About press freedom, or: shut up
Inciting hatred among the people, that seems to be the law most often used to shut up journalists. It’s been used again and again against Kurdish journalists writing about the PKK or other subjects related to the Kurdish issue, and journalists arrested for alleged links to Ergenekon are also accused of it. The latest victims: journalists of the online news …
About Ahmet Kaya and a young woman
The whole evening, actually the whole Kurdish question came together in one young woman last night. I saw and heard her during a break in the commemoration night for Ahmet Kayak, a Kurdish singer who died ten years ago in exile in Paris. She was being interviewed on camera about what Ahmet Kaya meant for her. The journalist wanted her …
Throwing eggs: Turkish students are good at it and getting better. This week they brought down an ‘egg rain’ on AKP MP Burhan Kuzu, member of a parliamentary commission that advises on constitutional change. He came to the Political Science Faculty of Ankara University, and was welcomed by the ‘Egg Throwing Collective’. Dozens of eggs landed on him. Well, on …
Polarization and press freedom
The award for the most untrue quote related to press freedom goes to Egemen Bagis, Minister of EU Affairs. He wrote in “Today’s Zaman” newspaper (a religious and very pro-government daily): ‘Today in Turkey there is not an issue or topic that cannot be discussed. Everybody in Turkey can freely discuss his ideas and everyone is free to express their …
A school, who could be against founding a school? In Diyarbakir, the biggest Kurdish city in the southeast, many people are strongly against it. Well, against one special government project. The former (military) prison of Diyarbakir should be given new life as a school, says the government. No, say many Kurds, it should be a museum, so nobody ever forgets …
In Turkey, circumcision of women is not really an issue. It’s not even really a topic for women’s organisations, which are focussing on problems that are widespread here, like honour killings, domestic violence, girls not sent to school by their parents, and for example the position of women in the labour market and in politics. This is because female genital …
Of course, news-wise it is a technical story: several Google services, like ‘earth’, ‘analytics’ and ‘chrome’, are inaccessible in Turkey because of a technical game between Google and the Turkish telecom authorities. Let me tell you in short what happened. YouTube, owned by Google, is banned in Turkey (and some other countries), and Google changed certain settings to try to …
It was 50 years ago today, May 27th, that the first military coup took place in Turkey. President Celal Bayar, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and others were arrested, put on trial and sentenced to death. In September 1961 Menderes and two of his ministers were hanged. Bayar’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
The trials against the politicians took place in …
Stone throwers, pick-pockets, murderers
Whatever got into MHP leader Bahceli is a mystery to me, but he actually pleaded for an amnesty for all 5,000 kids in prison. Even more surprising: even the stone throwing kids from the southeast of Turkey should be included in the amnesty arrangement, he said. Why is that surprising? The MHP is a very nationalistic party, and usually they …
I’ve had some emails this week about the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voting on the ‘Armenian Genocide Bill’. Both groups pro and anti informed me about their stance and some asked me to write letters to the Committee to support their point of view.
Now the resolution is accepted. I always thought I was against it mainly because politicians shouldn’t …
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