Taner Akçam: A shameful Act

[1.5 million]

...and unwittingly forwarding the cause of genocide recognition while soiling that of their own nation.

It is amazing how utterly blind their fanatiscim on this issue has made them.

[Joseph]

It is amazing how utterly blind their fanatiscim on this issue has made them.

Absolutely. It fuels their paranoia and makes them do idiotic things...such as invading Iraq, (which they'll probably do next. God forbid the Kurds should ever have their own state right?), growing more ultra-nationalistic (as if we even thought this were possible... up until now) and biting off their nose to spite their face (disrupting relations with their allies/trading partners over Genocide recognition).

I say we keep up the pressure. We have nothing to lose. We win some battles and lose some but the pressure is building and gradually we are seeing results; drops in the ocean from a small diaspora but those drops add up.

[1.5 million]

We are at a most oppurtune time in history right now to see some progress - on a number of fronts. Still I can't be optomistic. Turkey is like a Stalinist regeim. Nothing will change unless we are suddenly graced with a far thinking/enlightened personality in the Oligarchy that controls their government behind the scenes. However Turkish intellectuals might be able to make a difference (more in galvanizing external pressure). Don't know. Now is certainly a time of oppurtunity - at least potential. 2015 will be another window as well - regardless - if we haven't had any movement by then...

[Joseph]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2469270.ece

by Robert Fisk:

Caught in the deadly web of the internet
Any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent
Published: 21 April 2007


Could it possibly be that the security men who guard the frontiers of North America are supporting Holocaust denial? Alas, it's true. Here's the story.

Taner Akcam is the distinguished Turkish scholar at the University of Minnesota who, with immense courage, proved the facts of the Armenian genocide - the deliberate mass murder of up to a million and a half Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in 1915 - from Turkish documents and archives. His book A Shameful Act was published to great critical acclaim in Britain and the United States.

He is now, needless to say, being threatened with legal action in Turkey under the infamous Law 301 - which makes a crime of insulting "Turkishness" - but it's probably par for the course for a man who was granted political asylum in Germany after receiving an eight-year prison sentence in his own country for articles he had written in a student journal; Amnesty International had already named him a prisoner of conscience.

But Mr Akcam has now become a different kind of prisoner: an inmate of the internet hate machine, the circle of hell in which any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent without any recourse to the law, to libel lawyers or to common decency. The Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was misquoted on the internet for allegedly claiming that Turkish blood was "poisonous"; this total lie - Dink never said such a thing - prompted a young man to murder him in an Istanbul street.

But Taner Akcam's experience is potentially far more serious for all of us. As he wrote in a letter to me this month, "Additional to the criminal investigation (law 301) in Turkey, there is a hate campaign going on here in the USA, as a result of which I cannot travel internationally any more... My recent detention at the Montreal airport - apparently on the basis of anonymous insertions in my Wikipedia biography - signals a disturbing new phase in a Turkish campaign of intimidation that has intensified since the November 2006 publication of my book."

Akcam was travelling to lecture in Montreal and took the Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis on 16 February this year. The Canadian immigration officer, Akcam says, was "courteous" - but promptly detained him at Montreal's Trudeau airport. Even odder, the Canadian immigration officer asked him why he needed to be detained. Akcam tells me he gave the man a brief history of the genocide and of the campaign of hatred against him in the US by Turkish groups "controlled by ... Turkish diplomats" who "spread propaganda stating that I am a member of a terrorist organisation".

All this went on for four hours while the immigration officer took notes and made phone calls to his bosses. Akcam was given a one-week visa and the Canadian officer showed him - at Akcam's insistence - a piece of paper which was the obvious reason for his temporary detention.

"I recognised the page at once," Akcam says. "The photo was a still from a 2005 documentary on the Armenian genocide... The still photo and the text beneath it comprised my biography in the English language edition of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which anyone in the world can modify at any time. For the last year ... my Wikipedia biography has been persistently vandalised by anonymous 'contributors' intent on labelling me as a terrorist. The same allegations has been repeatedly scrawled, like gangland graffiti, as 'customer reviews' of my books at Amazon."

Akcam was released, but his reflections on this very disturbing incident are worth recording. "It was unlikely, to say the least, that a Canadian immigration officer found out that I was coming to Montreal, took the sole initiative to research my identity on the internet, discovered the archived version of my Wikipedia biography, printed it out on 16 February, and showed it to me - voilà! - as a result."

But this was not the end. Prior to his Canadian visit, two Turkish-American websites had been hinting that Akcam's "terrorist activities" should be of interest to American immigration authorities. And sure enough, Akcam was detained yet again - for another hour - by US Homeland Security officers at Montreal airport before boarding his flight at Montreal for Minnesota two days later.

On this occasion, he says that the American officer - US Homeland Security operates at the Canadian airport - gave him a warning: "Mr Akcam, if you don't retain an attorney and correct this issue, every entry and exit from the country is going to be problematic. We recommend that you do not travel in the meantime and that you try to get this information removed from your customs dossier."

So let's get this clear. US and Canadian officials now appear to be detaining the innocent on the grounds of hate postings on the internet. And it is the innocent - guilty until proved otherwise, I suppose - who must now pay lawyers to protect them from Homeland Security and the internet. But as Akcam says, there is nothing he can do.

"Allegations against me, posted by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Turkish Forum and 'Tall Armenia Tale' (a Holocaust denial website) have been copy-pasted and recycled through innumerable websites and e-groups ever since I arrived in America. By now, my name in close proximity to the English word 'terrorist' turns up in well over 10,000 web pages."

I'm not surprised. There is no end to the internet's circle of hate. What does shock me, however, is that the men and women chosen to guard their nations against Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida are reading this dirt and are prepared to detain an honourable scholar such as Taner Akcam on the basis of it.

I don't think the immigration lads are to blame. I once remember listening to a Canadian official at Toronto airport carefully explaining to a Palestinian visitor that he was not required to tell any police officer about his religion or personal beliefs, that he should feel safe in Canada.

No, it's their bosses in Ottawa and Washington I wonder about. Put very simply, how much smut are the US and Canadian immigration authorities taking off the internet? And how much of it is now going to be flung at us when we queue at airports to go about our lawful business?

[Joseph]

http://www.just-international.org/article.cfm?newsid=20002159

Robert Fisk: Caught in the deadly web of the internet
by Robert Fisk


Robert FiskAny political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent
Could it possibly be that the security men who guard the frontiers of North America are supporting Holocaust denial? Alas, it's true. Here's the story.

Taner Akcam is the distinguished Turkish scholar at the University of Minnesota who, with immense courage, proved the facts of the Armenian genocide - the deliberate mass murder of up to a million and a half Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in 1915 - from Turkish documents and archives. His book A Shameful Act was published to great critical acclaim in Britain and the United States.

He is now, needless to say, being threatened with legal action in Turkey under the infamous Law 301 - which makes a crime of insulting "Turkishness" - but it's probably par for the course for a man who was granted political asylum in Germany after receiving an eight-year prison sentence in his own country for articles he had written in a student journal; Amnesty International had already named him a prisoner of conscience.

But Mr Akcam has now become a different kind of prisoner: an inmate of the internet hate machine, the circle of hell in which any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent without any recourse to the law, to libel lawyers or to common decency. The Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was misquoted on the internet for allegedly claiming that Turkish blood was "poisonous"; this total lie - Dink never said such a thing - prompted a young man to murder him in an Istanbul street.

But Taner Akcam's experience is potentially far more serious for all of us. As he wrote in a letter to me this month, "Additional to the criminal investigation (law 301) in Turkey, there is a hate campaign going on here in the USA, as a result of which I cannot travel internationally any more... My recent detention at the Montreal airport - apparently on the basis of anonymous insertions in my Wikipedia biography - signals a disturbing new phase in a Turkish campaign of intimidation that has intensified since the November 2006 publication of my book."

Akcam was travelling to lecture in Montreal and took the Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis on 16 February this year. The Canadian immigration officer, Akcam says, was "courteous" - but promptly detained him at Montreal's Trudeau airport. Even odder, the Canadian immigration officer asked him why he needed to be detained. Akcam tells me he gave the man a brief history of the genocide and of the campaign of hatred against him in the US by Turkish groups "controlled by ... Turkish diplomats" who "spread propaganda stating that I am a member of a terrorist organisation".

All this went on for four hours while the immigration officer took notes and made phone calls to his bosses. Akcam was given a one-week visa and the Canadian officer showed him - at Akcam's insistence - a piece of paper which was the obvious reason for his temporary detention.

"I recognised the page at once," Akcam says. "The photo was a still from a 2005 documentary on the Armenian genocide... The still photo and the text beneath it comprised my biography in the English language edition of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which anyone in the world can modify at any time. For the last year ... my Wikipedia biography has been persistently vandalised by anonymous 'contributors' intent on labelling me as a terrorist. The same allegations has been repeatedly scrawled, like gangland graffiti, as 'customer reviews' of my books at Amazon."

Akcam was released, but his reflections on this very disturbing incident are worth recording. "It was unlikely, to say the least, that a Canadian immigration officer found out that I was coming to Montreal, took the sole initiative to research my identity on the internet, discovered the archived version of my Wikipedia biography, printed it out on 16 February, and showed it to me - voilà! - as a result."

But this was not the end. Prior to his Canadian visit, two Turkish-American websites had been hinting that Akcam's "terrorist activities" should be of interest to American immigration authorities. And sure enough, Akcam was detained yet again - for another hour - by US Homeland Security officers at Montreal airport before boarding his flight at Montreal for Minnesota two days later.

On this occasion, he says that the American officer - US Homeland Security operates at the Canadian airport - gave him a warning: "Mr Akcam, if you don't retain an attorney and correct this issue, every entry and exit from the country is going to be problematic. We recommend that you do not travel in the meantime and that you try to get this information removed from your customs dossier."

So let's get this clear. US and Canadian officials now appear to be detaining the innocent on the grounds of hate postings on the internet. And it is the innocent - guilty until proved otherwise, I suppose - who must now pay lawyers to protect them from Homeland Security and the internet. But as Akcam says, there is nothing he can do.

"Allegations against me, posted by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Turkish Forum and 'Tall Armenia Tale' (a Holocaust denial website) have been copy-pasted and recycled through innumerable websites and e-groups ever since I arrived in America. By now, my name in close proximity to the English word 'terrorist' turns up in well over 10,000 web pages."

I'm not surprised. There is no end to the internet's circle of hate. What does shock me, however, is that the men and women chosen to guard their nations against Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida are reading this dirt and are prepared to detain an honourable scholar such as Taner Akcam on the basis of it.

I don't think the immigration lads are to blame. I once remember listening to a Canadian official at Toronto airport carefully explaining to a Palestinian visitor that he was not required to tell any police officer about his religion or personal beliefs, that he should feel safe in Canada.

No, it's their bosses in Ottawa and Washington I wonder about. Put very simply, how much smut are the US and Canadian immigration authorities taking off the internet? And how much of it is now going to be flung at us when we queue at airports to go about our lawful business?

[Joseph]

Minneapolis Star Tribune , MN
May 6 2007


Taboo topic takes home a Book Award

Judges praise Taner Akçam for his history countering Turkey's
official denial of an Armenian genocide.

By Sarah T. Williams, Star Tribune

Last update: May 05, 2007 - 10:34 PM

For his take on Turkish history, Taner Akçam has been prosecuted,
jailed, exiled, detained, threatened, maligned, vilified and
harassed. On Saturday, the visiting University of Minnesota professor
won a Minnesota Book Award for "A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide
and the Question of Turkish Responsibility."
Judges for the 19th annual awards called it a "pioneering work" and
"scrupulous account of Turkish responsibility for the killing of
close to 1 million Armenians" and praised Akçam and his publisher,
Metropolitan Books, for "challenging the country's 90-plus-year
denial of intentional genocide."

It was bittersweet affirmation for Akçam, who fled Turkey in the
1970s and whose close friend, Hrant Dink, paid dearly for his
outspokenness on the issue of genocide: The Turkish Armenian
newspaper editor was gunned down outside his office in Istanbul on
Jan. 19, allegedly by extremist nationalists. Other like-minded
Turkish writers, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and novelist
Elif Shafak ("The Bastard of Istanbul"), also have been threatened.

"I'm deeply honored to accept this award," he said, dedicating it to
Dink, "in the hope of preventing further genocides."It's great
gratification to see a colleague win something like this," said
Stephen Feinstein, who teaches with Akçam at the university's Center
for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

More homespun works also were celebrated Saturday at the Crowne Plaza
Hotel-St. Paul Riverfront, in ceremonies hosted by Minnesota Public
Radio's Kerri Miller and sponsored by the Friends of the St. Paul
Public Library.

Winners in eight other categories:

Readers' Choice Award: "Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and
Transcendence," by Matthew Sanford (Rodale). The author tells of his
journey from car-accident victim to wheelchair yoga instructor.

Autobiography, memoir, creative nonfiction: "Spirit Car: Journey to a
Dakota Past," by Diane Wilson (Borealis). Wilson uncovers the hidden
stories of five generations of her Dakota relatives.

Children's: "Tomorrow, the River," by Dianne E. Gray (Houghton
Mifflin). The adventures of a plucky 14-year-old girl on a
Mississippi riverboat in the 1890s.

Fine press: "What It's Like Here," by Jim Moore, Regula Russelle and
CB Sherlock (Accordion). Moore's poems of the sweetness and pain of
living are paired with Sherlock's line drawings of the city in winter
-- all brought together by Russelle.

Genre fiction: "Copper River," by William Kent Krueger (Atria).
Ex-sheriff Cork O'Connor runs for his life -- straight into a
murderous conspiracy involving teen runaways.

Novel, short story: "When Charlotte Comes Home," by Maureen Millea
Smith (Alyson). The Vietnam War and a young girl's serious illness
haunt this novel set in 1960s Omaha.

Poetry: "The Curator of Silence," by Jude Nutter (University of Notre
Dame). A two-month stint in the Antarctic inspired these meditations
on quietude.

Young adult: "The Book of One Hundred Truths," by Julie Schumacher
(Delacorte). A young girl who admits she's a liar discovers that
she's not the only one not telling the truth.

Also at Saturday's ceremonies, Emilie Buchwald, publisher emeritus of
Milkweed Editions and now publisher of Gryphon, won the Kay Sexton
Award for lifelong contributions to Minnesota letters.

For more information, go to www.thefriends.org.


Sarah T. Williams is the Star Tribune Books editor.

http://www.startribune.com/384/story/1165422.html

[Gavur]

PRIZE FOR TANER AKCAM'S BOOK TRIBUTE TO HRANT DINK
By Aghavni Haroutiunian

AZG Armenian Daily
09/05/2007

"Disgraceful Act. The Armenian Genocide and Turkey's Responsibility"
book by Professor Taner Akcam, Turkish Historian, Visiting Associate
Professor at the University of Minnesota, won the Minnesota Book Prize.

Associated Press informed that the author of the book stated that the
abovementioned prize will be a tribute to the memory of Hrant Dink,
editor-in-chief, of the Istanbul based "Agos" newspaper.

[Gavur]

This is a collection of brief excerpts from a recent lecture by Taner Akçam whose A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (2007) is a good place to start to understand why the Armenian Genocide organized by the Young Turks is the link that explains the conceptual/ideological transition from late 19th century social darwinian nationalisms across Europe to the Jewish Holocaust.

http://surplusthought.blogspot.com/2007/05/shameful-act.html

[Gavur]

Taner Akcam speech Nov 6th 2005

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3836900731990258739&q=taner+akcam&hl=en

[Joseph]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Turkish Historian Brings Struggle Against Turkey´s Article 301 to
European Court

Montreal, QC, June 20, 2007 - Professor Taner Akçam, a Turkish
scholar and Visiting Associate Professor of History at the University
of Minnesota, filed an application today before the European Court of
Human Rights against the Republic of Turkey.

The complaint is based on the criminal investigation launched against
him earlier this year under Turkish Penal Code Article 301, for
insulting "Turkishness" by having publicly used the term "genocide"
to describe the mass murder of Armenians in 1915.

Despite its changed wording over time, Article 301 remains prominent
among the many enduring obstacles in Turkey´s path to membership of
the European Union. The same law has in recent years been the basis
for the prosecution of other leading Turkish intellectuals, writers,
journalists and academics on similar grounds. The most notable
victims of Article 301 include Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan
Pamuk, recently assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink,
and publisher Fatih Tas.

The Court, based in Strasbourg, France, enforces the Convention for
the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It rules
over private individuals´ complaints against human rights violations
committed by signatory States. Turkey signed the Convention in 1954.

"Facing history and coming to terms with past human rights abuses is
not a crime but a prerequisite for peace and reconciliation in the
region," says Professor Akçam. "My goal is to help Turkey realize its
full potential to evolve into a truly free and democratic society.
This cannot happen if Turkey continues to criminalize academic
discussion." His legal team is headed by Dr. Payam Akhavan, former UN
war crimes prosecutor and professor of international law at McGill
University in Montreal. "In a world where Holocaust denial is a
crime, state-sanctioned denial of genocide is all the more
reproachable," says Dr. Akhavan. "Limitations on freedom of speech
should apply to hate speech, not to speech against hate."

The Court will examine Professor Akçam´s application and rule on its
admissibility within one year. If the application is declared
admissible, the Court will then encourage the parties to reach a
friendly settlement. Only if no settlement can be reached will the
Court consider whether or not there has been a violation of the
Convention. Should the Court find that there has been such violation,
it will deliver a judgment which will legally bind Turkey to comply.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Taner Akçam, (612) 324-2988
[email protected]
Payam Akhavan, (514) 398-8232
[email protected]