"I appreciate so very much the example your country has set on how to be a Muslim country and at the same time a country which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom."
~ George W. Bush, in Ankara, 2004.
~ George W. Bush, in Ankara, 2004.
Well--if you can stand it--there's more bad news. It was waiting there for me in my email this morning, from a friend.
It looks like the Ankara regime is continuing its attacks against intellectuals and journalists within Turkey, from Atilim:
Haci Orman, chairman of the cultural institute BEKSAV and consultant of our newspaper, has been taken under arrest by force today in Kadiköy, Istanbul.
The arrest and imprisonment terror, based on the new antiterror law and started in September last year, is continuing. Haci Orman, chairman of the cultural institute BEKSAV and consultant of our newspaper, has been kidnapped today at 13.45pm next to the bank 'İş Bankası' in Kadiköy, İstanbul. According to eye witnesses, Orman has been forced to get on a car of the type 'Beyaz Sahın' with the license tag 34 EC 933 after he was handcuffed. Orman answered this arrest by force with resistance. He shouted his name and job title loudly and also expressed that he was going to be kidnapped. Eye witnesses called immediately the Human Rights Association IHD and told them about the incident.
Orman is right now being held at the antiterror unit in Vatan Street. It is claimed that Orman has been wanted after the arrest terror in September. Orman had been threatened with guns and chased in Kadiköy by teams of the antiterror unit a few months ago.
This kidnapping attack, which happened right after the assassination of Hrant Dink, is another attack in the chain of attacks on intellectuals. With these new attacks, the state which wants to hide the truth about the assassination, tries to warn the social opposition, intellectuals, workers and labourers 'to be silent'.
Ah, blessed silence that conceals innumerable crimes!
That's the way, isn't it? For a fascist regime, it's the only way because a fascist regime cannot justify its crimes against the people . . . but SHHHH! Say nothing, report nothing, pretend to see nothing.
A fascist regime hides behind a facade of law and democracy while its prisons burst with political prisoners. But do you hear any of this from the EU? No, because the EU is a commercial club; it is concerned solely with its bottom line and will permit Turkey to enter as long as the balance sheet stays in the black, therefore "civilized" Europe ignores the fact that the balance sheet is dripping with red.
What about the Americans? They are exactly the same as the Europeans. What passes for government in the US is a collection of bottom-feeders dredged from war profiteers like KBR, Halliburton, and Bechtel; the war industry, best represented by Lockheed Martin but also composed of lesser blood-suckers; and then there are the up-and-coming mercenary companies epitomized by Blackwater, USA; after all of these come the hyenas, the lobbyists, composed of a pack of has-been bureaucrats and Dime-a-Dozen Generals, as Sibel Edmonds has aptly put it.
The ideological fuel of the system comes from the ultra-conservatives, the neocons, or the Baker-Hamiltons, who wile away their time in poison factories euphemistically referred to as "think tanks," all funded, of course, by the murderers listed in the previous paragraph. In these factories skulk the lowest of the low, those with no morality or honor, the little gears and pulleys of their brains creaking away in an effort to find the most cost-effective method of consigning millions to the fascist client states that are held up for the democratic edification of the world--Türkiye! These modern-day honorary members of the Order of the Death's Head are lately beating their war drums for Iran, so that they can feed the system, increase their domination of energy resources and provide another record year of earnings for their war industry.
Meanwhile, back in the TC, in the Middle East's shining Model of Democracy, people like Haci Orman are kidnapped in broad daylight, in one of the world's largest cities, by "terror" police (perfectly named since spreading terror is their raison d'etre), all for the sake of greasing the machine, the system, the worldwide Deep State.
What is the crime of people like Haci Orman? They encourage solidarity among oppressed groups, as in this example of a BEKSAV event in Istanbul last November:
The opening speech was held by Haci Orman, chairman of the administrative council of BEKSAV. Orman started his speech by saluting the ESP activists who had been imprisoned in Amed, Kurdistan, the ‘country whose name is forbidden’. He continued and said: ’Ankara is the capital of the bourgeoisie. You cannot dwell there. But the 46 ignited the streets [*46 ESP activists were imprisoned in Ankara, after a militant mass action against isolation in the prisons (7th December, 2004)]. Today, the police brutally attacked the ESP activists which sold the newspaper Gündem on the street in order to show their solidarity. Greetings to the ESP activists who resist in Ankara!’ Orman saluted the prisoners by saying ‘There are blood and teeth marks at the prison walls of Bolu, Tekirdağ, Edirne, Sincan and Bayrampaşa. There are slogans full of resistance on these walls’ and also greeted the prisoners who had been arrested on September 8 and 21 by saying: ‘Despite the arrests, imprisonments and oppression, we are here again defending our posts’. In his speech he also gave examples of history explaining that social changes and progress cannot hindered with oppression, massacres and imprisonment.
[ . . . ]
Following the programme, Hilmi Yarayıcı went onstage and gave a solidarity message against the terror of the anti-terror law. He was followed by Gökhen Birben and his songs which let the crowd feel the tempered waves of the Black Sea. The crowd danced the traditional dance of Laz people and sang the song 'Denizde karartı var' which is dedicated to Kazım Koyuncu. After Birben, it was Koma Denge Hevî's and Agire Jiyan's turn to go onstage. With their Kurdish songs, enthusiasm reached its peak.
[ . . . ]
The event was a strong and vivid indicator for the defence of the associations and institutions in a legitimate way which had to face fascist terror and for the hope standing tall despite the attacks aiming at breaking the hope.
Their crimes also consist of protesting the terror state and its new "anti-terror" law (TMY) [Note: Check that document for a list of imprisoned journalists and a list of intellectuals, activists, and journalists who support the work of Atilim]:
While Turkey continuously claims to be in the process of democratisation, on the other hand, it blows a total state-terror in the whole country. The offices of the democratic organizations are being raided, their activists are being imprisoned, massacres are being carried out by attacking demonstrations and meetings, even the children are being shot on the streets. There was recorded an increase of applications to the Human Rights Association because of torture. There is now being put in force the implementations which are similar to the periods of military fascist coups and martiallaws.
In recent months, the state-terror on the democratic rights and organizations has been increased by the use of the new Anti-terror Law (TMY), which is considered as the Anti-Social Law by the democratic public opinion. TMY was put in force despite the opposition of democratic mass organisations, human rights organisations, intellectuals, trade unions, workers and labourers.
[ . . . ]
There has been created a total state-terror and extra-ordinary conditions in Turkey and N. Kurdistan. This is the point which the attacked organizations, the democratic people and organisations reached to and which we share also. Through these attacks, the socialist and oppositional press is wanted to be put in silence and the voice of unionists, workers and labourers, youth and women those who struggle for their rights is wanted to be shut down. The Turkish state has almost waged a war against the entire society with the new TMY. It is hunting for human in the offices of organizations, houses and on the streets. The freedom of press, freedom of action and freedom of organization is being violated; the journalists and writers are being put in prison. The Kurdish nation’s call for freedom and peace is responded with violence.
Hrant Dink was a victim of that violence; Haci Omran is now a new victim. How is it that anyone can speak of stability, when state violence is routinely and consistently applied to the very individuals and groups who demand nothing more than the same rights that citizens in Western democracies take for granted? Does anyone believe that we will hear an outcry for the latest victim from the great democratic citizens of the West? Don't hold your breath; those citizens have been permanently anaesthetized by the manure-shovelers of the mainstream Western media.
Once again, the veil is pulled back briefly, and we catch a glimpse of the monster at the heart of the Deep State's reality.