Tag: Human Rights Turkey

  • HEY YOU! HEY ERDOĞAN!

    HEY YOU! HEY ERDOĞAN!

    HEY YOU! HEY ERDOĞAN!

    UNNATURAL BORN SERIAL KILLER

     (11 March 2014)

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     BERKIN

    “It is not Allah who has taken my son away. It is Erdoğan.”
    15 year-old Berkin Elvan’s mother

    HEY YOU!

    Yes, you! You, standing there scowling, fouling the planet’s air with your rancid words. Yes, you, the menace! You, the monster! You, the liar! You, the thief! You, the bully! You, the perverter of morals! You, the traitor! You, the killer!

    Yes, you and your infamous henchmen, Gül and Gülen. Yes, the three of you who share the same twisted, corrupt, un-watchable face. Your henchmen have the overwhelming ignorance, the stupendous arrogance to express condolences about your murder of 15 year-old Berkin Elvan, your eighth innocent victim. Yes, you, the big shot who gives all the orders. You had this boy shot with a tear gas canister. And you did your dirty business through one of your stooges in Gülen’s police force. Killers!

    So yes, I’m talking to you. And I’m talking to your other hack allies, Gül and Gülen. You three collaborators in the destruction of our nation have neither the moral standing nor the necessary trace of humanity to say one syllable about the heinous crime done to this peaceful boy. Such dim-witted arrogance! Why today, the day of Berkin’s death, your same fascist cops wantonly attacked people walking in peaceful protest over his killing, and in overflowing disgust with you, his murderer. This happened all over Turkey. Have you no shame? You attack mourners? Tomorrow, will you attack the boy’s corpse? Have you no, no….anything?

    And I’m also talking to all your other hacks, too numerous to mention but not too numerous to find and punish, for you all will be found and punished. Your Nazi-inspired criminal police force will pay a sublime price for their violent crimes against the people. As will your craven judges who so fouled the halls of justice with their feeble-minded decisions. And I’m talking to all the ones who implement your beastly orders that destroy our people and our nation. You know who they are. And so do we. The ones that bow and scrape the floor, the ones that think you’re so smart and tell you so all day, every day. And I’m talking to your bosses, the puppeteers that brought all of you here. We know where they are too.

    We have you all numbered, you see. And we already know how it will end. Here’s a hint. It already has.

    You all thought you were so smart, being backed by America and all. But you knew nothing, except how to steal, and lie, and cheat, and kill. What’s that? You think otherwise? Hah! Look at the nation. Look at America. Look at the world. Look at your faces.

    James (Cem) Ryan
    Istanbul
    11 March 2014

    Brightening Glance:   

     

  • IF THEY ARE NOT TURKISH, WHAT ARE THEY?

    IF THEY ARE NOT TURKISH, WHAT ARE THEY?

    Good question. I have already discussed the negative side of the proposition in my article They Are Not Turkish. But everything needs a name, even in a country like Turkey. In Turkey, people that drink beer are called drunks (ayyaşlar). People that love their natural environment, particularly trees, are called looters, pillagers or plunderers (çapulcular). Brave sons and daughters that serve in the military are called boiled sheep heads (kelleler). At least that’s what I learned from listening to the Turkish prime minister. In fact, I have learned much of my Turkish from listening to the prime minister. For example, in the past if I wanted to gain someone’s attention I would say, Pardon,” just like the French and English do. But I learned from him that it was much more effective to just shout ULAN!!!

    Yes, everything needs a name. After all, didn’t God command Adam to name every beast of the field and bird of the sky? Of course he did. So am I not a man? Of course I am. Having un-named AKP gives me a God-given responsibility to rename them, doesn’t it? Of course it does. It might even be a sin not to since we all must go about God’s work every day. I can’t just call them Non-Turks or Non-humans, can I? No, of course not. That would be disrespectful.

    At first I thought about animals or birds or fish. But there is something about the way animals and birds and fish behave that wouldn’t suit AKP. And I didn’t want to be insulting. So I thought a little lower and smaller, microscopically. Bacteria, perhaps? But much bacteria does good things, like causing fermentation to make beer, wine, whisky, rakı and even ayran. Obviously more research was required. And so I plunged into my library of science textbooks. And Eureka! like Archimedes I found it. An entire chapter about bad bacteria. And I found an appropriate one.

    It’s a streptococcus pyogene. It sounds a little like the pepper gas that is now part of the rich atmosphere of Istanbul. In fact, it’s a bacteria that causes a terrible disease called necrotizing fasciitis. It’s obviously a fascist kind of bacteria so that fits. Sadly, it results in more than 650,000 invasive infections per year with a mortality rate of 25%. Left untreated it kills completely. This horrid little thing is often called flesh-eating bacteria. Its progress is rapid and terrifying: reddening skin quickly turns to violet, swelling, blisters and pustules develop, the flesh under the skin dies, finally muscle and skin tissue is consumed. Surgery, usually amputation, is the only solution.

    So there you have it. They, the AKP members, are definitely not Turkish. But they are, in my scientific 0pinion, definitely streptococcus pyogenes, all-consuming fascists like their fellow bacteria specie. Their former political species was the A.K.P. (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) wherein, sadly, there was neither justice nor development. So the members, neither Turkish nor human nor animal nor vegetable nor mineral, are now consigned to a much more appropriate specie. It’s the least I could do. After all, everyone deserves an appropriate name, don’t they?

    Cem Ryan, Ph.D.
    Istanbul
    11 June 2013, the darkest day in the history of the Republic of Turkey

     

    Streptococcus_pyogenes
    Streptococcus Pyogenes
  • Obama’s Talks With Turkey: Let Us Preach What We Practice

    Obama’s Talks With Turkey: Let Us Preach What We Practice

    By James D. Zirin

    A supporter of world-renowned Turkish pianist Fazil Say holds a cardboard reading ‘Fazil Say is not alone’ during protest held outside an Istanbul court (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

    Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip  Erdogan will travel to Washington May 16 to meet with President Obama, largely to discuss his country’s relationship with the US and the European community, and most probably Erdogan’s on-again off-again relationship with Israel. Undoubtedly, a strong US alliance with Turkey, with its vibrant economy and geo-political position, is of tremendous strategic importance to the United States.  In the run-up to the meeting, however, Obama might well consider Turkey’s human rights record, particularly how many nations are left  on this planet where someone could go to jail over a Twitter post?  North Korea, Iran, China? Maybe. But Turkey is the latest to win that dubious distinction.

    Fazil Say, 42 years-old, is an internationally recognized Turkish pianist and composer, who has performed with major orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic and the Berlin Symphony. His personal style of composition, rooted in the folk music of Turkey, evokes Bartók:  a fantasia-like basic structure; and a variable dance-like rhythm.

    An Istanbul court convicted Say of inciting hatred, insulting Islam and offending Muslims on Twitter. Although not sentenced to jail, he is on probation for five years on condition that he not re-offend Muslims, even if he is just re-tweeting what someone else said. Say could have been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The case renewed brewing concerns about the influence of religion on Turkish politics.

    Say’s “crime” was a series of tweets posted earlier last year. In one message he retweeted a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyám in which the 11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy: “You say rivers of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern to you? You say two huris [companions] await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?” In other tweets, he made fun of a muezzin (a caller to prayer), implying that the particular muezzin’s call lasted only 22 seconds because he wanted to go out for  a drink. Another retweet by Mr. Say posits: “I am not sure if you have also realized it, but if there’s a louse, a non-entity, a lowlife, a thief or a fool, it’s always an Allah-ist.” Bad taste, maybe, in a country where Muslims comprise  roughly 98% of the population, but hardly a crime?

    Turkey is not a particularly safe place for artists and intellectuals, or women for that matter, who may wish to criticize Erdogan’s government. In 2007, a journalist Hrant Dink, who had written about the Armenian genocide of 1915, was shot dead on an Istanbul street. A judge last year  fined Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate writer, $3,700 for saying in a Swiss newspaper that Turks “have killed 30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians.”

    Pointing to the Say and Pamuk cases, as well as the prosecution of numerous journalists, artists and intellectuals for voicing their views, critics have accused the governing AK Party of undermining the  secular values of Turkey’s founder Kemal Ataturk, and pandering to Islamists, who have recently asserted themselves with renewed intensity. Say himself claimed that his prosecution was politically motivated. An atheist, Say had often criticized the Islamist-rooted party, accusing it of having a secret agenda to promote conservative values.

    The European Union, which Turkey seeks to join, admonished Erdogan about the Say conviction. A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels was “concerned” by the prosecution, which “underlines the importance for Turkey to fully respect freedom of expression.” Amnesty International said in a report last month that “freedom of expression is under attack in Turkey,” calling for legislative reforms to bring “abuses to an end.”

    Dozens of journalists are in detention in Turkey, as well as lawyers, politicians and lawmakers – most of them accused of plotting against the government or having links with the outlawed Kurdish rebel movement the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Meanwhile, Erdogan continues with his sultanic project to build at state expense over the Bosporus the largest mosque in Turkey, as Fazil Say calls his conviction “a sad day for Turkey.”

    Madeleine Albright has said that foreign policy is getting other countries to do what you want them to do.  Obama should use the occasion of the Erdogan meeting to take heed of the clarion call of  another British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who said  in his “Iron Curtain” speech delivered in Fulton, Missouri March 5, 1946,  “All this means … that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom.  Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home.  Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind.  Let us preach what we practice – let us practice what we preach.”

    Turkey’s  human rights record is execrable. When Obama meets Erdogan next month, he should preach a little of what we try to practice.

    via Obama’s Talks With Turkey: Let Us Preach What We Practice – Forbes.

  • English PEN “welcomes” Turkish Minister of Culture

    English PEN “welcomes” Turkish Minister of Culture

    Posted on April 14, 2013 by heissenstat

    In an open letter to Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism, Ömer Çelik, English PENwelcomes him to the 2013 London Book Fair, at which Turkey will be a “market focus.”  PEN notes with regret, however, that this celebration of Turkish literary vigor comes at a time when major authors and intellectuals are subject to imprisonment and government harassment because of the ideas they express.

    Busra Ersanli, a respected scholar currently on trial on terrorism charges

    Busra Ersanli, a respected scholar currently on trial on terrorism charges

    PEN welcomes positive changes within Fourth Judicial Package, but notes that they do not go far enough in addressing basic attacks on freedom of expression:

    As a charity that promotes literature and defends the right to freedom of expression, we regret, however, the continuing challenges faced by writers, editors and journalists in Turkey.  According to the PEN International Writers in Prison Committee’s most recent case list (July-December 2012) there are currently more cases of concern to PEN in Turkey than in any other country in the world. While we are pleased to note that the 4thJudicial Reform package has gone some way to addressing some of the limitations to free speech in Turkey, we are concerned that existing laws, and their interpretation, still curtail the ability to exercise a fundamental human right.

    PEN also highlights on-going cases against Fazıl Say, Büşra Ersanlı, and Ahmet Şık as well as the on-going detention of Zeynep Kuray.

    zeynepkuray-2

    The PEN letter concludes:

    We firmly believe that the charges against these writers are in violation of their rights to non-violent freedom of expression and association, principles to which the Turkish government is committed as a signatory to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights. We therefore respectfully call on the authorities to drop all charges against Say, Ersanlı and Şık, and to release Kuray and the many others currently detained.

  • In Erdogan’s Turkey, even children get sued

    In Erdogan’s Turkey, even children get sued

    In a previous posting, we noted in passing that Prime Minister Erdogan is suing seven high school students for publicly calling him “lightbulb Erdogan.”  Another student faces a two-year sentence in prison for throwing darts at the Prime Minister’s photograph.

    recep_tayyip_erdoganAbsurd, but no surprise.  Students have been a special target of Turkish authorities in their broad crackdown on dissent.  According to the latest figures, Turkey has 2,824 students who have either been charged or have been arrested for offenses ranging from insulting the Prime Minister to holding up banners demanding free education.

    Defamation laws have become another bludgeon of the strong against the weak in Turkey.  Authorities regularly use lawsuits as a means of silencing opposition.  And Erdogan doesn’t just sue students; he sues nearly everyone who in some way criticizes him, whether they are students, newspaper editors, song writers or political cartoonists.

    Amnesty International’s recent report on freedom of speech in Turkey states,

    The use of defamation laws with the purpose or effect of inhibiting legitimate criticism of government or public officials violates the right to freedom of expression. Amnesty International opposes laws prohibiting insult or disrespect of heads of state or public figures, the military or other public institutions or flags or symbols (such as lèse majesté and desacato laws). Amnesty International also opposes laws criminalizing defamation, whether of public figures or private individuals…

    Unless Turkey changes its law criminalizing defamation, the Prime Minister and other government officials will continue to use this law to stifle their critics.

    The time is now to end these abuses and bring real reform to Turkey.

    via In Erdogan’s Turkey, even children get sued | Human Rights in Turkey.

  • Turkey: Time to remove the shackles on freedom

    Turkey: Time to remove the shackles on freedom

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    The reforms fail to bring national law in line with international human rights standards

    © REUTERS/Umit Bektas

    The right to freedom of expression is under attack in Turkey. Hundreds of abusive prosecutions are brought against activists, journalists, writers and lawyers. It is one of Turkey’s most entrenched human rights problems.

    John Dalhuisen, Director of Europe and Central Asia for Amnesty International
    Wed, 27/03/2013

    A package of reforms before Turkey’s Parliament risks being a missed opportunity to bring the country’s laws in line with international human rights standards and leaves people vulnerable to a range of abuses including jail just for expressing an opinion, Amnesty International said in a new report out today.

    “The right to freedom of expression is under attack in Turkey. Hundreds of abusive prosecutions are brought against activists, journalists, writers and lawyers. It is one of Turkey’s most entrenched human rights problems,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Director for Europe and Central Asia.

    Amnesty International’s report, Decriminalize dissent: Time to deliver on the right to freedom of expression, analyses the current law and practice related to the ten most problematic articles threatening freedom of expression under the Turkish legal system.

    The reforms – called the “Fourth Judicial Package” – fail to make the necessary legislative amendments to bring national law in line with international human rights standards.

    “The criminalization and incarceration of individuals simply for expressing their opinions must not continue. Now is the time for the government to show their commitment to freedom of expression” said Dalhuisen.

    “Successive rounds of reform failed to address the core of the problem – Turkey must now overhaul the definition of offences within its Penal Code and Anti-Terrorism Law.”

    “Most abusive prosecutions target either individuals’ criticism of public officials or their expression of legitimate views on sensitive political issues. The Turkish authorities must accept criticism – and respect the right to freedom of expression” said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International’s expert on Turkey.

    The notorious Article 301 of the Penal Code “Denigration of the Turkish Nation”, used to prosecute and convict murdered journalist and human rights defender Hrant Dink, remains in force. So does Article 318, “Alienating the public from military service”, used to prosecute support for the right to conscientious objection. Both must be abolished.

    Recent years have seen increasingly arbitrary use of anti-terrorism laws to prosecute legitimate activities including political speeches, critical writing, attendance of demonstrations and association with recognised political groups and organizations – in violation of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.

    “Amending Turkey’s overly broad and vague definition of terrorism is a must, only this can end the abuses in prosecutions for “membership of a terrorist organization” and other such offences,” said Gardner.

    Peaceful discussion of Kurdish rights and politics are prosecuted under provisions criminalizing terrorist propaganda. Analysis of the issue and slogans shouted at pro-Kurdish demonstrations are frequently prosecuted as “terrorist propaganda.”

    “A society where people can freely express their opinions, where they can debate the most pertinent issues of the day without the threat of prosecution is a healthy society, and the kind Turkey needs to become” said Dalhuisen.

    “A fundamental legal reform removing the shackles on freedom of expression, association and assembly will clear the air in Turkey, it’s an essential step for a peaceful and democratic Turkey,” said Gardner.

    Cases
    Temel Demirer was prosecuted for saying that Hrant Dink had been killed because he was Armenian and making allegations about the state’s role in his killing, Temel Demirer talked about the massacres of Armenians in Turkey after 1915.

    Conscientious objector Halil Savda has been convicted on multiple occasions for supporting publicly the right to conscientious objection. He has been accused of “alienating the public from military service”.

    Lawyer Selçuk Kozağaçlı was prosecuted in February 2010 for calling for justice for the deaths of prisoners in a 2000 prison operation when the military invaded twenty prisons across the country to end a prolonged hunger strike. In January 2013 in a separate indictment, Selçuk Kozağaçlı was charged with membership of the banned leftist group, the Revolutionary Peoples’ Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C). As of February 2013 he remained in pre-trial detention.

    In April 2012 Fazıl Say, a pianist of international renown, was prosecuted for tweets he made mocking religious individuals and Islamic conceptions of heaven. As of February 2013, there had been two court hearings; a third is scheduled for 15 April.

    Investigative journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener, are currently being prosecuted on charges of supporting the activities of Ergenekon, an alleged criminal network engaged in a plot to violently overthrow the government for “knowingly and willingly supporting a terrorist organization”. The evidence against Ahmet Şık is based largely on his book “The imam’s army”, which alleges the existence of a network within state institutions and civil society made up of followers of the Turkish Islamic scholar in exile, Fetullah Gülen, a supporter of the Justice and Development party (AKP) government. The evidence against Nedim Şener consists of no more than written works and tapped telephone conversations with defendants in the Ergenekon case about matters not related to any crimes.

    In January 2009 Vedat Kurşun, editor and owner of Azadiya Welat, Turkey’s only Kurdish language newspaper was convicted on multiple counts for “committing a crime in the name of a terrorist organization” and for ”Making propaganda for a terrorist organization” to a total of 166 years and six months. Following appeal he was acquitted of the first offence and sentenced to 10 years and 6 months imprisonment for “Making propaganda for a terrorist organization.”

    62 year-old Sultani Acıbuca, member of a group of mothers who have lost or had sons imprisoned as part of the conflict between the Turkish army and the PKK, was convicted of being a member of a terrorist organization for calling for peace and an end to the conflict.