Turkey charges pianist Fazil Say over Twitter posts

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/world/europe/turkey-charges-pianist-fazil-say-over-twitter-posts.html

by ozgune • 14 years ago

63 45 14 years ago

Nobody has the right to never be offended. Y u no understand that, Turkey?

mahmud• 14 years ago

I know Islam is the cry-baby of organized religions, but the Turkish state (specially the secular military junta tha runs the show) uses these sort of thought crimes to both silence opposition, and also to pander to the right-wing factions.

ozgune• 14 years ago

This has nothing to do with the secular military. In fact, the current pro-Islamic administration has imprisoned more than 10% of the generals in the military (trial ongoing for four years); and recently started "cracking down" on liberal journalists, NGOs, artists, professors, and so forth. This trial seems to be a continuum of those crack downs.

makmanalp• 14 years ago

This. The ongoing "Ergenekon" case is the poster child of jail without prosecution.

We think you're guilty, so we'll toss you in jail. But we can't come up with your charge right now because we're in the process of writing it. But you're a flight risk so it's okay.

I'm fine with people being punished for crimes but a lot of people were kept in for years before they were even charged. Some of them barely maintained their health and sanity. This is the sort of fascist-style suppression AK and Erdogan regularly engage in to make an example of people.

This is not very comprehensive but okay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_(organization)#Debat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspects_in_the_Ergene...

Meanwhile, I get extremely angry when Erdogan and his gang enjoy hero status in the Western press because they have taken steps to allow headscarves in government institutions. They did this not because of human rights, they did it to appeal to their heavily anti-secular constituency. Never mind the Ergenekon case and other horrors that AK is part of!

For a long time, he's vocally sought to increase tax on or ban alcohol, he's also suggested that everyone have multiple children, and recently his administration has spoken out against abortions, saying that he shall ban them. Whether this will happen is doubtful but I hope it sheds some light into what sort of people we're dealing with.

Tangaroa• 14 years ago

To expand on that, the new (now 10 years long) party in control of Turkey's government has been fining and jailing media companies, journalists, and prominent businessmen who don't toe the party line. A common technique is to charge "unpaid taxes" that exceed the value of the person or company's assets.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/09/16/turkey.press....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41935210/ns/world_news-europe/t/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/business/turkey-seizes-219...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/26/idUSL2690587920070...

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&...

http://www.economist.com/node/17155758

They have popular support for this. They have been re-elected twice, gaining millions of votes each time.

The crackdown on dissent in the military is important because under the 20th-century regime, the military had the duty of maintaining the secular character of the state and would regularly overthrow governments that seemed to become Islamic. The charge that people in the military are planning to overthrow the government is immediately believable, but so many people have been arrested and the evidence against them is so thin that it appears like a partisan purge. Here is some commentary:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/burhan-gurdogan/turkey’s-ergene...

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2011/12/güleni...

Soner Cagaptay has been the most prolific writer on the subject:

https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=soner+cagaptay+ergenekon

Turkey has recently begun also arresting officers involved in the 1997 coup against the same Islamic party. They waited ten years to collect the power to do this.

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/world-article.php?yyyy=2012&...

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-279788-saner-the-impaler-amo...

Turkey's military has since surrendered its command.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/8671...

Meanwhile in Parliament, a member of the ruling party can assault an opposition member and the legislature will vote to approve of the attack.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-parliament-sees-fre...

Turkey is currently the base of operations for the rebel forces of Syria who are largely Islamic fascists. I do not believe this to be a coincidence.

http://content.usatoday.com/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?...

http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/11762/wjc_analysi...

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/10/22/scoop-obama-adminis...

http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/2012/03/christians-expelle...

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/06/save-syria-demand-...

tomjen32• 14 years ago

Actually Christianity is the crybaby of religions.

Islam prefers violence (to the extend a religion can prefer anything).

tomjen32• 14 years ago

Thanks for the downvotes, but why?

The first statement is backed up by the war on christmas hysteria every yeah as well as christianity is oppressed meme. Both of which are crybaby bullshit.

As for Islams tendency to commit violence, numerous examples can be named, such as the USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Africa and the murders of Theo Van Gogh.

utku_karatas23• 14 years ago

The "silenced opposition" in Turkey is barely different from a terrorist organization. And most of that opposition is somehow soldiers. High Officers with great clout in the army and we're talking about an army with a habit of coup d'etats every 10 year.

barrkel3• 14 years ago

How do you prevent descent from democracy to a repressive society, when the people vote against the rule of law?

Atatürk tried very hard to pull Turkey out of the Middle Ages. But Turkey, from an outside perspective, seems intent on heading back.

J3L2404• 14 years ago

I may hate what you say but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.

tigerweeds• 14 years ago

when did this happen? circa 1500 A.D.? oh, wait...

baby• 14 years ago

I thought Turkey was a secular country?

bergie• 14 years ago

Turkey is secular by constitution, but the ruling AK party is Islamist.

asto2• 14 years ago

Is there such a thing as a Muslim dominated country that's secular?

ebiester2• 14 years ago

Think the equivalent to the Republican party in the US.

sk5t• 14 years ago

The USA is a secular country, but just try running for major office as anything but Judeo-Christian...

Tichy• 14 years ago

Scary, because Turkey aims to join the EU. I hope they won't be accepted as long as such things are going on.

Sadly I think some countries that are dominated by radical Christians have already joined :-(

reyan• 14 years ago

I think the pro-Islamic government has clearly shifted policies after 2005 accession talks. Nevertheless Islamic fundamentalism is nothing new in Turkey [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivas_massacre

soc88• 14 years ago

He's an atheist, so nothing wrong about it for those in 'MURICA.

tjic3• 14 years ago

It can happen here.

I made a joke over Twitter and the cops seized a $15k firearm collection and I racked up $15k in legal bills.

No warrants, no charges, no actual investigation. Lots of tricks, lies to my lawyer, backtracking, etc.

I'd love to have my day in court because the joke was taken out of context from a long discussion of Just War Theory (which was being read and enjoyed by dozens of people, including some First Ammendment lawyers), but even in the US the authorities have the ability to leave you hanging in limbo for years.

Footnote:

http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-am-tjic.html

dr42• 14 years ago

If you threaten a US senator, and you have stockpiled this many weapons, I think you really should have seen this one coming.

Confusion2• 14 years ago

He did not threaten any senator. He made a joke and argues it fits in the context of a discussion running at the time. The joke was, with respect to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords:

  1 down, 534 to go. It is absolutely, absolutely  
  unacceptable to shoot 'indiscriminately'. Target only 
  politicians and their staff, and leave regular citizens 
  alone.

Now you can argue this is in bad taste or, if you feel it was meant seriously, you can argue it is a reprehensible opinion, but there is no reason to arrest someone over this. If we start doing that, we can rest half the worlds population. I've made worse jokes in my life, where it was firmly obvious from the context, tone and body language that I could not possible be serious. Making jokes is a way of dealing with incomprehensible tragedies. Pure text is an unfortunate medium for such jokes, because it lacks tone and body language. People that know you may interpret it correctly; others may interpret it otherwise. Especially if taken from its narrative context.

I would not like to be arrested over some joke overheard by a passing policeman who didn't understand the context and neither do I even remotely understand or accept this guy being arrested.

tjic3• 14 years ago

> If you threaten a US senator

Absolutely agreed.

If some nut case puts up a website with the home address of someone, rants about a bounty on their head, etc., by all means, have an investigation and perhaps charges.

...but there's a difference between saying "This SOPA bill is insane. Rope. Lampposts." and driving to a person's house with a noose in the back seat.

aurora72• 14 years ago

I'm a citizen of Turkey and in this lovely country the religion has often been used as a tool for achieving secular aims. That's just another example of it.

asto2• 14 years ago

Turkey and its people look really nice on TV shows/documentaries! It sucks that your government is the way it is; anybody who values their freedom and exercises their right to free speech against anybody/anything would be too scared to visit regardless of how much they'd like to experience your culture first hand. (me included)

narzac• 14 years ago

Turkey is in a transition process which will turn it into an islamic piece of shit country like Iran. Secular holly crap :) From the perspective of current prime minister of Turkey Atheist = Thinner-addict

utku_karatas23• 14 years ago

Flagged. Every country has its own laws. News at Eleven.

This guy always had provocative speeches just for the sake of being provocative and the center of attention. More debatable and provocative stuff is circulated by columnists in everyday papers. It's just this guy is a little bit more prolific and annoying. Probably some district prosecutor just took a jab.

sepeth• 14 years ago

There is something terribly wrong with this country! Fazil Say is not the first:

http://www.cartoonistsrights.org/recent_developments_article...

cahteinp138• 14 years ago

It reminds me of the Fabrice Muamba case [1]:

A student has been jailed for 56 days for posting offensive comments on Twitter about the on-pitch collapse of Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba.

District judge John Charles told Stacey: "It was racist abuse via a social networking site instigated as a result of a vile and abhorrent comment about a young footballer who was fighting for his life. At that moment, not just the footballer's family, not just the footballing world but the whole world were literally praying for his life. Your comments aggravated this situation.

How can a tweet aggravate someone's medical condition beats me.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17515992

Turkey charges pianist Fazil Say over Twitter posts

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