generalspeaking

Turkey The Good

Turkey is celebrating (or not) the stable government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, with the prime minister racking up ten years in power. The country is enjoying economic forward momentum and political stability, with its ongoing war with the country's Kurds appearing to be on the wane, at the very least a silent stalemate with both sides pledging to honour non-violence, for a change.

Turkey still aspires to be welcomed into the European Union. France would have it otherwise, claiming that there is no place within the EU for a Muslim country, and citing Turkey's lapses in respecting human rights. Amnesty International makes note of the Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write PEN award to Turkish writer Ayse Berktay. The award "honors international writers who have been persecuted or imprisoned for exercising or defending the right to freedom of expression".

And the occasion of the award, which Ms. Berktay has accepted from prison detention, calls witness to the number of Turkish intellectuals and writers imprisoned, or awaiting trial in Turkey. PEN points out that Ms. Berktay represents "One of at least 130 writers currently in prison or on trial in Turkey, many on false terrorism-related charges, who could face up to fifteen years in prison upon conviction."

Turkish pianist Fazil Say was put on trial recently on charges of inciting hatred and denigrating religious values. His crime was to have plunked out a series of tweets making light of a religious leader and Islamic practices. The man has received great international acclaim for his compositions, and he has performed on the world stage with famed orchestras like the New York Philharmonic and the Vienna Symphony.

He is also a bit of a wag, and more than a bit of a skeptic about Islam. Moreover, he represents the latest in a series of intellectuals and artists to face prosecution in Turkey for expressing their opinions that run counter to the official government line. Worse by far is that he is a critic of the Islamist government of Prime Minister Erdogan, whose spouting of Islamic-rooted conservative values hold no resonance for Mr. Say.
Charges against Mr. Say include his tweeted questioning whether heaven was really a tavern or a brothel, relating to the traditional promises of flowing wine and malleable virgins. A quip actually based on a verse attributed to 12th-Century Persian poet Omar Khayyam. Mr. Say was convicted as charged of denigrating Islam, and given a 10-month suspended prison sentence.

And the man who has led the charge against those who question the virtues and moral expressions within Islam, himself claims to have been tortured when he was imprisoned for four months in Istanbul in 1998 for the crime of reading a poem considered to be an incitement toward religious hatred.

Doubtless Mr. Erdogan's perspective ran counter to Mr. Say's, and it was the at-the-time secular, Attaturk-inspired government that arrested him. "I was tortured, too, and I have condemned such practices because we've been through that affair", claimed Prime Minister Erdogan in a 2012 interview


It was back in December of 2012, in fact, that Reporters Without Borders declared Turkey to represent a more journalist-repressive society than China, Eritrea, Iran or Syria, classifying it as "the world's biggest prison for journalists."

Labels: Controversy, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, News Media, Turkey

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, April 16, 2013