Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

[Joseph]

God only knows.

And God might not have much faith in them doing so

[Gavur]

Can Turkey learn tolerance?

Only when they get opression out of their gene pool.

[1.5 million]

Can Turkey learn tolerance?

Likely only at the end of a sword.

[lal]

Can Turkey learn tolerance?

can armenians learn tolerance?

no! as long as they think,they are racially very different people from turks since the beginning of humanity ,and as long as they think they belong to the evil cult of hard core imperialist christianity ,they will keep on running after vendetta from the muslim barbarian turks who killed their grandfathers.


and turks will never learn tolarance,as long as they think they are the original invaders,rapers from mongolia, proud about the numbers of killed armenians,with arabic cultural imperialist ideology,islam obsess their minds...

good christian armenians will dream to get their lands and honour back by beating turkey someday,or hoping kurds to do it for themselves. anatolia only then will become a christian crusaders victory land.

muslim turks will go on m.asturbating by the poverty scenes in erivan,armenia and rejection of armenian genocide bill in usa congress.


dear brothers ,turks will only apologize if they can get rid off islam. and armenians will only can sincerely accept this apology, only if they can get rid of christianity.

without christianity and islam one thing will remain,thats brotherhood of anatolian people.

best regards

[Joseph]

This is insane


NTV, Turkey
Jan 14 2008


Turkish general criticized for backing students drawing flag with own
blood

"Examination Launched into the 'Flag Drawn With Blood'"


"The flag that has been drawn by high school students with their own
blood" that Chief of Staff General Buyukanit showed the press the day
before yesterday [10 January] has led to controversy. The specialists
criticized Buyukanit for praising the present.

According to Taraf newspaper, the fact that a group of high school
students in Kirsehir sent the chief of staff a Turkish flag that they
drew with their own blood and the fact that Chief of Staff Yasar
Buyukanit approved this by saying "This is the kind of nation we are"
have led to controversy. The Kirsehir Governor's Office has launched
an examination into the incident.

Kazim Kaya, Kirsehir Province national education deputy manager, told
Taraf that both their office and the Governor's Office have begun to
examine the matter, adding: "We have immediately taken up and
examined the incident. Currently we have a report on this issue. The
students have reportedly done this outside the school. We have
listened to the principals of both schools. Both principals were
asked why the high-level administration did not know anything about
the incident. Both principals noted that they did not know anything
about this incident. The honourable governor is in Ankara, but he has
been briefed on the issue and he has spoken on the phone with the
principals of both schools."

Has Anyone Guided Them?

In answer to a question on "whether the testimonies of the students
have been taken" National Education Deputy Manager Kaya answered:
"Not yet. Nonetheless we are not merely talking about these two
schools. Reportedly children from other schools are also involved.
However it is important to know whether these children have acted on
the basis of their own will or whether they have been guided by
anyone. All this will be clarified as of the beginning of the week."

Prof Oran: Grave Incident

Reacting to the flag that has been drawn with blood and especially to
the stand adopted by the chief of staff, Prof Dr Baskin Oran said the
following:

"The fact that these children have done something like this by making
their bodies bleed is irritating. Nonetheless the fact that the chief
of staff views a flag made with blood worthy is even graver. After
all, the blood issue had been repeatedly put on the agenda on every
opportunity and they continue to do so now.

"This incident also brings to mind whether the thing that we define
as the 'Turkish nation' is based on blood. You do not stand trial on
the basis of Article 301 when you insult a Kurd, an Armenian, or a
Jew. This most recent incident is the clearest indicator of this.
This grave stand adopted by the chief of staff shows that nationalism
conditioning has spread to primary school children."

They Framed It and They Sent It to Buyukanit

Students from the Anatolia Teacher High School and Haci Fatma Erdemir
Anatolia High School who came together on 28 November drew a Turkish
flag using the blood from their fingers. The students prepared the
flag with the aim of reacting against the terrorist actions in
Turkey. Later the youths framed the Turkish flag that they had drawn
with their own blood and they sent it to Chief of Staff General Yasar
Buyukanit.

In a speech he delivered during the finals of the "Campaign for the
Support of Counterterrorism Heroes" that was organized by a
television channel, Chief of Staff General Yasar Buyukanit mentioned
the Turkish flag that has been drawn by the students with their own
blood. General Buyukanit said the following in order to express his
feelings:

"Look what I will show you now. This is a Turkish flag. It is a
unique flag. It was drawn with the blood of a group of youths. We are
a great nation. And our martyrs have truly become martyrs for a
sacred cause - with the aim of safeguarding the unity and the
solidarity of the country we live in. Their families have been
entrusted with us. We should take care of them because they are our
most valuable assets."

[Joseph]

Turkey Armenians wary one year after editor's death
Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:18pm IST Email | Print | Share | Single Page [-] Text [+]

1 of 1Full Size
By Thomas Grove

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - One year after Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink was shot dead, Turkey's Armenian community is torn between hoping for better days in the EU candidate nation and moving abroad out of frustration and fear of more attacks.

Dink's murder by an ultra-nationalist gunman outside his Istanbul office on January 19, 2007 stunned Turkey, and his funeral turned into a mass protest against nationalist violence.

But the mood among Istanbul's ethnic Armenians remains jittery as the grim anniversary looms, despite the pledges of solidarity and government promises to fight intolerance.

"Most (Armenians) hesitate to go out and make themselves known ... This is not a time of great hope, it is still a time of danger," said Etyen Mahcupyan, Dink's successor as editor of Agos, a small Turkish and Armenian-language weekly based in Istanbul.

Optimists see violence against Christians as the last gasp of a nationalism that feels threatened by globalization, Turkey's rising prosperity and closer ties with Europe.

Before his murder, Dink had received numerous death threats for articles urging Turkey to accept responsibility for its part in the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks and Kurds in 1915.

His writings also brought him a suspended 6-month jail sentence under a law that makes it a crime to insult Turkish identity. Ankara has failed to amend or scrap the law, condemned by the European Union as a major obstacle to free speech.

Not far from the Agos office, Armenians congregate at a small tea house in a back alley of what was once one of the city's major Armenian quarters. Turkey now has about 60,000 ethnic Armenians, far fewer than in Ottoman times.

The owner of the tea house, who declined to give his name, said he was horrified to learn Dink's killer was an unemployed 17-year-old who wanted to become a nationalist hero. The youth and his accomplices are now on trial.

"This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I have seen the darkest days of this country -- military coups, economic crises and earthquakes. Not once did I think about leaving. But this is too much. I would emigrate if I could," he said.

CHRISTIANS ATTACKED

Dink's murder was one in a series of violent attacks on Turkey's small Christian population, which also includes Roman Catholics, Protestants and Greek Orthodox.

Last April three Christians -- two Turks and a German -- had their throats slit at a Bible publishing house in the eastern town of Malatya. Several clergymen have been attacked in recent months, most recently an Italian priest in his church in Izmir.

For Turkish ultra-nationalists, Christians are sometimes seen as a threat to national security and unity, acting as agents of European powers which want to subvert Turkey's national sovereignty and religious values.

The suspected involvement of members of the security forces in Dink's murder also highlighted the enduring role of Turkey's shadowy "deep state", code for hardline nationalists in the state apparatus ready to subvert the law for political ends.

The tea house owner said the nationalist view of Christians as potential enemies had given rise to the violence against religious targets that was now stifling his community.

"I can't breathe in this country, everyone treats you like the enemy," he said.

For optimists, however, the attacks of 2007 were the death throes of a nationalism that is being rendered increasingly obsolete by globalization, Turkey's rising prosperity and the government's drive to join the European Union.

"What we see on the surface is nationalist acts, but the reason we have those is because nationalism is weakening in Turkey in terms of controlling the politics, and that's why 2007 was crucial," said Agos editor Mahcupyan.

Sociologists say wrenching social, economic and demographic changes have boosted the appeal of simplistic nationalist slogans among a large, poorly educated segment of Turkish youth desperately seeking an identity.

"Turkey is experiencing a period of intense change," said Fuat Keyman, a professor at Koc University in Istanbul.

"Kurdish separatists pose a threat to the country's southeast and the European Union is putting pressure on the very idea of Turkishness. These nationalist attacks are a knee-jerk reaction," he said.

For Armenians, the key question is whether the ruling centre-right AK Party can make good on its promises of reforms in areas such as minority rights and freedom of expression, said Mahcupyan.

"It is easy to be skeptical, but we have put our hopes in the AK Party and we are waiting to see what the intention of the government is, whether they are willing to change," he said.

(Editing by Gareth Jones and Tim Pearce)

[lal]

This is insane


NTV, Turkey
Jan 14 2008


Turkish general criticized for backing students drawing flag with own
blood

"Examination Launched into the 'Flag Drawn With Blood'"


"The flag that has been drawn by high school students with their own
blood" that Chief of Staff General Buyukanit showed the press the day
before yesterday [10 January] has led to controversy. The specialists
criticized Buyukanit for praising the present.

According to Taraf newspaper, the fact that a group of high school
students in Kirsehir sent the chief of staff a Turkish flag that they
drew with their own blood and the fact that Chief of Staff Yasar
Buyukanit approved this by saying "This is the kind of nation we are"
have led to controversy. The Kirsehir Governor's Office has launched
an examination into the incident.

Kazim Kaya, Kirsehir Province national education deputy manager, told
Taraf that both their office and the Governor's Office have begun to
examine the matter, adding: "We have immediately taken up and
examined the incident. Currently we have a report on this issue. The
students have reportedly done this outside the school. We have
listened to the principals of both schools. Both principals were
asked why the high-level administration did not know anything about
the incident. Both principals noted that they did not know anything
about this incident. The honourable governor is in Ankara, but he has
been briefed on the issue and he has spoken on the phone with the
principals of both schools."

Has Anyone Guided Them?

In answer to a question on "whether the testimonies of the students
have been taken" National Education Deputy Manager Kaya answered:
"Not yet. Nonetheless we are not merely talking about these two
schools. Reportedly children from other schools are also involved.
However it is important to know whether these children have acted on
the basis of their own will or whether they have been guided by
anyone. All this will be clarified as of the beginning of the week."

Prof Oran: Grave Incident

Reacting to the flag that has been drawn with blood and especially to
the stand adopted by the chief of staff, Prof Dr Baskin Oran said the
following:

"The fact that these children have done something like this by making
their bodies bleed is irritating. Nonetheless the fact that the chief
of staff views a flag made with blood worthy is even graver. After
all, the blood issue had been repeatedly put on the agenda on every
opportunity and they continue to do so now.

"This incident also brings to mind whether the thing that we define
as the 'Turkish nation' is based on blood. You do not stand trial on
the basis of Article 301 when you insult a Kurd, an Armenian, or a
Jew. This most recent incident is the clearest indicator of this.
This grave stand adopted by the chief of staff shows that nationalism
conditioning has spread to primary school children."

They Framed It and They Sent It to Buyukanit

Students from the Anatolia Teacher High School and Haci Fatma Erdemir
Anatolia High School who came together on 28 November drew a Turkish
flag using the blood from their fingers. The students prepared the
flag with the aim of reacting against the terrorist actions in
Turkey. Later the youths framed the Turkish flag that they had drawn
with their own blood and they sent it to Chief of Staff General Yasar
Buyukanit.

In a speech he delivered during the finals of the "Campaign for the
Support of Counterterrorism Heroes" that was organized by a
television channel, Chief of Staff General Yasar Buyukanit mentioned
the Turkish flag that has been drawn by the students with their own
blood. General Buyukanit said the following in order to express his
feelings:

"Look what I will show you now. This is a Turkish flag. It is a
unique flag. It was drawn with the blood of a group of youths. We are
a great nation. And our martyrs have truly become martyrs for a
sacred cause - with the aim of safeguarding the unity and the
solidarity of the country we live in. Their families have been
entrusted with us. We should take care of them because they are our
most valuable assets."

so here we can see the degree of extreme nationalizm in secular turkey where nonmuslims are not wanted, other than sunni muslims are not wanted,kurds are not wanted, alevis are not wanted, only sunni,mongolians are wanted???

a flag made of fresh lively human blood.and the biggest general is proud of this...

this is a signal to all kurds and armenians and greeks and all other enemies. hey we are still very dangerous, be careful about us...hehehe

where else can you find this ,other than the most open minded muslim country of the world?

democracy of turkey is only for few people, not for the rest.

ı am not a traitor to my country. ı dont want armenians to win ,but also ı dont want armenians to suffer another 100 years.


dont be surprised why we dont apologize. because we still make flags with real blood.

ı love my people but ı hate my culture
ı love armenians but ı hate their culture


there must be no religons, no big,high mosques or churches where you feel so small infront of the sultan of universe, no nations,no borders, no nazis, no bushes, no vendetta,no genocide, no discriminations,

our first duty is to save our planet, help and feel sympathy to each other,stop racizm,and get all together ,instead of living for the imaginary lord.

ı agree that we must apologize for the genocide. but as long as you follow your evil cult and ı follow mine, the real virus will always stay in our small brains and even smallers hearts,thats ,how to screw each other more effectively in the near future.this kind of apologize means nothing.

[bell-the-cat]

can armenians learn tolerance?

no! as long as they think,they are racially very different people from turks since the beginning of humanity ,and as long as they think they belong to the evil cult of hard core imperialist christianity ,they will keep on running after vendetta from the muslim barbarian turks who killed their grandfathers.


and turks will never learn tolarance,as long as they think they are the original invaders,rapers from mongolia, proud about the numbers of killed armenians,with arabic cultural imperialist ideology,islam obsess their minds...

good christian armenians will dream to get their lands and honour back by beating turkey someday,or hoping kurds to do it for themselves. anatolia only then will become a christian crusaders victory land.

muslim turks will go on m.asturbating by the poverty scenes in erivan,armenia and rejection of armenian genocide bill in usa congress.


dear brothers ,turks will only apologize if they can get rid off islam. and armenians will only can sincerely accept this apology, only if they can get rid of christianity.

without christianity and islam one thing will remain,thats brotherhood of anatolian people.

best regards

Turkish intolerance and Armenian intolerance are two sides of the same coin. The difference is that the worst Armenian intolerance is mostly restricted to a small but very vocal part of the Armenian diaspora. Turkish intolerance is fully supported and encouraged by almost all sections of the Turkish state - from governmental to judicical to military elements - and is supported by the majority of Turkish society with its population of some 80 million people (plus millions more in its own diaspora).

There isn't really anything fundamentally "Christian" behind the Armenian intolerance. Maybe there is an Islamic context to the Turkish intolerence - what with Islam's overt superiority-complex and it's requirement to never apologise for one's ancestors behavior, especially to non-Muslims.

[Joseph]

Assyrian International News Agency
Hatred Against Christians Has Escalated in Turkey
Posted GMT 1-22-2008 20:55:39
On December 30, 2007, in the popular tourist resort of Antalya, Turkey, the police revealed and stopped a secret murder plot. The aim was to kill Ramazan Arkan, a priest working in The Church of Incil, in Antalya. The case resembles other attacks targeted against Christians in Turkey, where the hatred against Christians has escalated lately.

In a news feature, the Turkish TV channel HABERTÜRK reported that Turkish police in Antalya has revealed and thus prevented the planned assassination. A 22-year-old man was arrested for preparation of murder of the Orthodox priest Ramazan Arkan.

According to several Turkish newspapers, the suspect has, during interrogations, said that he has become inspired by the TV-series ”Valley of the Wolves”, a popular TV-series among Turkish ultranationalists. The series has also been released here in Sweden in a movie version on DVD. The police neither confirms nor denies these statements.

ESNA has earlier reported about an Italian, Catholic priest, who was stabbed in his stomach by a younger male in the port city of Izmir, in western Turkey. The priest, Adriano Franchini, survived the attack, and shortly thereafter the perpetrator, who had been influenced by different Internet sites which point out Christians as traitors, was arrested.

In April 2007, five university students in Malatya, eastern Turkey cut the throats off three Christians – a German citizen and two Turks – at a Bible publishing company. Before the killings, the three victims had been tortured for hours.

On February 5, 2006, the Catholic Italian priest Andrea Santoro was shot to death in his church by a 16-year-old boy, in the Turkish city of Trabzon at the Black Sea. The Agape church, which has reopened for divine service since 2003, in Samsun at the Black Sea, has been terrorized several times. The minister, Orhan Piçaklar, received several threats via e-mail and telephone. Despite several reports to the police, the threats have continued. The police, who on January 5th tapped the telephone conversation of a suspect, heard the 17-year old adolescent brag about how he would kill the minister of the Agape church, and become famous on TV. But the court handling the case saw no need for detaining the young man; he was released, but however prohibited to leave the country.

On hundreds of Internet sites, Christians are pointed out to be missionaries, and thus threats against national security. On TV-series, such as “Valley of the Wolves” (Kurtlar Vadisi), which is aired on ”Show TV” and ”Black Snake” (Kara Yilan), which is aired on tv-channel “A TV”, ultranationalist emotions are incited. All these actions make Christians feel unsafe in Turkey.

On January 19 2007, the Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, was murdered in broad daylight outside the premises of the newspaper Agos, in Constantinople (Istanbul). A few days after the murder, the 17-year old killer, Ogun Samast, was arrested.

The Turkish police, who treated the murderer like a national hero, proudly posed with a Turkish flag in their hands, in front of the cameras, and boasted about taking pictures with the killer.

On Ocotber 12, 2007, Arat Dink, son of the murdered Hrant Dink, and the responsible for the publication of the newspaper Agos, Serkis Seropyan, were sentenced to one year of conditional jail sentence for ”desecrating Turkishness”. The sentence is based on the very same paragraph that Hrant Dink was judged for, paragraph 301 in the Turkish penal code. Arat dink, who received several threats after the sentence, was forced to flee Turkey on the 6th of November 2007.

The European Union has for a long time protested against the fact that Turkey, a country applying for membership in the European Union, has failed protect the human rights and the religious freedom of the very small Christian minority. On the contrary – the development has been towards the opposite direction.

However, Turkey sees herself as a secular state with religious freedom. In the beginning of the 20th century, one third of the population in Turkey was Christian. As a consequence of Seyfo – the genocide against the Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks during World War I - with subsequent pogroms, barely 100,000 of the Christians remain out of a 75 million large population in Turkey.

EasternStar New Agency

[imported_crusader1492]

BBC News
Jan 28 2008


Academic sentenced over Ataturk

By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, Istanbul

A Turkish court has handed down a 15-month suspended jail term to an
academic found guilty of insulting the state's founder, Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk.

Professor Atilla Yayla said the trial highlighted the limits on free
speech and academic debate in Turkey.

His crime was to suggest in academic discussion that the early
Turkish republic was not as progressive as portrayed in official
books.

His lawyers say they will lodge an immediate appeal.

Professor Yayla told the BBC he was prepared to take his case to the
European Court of Human Rights if necessary.


"I want to emphasise again and again that Turkey's most pressing
problem is freedom of expression," he said.


Turkey should evolve into being a country where people are not
punished because of their thoughts

Prof Atilla Yayla

The prosecutor had asked the judge to impose a five-year prison
sentence.

This trial has become a test of academic freedom in Turkey, which is
pursuing a long-term ambition to become an EU member.

Mr Yayla had also warned that, as Turkey moved closer to Europe,
Europeans would inevitably question why Turks displayed so many
pictures and statues of Ataturk.

The professor was vilified by parts of the Turkish press, suspended
from work at an Ankara university, and brought to trial.

Mr Yayla, a well-known liberal, denied the charge of insulting
Ataturk and argued that academics must be guaranteed freedom of
expression to pursue their research.

'Insulting Turkishness'

The Turkish parliament is preparing to debate amending another law
that restricts free speech.

Article 301 on "insulting Turkishness" has been used to prosecute
dozens of writers and intellectuals, including Nobel prize winner
Orhan Pamuk.

"Many foreign observers concentrate on Article 301, but there are
other laws and articles in different laws, which have the potential
to restrict freedom of expression, as it is in my case," Mr Yayla
told the BBC.

"What is important is that Turkey should evolve into being a country
where people are not punished because of their thoughts. And to
achieve this we ought to make reforms in the whole legal system and
also change the mentality in the judiciary. Otherwise Turkey will go
on suffering."

The EU has been pressing for a change to Article 301 for well over a
year, but the government has faced stiff opposition from
nationalists, both within the ruling party and in the opposition.

But changes to the law which protects Ataturk are not up for
discussion.