Turkey: Two journalists guilty of offending national identity (No such freedom of speech in Turkey)

AKI ^ | 2007 Oct 13

[Wiz]

Istanbul, 11 Oct. (AKI) - Turkish newspaper editor Arat Dink and newspaper owner Serkis Seropyan have been found guilty of "insulting Turkishness" under the country's controversial penal code.

Dink, the son of the murdered journalist Hrant Dink, is executive editor of the Armenian weekly, Agos, in Istanbul.

His father, Hrant Dink, former editor in chief of the same newspaper was murdered, allegedly by ultranationalist Ogun Samst in January this year. The murder trial is continuing.

Dink and Seropyan were charged for republishing an interview Hrant Dink gave to British press agency Reuters in July 2006.

In the interview Dink referred explicitly to the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire that has never been recognised as genocide by the Turkish government.

The issue is currently being considered by the US Congress and a House of Representatives committee on Wednesday passed a resolution to name the mass killings a genocide.

Both newspaper men were also accused of the same crime for having published a petition in Agos entitled "A signature against Article 301" designed to raise pressure for the repeal of the article.

The men were found guilty under the penal code and sentenced to a year in prison but the sentences were commuted because they have not committed any previous crimes.

Hrant Dink was charged under the same code for denigrating Turkishness under article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

[Wiz]

It's nothing but an illusion that Turkey is a democracy. It is well known that the military has strong influence over the government. We should cut off relations with this Islamofasist country. We don't need Turkey as an alliance. There are plently of alternatives to pass on military supplies to Iraq. Human rights should be our ptiority on foreign affairs, not political advantage like China and Russia creating axis of dictatorship for its own survival. We need no double standard, that is not American.

How many people on this site remembers:

1. The current party in power is Islamist http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/23/wturk123.xml

2. Turkey invited Hamas last year, terrorist group and the enemy of Israel. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=turkey&ID=SP111406

3. Turk killing a Italian Missionary priest http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/142208086/?gcid=C18893x003&keyword=7040

4. Turkey blocked our military access to Iraq during the early phase of war, which has likely resulted in more casualties, meaning Turkey also contrubuted in killing our patriotic troops. http://www.smh.com.au/news/After-Saddam/US-blames-Turkey-for-Iraq-chaos/2005/03/21/1111253960989.html?oneclick=true

It is very disturbing to see people on the site betraying our Christian brothers of Armenians by denying the genocide, and supporting the Islamofascist Turkey. Islamofasist Turkey indirectly killed our troops, denying human right and freedom of speech, currently is under rule of an Islamist Party, killed Christians in the past and once again killed an Italian missionary priest, and also invited Hamas, terrorists and the enemy of Israel.

[babygene]

However, what Turkey did during the second ww is irreverent. That’s like attacking Italy for Mussolini...

[conservatrice]

Exactly. And who is pushing this “resolution” in congress which will actually do NOTHING to change the fact that people were killed? The democrats! Wouldn’t they just love to see our armed forces kicked out of Turkey?

[avital2]

perhaps you mean irrelevant?

[babygene]

Right, the spell checker screwed it up, it thought I was trying to type irreverent.

[longtermmemmory]

bump

revisionist history at the point of a gun.

[longtermmemmory]

no it different.

Itally is not denying the existence of Mussolini. Italy is not saying WW II never happened.

Today Turkey is denying anything happened in back then.

Imagine if we were saying “nothing” happened during the WW II holocost. Imagine if Pearl Harbor was written away from the history books for political gain.

That issue is about Modern day revisionism to prevent learning from the past.

The reason Turkey is upset about this TODAY is the fact they are still doing much the same thing. Turkey is not going to get any sympathy from the Orthodox Church or people who lost homes and property in northern cyprus.

That said, the Democrats are driving through a mack truck hole left by state department and republican incompetence to get ahead of this issue. It is not the stupid party for nothing. They could have taken this issue and had a solution with the resolution and we would be done. Instead they leave this opportunity for the democrats out there.

This means the Turkish will demand more money and bribes, this means it is another pork barrel tack on opportunity for democrats and RINOs.

This can be traced back to colin powels incompetence at the statedepartment.

[mountainfolk]

What is relevant at this point in time is that Turkey is facilitating the US in our war with Iraq, which saves lives of our troops. The democrats are only concerned about past issues with Turkey, which have nothing to do with our national security, because they want to cut off help to our soldiers in Iraq. I suggest that just as the RATS are pushing a resolution to condemn Turkey for a 90 yr old grievance which, as Rush has pointed out, has already been done twice in recent years, the Republicans counter with their own resolution. That would be a resolution thanking Turkey for their current support of the US in our Iraq war. It is not helpful to our country to team up with the RATS to destroy our supply line thru Turkey. This is purely another attempt by the communist/socialists in this country to bring down President Bush and halt the war on terrorists. If Turkey becomes an enemy of the US then that is the time to reassess our position. We have to stay focused on the WOT, not be distracted by a limitless number of causes throughout the world that should be addressed by the United Nations. Yeah, we all know how likely that is, but the point is that Republicans cannot allow the US congress to be used as political weaponry by the RATS in our own country, against our own country, without rebuttal.

[mountainfolk]

BUMP