SINGING FOR THE PAŞAS

"He [Şemdin Sakık] was not a big leader, but a peasants’s gang chief. For ten years he has behaved this way. We did not bring him forward. Since 1993 it has been the Turks’ plan to propel him centre stage. Even the French secret services warned us that important sums of money ended up in his pockets."
~ Abdullah Öcalan.

Hevallo has a post from last Friday on the Council of Europe's call for an end to the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan. He's included a link to the CoE's report.

He's also posted this familiar photo, the one photo that we've seen of Öcalan's cell. Then there's more description of Öcalan's prison conditions, from the translator's introduction to Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilization:

Ocalan inhabits a cell of 13 square metres equipped with a single frosted-glass window, which can only be be opened a finger's breadth. Fresh air is provided by air-conditioning. The cell is located in a two-storey building with special safeguards. There is a toilet and washing facility in the room. The cell is subject to 24-hour surveillance by camera and peephole by a team of carefully selected Turkish military officers, who are regularly rotated.

The cell is illuminated 24 hours a day, causing the prisoner severe sleep problems. In general, Ocalan is permitted to see his lawyers for one hour once a week in a room adjacent to his cell. These visits are often arbitrarily postponed or cancelled, resulting in complete week-long isolation.

Ocalan's closest relatives are permitted to see him once a month for one hour. They may only see him through a glass partition and speak to him by means of a telephone. Twice a day he is allowed to leave his cell for a one-hour walk in the yard. This yard is about 40 square metres in size; it is surfaced with gravel and surrounded by high walls surmounted with barbed wire.

Contact with the outside world, including access to information, has been reduced to an absolute minimum. Ocalan has no television, and the books and papers supplied by his lawyers are often handed over to him only in part and sometimes not at all. His mail is censored, and he is not allowed to answer any letters. He is allowed no more than three books at a time. His single source of up-to-date information is a radio, which only receives the state-run Turkish channel TRT.

This is the official picture of Öcalan's prison conditions, of Turkey's so-called premier "terrorist."

On the other hand, we have the example of Şemdin Sakık's imprisonment. Sakık was the PKK commander who disobeyed Öcalan's orders and killed 33 off-duty Turkish troops in 1993 ending a PKK ceasefire. Sakık ran from PKK in 1998 and sought refuge with the KDP, who turned him over to the Ankara regime, along with his brother.

After his imprisonment, Sakık began to sing the TSK's tune like a canary. Those who attempted to assasinate Akın Birdal claimed to be inspired to do so by Sakık's false accusations against Birdal, which were vigorously promoted by the irresponsible Turkish media. Sakık also claimed that PKK carried out the assassination of Swedish politician Olof Palme. Turkish journalists Cengiz Çandar and Mehmet Ali Birand were fired from Sabah on the basis of Sakık's "confessions"; they were allegedly taking bribes from the PKK in exchange for promoting the freedom movement.

Sakık was considered Turkey's number 2 terrorist.

Sakık began to write books for the Paşas.

Nowadays, Sakık has his own laptop and website, where you can see a flash player photo gallery of his spacious digs. You can register at his site. You can leave comments. You can read his books online at semdinsakikweb(dot)com.

See how nicely the Paşas treat you when you sing their tune?

When you get done at Sakık's place, check Progressive Historians, where Gordon Taylor has a great post on recent events in Turkey.


NEWSFLASH: Clinton drops Mehmet Çelebi like a hot potato, from ABC News:

"We were unaware of Mr. Celebi's involvement in this film and we obviously do not agree with it," said Clinton campaign senior adviser Ann Lewis on Friday to JTA. "He is no longer raising money for this campaign."

Some Clinton critics note that Clinton campaign has known about this issue since at least about a month ago when the New York Post called to ask about the Celebi connection and asked how Lewis could have only learned about it Friday from JTA.

Asked this morning for clarification, the Clinton campaign told me that they were unaware of Celebri's involvement with the film until around the time of the New York Post item, when Celebri's involvement with the campaign ceased.

It will be interesting to see if Sen. Obama's campaign suggests that Clinton return the $100,000 or so that Celebi bundled for her.

So I guess those Kurdish sources were pretty damned accurate.


And let's not forget Çelebi's connections to Sibel Edmonds' story and the Deep State.