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Erdogan's AKP have won the Turkish elections.
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I hate the Ikhwani pig. But I am happy he won just because many kaafirs are getting angry now. HahahOriginally posted by FirdousiComment
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Turkey: journalists and political rivals arrested as Erdoğan crackdown widens
Magazine editors accused of coup plot and Gülenists detained in wake of Justice and Development party’s resounding electoral victory
Tuesday 3 November 2015 17.54 GMT Last modified on Tuesday 3 November 2015 22.01 GMT
The Turkish government has resumed a crackdown on journalists and political rivals of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan just two days after a major electoral victory for his party that will see it return to single-party rule.
Police officers and bureaucrats loyal to an exiled cleric based in the US are among dozens of people who have been arrested by Turkish authorities in an ongoing move against a group whose members have become bitter rivals of the president.
Two senior editors at an opposition-aligned magazine were also detained on Tuesday and accused of plotting a coup after the front cover declared in the aftermath of the election “the start of civil war in Turkey”, a reference to anger in the predominantly Kurdish east and south-east where relations with the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party are tense.
The magazine, Nokta, said in a statement on Twitter that the editor-in-chief, Cevheri Güven, and managing editor, Murat Capan, were detained after police raids on their offices in Istanbul and charged with “attempting to overthrow the government by force”.
Earlier, dawn raids targeted figures allied to a wide-ranging movement that pledges allegiance to Fethullah Gülen, a preacher who is set to stand trial in absentia for allegedly working to topple Erdoğan.
The prosecutor’s office in the western city of Izmir said it ordered the arrest of 57 people believed to be members of the “Gülenist terror group”.
The raids were the latest move in a campaign against the group that once maintained a pervasive presence in the judiciary and security services and helped orchestrate the prosecution of numerous military officials accused of plotting to overthrow the AKP-led government in the past.
Security services last week seized a company with supposed ties to Gülen that operates a number of media outlets including Bugün TV, which hosted several opposition politicians in the run-up to the November elections, including Selahattin Demirtaş, the leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP party.
The raid on the TV station, which remained on air during a standoff with police, dramatically illustrated the break in ties between Erdoğan and his former Gülenist allies.
Although the raid was officially described as part of an investigation by a court-appointed board into alleged financial crimes by the parent company, insiders say the crackdown is fuelled by a feeling of betrayal within the president’s party towards Gülen’s faction.
Gülenist officials were believed to have been involved in the Sledgehammer trials, which alleged that members of the Turkish armed forces had plotted to overthrow the AKP-led government, as well as the Ergenekon affair trials, in which hundreds of individuals were arrested and charged for allegedly belonging to a clandestine ultranationalist organisation that supposedly had ties with the military and security services and was bent on overthrowing the government.
The split with Erdoğan broke into the open in 2013 and 2014 after news emerged of a corruption investigation targeting AKP members and the president’s inner circle.
Erdoğan described the investigations as essentially a coup attempt and accused Gülen of infiltrating the security forces and judiciary; the president later carried out a purge of police officers. Prosecutors in Turkey last year charged Gülen, who has been living in Pennsylvania since 1998, with leading a criminal organisation.
Security forces separately imposed a curfew in the majority Kurdish town of Silvan in the south-east, following airstrikes against the outlawed separatist group the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) in Iraq on Monday.
The PKK said in a statement it expected the war with the government to escalate after the elections.
Following attacks in the summer against activists, including Kurds, that were blamed on Islamic State, the government used the violence that erupted to crack down on the PKK, essentially ending a peace process that had led to a ceasefire in 2013.
Turkish government officials said the PKK had broken the ceasefire rules, including by fighting alongside Syrian Kurds across the border. Ankara believes Syria’s Kurds want to create a de facto state on Turkey’s southern border.
Critics contend that the government sought to crack down on Kurdish militants in order to attract nationalist votes in the snap elections, in which the AKP gained about 5 million votes.
"Islamists" fighting "Islamists"
AKP Milli Gorus "Islamists" arresting Gulenist "Islamists".
Erdogan's personal driver has now become a member of parliament. Not a lawyer, doctor, accountant, teacher but Erdogan's driver, link.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Comment
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Turkey is a secular democratic country. Why is it a problem when a driver is elected as a representative of the people?
Aren't there any drivers who need a representative of their own in parliament?Originally posted by FirdousiComment
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Today Erdogan met Salman of Saudi.
Salman senior ("Papa Salman") was with his notorious son, ibn Salman ("Baby Salman").
This is a disturbing sight as both of these two states are sponsors of terrorism and are killing Muslims in the middle east, and of course both are good allies of their masters, the USA.
Meanwhile Turkish security forces continue their attack on the Kurdish town of Silvan.
The Turkish state's 90 year war of cultural genocide against Muslim Kurds continues.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Comment
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Putin Has Misjudged Turkey's Erdogan
520 Nov 24, 2015 8:09 AM EST By Marc Champion
The details of how and why a Russian jet was shot down near the Turkish-Syrian border remain unclear, but one thing can already be said: Russian President Vladimir Putin has misjudged his Turkish counterpart and former friend, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Cool War
According to Turkey's military, one of its F-16s fired on a jet over Turkish territory, after the plane's pilots ignored 10 warnings to leave. So the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's second-largest military is claiming to have shot down an aircraft in anger that was probably Russian, and is now "consulting" with its NATO allies.
Russia's defense ministry confirmed one of its jets had crashed, but said the plane was flying in Syrian airspace at an altitude of 6000 meters when it was fired upon from the ground. Putin blamed "backstabbing" and said his country's plane was 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) inside Syria when hit. So there's a dispute.
These kinds of skirmishes happened between NATO and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, but make no mistake; this is a big deal. What comes next will be a test of maturity for all sides. European stocks slid on the news with Russia's main index down by 4 percent.
By now, after flatly denying that a Russian missile brought down Malaysian Airlines MH-17 over Eastern Ukraine last year (despite a meticulous Dutch investigation), and pretending for days that there was no evidence that a bomb destroyed a Russian airliner over Egypt in October, Russia's word counts for zero in matters of aviation. But that doesn't prove it is lying on the all-important question of where its Su-24 was when it was hit.
Turkey summoned Russia's ambassador on Friday to demand that Russia stop bombing Turkmen rebels in Syria, who hold territory just across the border and are openly supported by Turkey. Ambassador Andrei Karlov and his military attache were reportedly told that Turkey would "not be indifferent" to any harm that came to Turkmen civilians. In order to bomb these rebels (who are part of the Free Syrian Army, rather than Russia's proclaimed target, Islamic State), Russian and Syrian aircraft have to fly very close to Turkish airspace. So it is conceivable that Erdogan has simply decided to warn Putin off.
The Turkish version of events is also plausible. Russian jets have been flirting with Turkish airspace ever since Putin began his military intervention in Syria. Turkey may just have decided enough was enough.
Whichever version of events turns out to be accurate -- or even a combination of the two, in which the Russian Sukhoi had strayed into Turkish airspace and was shot down as it veered back into Syria -- it is clear that Putin has misjudged Erdogan. As one Russian report on the website Federal News Agency put it, Turkey claimed to have shot down a Russian drone in its airspace in October, shortly before Turkish parliamentary elections, and threatened that manned aircraft would face the same fate:But no one attributed any significance to these words; they were thought to be empty election rhetoric on Erdogan's part. As we can see, the Turks don't limit themselves to rhetoric.Both Putin and Erdogan are strongmen, who treat domestic politics as a scorched earth battle for power. Russia's repeated humiliation of Erdogan before his audience at home, both by bombing Turkish clients just across the border and repeatedly breaching Turkish airspace, was therefore a high-risk strategy.
Putin could afford to be relaxed about Erdogan's earlier threats to stop buying Russian natural gas in retaliation: Where else would Turkey find enough gas to substitute a fifth of its energy needs? But the Russian leader should have recognized that Turkey, already host to more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees, has a lot at stake in Syria and, in Erdogan, a president who takes rejection personally.
Bashar al-Assad, after all, was once a feted ally who went on vacation with Erdogan's family. When the Syrian leader ignored Erdogan's advice and mediation efforts in the face of unarmed pro-democracy protests in 2011, Erdogan took it as a personal affront and spearheaded the campaign to unseat Assad.
Israel discovered something similar in 2008, when the then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched an invasion of the Gaza Strip, immediately after returning from a visit to Erdogan in Ankara. The two men had been discussing Erdogan's efforts to mediate between Israel and Syria, not an invasion of Gaza. Erdogan felt played and broke off Turkey's alliance with Israel, becoming instead one of its fiercest critics.
Putin, too, was supposed to be Erdogan's friend and ally, as they faced down together U.S. and European complaints about the crushing of media freedoms and democratic institutions in their respective countries. Instead, the Russian leader has ignored his burgeoning economic and political relationship with Turkey to pursue his goals in Syria.
The best way for Putin to figure out how Erdogan will respond to any further Russian moves is probably to imagine how he himself would react. The two men have a lot in common.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners."The past is not my concern. The future is no longer my concern either. One minute. One minute of everything at once. And anything before is nothing. Everything after nothing. Nothing in comparison to that one minute."Comment
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/wo...lane.html?_r=0
Turkey Shoots Down Russian Warplane Near Syrian Border
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and STEVEN ERLANGERNOV. 24, 2015
Russia and Turkey on Downed Warplane
The president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, said Turkey's shooting down of a Russian warplane was a “stab in the back.” The prime minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, asserted the nation's right to respond when its airspace has been violated.
By REUTERS on Publish Date November 24, 2015.
MOSCOW — Two big powers supporting different factions in the Syrian civil war clashed with each other on Tuesday when Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane that Turkey said had strayed into its airspace.
The tensions immediately took on Cold War overtones when Russia rejected Turkey’s claim and Ankara responded by asking for an emergency NATO meeting, eliciting more Russian anger and ridicule. After the meeting, the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, called for “calm and de-escalation” and said that the allies “stand in solidarity with Turkey.”
It was thought to be the first time a NATO country has shot down a Russian plane in a half-century. And while few expect a military escalation, with neither Russia nor NATO wanting to go to war, the incident highlighted the dangers of Russian and NATO combat aircraft operating in the same theater and has soured chances for a diplomatic breakthrough over Syria.
As President François Hollande of France met with President Obama in Washington to urge a closer and more aggressive alliance with Russia against the Islamic State, Turkey’s decision to fire on a Russian warplane attacking targets in Syria has raised tensions between Moscow and NATO and undercut efforts to persuade Russia to drop its support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
Turkey Footage Shows Downed Plane
Video taken at the Turkey-Syria border shows an aircraft that Turkey says it shot down after its airspace was violated on Tuesday.
By REUTERS on Publish Date November 24, 2015. Photo by Fatih Akta/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images
Turkey wants Mr. Assad gone, and has allowed its border with Syria to be an easy crossing point for Syrian rebels, including those the West regards as terrorists or radical Islamists; Russia wants to prop up Mr. Assad and his government. While Moscow says it is attacking the Islamic State, for the most part Russian planes and troops have been attacking the Syrian rebels, some of whom are supported by the United States and the West, who most threaten Mr. Assad’s rule.
Mr. Hollande and Mr. Obama clearly hoped that the bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt, claimed by the Islamic State, would cause Moscow to make defeating the jihadists more of a priority than propping up Mr. Assad. But Tuesday’s events will make that a tougher sell, for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to be seen as an equal player in the conflict, not beholden to Western policies.
Turkey, especially under the increasingly authoritarian rule of its nationalist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been fierce in defending its airspace, shooting down Syrian jets that have strayed in the past. Turkey insisted that it issued 10 warnings over a five-minute period to the Russian pilot of the Sukhoi Su-24 to pull away.
But Mr. Putin, clearly angry, responded that the Russian jet had never violated Turkish airspace and was shot down over Syria. Speaking in Sochi, he called the incident a “stab in the back delivered by the accomplices of terrorists,” warning that it would have “serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations.”
Mr. Putin said that instead of “immediately making the necessary contact with us, the Turkish side turned to their partners in NATO for talks on this incident. It’s as if we shot down the Turkish plane and not they, ours. Do they want to put NATO at the service of Islamic State?”
A United States military spokesman, Col. Steven Warren, confirmed on Tuesday that Turkish pilots had warned the Russian pilot 10 times, but that the Russian jet ignored the warnings. Colonel Warren, speaking from Baghdad to reporters in Washington, also said American officials were analyzing radar track data to determine the precise location of the Russian jet when it was shot down.
At an emergency NATO meeting on Tuesday, Turkish official played recordings of the warnings Turkish F-16 pilots had issued to the Russian aircraft. The Russian pilots did not reply.
The Turkish account of the episode was described by several diplomats, who asked not to be identified because they were discussing a closed-door session at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
The Russian SU-24 plane was over the Hatay region of Turkey for about 17 seconds when it was struck, according to one diplomat who attended the NATO meeting. But the SU-24 re-entered Syrian airspace after being hit and therefore crashed in Syria, the diplomat said.
Tensions between Russia and Turkey had increased lately over Russian bombing of Turkmen tribesmen in northern Syria, whom Turkey regards as under its protection and who are fighting to oust Mr. Assad. Just this week, Turkey summoned the Russian ambassador in Ankara to demand that Moscow stop targeting Turkmen tribesmen in Syria.
“It was stressed that the Russian side’s actions were not a fight against terror, but they bombed civilian Turkmen villages and this could lead to serious consequences,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
And so it has. The diplomatic spat may have led directly to Moscow continuing to target the Turkmen on Tuesday, and Turkey’s aggressive response.
What may make matters worse is that those same tribesmen say that they shot and killed both Russian pilots as they floated to earth in their parachutes, having apparently ejected safely from their plane, which was brought down by a Turkish F-16 firing air-to-air missiles. And then the tribesmen reportedly destroyed a Russian helicopter with a TOW antitank missile as it tried to rescue the airmen.
The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed late Tuesday that one fighter pilot had been killed by ground fire and that a marine deployed on the search-and-rescue helicopter died but that the rest of the crew had managed to escape.
NATO countries have been concerned about Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies for some time, and NATO officials acknowledge that Turkey’s agenda in Syria does not always match that of Washington, Britain or France — let alone Russia.
And while he has recently allowed American planes to use Incirlik air base for sorties into Syria, Mr. Erdogan’s own troops have largely turned their fire on the Syrian Kurds, whom Washington regards as its best local ally so far against the Islamic State.
Turkey has been in a struggle for decades with Kurdish separatists in Turkey, labeling them terrorists, and regards the Kurds in Syria and Iraq as sharing the same desire to break away and form a Kurdish state.
In a speech on Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan said there would have been more incidents like Tuesday’s if Turkey had not exercised such restraint.
“The reason why worse incidents have not taken place in the past regarding Syria is the coolheadedness of Turkey,” he said in speech in Ankara. “Nobody should doubt that we made our best efforts to avoid this latest incident. But everyone should respect the right of Turkey to defend its borders.”
While Mr. Hollande is pressing Mr. Obama for tougher action against the Islamic State and plans to travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet Mr. Putin, Washington-Moscow tensions, high over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, were highlighted again on Tuesday when Mr. Obama complained that Russian airstrikes against moderate opposition groups in Syria were bolstering the Assad government instead of trying to destroy the Islamic State.
But the United States and Russia have different interests in Syria, and Mr. Putin has been clear about the need to preserve the existing Syrian government, if not Mr. Assad himself as leader. Mr. Obama, like Mr. Hollande, is committed to the ouster of Mr. Assad and believes that the Syrian strongman is complicit with the Islamic State — from which his government buys considerable amounts of oil — as a means of dividing his own opposition.
In a news conference in Washington with Mr. Hollande, Mr. Obama said: “I do think that this points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations in the sense that they are operating very close to the Turkish border and they are going after moderate opposition that are supported not only by Turkey but by a number of countries.”
Turkey has the right to defend its territory, Mr. Obama said, but he urged both sides to talk to make sure they figure out what happened and “discourage any kind of escalation.”
Russia’s retaliation so far has been largely symbolic. Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov canceled a Wednesday visit to Turkey, and a large Russian tour operator, Natalie Tours, announced it was suspending sales to Turkey. Russians accounted for 12 percent of all tourists to Turkey last year.
The two countries are also significant trade partners. But “Russia-Turkey relations will drop below zero,” Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trends Studies, said on the state-run Rossiya 24 cable news channel.
Washington is not interested in getting deeper into Syria with ground troops or having a conflict with Russia. So cautious are the NATO countries about Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which calls for mutual self-defense, that when Mr. Hollande declared “war” on the Islamic State after the Paris attacks, he invoked the European Union’s toothless Lisbon Treaty and sidestepped NATO. Mr. Hollande was also, French officials have said, eager not to offend Mr. Putin by making Syria a NATO issue.
Correction: November 24, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of the downing of an unmanned aerial device. It was last month, not last week."The past is not my concern. The future is no longer my concern either. One minute. One minute of everything at once. And anything before is nothing. Everything after nothing. Nothing in comparison to that one minute."Comment
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Erdogan says he can ‘fix’ tense Israel tie
sSecurity detail clears away
reporters before Turkish president can elaborate
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF November 30, 2015, 7:26 pm 13
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday told an Israel Radio reporter that he thinks he’ll be able to “fix ties” with the Jewish state, after five years of tense relations exacerbated by an IDF maritime raid that left 10 Turks dead.
Erdogan was speaking to reporters at the United Nations conference on climate change, near Paris. But his security detail shoved the journalists away before the Turkish president could elaborate on the details of his plan.
Relations between Israel and Turkey have been frosty since Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, the largest ship in a May 2010 aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip. The boarding took place in international waters after the Israel Navy asked the ships to sail to Ashdod, where their cargo would be unloaded and transferred to Gaza by land after undergoing a security inspection.
The activists on board refused; nine Turks were killed and seven Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded in violence that erupted when the Israeli troops were attacked with clubs and iron bars as they boarded the vessel, and opened fire on their assailants. A 10th activist died of his wounds in 2014, after four years in a coma.
The incident triggered a major diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Jerusalem.
Ankara expelled the Israeli ambassador, demanded a formal apology and compensation and an end to the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Islamist Palestinian terror group Hamas. Erdogan is a strong supporter of Hamas, and rejects the notion that it is a terrorist organization.
Talks on compensation began in 2013 after Israel extended a formal apology to Turkey in a breakthrough brokered by US President Barack Obama.
The Israeli government reportedly presented a deal to pay compensation to the families of the victims, but an agreement has not yet been forthcoming. Turkey said in June that it was holding talks with Israel over a deal to reconcile the two former allies.
1. Under Erdogan trade with the Zionist state of Israel has increased heavily, not decreased.
For simple-minded "Islamists" e.g. the Wahabis, Taliban-supporters and "Muslim" Brotherhood supporters in this forum, Erdogan is a hero merely because he uses Islamic rhetoric.
"Islamists" in this forum and in general usually rush to supporting any Tom Dvck or Harry who says sweet words about Islam and claims to represent it e.g. Erdogan.
Trade between Israel and Turkey booming
Despite political tensions between two countries, trade 'more than doubled in the past five years', amounting to $5.6 billion.
The Media Line
Published: 02.11.15, 20:27 / Israel Business
Israelis buying a Japanese car in Tel Aviv might be surprised to learn that the car was actually built in Turkey. Tourists buying dried figs in Israel’s Machane Yehuda market probably also don’t know that the figs are also imported.
These are just two of the examples of the burgeoning trade between Israel and Turkey, trade that has more than doubled in the past five years, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute, and confirmed by Israeli officials, to $5.6 billion.
Turkey-Israel trade under Erdogan's Turkey.
2. Who knows why Erdogan made this speech trying to woo the Israelis right now?
Is it because he is feeling more isolated and weaker due to his recent humiliation by Russia and betrayal by his supposed NATO "allies" who in real terms have not backed him against the Russians.
One thing is for sure under Erdogan trade between Turkey and the Zionist state of Israel will continue to soar, despite all the false deception he gives to simple-minded "Islamists" of being "anti-Israeli".* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Comment
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Tayeep Bin Ardogan is San Bernardino shooters wife. This definitive proof of Erdogans ties with Daesh.Originally posted by FirdousiComment
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Turkish Doctor Faces Two Years in Prison for Saying Erdogan Looks like Gollum
by JOHN HAYWARD2 Dec 2015
A Turkish doctor, Bilgin Ciftci, is looking at two years in prison for daring to suggest that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan looks like Gollum, the ruined hobbit-like character from The Lord of the Rings.
Fox News notes that a court in the Aydin province took the matter seriously enough to bring in a group of experts – “two academics, two psychologists, and one movie expert” – to testify about whether the comparison was an insult. The judge admitted he had not seen Peter Jackson’s blockbuster films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic, which would seem to be a problem easily rectified when two years of a man’s life are on the line, but instead they brought in a crew of Tolkienologists and gave them until February to “analyze Gollum.”
The Fox News report does not say if any of these experts carried a set of polyhedral dice into the courtroom.
Dr. Ciftci has already been fired from his job at a hospital over the image he posted online, and was briefly detained in October. Frankly, it doesn’t seem as though it should take a team of experts until February to determine if the comparison made in these photos is valid:
Actually, the Jerusalem Post reports that the court’s challenge is not to rule on the physical resemblance between President Erdogan and the creature formerly known as Smeagol, but rather to determine if the comparison is insulting. The defendant is arguing that Gollum is a tragic figure ultimately redeemed by his fate in the story. This will be a tough sell to the jury, if the prosecution breaks out the scene where Gollum sings about the joys of eating raw fish while beating one of them to death against a rock.
This is not really funny, because it is a grim example of repression in a country whose membership in NATO could pull the Western world into a conflict with Russia, but it is virtually impossible to read any report about the case without laughing. For example, the Fox News report includes a different set of photos picturing Gollum and Erdogan, with a caption that goes out of its way to note that Gollum is the one on the left.
The notoriously thin-skinned president of Turkey has been giving his country’s laws against insulting the President quite a workout.
Former Miss Turkey, Merve Buyuksarac, ended up in the dock for posting a satirical poem on Instagram. Two teen boys were charged with a crime for tearing down posters of Erdogan earlier this year, freed when they admitted they did not know whose posters they had vandalized. In March, police arrested a 13-year-old in the middle of class for having posted something deemed “insulting” of Erdogan on Facebook. Nor are publications immune; the magazine Nokta faced a legal probe after publishing a cartoon depicting Erdogan taking a selfie next to the coffin of a Turkish soldier.
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After Erdoğan, crime boss threatens academics who call for peace
Sedat Peker.
January 13, 2016, Wednesday/ 17:30:43/ GÜLTEN ÜSTÜNTAĞ | ISTANBUL
A large number of academics who made a call to the government to end the ongoing curfews in the Southeast and to resume peace talks with the Kurdish groups have come under heavy attack from key state figures and even a crime boss who threatened to "spill their blood," as the Higher Education Board (YÖK) starts work to fire the academics some of whom even face criminal investigations.
Last Sunday, 1,128 academics from 89 universities, both home and abroad, issued a declaration in which they called for the restoration of national peace by halting the ongoing military operations in the southeast of Turkey and returning to the negotiating table to restart the shelved talks with the Kurds in search of peaceful solutions to the Kurdish issue.
Sedat Peker, a notorious figure convicted on organized charges, said on Tuesday that the blood of those academics will be spilled as a result of their efforts to rebuild the hopes for peace that are dashed by the military campaign in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast.
In a declaration published on his website (sedatpeker.com) Peker labeled the academics "so-called intellectuals," and went on to say: "You should be thanking the police and military that you have tried to discredit. If those terrorists achieve the mission of causing the Muslim Turks' state to fail, then it will the beginning of frightening times for you. At that moment, the bell will toll for you all. ... I would like to say it again: We will spill your blood and we will take shower with your blood!!"
In a similar statement last year, Peker addressed crowds during an anti-terrorism rally in the Rize province and threatened those who criticize President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government by saying that they will pay the price for their critical stance.
In his remarks, Peker said, "We will spill barrels and barrels of [Kurds'] blood ."
Peker's threatening remarks against the academics came after Erdoğan criticized their declaration, calling the academics who were a party to it “traitors.” The statement was signed by 1,128 academics from 89 universities and called for an end to the ongoing fighting between security forces and militants from the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a conflict that has inflicted devastation on residential areas of several predominantly Kurdish-populated towns.
On Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took aim at those academics who signed the petition and labeled them "traitors," as well as accusing them of being a fifth column of foreign power destined to undermine Turkey's national security.
"I call upon all our institutions: Everyone who benefits from this state but is now an enemy of the state must be punished without further delay," Erdoğan said in Ankara.
Following Erdoğan's remarks criticizing the academics, YÖK said in a statement on Monday that it would launch a disciplinary investigation into the signatories of the declaration, threatening to fire them. However, YÖK does not have any authority to directly punish the academics, but can put pressure on university administrations to do so.
The statement came after the board of YÖK held an urgent meeting. It blamed the academics for supporting terrorism and said their profession and status cannot absolve them of their wrongdoing.
Taking further steps in order to action its threats against the academics, YÖK, without concluding its disciplinary investigation, asked Prof. Bülent Tanju from Abdullah Gül University in Kayseri to resign from his post at the university, for his was one of the signatures on the declaration.
In a written statement released on Tuesday, Abdullah Gül University stated that YÖK had asked Tanju to resign and said that it would take the necessary steps to carry out YÖK's request and hours later, the Kayseri Chief Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation against him for allegedly violating Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which criminalizes "insulting Turkishness."
Hülya Doğan, an assistant professor at Bartın University, also faces a similar probe by the Bartın Chief Public Prosecutor's Office over her signature. She is reportedly accused of spreading propaganda for a terrorist organizations.
Opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) also strongly criticized the academics. Commenting on the declaration on Wednesday, MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli accused the academics of supporting "traitors." Questioning how these academics were recruited at these universities, he claimed that "we cannot entrust our children to them." MHP group Deputy Chairman Erkan Akçay also accused each of the academics of "explicitly" supporting terrorism, adding, "Their attitude has nothing to do with the responsibility of intellectuals and I condemn them."
In the meantime, Dr. Nezir Akyeşilmen, an academic from Selçuk University, has withdrawn his signature from the declaration, claiming that it will not help bring about peace.
Speaking to Today's Zaman on the topic of the defamation campaign launched against the academics, Baskın Oran, a professor at Ankara University's faculty of political sciences, who is among the signatories, recalled the military coup leader Kenan Evren's reaction to a similar declaration by a group of academics in 1984.
"Erdoğan nearly repeats the response given by Evren in a similar case. It seems that we have returned to the level of democracy implemented in 1984. It is pathetic. Such a similarity gives an idea of the dire conditions of the universities in terms of practicing freedoms," Oran noted.
After Evren toppled the elected government by staging a military coup in 1980 and engaged in anti-democratic practices against the people, 1,383 academics headed by journalist Uğur Mumcu and author Aziz Nesin issued a declaration criticizing the unlawful military junta policies in 1984. In response to the declaration, Evren instructed the Martial Law Commander in Ankara to launch an investigation into the academics.
Dağhan Irak, another signatory and who is the new media research methods instructor and a PhD candidate at Strasburg University, told Today's Zaman on Tuesday that he signed the petition because he finds the silence of Turkey's West to the massacres in the country's southeastern parts shameful.
"Even if the declaration was thought to have no impact to change anything in the conflict-torn area, it marks a honorable and courageous voice raising against the terrible silence. Hence, even though I haven't believed it may create a solution, I signed the petition. But I have failed to envisage that the declaration will revive the hatred that [the Justice and Development Party] AKP regime already has against critical thinking. The AKP has long had no tolerance against any critical opinion against itself and tries to subordinate everyone to itself. When it fails to subordinate others, then it kicks off a process of eliminating critical voices," Irak commented.
Irak concluded that Erdoğan has had this stance since the 2013 Gezi Park protests, which has resulted in a cultural battle.
Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu also criticized Erdoğan for his smear campaign against the academics, and said: "These are the same names that Erdoğan assigned as 'wise men' to find a solution to the Kurdish issue. Again, they are the names who prepared a draft for a new constitution. Now, they are labeled as 'traitors.' We are seeing a big contradiction."
"Those [Erdoğan] who have a desire for a dictatorial regime cannot humiliate or underestimate the country's esteemed academics," Tanrıkulu added.
The group of scholars, called Academicians for Peace, said in the declaration that it will not be party to the massacre continuing in the Southeast. They also claimed Turkey is violating international treaties it has committed to.
The declaration urging peace and end to battle in Southeast was announced in two separate meetings in Ankara and İstanbul by a group of academics.
Academics who have signed the declaration include Professor Samim Akgönül from Strasbourg University, Associate Professor Maya Arakon from Süleyman Şah Üniversitesi, Associate Professor Koray Çalışkan from Boğaziçi University and Cornell University graduate student Lara Fresko.
The declaration, whose signatories include famous academics such as David Harvey, Immanuel Wallerstein and Noam Chomksy, was read in Turkish and Kurdish at press conferences in İstanbul and Ankara on Monday.
A large number of civilians have been killed in confrontations between security forces and the PKK in southeastern towns and cities since a fragile cease-fire collapsed in late July. Curfews lasting more than a week have been imposed on several, particularly tense districts in the provinces of Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Mardin, Şırnak and Van. According to a report released by the Human Rights Association (İHD) in October, more than 100 civilians have been killed in the region since late July.
1. Erdogan was good in his early years but now he has just gone off the rails and has passed his peak. He needs to be replaced by someone more moderate.
2. At this rate, Erdogan may end up being remembered as the Turkish Milosevic.
Milosevic was the Serbian leader who played a key part in wars against Croats, Bosniaks and Kosovars which included the genocide of Bosniaks.
However ultimately he was defeated and lost power and was imprisoned.
Milosevic, a dangerous man whose militant nationalism led to suffering for millions. He espoused an ideology of greater Serbia, "Velika Srbija".
Erdogan is similar to Milosevic in that he promotes a greater Turkey ideology or "Neo-Ottomanism".
Whereas Milosevic's ideology led to actual wars with Croats, Bosniaks and Kosovars, Erdogan's ideology has led to an actual war with Syria but tension with:
- Iraq
- Iran
- Tunisia
- Libya
- Israel
- Bangladesh
- Russia
- Egypt
All of these 8 states above have in the past few years either expelled a Turkish ambassador or summoned one to their foreign ministry to protest.
3. This mafia leader, Sedat Peker, only issued these threats to the academics with the secret approval of Erdogan himself.
Erdogan is a street thug and thief who has stolen millions from the Turkish people and intimidates anyone who dares disagree with him.
4. Turkish Spring?
There has been an Arab spring with the removal of Gaddafi, Bin Ali, Mubarak but what about a Turkish spring to remove their de facto dictator, Erdogan?
Erdogan probably enjoys the support of most Turks, just as Hitler enjoyed the support of most Germans at one point or Milosevic did that with the Serbs.
To be fair the religious Anatolian majority were oppressed in Turkey for decades by the "white Turks" i.e. secular urban elite and Erdogan redressed that injustice.
However Erdogan has basically just lost it:
- Conflict with Russia
- War against Syria
- War against the Kurds
- Tension with China
- Decline in the Turkish lira
- Repression of dissent including arrest of teenagers, beauty queens etc.
Hopefully this thug won't be in power in Turkey in the next few years and hopefully not in 2020 or beyond.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Comment
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Update:
- Davutoglu kicked out, Erdogan "yes man" put in as PM.
- Reports Erdogan wants to send the army in to Syria.
1. Erdogan has removed fellow AKP troublemaker, Davutoglu from his role as prime minister of Turkey.
Legally the president in Turkey is primarily a ceremonial figure who only intervenes in emergencies and is supposed to be non-partisan, whereas Erdogan is openly pro-AKP.
Erdogan has made a mockery of the constitution and the rule of law.
Davutoglu was an elected figure and cannot be legally removed except through elections but Erdogan who controls the AKP (though officially he is not allowed any involvement with it) threatened and humiliated Davutoglu by using AKP party rules against him.
Davutoglu quits, Erdogan loyalist becomes prime minister.Analysts expect Yildirim to be a more pliant figure for Erdogan than Davutoglu, as the Turkish strongman presses on with his plan to create the presidential system.
For those who follow Turkish affairs it's well-known Erdogan wants to create a "presidential" (semi-dictatorial) system and Davutoglu was booted out because he was seen as not being compliant enough. There are countless articles in the international press which talk about this.
Davutoglu, kicked out of power by Erdogan.
A giant image of Erdogan looms over Davutoglu who though loyal and obedient to Erdogan was not loyal and obedient enough and thus kicked out.
Davutoglu was a trouble maker and supporter of terrorists, so good riddance to bad rubbish.
As a Bangladeshi I will never forget how he supported war criminals in Bangladesh and even tried to lobby the Saudis to take action against us.
2. There are reports and speculation from relatively well-informed sources on the internet (most of my predictions come true) that Erdogan would like to carry out some sort of Turkish military intervention in Syria.
This is apparently being blocked by the more professional and sober Turkish military.
Head of the Turkish military, Hulusi Akar.
A senior former Pentagon official, Michael Rubin, two months ago spoke of a possible coup against Erdogan.
Link.
The Turkish army then released a statement online refuting any speculation of a coup.
Of course that doesn't mean much.
Michael Rubin, ex-Pentagon official, who essentially advocated a coup against Erdogan in a Newsweek article in March.
Will the Turkish army overthrow Erdogan?
NO.
Not in the immediate future anyway, though the Kemalist Turkish army has a deep hatred for Erdogan which they conceal. However if it is made clear to them by the USA (which ultimately controls and rules Turkey) they can kick Erdogan out, they will.
If Erdogan is kicked out, the West will be happy, many Muslim countries will and so will half of Turkey.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Comment
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Turkish cartoonists convicted for insulting Erdogan - Al Jazeera EnglishA Turkish court has sentenced two cartoonists to 11 months and 20 days in jail for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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Davutoglu on right, next to the newly appointed Erdogan "yes man" and puppet prime minister, Yildirim. This was during the recent AKP conference in which Yildirim was installed as PM. Davotuglu is clearly unhappy with his humiliation.
Welcome to Erdoganistan, one man rule of Turkey by Erdogan.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Comment
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Originally posted by Bengal_Tiger View PostUpdate:
...
2. There are reports and speculation from relatively well-informed sources on the internet (most of my predictions come true) that Erdogan would like to carry out some sort of Turkish military intervention in Syria.
This is apparently being blocked by the more professional and sober Turkish military.
Head of the Turkish military, Hulusi Akar.
A senior former Pentagon official, Michael Rubin, two months ago spoke of a possible coup against Erdogan.
Link.
The Turkish army then released a statement online refuting any speculation of a coup.
Of course that doesn't mean much.
Michael Rubin, ex-Pentagon official, who essentially advocated a coup against Erdogan in a Newsweek article in March.
Will the Turkish army overthrow Erdogan?
NO.
Not in the immediate future anyway, though the Kemalist Turkish army has a deep hatred for Erdogan which they conceal. However if it is made clear to them by the USA (which ultimately controls and rules Turkey) they can kick Erdogan out, they will.
If Erdogan is kicked out, the West will be happy, many Muslim countries will and so will half of Turkey.
1. I said that the Turkish army would not overthrow Erdogan.
I was right as in they did not.
a: The head of the military was against the coup and taken prisoner by the coup plotters.
b: The head of the army was against the coup.
c: The majority of the army ultimately stayed loyal not so much to Erdogan but the concept of non-military involvement in politics and respecting democracy.
It was the air force, the military police and the armoured units that had strong support for the failed coup.
2. The US clearly encouraged the coup and in the first few hours when it seemed that the coup could succeed, Kerry issued a statement where he made no mention of "democracy" i.e. respecting the democratically elected Turkish government.
Later when it was clear that the coup had failed, only then did Obama speak about respecting the "democratically-elected" government of Turkey.
The future
3. Turkey will become even more of an Erdoganistan than it is already. However the Kemalists are far worse.
I was in touch with my Turkish friends via Whatsapp and facebook and opposed the coup just like the anti-Erdogan opposition parties opposed it too.
The Kemalists essentially genocided Kurds (e.g. destroyed up to possibly 3,000 Kurdish villages and ethnically cleansed around 2-3 million Kurds to western Turkey, imagine if Israel did this in the west bank!), repressed practising Muslims, encouraged atheism and were in general brutal and evil.
4. There will be a purge of the military removing Kemalists and Gulenists, especially the latter, and now even the remote possibility of a Turkish intervention in Syria controlled by nuclear power Russia is non-existent.
The Turkish military has carried out fratricide, is in disarray and shock and the elite heavily Kemalist Turkish airforce is even weaker now than before (there were mass resignations of Kemalist air force officers from the air force).
The Turkish military is now traumatized.
It murdered its own people.
It bombed Ankara and Istanbul.
There are photos of it being humiliated with police and even civilians arresting soldiers.
There are photos and videos of soldiers being beaten up.
Every single major political party in Turkey, the AKP, CHP, MHP and HDP all opposed the army coup.
Greywolves leader and head of the MHP, Devlet Bahceli, opposed the coup. The most shameful night in the history of the modern Turkish military.
Fortunately for Turkey, Bahceli did not have to call out his Ulkucu Ocaklari (greywolves basically) to deal with this Kemalist-Gulenist coup.
Victims of the failed Kemalist-Gulenist military coup.
Turks take a tank during the failed Kemalist-Gulenist coup.
Turks go out en masse against failed Kemalist-Gulenist coup.
TURKISH MILITARY HUMILIATED!!!
Turkish man uses belt to whip subjugated Turkish soldiers.
FIGHTING KEMALISM!
A Turkish man stops a tank during a failed coup by the traditionally Kemalist and fascist Turkish army.
DEFEATING KEMALISM!
Turkish Muslims celebrate as they capture a tank belonging to the traditionally Kemalist and fascist Turkish military which massacred around 8-30,000 Turkish men, women and children in the 1930s in Dersim/Tunceli and is said to have wiped out 3,000 Turkish (of Kurdish ethnicity) villages and forced the ethnic cleansing of maybe 3 million Turks (of Kurdish origin) to western Turkey in brutal operations which even Israel has not carried out.
HUMILIATING KEMALISM!!
The fascist and Kemalist Turkish army being humiliated, the same army which for decades repressed Muslims in Turkey including forbidding people to pray, promoting atheism and Islamophobia, racist hatred of Arabs and worship of controversial dictator Mustafa Kemal.
KEMALIST SHAME!
A tank from the historically Kemalist Turkish army is captured by Muslim Turks after wreaking havoc and destruction, and destroying a car.
NO TO KEMALISM!
Brave Muslim Turk stands up to the Kemalist army.
Kemalism is defeated in Turkey.
KEMALISTS DEFEATED!!
HELAL OLSUN TURKIYE!!* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Comment
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