Mr. Jeffrey Mankoff points out extremely important developments in Caucasus and Central Asia under different perspectives for followers of Strategic Outlook. (more…)
Category: World
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Georgia Will Be A Model For The Region
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‘Istanbul would be UN island soon’
Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas has said that Istanbul would be a UN island soon.
Topbas as the president of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and United Nations Advisory Committee of Local Authorities (UNACLA), met with Turkish journalists at the Turkish House after participating in a high-level panel of dignitaries regarding developments after 2015.
He told the press members that with their efforts for opening of directorates and regional representation offices of UN in Istanbul would make Istanbul a UN island, and bring prestige to the city.
He added that they want to be a solution partner of UN Millennium Development Plan and host the 3rd UN Habitat Meeting.
Anadolu
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Christian-Muslim meeting in Istanbul endorses dialogue of life
2012-09-26 Vatican Radio
A two day symposium on Muslim-Christian dialogue takes place in the Turkish capital of Istanbul this weekend, exploring the theme of ‘Being a foreigner and dialogue with the other’. Organised for the past two decades by the different religious communities in the city, the meeting this year takes place in the Franciscan church of St Etienne and enjoys the support of the journalists and writers foundation of Istanbul.The symposium comes as world leaders continue to condemn the violent reactions to a U.S. made video which mocks Islam and the prophet Mohammed. So is there any way an encounter of this kind can help to diffuse tensions and promote better understanding beyond the purely academic world? To try and find out, Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen spoke to one of the participants at the Istanbul meeting, Mustafa Cenap Aydin, director of Rome’s Istituto Tevere for interfaith dialogue….
via Christian-Muslim meeting in Istanbul endorses dialogue of life.
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Turkey to block access to the Hate Film which brought chaos to the world
ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish court issued an order on Wednesday allowing authorities in the country to block Internet access to the anti-Islam movie that has sparked violent protests across the Muslim world, an official said.
Binali Yildirim, the minister in charge of transportation and communications, told state-run TRT television that the injunction allows government telecommunications and information technology authorities to prevent access from Turkey to URL links to the film.
The move came a day after another government minister said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads an AK Party* party, ordered officials to find ways of preventing access to videos of “Innocence of Muslims” movie.
Dozens of people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, have been killed in violence linked to protests over the film.
“Henceforth, it will not be shown in our country,” said Yildirim, calling the film “disgusting.”
“To insult what is sacred, to incite indignation is unacceptable for all religions. It is a hate crime and no crime should go unpunished,” Yildirim said. His office said Tuesday that the ministry has also asked Google Inc. and YouTube to remove the videos.
Erdogan has criticized Western nations for not taking steps to prevent insults to Islamic values but also has criticized violent protests against the film saying they harm Islam.
Yildirim said the court order is limited to links to the film and that access to websites that carry the links would not be blocked. Turkey banned access to the video sharing site YouTube from 2008 and 2010 because of videos deemed insulting to the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Thousands of other websites, most of them pornographic, have also been banned in the country. The government says it is fighting child pornography, illegal gambling and other cybercrimes.
CBS NEWS
Edited*
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Why Turkey can’t lead a ban on Islamophobia?
Before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided to cancel his visit to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, he was planning to talk about adopting international legislation on insults to religion. He confirmed that he would while commenting on the 14-minute trailer mocking the Prophet Muhammad, which sparked violent riots across the Muslim world. He said Turkey could lead on this issue.
This betrays the typical Turkish mentality of “banning.” We don’t like something? Then ban and get rid of it!
Well, things just don’t work like that in the “Western hemisphere” – the democratic standards of which Turkey has been aspiring to reach.
Now Erdoğan is not going to New York, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu will no doubt talk about the issue when he speaks at the U.N. However, introducing international legislation for insulting religion is basically mission impossible.
I am guessing that Turkish diplomats would remind him of the experience in 2006 when a similar crisis broke out over the Danish cartoons.
At that time – already extremely concerned about the rise in “anti-immigrant,” Islamophobic” and “racist” rhetoric in Europe – Turkish diplomats tried to raise awareness of this issue. They simply tried to convey the message that there should not be a hierarchical relationship between freedom of expression and freedom of religion, as Europeans tended always to put the former above everything else. Every time Turks tried to talk about freedom of expression being abused against Muslims, they hit the wall as Europeans told them: “freedom of expression is a core right!”
It took several months of intense negotiations to have a resolution adopted in the 2006 ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The decision underlined the importance of states enacting a sound legal framework “ensuring equality before the law and adequate judicial protection” and called on political leaders to speak out against hate-motivated acts and incidents. This is as far as the OSCE went, but even that made the Germans and the Americans quite nervous.
There is a limit to freedom of expression also when it comes to insulting religion, according to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which decided in favor of the Austrian government that confiscated a film about Christianity in the Otto Preminger vs. Austria case. But the ECHR leaves a wide margin of oppreciation to the governments and national courts to resolve cases of conflict between freedom of expression and the “rights of others,” in particular the right to respect for one’s religious feelings.
Most Western countries do have the necessary legal framework that regulates hate crime. But they need to strike a balance between freedom of expression and respect for religious feelings. The problem is, more often than not, the prosecutors and the judges tend to favor the principle of freedom of expression, underestimating the consequences of a discourse that borders on the incitement of hatred. Turkey should therefore spend its energies devising a strategy that encourages member countries to use the legal tools at their disposal.
Finally, as a country that has a bad international reputation for limiting freedom of expression, Turkey could indeed be the champion of the “censorious” cause. But it cannot lead any attempt to have an international legislation to ban Islamophobia, and at any rate that would be a futile attempt.
via BARÇIN YİNANÇ – Why Turkey can’t lead a ban on Islamophobia?.
