offices in the early morning hours of 14 April 2009.
Simultaneous operations have been run in Diyarbakır, İstanbul, Ankara, Batman, Mardin, Aydın, Adana, Elazığ, Gaziantep, Şırnak and Şanlıurfa. Diyarbakır Governor said that 51 people had been arrested and brought to Diyarbakır.
Bilen: we cannot report any news
TV channel’s news editor Adnan Bilen said that because of the confiscated material they cannot broadcast news. Bilen said that the prosecutor told their lawyer who wanted the material back "So what? You do not broadcast one day ".
Employee arrested in
Günlük newspaper reported that Hüseyin Diken, Democratic Society Party’s Bursa chairman was released but an employee of “Özgür Halk” periodical, Erhan Bayrak was put on remand on the charge of “propaganda for an illegal organisation". (antenna-tr.org, April 15, 2009)
NEWSPAPERS BANNED BY THE GOVERNMENT:
Kurdish newspaper Azadiya Welat has been shut down for a month.
Altilim Newspaper shut down for one month.
AND THREE REPORTERS ON TRIAL:
Democratic Society Party’s Van city chairman Abdurrahman Doğar who was arrested following Newruz celebrations on 22 March 2008 during which two people were killed. Van Public Prosecutor Selçuk Kocaman asked the court to condemn Doğar for “membership PKK/KONGRA-GEL terrorist organisation, inciting crime as part of the activities of a terrorist organisation, resisting public official, damaging property, inciting to injuring people”. Doğar has been asked to be imprisoned for 200 years. The next hearing will be on 22 May 2009 at 09:45 am. The prosecution will present its case.
o Vatan reporter Kemal Göktaş and Milliyet reporter Gükçer Tahincioğlu are charged with “publishing classified information and exposing the judge on duty to terrorist organisations as a target” over publishing a court ruling by Ankara High Criminal Court Num.11 allowing police and intelligence agency MIT to listen and read all phone, Internet and fax communications in Turkey. The two journalists are asked to be imprisoned for between 2 and 6 years. The journalists were acquitted on 31 March 2009.
o Ahmet Karayay made a press statement in Ankara’s Kızılay Street declaring conscientious objection and said '...There is no need for military institutions on earth since there has been no threats from other planets. Therefore what are the soldiers protecting us from...? Turkish Armed Forces has been making use of human resource of Turkish nation since it was established although the country has not been involved in any wars for a long time. .. As long as there are people who want to do military service it should not be imposed on people like me who do not want to do military service...” Karayay was charged with “alienating the people from military service”. Karayay was acquitted on 1 April 2009. (http://www.antenna-tr.org/dunya/first_page_en.asp)
What's in a word?
Human rights lawyer Eren Keskin was aquitted yesterday of "inciting the public to hatred and animosity." when she used the word "Kurdistan" during a panel discussion in 2007. Two years ago, a court in Viranşehir sentenced her to 10 months in prison and a 3,300 Turkish Lira cash fine, but the case is under appeal.
How strong is a country that would send someone to prison for the use of one word? A few days ago, it was Osman Baydemir, being convicted for saying "guerilla" instead of terrorist. The use and control of language is one of the best tools of a totalitarian state because control of language becomes control of thought. This is not a democracy.
Here's a link to the story in Hurriyet:
and here's a link to a documentary about Eren Keskin:
Another news item that is not a surprise is headlined: Thousands of People Wiretapped in the Last Three Years
Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin has stated that in the last three years the phone conversation records of nearly 13,000 people have been disposed of as their content does not constitute a crime, once again placing wiretapping debates in Turkey under the spotlight.
“As far as I know, the number of individuals whose phone conversations are wiretapped is around 70,000. Some are claiming that 70 million Turkish citizens are being wiretapped. Such allegations have nothing to do with reality,” Şahin remarked.
According to the data as to the individuals whose phone conversation records were disposed of in the past three years, İstanbul residents were subjected to wiretaps the most. The phone conversations of 494 people in İstanbul were disposed of in 2006, while this figure climbed to 736 in 2007 and fell to 684 in 2008.
Phone conversations in the southern and southeastern regions are also closely wiretapped, according to the same data. The conversations of 395 people were disposed of in 2008 in Adana, while this figure was 864 in Diyarbakır, 411 in Mersin and 618 in Van.
Control of lanugage, control of thought, ... it makes me laugh to read that these conversations were disposed of because their content did not constitute a crime. So there are criminal letters, there are criminal words, there are criminal conversations that a state must defend itself from. Sometimes it just seems so laughable.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
CHILDREN'S DAY IN TURKEY
On April 23rd, Seyfi Turan a 14 year old Kurdish boy was severely beaten by Turkish police in Hakkari on International Children's Day. Seyfi came from a Kurdish family forced by the military to leave their village in 1994. The family received no assistance from the state, and Seyfi's father has been unemployed since.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
"Neither soldiers nor guerillas should die"
Osman Baydemir, the current mayor of Diyarbakir, has been sentenced to ten months in prison. The charge is that he was "expressing support and praise for terrorists".
What he said, was simply "Neither soldiers nor guerrillas should die".
The use of the word "guerrillas" instead of "terrorists" is against the law in Turkey.
"Neither soldiers nor guerrillas should die"
In what kind of country does the above sentence qualify a man for ten months in jail? Um, W.T.F.
The control of language, not just down to the word, but down to the letter is one of the main tools used by the Turkish State to maintain its denial of reality.
A quote from the Hurriyet story:
The court ruled that Osman Baydemir, mayor of Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeastern region, and Nejdet Atalay, mayor of nearby Batman, had praised terrorist PKK members by referring to them as "guerrillas."
The defendants made the remarks at a rally in Diyarbakir in February 2008, as Turkish security forces were carrying out cross-border operation into neighboring northern Iraq targeting hideouts of the PKK.
Lawyers for the defendants said they would appeal the sentences.
Baydemir had condemned the operation and called for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue, saying that "neither soldiers nor guerrillas should die.".jpg)
In the same week: (Excerpt from Zaman)
a public prosecutor in Diyarbakir filed a case on Friday claiming that former Diyarbakir Bar Association Chairman Sezgin Tanrikulu had engaged in “discrimination” by publishing a bilingual agenda for members of the bar association. The prosecutor’s office also suggested that Tanrikulu misused his position as chairman of the bar association and “abused the linguistic feelings of the public,” calling for a three-year prison term as punishment. The deputy chairman of the bar association at the time, Nesip Yildirim, the other suspect in the case, did not participate in the crime, but openly supported it by collecting signatures for a petition titled “I am taking responsibility for my agenda and my bar association,” according to the prosecutor.
In 2007, when Tanrikulu was head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, he ordered the publication of an agenda for the members of the association. The agenda featured dates in both Turkish and “a language that is used by a segment of the public,” meaning Kurdish in the words of the prosecutor’s report.
This means that publishing an agenda in a language that is used by a segment of the public amounts to discrimination.
“The publication of an agenda in an alphabet other than Turkish means discrimination in public services,” the prosecutor’s report claimed.
The public prosecutor also suggested that because the agenda was associated with the bar association, citizens whose “mother tongues are different” may hesitate to join the association or to ask for legal assistance. But the prosecutor’s report does not say openly what it means by citizens whose mother tongues are different.
The prosecutor argued that publishing an agenda in a language other than Turkish is an abuse of the “the linguistic feelings of the people” and that this was the basis of the case. Because bar associations are considered organizations that provide public services, the prosecutor had to get permission from the Ministry of Justice to proceed with the investigation and, according to the prosecutor’s report, the ministry gave its approval.
In his defense, Tanrikulu claimed that Kurdish is the mother tongue of Turkey’s Kurdish citizens and to use it is a legitimate right. Mentioning Tanrikulu’s defense, the prosecutor’s report responded: “The suspects in their defense suggested that the signs that are not in Turkish on the agenda under investigation belong to their mother tongue. However, Article 3 of the Turkish Constitution indicates that the language of the Turkish Republic is Turkish; Article 10 indicates that ‘all individuals are equal without any discrimination before the law and no privilege shall be granted to any individual, family, group or class’; and Article 11 states, ‘The provisions of the constitution are fundamental legal rules binding upon legislative, executive and judicial organs, and administrative authorities and other institutions and individuals’; and there are no international or national regulations for giving public services in mother tongues.”
At the court hearing on Friday, the present chairman of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, Mehmet Emin Aktar, presented incriminating information about himself and more than 100 lawyers who are members of the bar to the court and said, “If this is a crime, we committed the same crime.” Aktar also asked for time to prepare a defense. The next hearing in the case will be held on May 15.
The phrase that makes me laugh is "the publication of an alphabet other than Turkish"
No one ever has a cow if someone publishes something in French German, Spanish English, but if it's Kurdish it suddenly becomes this strange nameless "ALPHABET OTHER THAN TURKISH".
As if a language were a kind of kryptonite, so deadly, destructive, radio active, a kind of anti matter, so terrible it cannot even be named.
Imagine, someone can be sentenced to THREE YEARS IN JAIL for publishing A BILINGUAL AGENDA OF A MEETING.
That's our great Nato Ally.
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