Posted on 04/29/2007 12:59:46 PM PDT by SandRat
In case you hadn’t heard, there was a huge protest in Turkey on Sunday as reported by the Associated Press (h/t NBer Gary Hall and LGF, emphasis added throughout):
At least 300,000 Turks waving the red national flag flooded central Istanbul on Sunday to demand the resignation of the government, saying the Islamic roots of Turkey's leaders threatened to destroy the country's modern foundations.
Given the American media’s predilection towards never wanting to write or say anything that could possibly offend Muslims, an interesting question is raised regarding how they will report this story.
Regardless of the answer, the article continued:
Like the protesters — who gathered for the second large anti-government demonstration in two weeks — Turkey's powerful secular military has accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of tolerating radical Islamic circles.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Either they won’t report it, or they will briefly report it as some kind of embarrassment to the Bush administration.
I don’t see this on the excerpt list — so please post the full article...
How Will Media Report Massive Turkish Protests Against Islamic-Rooted Government?
Posted by Noel Sheppard on April 29, 2007 - 13:08.
In case you hadn’t heard, there was a huge protest in Turkey on Sunday as reported by the Associated Press (h/t NBer Gary Hall and LGF, emphasis added throughout):
—
“At least 300,000 Turks waving the red national flag flooded central Istanbul on Sunday to demand the resignation of the government, saying the Islamic roots of Turkey’s leaders threatened to destroy the country’s modern foundations.”
—
Given the American media’s predilection towards never wanting to write or say anything that could possibly offend Muslims, an interesting question is raised regarding how they will report this story.
Regardless of the answer, the article continued:
—
“Like the protesters — who gathered for the second large anti-government demonstration in two weeks — Turkey’s powerful secular military has accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of tolerating radical Islamic circles.
“They want to drag Turkey to the dark ages,” said 63-year-old Ahmet Yurdakul, a retired government employee who attended the protest.
More than 300,000 people took part in a similar rally in Ankara two weeks ago.”
—
Fascinating. The article also gave some historical context:
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“In the 1920s, with the Ottoman Empire in ruins, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk imposed Western laws, replaced Arabic script with the Latin alphabet, banned Islamic dress and granted women the right to vote.
The ruling party, however, has supported religious schools and tried to lift the ban on Islamic head scarves in public offices and schools. Secularists are also uncomfortable with the idea of Gul’s wife, Hayrunisa, being in the presidential palace because she wears the traditional Muslim head scarf.
“We don’t want a covered woman in Ataturk’s presidential palace,” said Ayse Bari, a 67-year-old housewife. “We want civilized, modern people there.”
—
Yet, maybe most importantly, Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs noted: “The article above seriously understates the attendance at this rally; there were more than a million people.”
As reported by Agence France-Presse under the headline “More than one million rally in Turkey for secularism, democracy” (emphasis added):
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“More than one million people took part in a mass rally here Sunday in support of secularism and democracy amid a tense stand-off between the Islamist-rooted government and the army over presidential elections.”
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Once again, how will America’s media report this potentially historic development, and what numbers will they share in terms of attendance?
Stay tuned.
*****Update: Gateway Pundit identified that Reuters is now also reporting the crowd as being “up to a million.”
Regards,
Star Traveler
Now..., that was *not nice* — I went there and all I heard were crickets... LOL
Yeah. But they used to at least pretend they were “neutral”; that’s gone now. They hammer Bush 24/7. They spend all day on CNN and the big news shows on the major networks acting as propaganda outlets for Barry Obama and Hillary.
All day and all night...Bush is bad, Bush is evil, Bush is incompetent...on and on and on.
They will say nothing. The demonstration is not anti-American, therefore it does not exist.
It's not that simple. How should it report that a non-democratic minority of strongly-opinionated Turks wants to return the military to power? How should the Bush administration spin this, given their push for democratizing the mideast?
The multiculturalists in both the press and the administration will be very confused.
Imus was removed in a campaign started by Soros’s group Media Matters, Limbauch and Hannity are being watched and listened to with an attempt to remove them from the air. Fox is being marginalized more and more.
The “Fairness Doctrine” is being resurrected by Kucinich...there’s a heck of a fight on the horizon.
FOX News is too positive an influence for the left for them to outright eliminate it. They give the rinos a pass every chance they get.
They likely won’t report it, just as they squelched the massive pro-US rally in S. Korea, and the massive anti-Chavez rally in Venezuela.
James, There is a corned beef on rye with your name on it at the New York Times news desk. Please report immediately.
I’d go for a ham sandwich!
Here's the link to the web site of the TURKISH PRESS. They have only a brief blurb on the rally, but several opinion pieces by various Turkish columnists. Some are quite interesting. http://www.turkishpress.com/
I've also e-mailed some friends there. If I get any replies, I'll post them.
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