GOOGLE BLOCKS SIBEL EDMONDS

Google has blocked Sibel Edmonds' blog:

URGENT: GOOGLE BLOCKS MY SITE DURING SENSITIVE PERIOD



WE NEED YOUR HELP

My Blog Site http://123realchange.blogspot.com/" is now blocked by Google’s Blogger. They will not let me post during this most sensitive period, when I am about to provide deposition on Foreign US government illegal operations in the United States!



A few weeks ago I started receiving ‘Google & Blogger warnings’ from my technologically savvy friends and well-wishers, who encouraged me to have a mirror site as a back up and or cease using Google’s Blogger all together. I did take these warnings seriously and started looking at alternatives and other options. Well, this is what I got from Blogger yesterday:



From: Blogger
Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 8:19 AM
Subject: http://123realchange.blogspot.com/ - ACTION REQUIRED
To: sibeldenizalt@gmail.com



Hello,

Your blog at: http://123realchange.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=6542765284440328864

Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, your blog will be deleted in 20 days. Click this link to request the review: http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=6542765284440328864



I am still looking into it and will be corresponding with them to find out what the heck is going on, but I must say the timing of this is extremely troubling:



Is it coincidence that this comes up when I am subpoenaed to provide sworn deposition on matters that have sent our government scrambling and certain high-level criminal entities sweating big time?



Is this due to my latest interviews for my Boiling Frogs Show on explosive issues such as AIPAC, Iran, Central Asia, and Pakistan? We know big brother NSA has been listening, and my guests have really been talking. We just wrapped up our phone interviews with Phil Giraldi (on AIPAC & Israel and more), Richard Barlow (on Pakistan and what our government didn’t want its people to know), Joe Trento (on Iran, Brzezinski, and more), Sandalio Gonzalez (on our phony War on Drugs, House of Death, Kent Memo, and more)…You see what I am getting at here?



Or is it the fact that this blog is becoming more popular, the visitors’ number has been going up rapidly, and its content getting picked up by many, nationally and internationally? And I am talking about content and topics that are blacklisted by the US Mainstream Media.



I don’t know the answer. I may never know. However, what I know is this: I better find a different or multiple different, blog sites and keep this forum alive. I also want to warn others who may become subject to this kind of notice, or maybe get terminated without any notice!



Please help me, thus all of us, resolve this blockage immediately, since in the next few days this blog may prove to be extremely crucial to report developing news and cases which will not be covered by MSM.



Thank you,

Sibel Edmonds

Sibel is due to be deposed by the lawyers for David Krikorian in his case against Turkish-funded Congressvermin Jean Schmidt of Ohio. Sibel's press release on the deposition can be found here.

There are a lot of people who would want to see Sibel Edmonds silenced over the Turkish lobby in the US. The same people would like to see her silenced on a lot of other issues as well.

You see, Truth is the greatest weapon against these terrorists and that's why they strive to enforce Silence.

"Fascism Anyone?".

MIDWEEK NEWS

"A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to."
~ Granville Hicks

The other day I posted the complete text of Adem Uzun's speech which he gave at the 5th EUTCC Conference on the EU, Turkey, and the Kurds. The speech was originally posted on KurdishInfo and I have since confirmed that it is the complete speech.

However, a truncated version has apparently been making the rounds through MESOP's (Mesopotamische Gesellschaft--Mesopotamian Development Society) email newsletter. About the last half of Heval Adem's speech was missing from the newsletter version. That's particularly interesting given that the editor of MESOP was present during Heval Adem's presentation.

The cut version of the speech was picked up by KurdishMedia, and that version ended with these words:

There is a strong possibility for its mask to fall especially regarding its approach to the Kurdish Question. It cannot possibly fight for long by hitting beneath the belt. Consequently, the AKP has no peaceful project regarding the policy on the Kurds. Although enthusiastic about harmonising with the West, it is not strong enough to determine a policy, let alone exercising it. Its entire hope depends on external forces having their turns to attack the PKK. Progressively it is becoming obvious that they wish to achieve certain goals by being semi-covert and not showing their true colours.

I wonder why MESOP did not carry all of Heval Adem's words? Why was the speech cut off at that point?

There's an interesting article on Istanbul's Tarlabaşı coming out of an Indian community:

Strolling through the beautiful streets of Istanbul's Beyoglu quarter on the European side of the ancient city, few would know that just a few hundred metres away lies a district where prostitution and the drug trade flower.

Somewhat conveniently separated by the multi-laned Tarlabasi Boulevard is the Beyoglu that foreign tourists rarely see, a district where live many Kurdish people forced to flee there homes in south-east Turkey, either because of poverty or because they left their villages through direct force or out of fear for their lives.

Estimates vary, but around 4,000 villages in south-east Turkey were "emptied" in the 1980s and 1990s, with around one million people forced to leave their homes and farms during fighting between the Turkish armed forces and the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).

If you decide to go to South Kurdistan and enter through Turkey, you better make sure you stay in South Kurdistan:

Foreigners who enter Iraq through the Kurdish north of the country without a visa issued by the authorities in Baghdad will face arrest and legal charges, the interior ministry warned on Monday.

The announcement came after an Italian national was detained in the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, in western Iraq, after having been issued with a 10-day visa in the autonomous Kurdish north of the country.

"Any foreigner entering Iraq through the border posts of Kurdistan without a visa from the Baghdad government will be arrested," under a new directive issued by the interior ministry, spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf said.

It looks like the Zionists are a bit peeved with PJAK being put on The List. Now why is that?

BANNED BOOKS AND CENSORSHIP IN TURKEY

"Did you ever hear anyone say 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me'?"
~ Joseph Henry Jackson.

It's Banned Books Week in America, something of which I'm rather fond. What is Banned Books Week? Is that where everyone goes around banning books or lighting bonfires and burning them? Quite the contrary. Read on:

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups--or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore the latest problems to classic and beloved works of American literature.

[ . . . ]

During the last week of September every year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2008 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 27 through October 4.

More information is available at bannedbooksweek.org and there is a short list and a bit of history about books that the US government has attempted to censor over the years here. Learn even more at the Forbidden Library.

Since it is Banned Books Week, I think it's appropriate to note that the International Publishers Association (IPA) has awarded its 2008 Freedom to Publish prize to Ragıp Zarakoğlu. There's a bio of Zarakoğlu at Scotland on Sunday.

From Info-Turk, there is Zarakoğlu's recent speech on censorship in Turkey:

We can define Turkey as a country in transition, from authoritarianism to democracy, from "the national security state" to a democratic state of equal and free citizens, a process which has been underway for a century.

During the Cold War, the armed forces of the pro-US countries faced external enemies but also a so-called internal enemy. In the 1960s and ‘70s a new sort of military coup swept the world. Argentina, Chile, Indonesia and Turkey experienced a kind of genocide, targeting different sections of the Left. Militarists seized state power, trying to socially engineer an entire political system.

Using a national security model perfected in collaboration with the Pentagon, National Security Councils were established in client states, with the model’s most extreme form developed in Turkey. There the National Security Council was transformed into the highest political decision-maker, with the equal participation of a self-governing military apparatus. It even had a secret constitution, the Document of National Security Politics, known as the Red Book.

At the instigation of the army the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan removed "ultra-nationalism" and "racism" from the Red Book’s list of national threats, opening the door to aggressive nationalism and the legitimization of extremist violence. Conspiracy theorists fuelled a wave of nationalist paranoia as a by-product of psychological warfare. TV programmes extolled racism and violence, creating a new kind of role model for society.

Though painted as dauntless defenders of secularism, the state sustains a form of secularism where most religious functionaries can claim a civil servant’s salary. Non-Muslim bodies run by and supporting Turkish citizens enjoy no such support.

These "threats" are created and exaggerated by an obsolete militarism trying to control society. The General Staff’s website – one of the key objectives of which is to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide – includes Christian missionaries on its list of dangers. They see Greek and Armenian orthodox foundations run by Turkish citizens as a threat to national security.

Some courts have even ruled Turkish non-Muslim organizations to be “foreign bodies”. Former president Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed a bill reforming Turkey’s Law of Foundations, objecting to privileges for “foreigners." The Greek Patriarchate, spiritual leader of the Greek Christian minority in Turkey, is accused of heading a "new Vatican".

The secret Subordinate Committee for Minorities, established by Ismet Inönü’s government in 1961 helped pave the way for the wave of repression against minorities. It has worked. The once thriving Greek minority population in Istanbul has declined to about 1,900 today.

Every year another minority school or church closes. Even western Protestant and Catholic communities in this so-called secular country face significant obstacles to registering and opening places of worship.

Extreme nationalist Grey Wolf groups have bombed the Greek Patriarchate, and pseudo-leftist nationalists have attacked Protestants. No direct orders need to be issued. The numerous racist and nationalist organisations will do whatever is required.

I ask: were the objections to Hrant Dink’s reports on the alleged Armenian roots of Sabiha Gokçen, adopted daughter of Kemal Ataturk, a coincidence? Were the threats against Turkey’s Assyrian and Syriac peoples that followed new allegations of genocide against their communities at the end of the Ottoman era, a coincidence? Are a recent series of attacks on Catholic clerics a coincidence? Why are Protestants and Germans in Turkey suddenly facing harassment for following their religious beliefs?

An entire mindset has been based on the concept of “one nation, one religion, one sect" and of an era governed by "one party". What has all this to do with a state that claims to be secularist?

We should look at the global picture and a wider range of events fostered by the secret armies organised by NATO after the Second World War. Trained by US and British Special Forces, the so-called Stay Behind units – commandos equipped to stage behind the lines attacks on a Soviet assault that never came – instead linked up with right-wing terrorists to target imagined internal threats from the left.

Despite being exposed as terrorist conspirators at the end of the Cold War by Italian premier Giulio Andreotti and other European leaders, the last units in Turkey continued to operate against the Kurdish rebels and Turkey’s leftist community.

Only after Russia’s military intervention in Turkey’s Black Sea neighbour Georgia did Ankara finally take steps to disband its last embarrassing legacy of Cold War NATO membership, the Ergenekon Turkish counter-guerilla force.

There are no coincidences. A deeply militarist mindset lays deep roots. Turkey lost its political balance after the annihilation of the Left by the military juntas. The very existence of the country’s left depends on international solidarity.

Unfortunately, since September 11, 2001, national security state anti-terror laws have been given even more power in Turkey – indeed, in many countries - to restrict freedom of expression.

Our publishing house, Belge International Publishing, was targeted under anti-terror laws when we published books about the Kurdish Question and the Armenian genocide. Books that critiqued state terror and condemned terrorism were accused under anti-terror law.


The Erdoğan government reformed the anti-terror law in 2004, deleting a clause that controlled the opposition press. But in 2006 the National Security Council demanded that the clause be restored in a stricter form.

Now the Kurdish and opposition publications may be silenced for a year waiting for trials to begin. Their defence lawyers’ rights are restricted. Jailed journalists are sent to special isolation prisons where they have fewer rights than "ordinary" criminals.


As the 2007 Turkish Publishers’ Association Report On The Freedom Of Publishing noted: the papers Özgür Gündem, Atılım, Birgün and Evrensel, broadcasters Free Radio and Voice of Anatolia and periodicals Özgür Halk, Yürüyüş and Kaos GL have been banned and some even faced raids by security forces.

The editor of the periodical Sanat ve Hayat and the chair of the BEKSAV Institution for Art and Culture, Hacı Orman was threatened and arrested. Some 600 separate charges were brought against the Özgür Gündem and its editor-in-chief Hasan Bayar sentenced to nearly six years imprisonment.


As we found again in our 2008 Report On The Freedom Of Publishing, article 8 and 7.2 of the Anti-Terror Law was particularly directed against the media. The newspaper Alternatif was banned for a month a week after opening. The same fate awaited the newspaper İşçi-Köylü (Worker-Peasant).

The negative effects of these restored and enhanced clauses to the Anti-Terror Law became increasingly clear, even to those who had closed their ears to the warnings of the Turkish Publishers’ Association.

Even mainstream papers such as Hürriyet and Radikal tangled with the anti-terror law for interviews they published. Meanwhile Füsun Erdoğan, chief editor of Free Radio and four staffers at Atılım, are charged with membership of an ‘illegal organisation’.

Though Vedat Kurşun, editor of Turkey’s only Kurdish language daily Welat, has recently been released, the editor-in-chief of the periodical Odak was not freed, even though he suffers from a terminal illness. And Ali Turgay, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Seventh Day, was arrested as he made a statement to Beşiktaş Judicial Court. He is charged with ‘aiding and abetting an illegal organisation’.

But around the world free speech groups criticize Turkey’s anti-terror law and its abusive curtailment of freedom of expression. The European Court of Justice has upheld appeals against the convictions of publishers of opposition media under the Anti-Terror Law.

As we said in our 2008 Report, narrow-minded interpretations of article 215 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalises the praising of a criminal or a criminal act, make it difficult to publish documents relating to the last 40 years of Turkish political history.

Although the banning of books has become rare, the collected writings of Mahir Çayan, a youth leader of 1968 and his ‘Revolutionary Songs,’ both published by Su Publishing were banned. A similar collection by Bora Publishing was banned in 2004.

Writer Haluk Gerger was imprisoned for a talk he gave on Deniz Gezmiş, a youth hero of ’68. Temel Demirer is currently standing trial for speaking at a panel in Tunceli about İbrahim Kaypakkaya, another youth leader from that era. A separate case against the same writer - for his speech at the memorial ceremony for Hrant Dink - is currently suspended as a result of the change made to Article 301.

After former parliamentarian Mahmut Alınak was jailed for his proposing that streets in the city of Kars be named after left wing and pro-Kurdish figures, we were happy to learn that a park in Diyarbakır was to be named after publisher Ayşe Nur Zarakolu.


But the decision was reversed by the Diyarbakır governor on the grounds that she had once been imprisoned, even though Ankara had already agreed to pay compensation after the European Court of Human Rights found she was unfairly convicted.


There are gains. After Hayat TV was closed by order of Turkish Radio & TV (RTUK) in July, a protest by writers and intellectuals led to the lifting of the ban in August.

But this is not enough. The core of the issue lies in the unsolved Kurdish problem, an issue on which militarists have never sought a peaceful political settlement, and who see the issue of respect for human rights as the main obstacle to solving the ‘problem’!

Finding a just and political settlement for the Kurdish problem will break militarism’s means of controlling society. The Kurdish war is the military’s justification for political interference, a policy that suits Prime Minister Erdoğan well.

The military tolerates political Islam in return for acceptance of the Anti-Terror and Police Authority laws. That frees it to target the "internal enemy" at home and abroad, including progressive academics such as historian Taner Akcam in the US and Holland.

We do not show enough solidarity with the Kurdish media, in recognition of the threats and pressure they endure.

So to show that solidarity I accepted the honorary post of editor-in-chief of the newspaper Alternative, to show support for freedom of expression and the right to freely express opinions on the Kurdish question.

And as a result I was summoned by the prosecutor of the Serious Crimes Court at the end of August on connection with possible breaches of the Anti-Terror Law.

You will hear more soon.

Ragip Zarakolu

These days, of course, it's not just books or publishers that are censored in Turkey, from Canada's Globe and Mail:

A Turkish court decision to ban the website of a renowned British atheist academic has stirred fresh doubts about the European Union candidate's commitment to freedom of speech.

Approximately 850 Internet websites, including Youtube, have been blocked this year in Turkey, the number swollen by recent laws making it possible to block sites without a court order.

“When you look at Internet regulation Turkey looks to be in the same league as Tunisia or North Korea, and that doesn't bode well for EU requirements,” said Cengiz Aktar, professor at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University.

“The Internet is one of the most instrumental means of spreading information, it is an unprecedented instrument, and forbidding the internet is forbidding freedom of speech,” he said.

Since it is Banned Books Week, and since there is no freedom of speech or freedom of expression in Turkey, and since the Kurdish people have been the victims of censorship for so many decades, take your favorite book on the Kurdish struggle and donate it to your local library this week.

Do it for the Kurdish struggle.

Do it for those publishers, writers, and journalists in Turkey who are under severe pressure from the regime.

Do it because you can.

TURKEY: PSYOPS, STATE CENSORSHIP, AND THE KURDS

"Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime."
~ Potter Stewart.

Even as Katil Erdoğan has been encouraging the Turkish public to avoid Doğan media because Doğan media published the news uncovered in a German court that linked Katil Erdoğan's government to international corruption, other newspapers in Turkey are being banned for publishing the Kurdish side of the long conflict in The Southeast.

It began at the beginning of August when a Turkish court seized copies of Turkish daily Birgün for its published interview with Murat Karayılan. An investigation was initiated against Birgün journalist Hakan Tahmaz, Birgün's general director İbrahim Çeşmecioğlu, and Birgün's licence holder Bülent Yılmaz for having published the interview.

Near mid-September, Taraf's Ahmet Altan--a venerable Turkish journalist--was charged with Article 301 for "denigrating Turkishness, the Republic, the institutions and organs of the State" for writing about Armenians. Charges were filed by a crackpot of the BBP. Another BBP crackpot, Kemal Kerincsiz, was indicted in the Ergenekon investigation. Previously, he was well-known for filing charges against Hrant Dink and Orhan Pamuk, also for reasons having to do with Armenians.

Then there was the case of Cengiz Kapmaz, who was convicted to ten months in prison for publishing his interview with former DEP parliamentarian Orhan Doğan.

TSK has also begun an "accreditation" process to approve those media outlets it will permit at its press conferences. This is an attempt by TSK to control the media, as described in its Information Support Activity Action Plan.

Most recently, Turkish paper Alternatif has been banned by the Ankara regime for publishing the statements of Öcalan and Karayılan.

In addition, a number of websites are officially banned by the regime: Professor Richard Dawkins' website, Youtube, kliptube, geocities, Yeni Özgür Politika, Özgür Gündem, Fırat News, and Rojaciwan.

You know they're scared shitless when their only response is censorship.

AMENDING CENSORSHIP

"Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?'"
~ Joseph Henry Jackson

Check Gordon Taylor's latest post, which he calls a "mish-mash" of news. Some of it, however, is very important news, such as the release of Cüneyt Ertuş from prison. Now when is the regime going to charge the fascist police who were filmed breaking Cüneyt's arm? I doubt very much that there will be charges or, if there are, they will be delayed, delayed, delayed until the whole case is lost in the infinite bureaucracy that is Turkey. Obviously these cops knew they'd face no punishment and that's why they broke the kid's arm in front of TV cameras.

Among many other items, Gordon has a link to a BBC article on Ragıp Zarakoğlu's trial. There's an update on this at Info-Turk:

Istanbul Criminal Court of First Instance N2 decided to wait until article 301 is amended in the case against publisher Zarakolu. Zarakolu was charged under article 301 for publishing George Jerjian's "The truth will set us free."

Zarakolu is charged with “insulting the state and the republic” and “insulting the memory of Ataturk” (prison sentence for seven and a half years.) Trial will continue on 17 June.

Translator Atilla Tuygan is charged with “insulting Turkishness” and “insulting the armed forces” for translating Prof. Dr. Dora Sakayan's book "Memoirs of an Armenian Doctor-Garabet Haçeryan's İzmir Journal."

AKP submitted its drafts amending article 301 and article 305 "acting against fundamental national interests" to the Chairing office of the Parliament on 7 April.

Draft proposes the phrase “Turkish nation” to replace “Turkishness” and “Turkish republic” replace "the republic.” The upper limit for prison sentence will be reduced from three to two years. This makes it possible to postpone the execution of the sentences. (antenna-tr.org, April 10, 2008)

The last paragraph makes a joke of postponing the trial until June because Zarakoğlu is charged with "insulting the state and the republic". So that means what, that Zarakoğlu faces two years' imprisonment instead of three?

If you scroll down the Info-Turk article you come to another one on Article 301 by activist Şanar Yurdatapan:

1. It is meaningless to discuss “amending,” or correcting the bits and pieces of this article.

2. Since such an article has no place in a democratic society.

3. The reason of existence for the article is “to stop criticism” in the pretext of “preventing insult.”

What are the main points of those who defend the article?

1. Anyone can swear at the state and the nation. Should they be allowed to do that?

2. The western countries have similar articles too.

3. The article does not punish ‘criticism’. Look at the last sentence added to the article.

4. Abolishing it would not be a solution since there are certain institutional sensitivities. Let us solve it through amending it.

5. Outside pressure is high. We can not let them say, “They abolished it because the EU put pressure.”

6. If we amend it then they will say amend article 305, 318, 216, or 288, there is no end to it.

Let us answer one by one:

1. There are other articles preventing insult and they are adequate. Moreover, so what if an individual swears at the mighty state? It can be a subject to a court case when an adult insults at another adult. However, what would you say if an adult broke the head of a kid because the kid swore at him? The punishment of insulting the state should not being imprisoned, but being reproached and not being taken seriously by the society.

2. If the western democracies still have similar articles, it is a shame on them. Let us set an example. It is true that similar articles exist in few countries, but those articles are the relics from the times of totalitarian regimes, those countries are not even thinking about using those articles against their writers and journalists. Nobody has ever thought of trying Nobel prise winner author Günter Grass who said “he was shamed to be a German” and moved to another country.

3. Yes there is a sentence at the end, which says “criticisms” would be outside the scope of the law, but what is it good for? Prosecutors and judges set the limits of criticism according to the limits of their own minds, and when any of them decides “This exceeds the limits of criticism” that is it. Elif Şafak stood trial over the words of a fiction character. Orhan Pamuk got almost lynched, Hrant Dink was lynched. All of that happened during the period of article 301. Who has been protected by the last sentence?

4. What does “certain institutional sensitivities” mean? Let us speak clearly. The army is at the top of the list of those who resist the amendment of article 301. Many cases against journalists and writers have been filed on the complaints of the Office of the General Chief of Staff anyway. Is the Office of the General Chief of Staff under or above the Office of the Prime Minister? Is not the Turkish Parliament above all of them? So the law makers will want to abolish an article but will not be able to do it? How can we accept such a regime as a democracy?

5. The mentality of “we can not do it since those and those put pressure” can work wonders. What if The Association for Kemalist Ideas noticed that and holds mass “Respect head scarf” rallies to create pressure against the ban on “the head scarf”? If this article had been removed when the new TPC was prepared, there would have been neither so many scandals nor any pressure from the EU. (Orhan Pamuk would be in Turkey and Hrant Dink would be alive.)

6. Of course they will, we will, let us say it now. Abolish article 299 and 300 too. (301’s siblings) Abolish 305 and 318 too, amend 216 and 288 … etc. etc… Abolish Anti-Terror Law, you promised that while making the new TPC anyway. Abolish, amend, change all antidemocratic laws and articles; the Constitution, the Elections Law, Law on Political Parties, The Law on Internet, Pres Law, Penal Procedural Law, Penal Execution Law… We will continue saying and demanding these until Turkey, which is not even ruled by the superiority of the codes becomes a country, which is ruled by the superiority of the law.

Then follows a long list of people who've been charged under Article 301. If half the people in Turkey thought like Yurdatapan, there might be some hope.

Don't forget to check Hevallo to see who the US considers as "terrorists".

HPG has released the identities of two guerrillas killed by defenders of fascism in Amed (Diyarbakır), Zara area on 10 April:

Şehîd Nemirin!

PUPPET MASTER AND PUPPET

"Fie, fie, you counterfeit. You puppet, you!"
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has something on the recent arrest of journalists who had visited Qendil to check on the people who'd been forced out of their destroyed homes by joint US-Israel-Turkish bombing of the northern region of South Kurdistan:

Security forces arrested five journalists on 1st February near the Sengeser control post, in Suleimaniyah province, as they returned from the Kandil mountains on the Iraqi-Turkish border. Rahman Gharib was mistreated after he tried to resist the police.

“We went there the evening before to meet people who are suffering from Turkish bombing. We saw that much of the infrastructure - including schools and hospitals - has been destroyed. We interviewed the residents of isolated villages and took photos of the damage”, the journalist told Reporters Without Borders.

They were arrested as they tried to rejoin several colleagues who were waiting for them. Rahman Gharib, Bayez Mohammed, of Hawlati, Salam Abdallah, of the website Kurdistan Post, and freelance journalists Kerwan Salar and Mohammed Çawsin were questioned briefly. Surwan Omar, of the news agency Kurdistan News, was beaten by police when he tried to approach the group.

Earlier, in November 2007, IFEX and RSF had called on the KRG to lift the ban on journalists going to Qendil:

"Kurdistan is one of the few regions in Iraq where local and foreign journalists can move about freely without constant risk to their lives," RSF said. "This ban is a serious violation of their ability to report on the clashes in Iraq between the PKK's fighters and the Turkish army. The regional government in Erbil and the national government in Baghdad must stop blaming journalists for crises."

On 19 November, the Kurdish regional government prohibited journalists from going to meet PKK combatants who have found refuge in the Qandil mountains on the border between Iraq and Turkey. Kurdistan Regional Government spokesman Jamal Abdullah said "media reports have led to an acceleration of the crisis with Turkey."

The Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory said several journalists were arrested near the Turkish border as a result of the regional government's decision.

Jamal Abdullah is wrong, of course. Erdoğan's November 5 meeting with Bush is what really led to an acceleration of the so-called crisis with Turkey. It's been that way all along.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane. In November 2002, the AKP came to power in Turkey. Since Erdoğan, the chairman of the AKP, had been tried and convicted of inciting religious hatred for modifying and reading, in public, a poem by Ziya Gökalp. As a result of his conviction, Erdoğan was forbidden by law from holding any political office, including the office of prime minister.

Naturally, once in power, the AKP government set about immediately changing the law specifically so Erdoğan could take over as prime minister. But who gave the okay for any of that to happen? Think it was the Paşas? Think again:

In December 2002, US President George W. Bush stunned the Turkish political establishment in Ankara by inviting Erdogan to the White House. "You believe in the Almighty, and I believe in the Almighty. That's why we'll be great partners," the American president is said to have told his counterpart.[6] Proceeding on to Europe, Erdogan received assurances that the EU would commence accession negotiations with Ankara in December 2004 if Turkey undertook sufficient political and economic reforms.

In part because of American and European de facto recognition of Erdogan's authority, the Turkish military accepted the new administration's amendment of the constitution to lift the ban on Erdogan's political activity and holding of a by-election to allow for his entry into parliament (a requirement to be prime minister).

Now you know why the neocons went rabid over the TBMM's refusal to allow an American troop deployment from Turkey: The puppets failed to deliver to their masters.

Ironically, it was "a freshly vacated [parliamentary] seat in the province of Siirt" that facilitated Erdoğan's entry into the TBMM, which then catapulted him into the prime minister's office, which was, in turn, dutifully vacated by Abdullah Gül.

In the final analysis, it was the Bush Administration that put Erdoğan into office. What role did Fethullah Gülen, who is sheltered by the US, play in this bit of politics?

It's too bad officials of the KRG, like Jamal Abdullah, don't know much about Turkish history. Or maybe they just look the other way.

Since the Paşas have been broadcasting new airstrikes against PKK in South Kurdistan--according to totally unconfirmed statements on the Paşas' website--and since the KRG assists Ankara in its psychological warfare and Western propaganda operations by forbidding journalists to report from the region . . . and since the Ankara regime uses the US and Israeli examples to justify its aggression . . . and since everyone is preparing for a Turkish land force invasion in the next few months, you might want to check out a guide to US use of aerial warfare to get an idea of what to expect from the Ankara regime. From TomDispatch.com:

One hundred thousand pounds of explosives delivered from the air is now, historically speaking, a relatively modest figure. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a single air wing from the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier stationed in the Persian Gulf, did that sort of damage in less than a day and it was a figure that, as again last week, the military was proud to publicize without fear of international outrage or the possibility that "barbarism" might come to mind:

"From Tuesday afternoon through early Wednesday the air wing flew 69 dedicated strike missions in Basra and in and around Baghdad, involving 27 F/A-18 Hornets and 12 Tomcats. They dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of ordnance, said Lt. Brook DeWalt, Kitty Hawk public affairs officer."

As far as we know, there were no reporters, Iraqi or Western, in Arab Jabour when the bombs fell and, Iraq being Iraq, no American reporters rushed there -- in person or by satellite phone -- to check out the damage. In Iraq and Afghanistan, when it comes to the mainstream media, bombing is generally only significant if it's of the roadside or suicide variety; if, that is, the "bombs" can be produced at approximately "the cost of a pizza" (as IEDs sometimes are), or if the vehicles delivering them are cars or simply fiendishly well-rigged human bodies. From the air, even 100,000 pounds of bombs just doesn't have the ring of something that matters.

[ . . . ]

Who could forget all the attention that went into the President's surge strategy on the ground in the first half of last year? But which media outlet even noticed, until recently, what Bob Deans of Cox News Service has termed the "air surge" that accompanied those 30,000 surging troops into the Iraqi capital and environs? In that same period, air units were increasingly concentrated in and around Iraq. By mid-2007, for instance, the Associated Press was already reporting:

"[S]quadrons of attack planes have been added to the in-country fleet. The air reconnaissance arm has almost doubled since last year. The powerful B1-B bomber has been recalled to action over Iraq… Early this year, with little fanfare, the Air Force sent a squadron of A-10 ‘Warthog' attack planes -- a dozen or more aircraft -- to be based at Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq. At the same time it added a squadron of F-16C Fighting Falcons… at Balad."

[ . . . ]

American military spokespeople and administration officials have, over the years, decried Iraqi and Afghan insurgents for "hiding" behind civilian populations -- in essence, accusing them of both immorality and cowardice. When such spokespeople do admit to inflicting "collateral damage" on civilian populations, they regularly blame the guerrillas for turning civilians into "shields." And all of this is regularly, dutifully reported in our press. On the other hand, no one in our world considers drone warfare in a similar context, though armed UAVs like the Predators and the newer, even more heavily armed Reapers are generally "flown" by pilots stationed at computer consoles in places like Nellis Air Force Base outside Las Vegas. It is from there that they release their missiles against "anti-Iraqi forces" or the Taliban, causing civilian deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

We know there have already been civilian deaths from the Ankara regime's air war in South Kurdistan. We know that there has been US and Israeli assistance to the Ankara regime. We should, therefore, expect to see the Ankara regime assimilate US tactics to a greater extent in the future.

Remember:

The Real News transcript.

Don't forget what the results of negotiations, between the puppets and the puppet masters in the months before the Iraq war, were supposed to be:

A veteran diplomat who led a Turkish delegation through tough negotiations with the US over military cooperation on the war in Iraq has revealed details of the talks in a book, which is expected to be published in the upcoming days.

[ . . . ]

If the government motion had been adopted by Parliament at the time, Turkey would have the opportunity to send its troops into the entire area where the PKK members are located; thus it would be able to contain the PKK threat, Bölükbaşı has suggested in his book, excerpts from which were published yesterday in the daily Milliyet.

If the motion had been approved, Turkey's de facto border with Iraq, which is called the "Rain Line," would extend from the south of Habur to the border between Iran and Iraq, Bölükbaşı explained in his book, which contains a map simulating the line on which Turkish troops would be deployed.

According to the map, Turkey's border with Iraq would extend 40 kilometers inside Iraqi soil and would contain the entire zone in northern Iraq which has been used by the PKK.

In other words, the results were invasion and annexation.

Who recognizes his failure and is pushing for these very results right now? Washington's puppet, R. Tayyip Erdoğan.

GIRALDI ON SIBEL, THE MEDIA, AND CONGRESS

"From what I understand, from what she has to tell, it has a major difference from the Pentagon Papers in that it deals directly with criminal activity and may involve impeachable offenses. And I don't necessarily mean the President or the Vice-President, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information reached up that high. But other members of the Executive Branch may be impeached as well. And she says similar about Congress."
~ Daniel Ellsberg.

There's something on why Sibel Edmonds, whose "story about high level corruption in the United States government involving Turkey and Israel," must be heard, from Phil Giraldi at The Huffington Post:

Why should Sibel be heard? Mostly because her story, if true, involves corruption at the highest levels of government coupled with the sale of secrets vital to the security of the United States. One of her claims is that a senior State Department officer who has been identified as Marc Grossman, recorded by the FBI while arranging to pick up bribes from a Turkish organization, also revealed the identity of the CIA cover company Brewster Jennings to a Turkish contact in late 2001. The Turk then passed on the information to a Pakistani intelligence officer who presumably warned the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network that the CIA was apparently pursuing. Some might call that treason and it should be noted that it occurred two years before Robert Novak's notorious exposure of Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings which led to the conviction of Scooter Libby.

Not only does Giraldi rip the US media for its silence on Sibel's story, but he names those who've been approached with the story, and have ignored it. The question is: Why?

But the media remains silent in spite of considerable efforts to get them on board and provide some coverage of her very serious charges. Since the recent Sunday Times articles, her story has been brought to the attention of news editors at MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, to PBS's Bill Moyers, to The New York Times, The Washington Times, and to both ABC and CBS news in an attempt to arouse some interest. But there has been no response, not even a courteous "Thank you very much for contacting us...." What are so-called gadflies like Olbermann and Moyers afraid of? The suggestion that the media does not want to face the potential legal consequences of the gag order has been cited but lacks substance as much of the Sibel story is already out in public and the details of her allegations can be pieced together without actually interviewing her in violation of the state secrets privilege. Also, no one in the media has actually claimed that the lack of interest is based on the potential legal consequences. The silence has been deafening, suggesting that other forces are at work.

You see, journalists are supposed to investigate, delve into, examine, nose around, probe, pry, and scrutinize. But the servile American media today does not include anyone who's capable of digging into a story. They won't dig into it when you give them all the initial information. They won't look at it. As Giraldi notes, they won't even give you a response. Why? They're owned.

Gore Vidal said: "To keep information from the public is the function of the corporate media".

Noam Chomsky agrees and expands on the idea: "The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly".

Edward Herman, who has collaborated with Chomsky on the manufacturing of consent in the US media further explains: "The propaganda system allows the U.S. Ieadership to commit crimes without limit and with no suggestion of misbehavior or criminality; in fact, major war criminals like Henry Kissinger appear regularly on TV to comment on the crimes of the derivative butchers".

Giraldi also sets Congress in the crosshairs:

Congress has a responsibility to look into Edmonds' allegations. Congressman Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been stonewalling Edmonds and her supporters, preferring instead to look into steroids use among professional athletes. To be sure, some in the media and Congress are undoubtedly nervous because the Edmond's story involves Israel and corrupt officials both in Washington and Tel Aviv. Many of the American former and current officials involved are considered to be particularly close to the Israeli government and to the Israeli lobby AIPAC. Others fear that FBI investigative reports or wiretaps revealing illegal contributions or bribery of congressmen could open up a can of worms that many would prefer to keep closed.

In other words, Congress is protecting its own--in an attitude no less servile than that of the US media.

Daniel Ellsberg has gone on the record to state that Sibel's story "is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". The Washington Post received the Pulitzer Prize for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's investigation and reporting of the Watergate scandal. To use Ellsberg's words, Sibel's story "is far more explosive" than Watergate and I have no doubt that a future Pulitzer Prize would be the result of any serious, comprehensive journalistic investigation of Sibel's story of the corruption and international and domestic intrigue surrounding "the theft and sale of United States defense secrets, most particularly nuclear technology".

More from Giraldi on Sibel:


Found in Translation.

Phil Giraldi chats about Sibel Edmonds, including mp3 (Sibel chat starts at 24 minutes into the interview).

Sibel, Giraldi, American Conservative Mag from May 2006.

CENSORSHIP, PROPAGANDA, AND KURDS

"We do not need U.S. presidents to tell us where our homeland is. And even if they try to do so, we should not subordinate our better judgement to their economic, strategic or political agenda."
~ Monte Melkonian, Armenian freedom-fighter.

Okay, there's a lot of ground to cover today, so let's get to it.

First, there's a post at DozaMe about the US Treasury Deparment, Office of Foreign Asset Control's (OFAC) expansion into the censorship business.

What is interesting is the fact that the US Treasury Department's OFAC is supposed to do just that--control assets, i.e. money, finances, trade sanctions. Here's their mission statement (Note: I'm not going to link to the site, but whoever wants to, can google "OFAC" and it should come up as the first return, then check their mission statement):

Our Mission

The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the US Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. OFAC acts under Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under US jurisdiction. Many of the sanctions are based on United Nations and other international mandates, are multilateral in scope, and involve close cooperation with allied governments.

I don't see anything in that mission statement that has anything whatsoever to do with First Amendment rights meddling. For those who don't know, here's the First Amendment to the US Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Specifically, free speech and free press rights are central to the mission of the sites listed at DozaMe as targeted by the OFAC. OFAC is, therefore, going outside of its mandate by meddling in questions of First Amendment rights, but I guess that acting "under Presidential wartime and national emergency powers," i.e. DICTATORIAL powers is consistent with the problem of rising global fascism.

Since Yahoo is now being sued by a court in San Francisco for handing over information to China that led to the arrest, torture, and imprisonment of cyber-dissidents there, it looks like the civil rights types are the only ones left to mount a defense of free expression. The organization bringing that suit is The World Organization for Human Rights USA. Then there is the Center for Consitutional Rights which brought the lawsuit against the PATRIOT Act on behalf of LTTE and PKK.

Until the legal machinery can get a handle on these violations of civil rights, I would expect more of the same from the fascist elites, particularly in the US and in Turkey, as well as from their wimpy, limp-wristed, panty-waisted proxy, the EU.

Then, there were several articles in American media this last week that focused on Kurds, the first of which is Justin Raimondo's critique of Christopher Hitchins' recent propaganda. Who would have thought that Raimondo would take the ultra-neoconservative point of view, aligning himself with the swill from the AEI's uberfascist, Michael Rubin? But this is what Raimondo does, in between hand-wringing over the "horrific persecution of Kamal Said Qadir" and the recent KDP attacks against journalist Nabaz Goran.

Now, I personally know of very few Kurds who supported KDP in its stupidity over the Qadir Affair, but was it "horrific persecution?" Yesterday I posted a number of examples from Peace in Kurdistan Campaign on the situation of Ragip Zarakoglu, Belge Publishing House, and Ozgur Gundem, and as we all know, these examples are a miniscule drop in the bucket compared to the truly horrific attacks against free expression rights for which America's ally, Turkey, is extremely well-known for. And on this score, I rush to point out that Michael Rubin has never, in his entire career as a professional propagandist, ever pointed out even the slightest minutiae of the slightest repression of Kurds by the Ankara regime. And that's a characteristic that Raimondo shares.

Aside from the fact that Raimondo ignores the plight of the ordinary Kurd in South Kurdistan who is struggling simply to survive, the lack of basic services in the face of "Dream Cities" and the construction of shopping malls for the elites, the huge number of Arab families that have fled the violence of Arab Iraq and have found a relative haven in South Kurdistan, or the numbers of Kurdish youth that are attempting to flee South Kurdistan because they feel they have no future there . . . aside from the fact that Raimondo ignores these examples and others, he conveniently leaves out the fact that there is great discontent among the general population and, because he prefers to view Kurds as two-dimensional, non-human, extras in a Hollywood-style fiasco manufactured by the American war industry, he overlooks one central fact of Kurdish history--Serhildan.

As an aside, but only because it's such bullshit--Raimondo sheds crocodile tears for Arabs leaving Kerkuk as Kurds "swarm" into the city, but he conveniently ignores the fact that thousands of Kurdish families were forced out by America's former best ally in the region, Saddam Hussein. By the way, if you'd like to hear a fabulous discussion of Donald Rumsfeld and how well he got along with Saddam and the Ba'athi regime, check out the two-part interview with Andrew Cockburn at Stress. Part 1 is almost an hour and Part 2 is slightly over 40 minutes.

Keeping in character with his apparent doppelganger at AEI, Raimondo characterizes PKK and the legitimate Kurdish armed struggle in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan as "terrorism." Let's cut to the chase, shall we? If Americans had to suffer forced evacuations of their small towns and the destruction of their homes; if they had to suffer real violations of their freedom of expression or freedom of association; if they had to suffer routine torture and impunity at the hands of security forces; if their mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, nieces, and other female relatives were routinely raped and otherwise sexually assaulted, do you think they'd fight back? Or do you think they'd "acquiesce" in their treatment like their good sidekick Tony Blair would counsel?

If Americans armed themselves and conducted a legitimate armed resistance against such state-sponsored atrocities, then Americans themselves would be classified as terrorists, by their own definition, just as PKK is classified as "terrorist." Oh, did I forget to mention that all of the atrocities perpetrated against the so-called terrorists of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan were backed by the US?

So that brings me to Raimondo's claim that "One of Kurdistan's chief exports is terrorism." Wrong. This is America's chief export. The US has exported terrorism to Indonesia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Vietnam, Colombia, Afghanistan, now Iraq, and, of course, Kurdistan, as brilliantly documented by Desmond Fernandes as far back as 2001 and more recently. This is on top of the tons of documents on Turkey's brutal repression of Kurds by human rights organizations, or Ismet Imset's analysis of PKK's legitimacy vis-a-vis armed struggle, or even John Tirman's book Spoils of War, to mention a few sources.

Should I even mention Raimondo's reference to Seymour Hersh's unsubstantiated claims about US support for PJAK? Whoever wants more on that can search Rastî for "PJAK."

At the end of Raimondo's self-serving rant is the mention of "romanticization" of Kurds (from Hitchens), which goes back to the whole two-dimensional, non-human view of Kurds and what is ironic about that characterization is that when a Kurd steps out of Western-imposed two-dimensionality and faces the enemies of Kurdistan on his or her feet with AK-47 in hand, that real-life, warm-blooded, very human Kurd becomes a "terrorist."

The second article from last week comes from David Ignatius on Lebanon's Daily Star. Bearing in mind that all the previous argument for legitimate armed resistance applies here, too, at least Ignatius makes the statement that Turkey "denounce[s] the PKK as a terrorist group . . . "

But . . . then he goes on to mention the role of that great humanitarian of our time, Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston, and how he's struggling to "defuse the crisis, clear[ing] a Kurdish refugee camp of suspected PKK members and talk[ing] regularly with both sides."

If Lockheed Martin's director was really so hot to "defuse the crisis," why didn't he take advantage of the PKK's offer of a democratic solution last August (when Ralston was appointed) or why did he reject PKK's fifth unilateral ceasefire out of hand and remove any kind of political negotiation from the solution table? Why? Well, because Ralston has been too busy reinforcing the business agenda of Lockheed Martin to keep all that blood money rolling in to Lockheed's management. This is Ralston's real job, since he is a vice-chairman of The Cohen Group, a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, and Ralston himself was registered with the US Senate last year as a lobbyist for The Cohen Group to specifically export tactical fighter aircraft, something which Turkey has since agreed to, to the tune of $13 billion.

What about this reference to Maxmur Camp as needing to be cleared of "PKK members?" I guess Ignatius missed the fact that the US military and the UN established the civilian nature of the camp, not even finding weapons suitable for PKK's legitimate armed resistance against the US-backed terrorist regime in Ankara. I guess Ignatius also missed that Ralston presented himself to Congress and proceeded to lie out of his ass to Congress. I guess Ignatius further missed the fact that the Turkish media wondered why Ralston was lying out of his ass.

Ignatius must subscribe to the American saying: If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.

Finally, there was an article by Hersh-wannabe, Reese Erlich, on PJAK. Erlich was mentioned here earlier this month, but now he tries to be amusing by pointing out the fact that PJAK's armed female gerîlas like American actors like girly-faced Brad Pitt and Mr. Alcoholics Anonymous himself, Mel Gibson. While I cannot account for the personal tastes of the gerîlas, I do wonder why this is an issue? Then my mind goes back to the two-dimensionality that gets applied to the Kurdish people and the extreme parochialism of Westerners. If movies are stories translated to the big screen, then why should Kurds not be familiar with movies or watch them? Why shouldn't Kurdish gerîlas watch them? After all, Kurds love a good story and story-telling done well.

By the way, Erlich acknowledges that the Washington regime permits Komala and KDPI "to operate openly in northern Iraq," while admitting of no American influence in PKK's/PJAK's camps. He also mentions that both Komala and KDPI have been to Washington last year for meetings. Neither PKK, nor its sister organization, PJAK, has done so.

In addition, the Erlich article brings up another subject that all the enemies of Kurdistan love to talk about, and that's the celibacy of PKK's gerîlas. What do all these enemies prefer, that PKK's gerîlas behave in the barbarous manner of American forces? Would they prefer that the crime of rape be a usual feature of gerîla life as it is for the lives of American soldiers? That fact of American military life was noted here on Rastî last Monday.

In this case, I will presume to speak for the gerîlas and say "No, thank you." The enemies of Kurdistan and their allies can behave in despicable ways with their own, in their own militaries; I prefer the honor of the gerîlas--Brad Pitt and all.

In contrast, if you'd prefer to read a much more thoughtful discussion of the Kurdish situation than you can find anywhere in American media, check out this post at the Shiraz Socialist blog.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN TURKEY

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and TO PUBLISH IN TURKEY 2006-2007

Ragıp Zarakolu

Chair of Freedom to Publish Committee of Turkish Publishers Association. Executive member of International PEN’s Turkish Section


In Memoriam Hrant Dink, the courageous defender of freedom of expression

2006 was one of the least succesful years for freedom of expression and publishing and unfortunately things are continuing into 2007. Perhaps the most disheartening of these developments is the level of violence that has crept into the system and the fact that these groups that are bringing about this violence have also started affecting the Judiciary. The murder of Hrant Dink this year proved only tragically to the government, the judiciary and the press that it has to be very cautious about allowing those who express different thoughts and supports different view to be targeted. January started with cases filed against Taner Akcam and Aydin Ergin and the government has refused to alter article 301 of the penal code and all of these early developments in are indicators that 2007 is going to problematic in terms of freedon of expression and publishing.

Although things had seemed to be getting better during the previous 2 years concerning the question of the freedom to publish, the current year has seen an aggravation. The reason behind the earlier improvement was, of course, the willingness of the government to comply with EU demands. But unfortunately it did not continue.

According to data provided by the Ministry of the Interior, 290 books were confiscated between 2000-2006. In the aftermath of the recent amendments in the law, the ban on 49 of these have been lifted, while 241 continue to be banned.

According to the data of Independent Communication Network BIA, last year 293 writers, journalists, publishers, intellectuals, translators and human rights activists had to face the Courts because of their expressions. Last year this number was 157.

According to the data of Initiative for Freedom of Expression, there were 59 acquittals for 172 trials of last year; 15 convictions and the other files were at the Appeal Court. On the base of Article 301 of TPC, there were 72 trials; and there were 20 acquittals, 8 convictions. On the base of Article 312 of TPC, 35 trials were going on and there were 21 acquittals, 3 convictions.

According to the data of Platform for Journalists in Prison, editors and correspondent of opposition press are prison during 2006.

During last year, 25 publishing houses, 42 writers, 5 translators and 45 books were prosecuted. 10 of these court cases ended in acquittals, another 13 in convictions, while 5 were dismissed. The trials for the remaining 17 are pending.

Bans on books have become rare since October 2004. However, books, writers and publishers are still prosecuted on grounds of “defamation”, “denigration”, “obscenity”, “separatism”, “subversion”, “fundamentalism” and “blasphemy”. In addition, a negative development is that translators will be held responsible for the books they have translated. However, publishers’ legal liability continues regarding only the books whose author lives abroad.

Unfortunately, the new Turkish Criminal Code, which has received the seal of approval of the EU, has provided new avenues for the prosecution of writers and publishers. Warnings to this end by the Publishers Union, as well associations of writers and of journalists, before the passing of the law went unheeded. The greatest damage was done to the democratic reforms, which were geared to the process of harmonization with the EU. One of the tragic developments during this past year is undoubtedly the trying of translators. During this past year writers, reporters and publishers were faced with violence from ultra nationalist groups in addition to their trials. [emphasis of this paragraph: Mizgîn's]

Certain developments this year are also of a novel nature. The Publishers Union’s right to represent Turkey at the Frankfurt Book fair was taken away and handed over to a group with political and ideological biases.


INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED CASES

The most striking feature of this new period is an explosion in the number of cases started against writers, journalists and publishers as a result of complaints filed by ideologically motivated circles. These cases were based on the grounds of “defaming Turkishness, the Turkish Armed Forces, the Republic, the memory of Ataturk etc.” Many convictions were handed down in these cases.

More serious still, Orhan Pamuk, Perihan Magden, Murat Belge, Ismet Berkan, Hasan Cemal, Elif Safak and other writers and journalists were attacked physically before or after the hearings. Elif Safak, along with her publisher Semih Sokmen of Metis Yayinlari, has recently been added to the list of writers of international fame prosecuted as a result of such ideologically motivated complaints for “defaming Turkishness”. (Elif Safak was acquitted, but violence again accompanied during the hearings.) On the basis of these complaints, the courts are being transformed into a platform for a chauvinistic ideological group. Concerning these cases, it must be said that the Ministry of Justice has not risen to the task of guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary. This situation should be compared to the fact that a plethora of complaints regarding violations of human rights have constantly gone unheeded by public prosecutors. Had public prosecutors not taken these ideologically motivated complaints seriously and not prosecuted the writers in question, the impact of this small but cantankerous group would have dwindled to insignificance. ( And more tragically, at the end of the hate speeches of ultra-nationalist groups, which based on these provocative trials, the courageous defender of civil rights, Hrant Dink was killed 19th January.)

On the other hand, many writers who criticized these cases were themselves prosecuted for “attempting to influence the course of trials pending”. Some of the cases on such charges were thrown out, while Hirant Dink, editor-in-chief of Armenian language weekly Agos, his son Arat Dink, Serkis Seropyan and Aydin Engin were prosecuted on these grounds. They had to face attempted violence and insult from a chauvinistic group during the hearings.

Altogether 12 journalist were accused “to intervene in justice”, as a result of complaints fired by ultra-nationalist groups. But nearly all of them were acquitted. But there is a conviction for Ilhan Selcuk, of Cumhuriyet daily, because of a news about the torture.

INCREASE IN CASES AGAINST THE PRESS, THE RETURN OF BANS AND THE THREAT POSED BY THE ANTI-TERROR LAW

The current year has seen an increase in the number of cases against the press. Bans were imposed once again after a respite on the dailies Birgun, Evrensel and Ozgur Gundem. Lastly Kaos GL,review of gays and lesbians, was banned.

A total of 530 cases have been filed against Ozgur Gundem and its editors. Of these 104 resulted in convictions and 22 in acquittals. The owner of the daily was sentenced to an overall fine of 192,755 new Turkish lira (approximately 125 thousand US dollars). The editor legally responsible was sentenced to a prison term of over 15 years, and was also fined a total of 134 thousand New Turkish Liras (around 90 thousand US dollars).

ıEditors and correspondents of the daily Cumhuriyet, including Ilhan Selcuk, owner of the newspaper and famous columnist, were convicted for a news article titled “Acquittal for Torture”. Journalists of establishment daily Hurriyet are being tried on charges of violating article 7 of the Anti-Terror Law. Huseyin Aykol, of Ozgur Gundem and Memik Horuz, of Isci-Koylu were tried with the same reason, “to interview the Kurdish guerillas." Mehmet Ali Birand, a famous anchor and show host, is in court under the same charges for having interviewed the attorneys of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK. The same charges were levelled against Nese Duzel of the daily Radikal for her interview with former Kurdish MP Orhan Dogan. Ahmet Kahraman, a journalist in exile was accused also, because of his book, ‘Kurdish Rebelions” with editor of Evrensel Publishing, Ms. Songul Ozkan.

Writer Emin Karaca was convicted for defaming the army in an article on the military coup of 1971. A writ of arrest in absentia was aimed at co-author Dogan Ozguden, an old hand of Turkish journalism for the same article. A journalist of Turkish Daily News, an Istanbul English-language daily, was convicted for contempt of court.

The new Anti-Terror Law, with its extremely lax definition of offences and the authority to be accorded to public prosecutors to stop the publication of periodicals indefinitely, poses a potential threat to the freedom of expression, freedo of the press and the freedom to publish. Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem was closed for two months and the editors of Atilim weekly and Free Radio were arrested after new Anti-Terror Law passed. They were placed in isolation wards in Type-F Prisons. As a negative trand, the Criminal Courts began to trail again the books about socialist theory and practice in 2007, with the example of Ms. Songul Ozkan’s trial, editor of Evrensel Publishing House. She was accused under new Anti-Terror Law, because of the memories of a socialist worker, named Imran. It was the third edition of the book. And 2 earlier prints of the book were not accused.

THE ABUSE OF CIVIL LAW

A trend that had started earlier continued into the current year: the abuse of civil law for the purpose of restricting the freedoms of expression and of the press. When it is not a question of defaming a certain institution, the road chosen is to claim defamation of persons. Politicians are deemed above criticism. A series of professions (ranging from medical doctors to superintendents of buildings) have claimed to be insulted by works of fiction or TV shows. Many publishers were sentenced to heavy compensation and at least one of them had to close down his publishing house. There have been cases of writers being taken to court with a demand for compensation because of their criticism of another writer or journalist’s ideas.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has resorted to the same methods against many criticisms. He took cartoonist Musa Kart of the daily Cumhuriyet to court for having depicted him as a cat entangled in a web of yarn. Another case filed against the very popular humoristic magazine Penguen for having depicted him in the form of various animals was rejected by the court. Overall 59 cases were filed on the grounds of defamation against the Prime Minister, of which 28 are still pending. Among the 31 cases already decided 21 rulings were in favor and 10 against Erdogan.

Michael Dickinson, a British cartoonist and lecturer was arrested and deported, because of his cartoon about Prime Minister Erdogan, which depicted the Prime Minister as President Bush’s dog.

The editor of Pencere Publishing House, Muzaffer Erdoğdu have been taken to court with a demand for compensation, because of the introduction written by Taner Akcam in the turkish edition of Blue Book concerning the Armenian Deportation in 1915, which was published by Erdogdu. Senator Sukru Ekedag accused Profesor Taner Akcam and the editor, for defaming his personality as deputy of Turkish Parliament.

ARTICLE 301 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE

Last year during the deliberations on the new Turkish Criminal Code, the Publishers’ Union drew attention to Article 301. Thi article stipulates up to three years of imprisonment for denigration of “Turkishness, the Republic, parliament the government, the judiciary, the armed forces or the police”.

Because of Article 301, 72 persons were tried last year.

For last ten years, books on the Armenian question had not been subjected to legal persecution, but within the current year new prosecutions have been started on this issue, connected with Article 301. To define Armenian deportation in 1915 as “genocide” may be viewed as “defaming Turkishness”. The first conviction on these grounds was handed down recently. Erhan Akay of the review Cagri was convicted to five months of prison for his article entitled “Time to Confront the Armenian Question After 90 Years”.


PROSECUTION FOR DEFAMATION OF ATATURK

The moral integrity of Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic, is protected through a special law. Many cases have been fined during the current pastyear on the grounds of defaming of Ataturk. Even an Istanbul City Guide, prepared by Master Card, was prosecuted on theses grounds.

This is in fact in article 301 of the TPC, and the special law regarding the “defamation of Ataturk”, which formed the foundation for cases lanched against many writers, academics and publishers were prosecuted, including novelist Orhan Pamuk, the Armenian journalist Hirant Dink, Ibrahim Kaboglu and Baskin Oran, two professors who, as members of the Advisory Board of Human Rights at the Prime Minister’s Office, proposed reforms in the state’s attitude to the Kurdish question and minority rights, Halil Altindere, one of the curators of the Istanbul Biennial, Murat Pabuc, a retired army officer, Eren Keskin, vice-president of the Human Rights Association, Ragip Zarakolu, of Belge International Publishing House, Ahmet Onal, of Peri Publishing House, Fatih Tas, of Aram Publishing House, Rahmi Yildirim, a journalist, Erol Ozkoray, a journalist and author of Totalitarian Farm of Turkey, Fatih Tas, editor at Aram Publishing House, researcher Osman Tiftikci and his publisher Sirri Ozturk of Sorun Publishing House, Osman Pamukoğlu, a retired-General, the Iraq kurdish leader Mesut Barzani, EU commissioner and dutch MP Joost Lagendjik, sociologist Ismail Besikci, who received a great deal of attention for his researches on Kurdish situation , Karekin II, the Pope of Armenian Apostical Church, Michael Dickinson, a british cartoonist and lecturer, Ipek Calislar, author of Ataturk’s wife Latife Hanim, Abdullah Dilipak and Mehmet Sevki Eygi, both islamist journalists, Yalçın Ergündoğan and Ibrahim Cesmecioglu, editors of Birgun daily, Professor Attila Yayla, director of Liberal Thought Association, Belma Akçura, Cuneyt Arcayurek and Tuncay Ozkan, mainstream journalists, Perihan Magden and Elif Safak, novelists and essayists, Taner Akcam from Minnesota University ( in January 2007) and translator Attila Tuygan. A Greek novel by author Mara Meimaridis, “The Witches Of Smyrna” was also indicted under article 301. And editor Mehmet Ali Varış, of Tohum Publishing House was also convicted two times and sentenced 1 and half year to prison under article 301 and Defamation of Ataturk Law, like another Kurdish Publisher Ahmet Onal of Peri Publishing House.

CONCLUSION

In closing, we must stress even further the comment made in last year’s report. The new Turkish Criminal Code creates a potential threat to the freedoms of thought, expression, of the press and to the freedom to publish. The increase in the number of cases filed on the grounds of denigration of Turkishness, “public denigration of the armed forces”, and ”defamation of Ataturk” can be viewed as an indicator of this. Many articles of the Criminal Code must undergo comlete revision. Now, to this threat is added the dangers created by the new Anti-Terror Law. The ıprotection and enhancement of the freedom of expression is the duty of not only for the legislative branch of the political system, but also of the judiciary and executive branches.


ANNEX: BOOKS PROSECUTED IN 2006 and 2007

Publishers Author Book

Aram Timur Şahan “İtirafçı/ Bir Jitemci Anlattı” (An Informer) …………

Aram Kayhan Adnut “Tufanda 33 Gün” / 33 Days in Deluge (Acquitted)

Aram Fatih Taş “Kayıpsın Diyorlar” (Convicted)
(They Told You are Missing)

Aram John Tirman “Savaş Ganimetleri”/Spoils of War (Acquitted)

Aram Noam Chomsky “ Kitle Medyasının Ekonomi Politiği” (Acquitted)
(Political Economy of Mass Media)

Aykırı Seyfi Öngider “İki Şehrin Hikayesi/ İstanbul-Ankara” (dismissed)
(Story of Two Cities / Istanbul and Ankara)

Belge George Jerjian “Gerçek Bizi Özgür Kılacak” …………
(Will Free All of Us)

Belge Dora Sakayan “Bir Ermeni Doktorun Yaşadıkları” …………
(Armenian Doctor in Turkey)

Belge Peter Balakian “Kaderin Kara Köpeği” (dismissed)
(Black Dog of the Fate)

Belge Zülküf Kışanak “Yitik Köyler” (Convicted)
(Lost Villages)

Bilge Karınca Cemal Anadol “İsrail ve Siyonizm Kıskacında Türkiye” (Acquitted)
(Turkey under the Yoke of Israel and Zionism)

Bora Derleme “Tecritte Yaşayanlar Anlatıyor” ………
(Testimonies from the Cells in Isolation)

Bora Senay Dönmez “Yaşatmak İçin Öldüler” ……….
(They Died to Keep Alive)

Doz Mesut Barzani “Barzani ve Özgürlük Hareketi” …………
(Barzani and Freedom)

Doz Mustafa Balbal “Ararat’taki Esir General” (Convicted)
(General Captived in Ararat)

Evrensel Ahmet Kahraman “Kürt İsyanları” …………
(Kurdish Rebelions)

Evrensel Zeynep Ozge “Imran, Bir Isyan Andi” …………
(Imran, A for the Rebelion)

Güncel Ersin Kalkan “Katille Buluşmak / Musa Anter Cinayeti” …………
(Appoinment with the Killer)

Güncel Belma Akçura “Derin Devlet Oldu Devlet” (Convicted)
(Deep State Became State)

İnkılap Osman Pamukoğlu “Unutulanlar Dışında Yeni Bir Şey Yok” …….
(There is Nothing to Tell, only the Fogottens)

İstanbul Bienali Halil Altıntepe “9. Bienal Kataloğu” ……………
(Catalog of Istanbul 9th Art Bienal)

Kaynak Muazzez İlmiye Çığ “Vatandaşlık Tepkilerim” (Acquitted)
(My Reactions as Citizen)

Literatür Mara Meimaradi “İzmir Büyücüleri / Witches Of Smyrna (Acquitted)

Mastercard Özlem İmece “İstanbul Şehir Rehberi/Istanbul’s City Guide” …….

Mektup Emine Şenlikoğlu “Burası Cezaevi /You are in Prison” (Convicted)

Merkez Yay. Perihan Mağden “Hangimiz Uğramadık ki Haksızlıklara” (Acquitted)
(None of Us were Free From Injustice)

Metis Elif Şafak “Baba ve Piç/Father and Bastard” (Acquitted)

Pencere Toynbee “Mavi Kitap / Blue Book” …………

Peri M. Erol Coşkun “Acının Dili Kadın” (Convicted)
(Woman as Tongue of Grief)

Peri Evin Çiçek “Tutkular ve Tutsaklar ” (Convicted)
(Passions and Captives)

ıPeri Hejare Şamil “Diaspora Kürtleri” …………
(Kurds in Diaspora)

Peri Munzur Cem “Dersim’de Alevilik” (Convicted)
(Alewi Belief in Dersim Region)

Peri Mahmut Baksi “Teyre Baz / Hüseyin Baybaşin” (Convicted)
(A Kurdish Businessman)

Peri Hejare Şamil “Öcalan’ın Moskova Güleri” (dismissed)
(Ocalan’s Days in Moskow)

Say Yalçın Pekşen “The Türkler” (dismissed)
(The Turks)

Sel Metin Üstündağ “Pazar Sevişgenleri” (Acquitted)
(Making Love Sundays)

Sel Enis Batur “Elma / Apple” (Acquitted)

Sol Murat Pabuç “Boyalı Bank Nöbetini Terk Etmek” (Dismissed)
(To Leave Guarding Painted Bench)

Sorun Osman Tiftikçi "Osmanlı'dan Günümüze Ordunun Evrimi" ………..
(Evolution of Turkish Army)

Sorun Talat Turan “Mehmet Eymur, Bir MIT’cinin Portresi” (Convicted)
(Portrait of an MIT Agent)

Tohum Mehmet Ali Varış “Kuzey Batı Dersim: Koçgiri” (Convicted)
(North West of Kurdish Region Dersim)

Tohum Mehmet Ali Varış “Kemalizm” (Convicted)

Tohum Aytekin Yılmaz “Çok Kültürlülükten Tek Kültürlülüğe Anadolu” ……..
(Anatolia from Multiculturalism to Mono Cultur)

Sweden Publ. Astid Lingrens “Pippi” (Kurdish edition) (Confiscated at Post)