FREEDOM FOR SEBAHAT

Thousand Hopes (DTP) parliamentary deputy-elect for Istanbul, Sebahat Tuncel, is released from prison. Photo at Özgür Gündem.

More on Sebahat Tuncel at Bianet.

There are a total of eight women among the Thousand Hopes (DTP) parliamentarians-elect:










On another subject, in connection with a post from a few days ago about the Turkish lobby, Luke Ryland's made a Sibel connection. Among other things, he has this to say:

I do hope that Crowley writes another article and looks at Turkish lobbying in general - because then he'd be right in the middle of the Sibel Edmonds case. Crowley would have to take a closer look at some of Turkey's other lobbyists - past and present - and he'd find that Douglas Feith and Richard Perle used to lobby for Turkey (although he'd be hard-pressed to identify exactly what they did for their money.) And he'd find that The Cohen Group (former Defense Secretary William Cohen, General Joe Ralston, former State Dept #3 Marc Grossman) is currently lobbying for Turkey, as is Ret. General Brent Scowcroft.

Crowley would probably find that most of these lobbyists are very close to the American Turkish Council (ATC), "a front for criminal activity," according to Sibel. And Crowley would probably find that although these lobbyists purport to be working for the Republic of Turkey, that might not actually be true. Ex-CIA agent Phil Giraldi says:

"The money involved does not appear to come from the Turkish government, and FBI investigators are trying to determine its source and how it is distributed. Some of it may come from criminal activity, possibly drug trafficking, but much more might come from arms dealing. Contracts in the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars provide considerable fat for those well placed to benefit."

If Crowley takes a closer look at the ATC, home to all these lobbyists, he'll notice that the FBI has been running a counter-intelligence operation against them since the mid-Nineties. And he'd notice that Sibel's case, in part, is about the nuclear black market.

I hope Crowley does some investigation of the Turkish lobby, in particular the ATC, and then writes about it, too. Who knows where it might lead?