"insulting Turkish identity"

[Gavur]

Human rights activist receives one-year prison sentence ....

Human rights activist receives one-year prison sentence for speaking of "Kurdistan", faces other legal actions over speeches and interviews



Date: 13 July 2007
Source: IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET)
Person(s): Eren Keskin
Target(s): human rights worker(s) , other
Type(s) of violation(s): legal action
Urgency: Flash


(BIANET/IFEX) - Human rights activist and lawyer Eren Keskin has received a one-year sentence for saying "Turkey has a dirty history" and using the term "Kurdistan". Keskin, who is also a former president of the Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD), faces 13 trials and two investigations for various speeches, articles and interviews. In one case she has been sentenced to one year imprisonment, converted into a 4,380 YTL (approx. US$ 3,450) fine (under Article 159/1 of the old Turkish Penal Code).


Keskin's sentencing was over a speech she made at a human rights panel organised by the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) in Cerkesköy (district of Tekirdag, Thrace) on 20 February 2005. She was accused of "insulting and degrading the republic". The prosecution also demanded that four previous delayed sentences be reviewed. The sentences had been delayed under the Conditional Amnesty No. 4616. Keskin reacted to the sentence by saying that her right to life was being violated.

A journalist witness, Saban Kardes, editor of a Cerkesköy newspaper, said that he left the room in protest and that he had recorded her words. According to Kardes, Keskin said: "There are attempts to suggest that human rights violations in Kurdistan have ended. This is not true. With the foundation of the state of the Turkish Republic, Kurdistan was ruled with the same law. The state is brutal enough to kill a 12-year-old child*; the Turkish Republic is a killer with bloody hands. They have to give account and apologise to us. Turkey's history is a dirty history".

A cameraman of a local TV channel, Savas Ozturk, agreed that such a statement was made, but said that he could not remember the exact content of the speech as he was concentrating on his work. Another witness confirmed the account.

Another investigation against Keskin has begun on request of the General Staff. Keskin is accused of "targeting the Turkish Armed Forces" in an interview she gave to the German "Tagesspiegel" newspaper on 24 June 2006. http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/84794/

[Greekaiser]

I agree with your estimates of 5,000,000 Turks killed by Armenians in over a period of little less than a 1,000 years but I feel that I should make you aware that Turkish victims of Greek terrors over a similar period of time is double the Armenian figure. At least 10,000,000 Turks died because of the Greeks, thats funny I thought Greece was the birth place of Democracy and Civilisation.

This guy is simply retarded.
When we killed 10 million turks?
From the 1071 until today we are the victims of your disgusting imperialism. I have seen no more barbarian and agressive creatures than turks. Fortunately i have seen lot of progress but still not enough.
From the very first day that turks had set foot on Anatolia ,we had only met massacres and assimilation policies and suppression.
When we killed so many turks??

These turks are really out of their minds. I have no hope any more. They have get in our lives ,engaged as in wars ,massacred us and now accuses us for genocides!
Turks better to understand that the land you inhabit, just before 1 century was inhabited by greeks, armenians and assyrians who mysteriously disappeared!

If you want to deny the genocides, do it! At least don't blame the victims. At least don't accuse us for genocides!
Respect the fact that you came here in 1071 and massacred us ,just to take some land and be satisfied!

[Joseph]

The EU's Safe Guide On Insulting Turkey

From: "Katia M. Peltekian" <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:03:08 +0500 (AMST)
THE EU'S SAFE GUIDE ON INSULTING TURKEY
Andy Dabilis

New Europe

http://www.neurope.eu/articles/86869.php

May 26 2008
Belgium

It's too late for Hrant Dink, the brave Armenian-Turkish newspaperman
who was murdered in 2007, not long after being convicted of violating
Turkey's medieval Article 301 which made it a crime to "insult
Turkishness," which is pretty hard to do when so much of your history
is built on bayoneting babies and your national sport is invasion.

The European Union has weakly requested that Turkey scrap Article 301
as one requirement to become a member of the European Union, where it
is okay to insult all nationalities, allowed in real democracies. With
Dink's murder safely behind them, and knowing the economic benefits of
being in the EU are looming, Turkey has amended its law so that it's no
longer a crime to insult Turkishness. You just can't insult the Turkish
nation, which means you can only insult foreigners there apparently.

What's worse than this pretentious little tap dance around the truth
is that the EU has accepted it, allowing European politicians to save
face while smooching behinds at the same time, an acceptable maneuver
as they've long had the former so close to the latter. Any closer and
they'd pass the European Commission job test. The European Parliament
has said the change is not enough, but that's yesterday's resolution
for them, so they can move on to hiding their expense allowances. The
change regulating alleged freedom of speech in Turkey was greeted
with a quiet hallelujah in the EU, which called it "a constructive
step forward." Wrong direction. Turkey prefers its critics to be six
feet under.

"This step is both positive for Turkey and an indication of Turkey's
continuing commitment to the reform process," the EU said, in a press
release and not face-to-face with journalists who have a nasty habit
of asking pesky questions about cowardly gestures.

Turkey is getting there though. They've also reduced the penalty for
insulting Turkey - which is indistinct from Turkishness - from three
years in jail to two, which, if you've seen Midnight Express, means
you'll still come out squealing like a pig. Where is Orhan Pamuk,
the Nobel Laureate who was prosecuted for violating Article 301, to
write that this runningin- place change is a sham? The EU has never
had to worry about insulting Turkey or Turkishness or the Turkish
nation so they don't really care who goes to jail or gets killed
there as long as trade continues.

The new Article 301 is the same old Article 301. "This is just
lipstick for the European Union," Eren Keskin of the Human Rights
Association told Deutsche Press Agentur (dpa). Keskin was found guilty
of "insulting the armed forces" for suggesting the Turkish military
has too much influence, so her opinion counts.

"I do not want changes. I want the article annulled,"
Keskin said. "Stating your opinion will still be a crime," she
added. Journalist and rights campaigner Ertugru Kurkcu said the new
law "still leaves a lot of space for judges to decide and give their
own definition of the demarcation line between criticism and insult."

Even Council of Europe Secretary Terry Davis, who's never seen a
malleable law he didn't like, said he's unhappy. Well, kind of. "This
is to be welcomed. However, although an analysis of the new wording
indicates some progress in this respect, it does not alleviate all
concerns about excessive restrictions of the freedom of expression,"
he said. Tough talk alright.

If you want to know what happens to people who insult Turkey in any
guise, look no further than those like Dink who write about what
happened in Armenia, where a million or so people were slaughtered
by the Turks in a genocide or, in the Turkish version, all committed
suicide simultaneously. Those dissidents go to jail, or, like Dink,
into the ground, no matter what they name the law.

"This so-called reform is a joke," said Hilda Tchoboian, chairwoman
of the European Armenian Federation. "The European Union should not
let itself be anaesthetised by this gross manipulation of words,"
she said. That's an insult to the EU, which specialises in the gross
manipulation of words. To be safe, the EU has put out a guide on what
you can say and can't say about the Turkish nation. So far, there are
no entries in the "safe" category, but the EU should not belong to any
club that would have Turkey as a member. And Greek coffee is better.

[imported_crusader1492]

http://themoderatevoice.com/places/asia/turkey/19930/the-armenian-genocide-guest-voice/

The Armenian Genocide (Guest Voice)
May 27th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

In this Guest Voice post, blogger Kathy Kattenburg calls on Congress to again take up a controversial resolution on Armenian Genocide. This Guest Voice is cross posted at Comments from Left Field. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Moderate Voice or its writers.

The Armenian Genocide
by Kathy Kattenburg

Remember back in October when a resolution to acknowledge and remember the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 was blocked because Turkey threatened to cut off relations with the United States if it was passed?

Well, the resolution did not go anywhere. It was adopted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on October 10, and could be brought back to life if a majority in Congress could overcome their terror of Turkish temper tantrums.

The deliberate extermination of roughly 1,500,000 Armenian men, women, and children was widely reported and acknowledged as genocide while it was happening and in the years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire following World War I.

Whether or not Hitler explicitly pointed to the Armenians as evidence that mass murder on such a scale could be done with impunity, there is no reasonable doubt that the Armenian Genocide was used by Nazi Germany as a template for the Holocaust. Germany and Turkey were allies in World War I. German military officers were in Turkey while the genocide was going on. Most of the vast collection of photographs documenting the atrocities were taken by a German national, Armin Wegner. And when you read about the logistics of how the Armenian population was rounded up, deported, and murdered, the influence becomes very clear.

The argument that our present-day political alliance with Turkey is too important to our national security to risk alienating the Turks over something that happened 90 years ago is unpersuasive, to say the least.

The Turkish government has been denying that a genocide took place for those entire 90 years, and for almost that length of time, the major European powers and the United States have gone along with that denial, because the West did not want to jeopardize its oil interests in what came to be called the Middle East.

The oil addiction began almost immediately after the first world war ended, when Britain and France carved up the old Ottoman Empire between them. The absolute inviolable priority of European and American economic interests in that region began then, and has gone on continuously since then. The United States does not want to piss off Turkey now; it did not want to piss off Turkey back then; and as long as there is oil in the Middle East, that is going to be more important than even a simple statement of acknowledgment and remembrance. Memory takes a back seat to money.

Clearly, many people both inside Turkey and elsewhere in the world believe this to be appropriate and understandable. I do not.

It’s neither appropriate nor understandable. It’s evil and immoral. It’s appalling that one country has persisted in denying, for almost a century, the intentional elimination of an entire people, through mass murder and forced removal, and that the world has allowed that country to get away with such a crime.
The time is long, long past to stand up with the remnant of the Armenian people, and the very few survivors still alive, and say: We acknowledge this genocide, we call it by its proper name, we remember that it happened, and we commit ourselves to do all we can to prevent its ever happening again.

The summary of the Armenian Genocide Resolution reads as follows:

A resolution calling on the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide.

The full text (of the Senate version) is here. The House version is here. To send a message to your representatives in the House and Senate urging them to take up this resolution again and pass it, go here.

There are mountains of documentation of and information about the facts of the Armenian genocide. If you want one source that is reliable, exhaustively and meticulously researched, readable, and readily available, I recommend Peter Balakian’s The Burning Tigris. It’s out in paperback, and it’s also easily obtainable at public libraries.

[Joseph]

http://themoderatevoice.com/places/a...e-guest-voice/

The Armenian Genocide (Guest Voice)
May 27th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

In this Guest Voice post, blogger Kathy Kattenburg calls on Congress to again take up a controversial resolution on Armenian Genocide. This Guest Voice is cross posted at Comments from Left Field. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Moderate Voice or its writers.

The Armenian Genocide
by Kathy Kattenburg

Remember back in October when a resolution to acknowledge and remember the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 was blocked because Turkey threatened to cut off relations with the United States if it was passed?

Well, the resolution did not go anywhere. It was adopted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on October 10, and could be brought back to life if a majority in Congress could overcome their terror of Turkish temper tantrums.

The deliberate extermination of roughly 1,500,000 Armenian men, women, and children was widely reported and acknowledged as genocide while it was happening and in the years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire following World War I.

Whether or not Hitler explicitly pointed to the Armenians as evidence that mass murder on such a scale could be done with impunity, there is no reasonable doubt that the Armenian Genocide was used by Nazi Germany as a template for the Holocaust. Germany and Turkey were allies in World War I. German military officers were in Turkey while the genocide was going on. Most of the vast collection of photographs documenting the atrocities were taken by a German national, Armin Wegner. And when you read about the logistics of how the Armenian population was rounded up, deported, and murdered, the influence becomes very clear.

The argument that our present-day political alliance with Turkey is too important to our national security to risk alienating the Turks over something that happened 90 years ago is unpersuasive, to say the least.

The Turkish government has been denying that a genocide took place for those entire 90 years, and for almost that length of time, the major European powers and the United States have gone along with that denial, because the West did not want to jeopardize its oil interests in what came to be called the Middle East.

The oil addiction began almost immediately after the first world war ended, when Britain and France carved up the old Ottoman Empire between them. The absolute inviolable priority of European and American economic interests in that region began then, and has gone on continuously since then. The United States does not want to piss off Turkey now; it did not want to piss off Turkey back then; and as long as there is oil in the Middle East, that is going to be more important than even a simple statement of acknowledgment and remembrance. Memory takes a back seat to money.

Clearly, many people both inside Turkey and elsewhere in the world believe this to be appropriate and understandable. I do not.

It’s neither appropriate nor understandable. It’s evil and immoral. It’s appalling that one country has persisted in denying, for almost a century, the intentional elimination of an entire people, through mass murder and forced removal, and that the world has allowed that country to get away with such a crime.
The time is long, long past to stand up with the remnant of the Armenian people, and the very few survivors still alive, and say: We acknowledge this genocide, we call it by its proper name, we remember that it happened, and we commit ourselves to do all we can to prevent its ever happening again.

The summary of the Armenian Genocide Resolution reads as follows:

A resolution calling on the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide.

The full text (of the Senate version) is here. The House version is here. To send a message to your representatives in the House and Senate urging them to take up this resolution again and pass it, go here.

There are mountains of documentation of and information about the facts of the Armenian genocide. If you want one source that is reliable, exhaustively and meticulously researched, readable, and readily available, I recommend Peter Balakian’s The Burning Tigris. It’s out in paperback, and it’s also easily obtainable at public libraries.

Thanks. Excellent.

[EdgarTarkanian]

Can someone explain to me why the French or British or Russians allowed the Ottomans to get away with denying the genocide? I'm not familiar with Sevres Treaty, why did they not approve of it, why did they just accept Lausanne?

Another question is, in the 70 years of Soviet rule, what have the Soviets really done for us?

[Hovik]

Can someone explain to me why the French or British or Russians allowed the Ottomans to get away with denying the genocide? I'm not familiar with Sevres Treaty, why did they not approve of it, why did they just accept Lausanne?

Another question is, in the 70 years of Soviet rule, what have the Soviets really done for us?

I'll address the Soviet question.

By "us" I assume you mean Armenians, though from your allegance to a denialist site like "Armenian Genocide Debate" makes me wonder...

The Soviets did a lot for Armenia, good and bad. We hear about the bad a lot more often than the good. I'll just say that average people lived decent lives in Soviet Armenia. If you had money to begin with you could be subject to exile in Siberia as my family members experienced, but otherwise you did quite well, a home was provided to you, there was little unemployment and the pay was decent, you could afford to live, the soviet system allowed and paid for you to go on holiday for about 2 months out of every year and you could travel anywhere you wished within the USSR - though most tourists from the other Soviet states chose Armenia for a vacation place.

The Soviets made Armenia a very important research, industrial and science center of the bloc. Some of these institutions still exist - like and Aluminum plant outside Yerevan, the Cosmic Ray Labs on Mt. Aragats, and others. And of course there was a great deal invested in Armenia's infrastructure, most of which now, due to Independent Armenia's inability to maintain, has crumbled.

And of course there is the protection factor. Although the gifting by Stalin of Armenian Nakhijevan and Artsakh to the squeaky-new state of Azerbaijan really messed us up, had Armenia not been absorbed into the USSR, the Turks would surely have invaded yet again to finish off the Genocide their founders began. Armenia was taken under her wing and the Armenian state was preserved for yet another 70 years of her 2500+ year history of state independence. When Turkish military airpower violated Armenian airspace it was the Russians that mounted to most sophisticated anti-aircraft rockets along the Armenian border, which brought their military arrogance to a screaching halt.

I could go on, but I hope this answers your question.

If anyone would like to beat the dead horse of all the negative things the Soviets did for Armenia be my guest.

[Steph]

I'll address the Soviet question.

By "us" I assume you mean Armenians, though from your allegance to a denialist site like "Armenian Genocide Debate" makes me wonder...

The Soviets did a lot for Armenia, good and bad. We hear about the bad a lot more often than the good. I'll just say that average people lived decent lives in Soviet Armenia. If you had money to begin with you could be subject to exile in Siberia as my family members experienced, but otherwise you did quite well, a home was provided to you, there was little unemployment and the pay was decent, you could afford to live, the soviet system allowed and paid for you to go on holiday for about 2 months out of every year and you could travel anywhere you wished within the USSR - though most tourists from the other Soviet states chose Armenia for a vacation place.

The Soviets made Armenia a very important research, industrial and science center of the bloc. Some of these institutions still exist - like and Aluminum plant outside Yerevan, the Cosmic Ray Labs on Mt. Aragats, and others. And of course there was a great deal invested in Armenia's infrastructure, most of which now, due to Independent Armenia's inability to maintain, has crumbled.

And of course there is the protection factor. Although the gifting by Stalin of Armenian Nakhijevan and Artsakh to the squeaky-new state of Azerbaijan really messed us up, had Armenia not been absorbed into the USSR, the Turks would surely have invaded yet again to finish off the Genocide their founders began. Armenia was taken under her wing and the Armenian state was preserved for yet another 70 years of her 2500+ year history of state independence. When Turkish military airpower violated Armenian airspace it was the Russians that mounted to most sophisticated anti-aircraft rockets along the Armenian border, which brought their military arrogance to a screaching halt.

I could go on, but I hope this answers your question.

If anyone would like to beat the dead horse of all the negative things the Soviets did for Armenia be my guest.

I doubt if anyone could deny that the Soviets gave overall benefits to Armenia and Armenians, despite some official policies, but as you state Hovik, Armenia would probably only exist in history books if not for it's absorption into the fledgling USSR.

[Joseph]

Very true guys. I agree with both of your assessments. The Soviet Union was certainly not an ideal but it gave the Armenians the chance to regroup, recover, and start over again. Certainly without Soviet/Russian protection there would be no Armenia today.

[bell-the-cat]

Another question is, in the 70 years of Soviet rule, what have the Soviets really done for us?

I can feel a variation on the Monty Python's Life of Brian "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sketch coming on.