Posts Tagged ‘ Turkey ’

Turkish police continue rounding up academics

Nov 23rd, 2016 8:29 am | By

Mahir Zeynalov on Twitter:

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Call upon the Turkish government

Sep 11th, 2016 4:53 pm | By

Orhan Pamuk, JM Coetzee, Elena Ferrante and others protest the Turkish government’s attack on thinkers and writers:

We the undersigned call upon democrats throughout the world, as well as those who care about the future of Turkey and the region in which it exerts a leading role, to protest the vendetta the government is waging against its brightest thinkers and writers who may not share their point of view.

The background to this letter is the coup attempt on 15 July 2016, which mercifully failed and was quickly subdued. Had the Turkish people themselves not resisted this assault on their institutions, the result would have been years of misery.

In the aftermath of that coup, it is understandable that

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The Daily Hate Speech

Jun 13th, 2016 8:54 am | By

Sorry to cite the Daily Mail as a source, but sometimes one has to. So, the Daily Mail:

A Turkish newspaper with links to the country’s President has published a homophobic headline calling those who died in the Orlando mass shooting ‘perverts’ and ‘deviants’.

Yeni Akit, a right-wing newspaper which has supported the likes of Al-Qaeda in the past, broke news of the attack with the headline: ‘Death toll rises to 50 in bar where perverted homosexuals go!’

According to Turkish think-tank the Hrant Dink Foundation, Yeni Akit is one of the worst offenders when it comes to using hate speech against minorities, in particular the LGBT community, but also against Jews, Armenians and Christians.

In just four

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Embedding hatred

Apr 24th, 2016 5:39 pm | By

The BBC has more details on Erdoğan’s way with dissenters.

Turkey’s hard line on insults:

  • Between August 2014 and March 2015, 236 people investigated for “insulting the head of state”; 105 indicted; eight formally arrested
  • Between July and December 2014 (Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s presidency), Turkey filed 477 requests to Twitter for removal of content, over five times more than any other country and an increase of 156% on the first half of the year
  • Reporters Without Borders places Turkey 149th of 180 countries in the press freedom index
  • During Mr Erdogan’s time in office (Prime Minister 2003-14, President from 2014), 63 journalists have been sentenced to a total of 32 years in prison, with collective fines of $128,000
  • Article
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You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany

Jan 1st, 2016 12:20 pm | By

Erdoğan thinks the Turkish presidency – occupied just now by none other than Erdoğan – should have more power, the way Hitler did.

After returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Erdogan was asked by the Turkish news media whether a presidential system was possible given that the government is now organized under a prime minister.

“There are already examples in the world,” Mr. Erdogan said. “You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany.”

Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in 1933, assumed the presidency in 1934, a move that allowed him to consolidate power to become the Führer.

While Mr. Erdogan did not elaborate, his comment is bound to raise concern among critics who view

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“Secularism” in Turkey

Oct 6th, 2011 8:55 am | By

Burak Bekdil explains why Turkish secularism isn’t.

A majority of Turks, Sunni Muslims, overtly or covertly believe that they should be “more equal” than the others because they constitute the majority. They think that it is their natural right to enjoy preferential treatment in terms of governance and law enforcement. Remember how the crowds in Istanbul last year, trying to attack the Israeli consulate, shouted at the police who were trying to prevent bloodshed? “Leave the Jews to us! What kind of Muslims are you?” A simple search will produce thousands of examples of this nature unveiling the conscious or subconscious desire of the Sunni Turk for preferential treatment in public administration.

It’s not unlike the US that way. … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Insulting the religious values

Oct 6th, 2011 8:14 am | By

Oh noes, a cartoonist did a cartoon. Call the cops!

A Turkish cartoonist will be put on trial for a caricature he drew in which he renounced god, daily Habertürk reported on its website Wednesday.

The Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office charged cartoonist Bahadır Baruter with “insulting the religious values adopted by a part of the population” and requested his imprisonment for up to one year.

A mild and liberal response.

Baruter’s caricature depicted an imam and believers praying in a mosque. One of the characters is talking to God on his cellphone and asking to be pardoned from the last part of the prayer because he has errands to run.

Within the wall decorations of the mosque, Baruter hid

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)