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OBAMA'S TALKS WITH TURKEY: LET US PREACH WHAT WE PRACTICE
Forbes
April 16 2013
By James D. Zirin
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Washington May
16 to meet with President Obama, largely to discuss his country's
relationship with the US and the European community, and most probably
Erdogan's on-again off-again relationship with Israel. Undoubtedly,
a strong US alliance with Turkey, with its vibrant economy and
geo-political position, is of tremendous strategic importance to the
United States. In the run-up to the meeting, however, Obama might
well consider Turkey's human rights record, particularly how many
nations are left on this planet where someone could go to jail over
a Twitter post? North Korea, Iran, China? Maybe. But Turkey is the
latest to win that dubious distinction.
Fazil Say, 42 years-old, is an internationally recognized Turkish
pianist and composer, who has performed with major orchestras
throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic and the
Berlin Symphony. His personal style of composition, rooted in the
folk music of Turkey, evokes Bartok: a fantasia-like basic structure;
and a variable dance-like rhythm.
An Istanbul court convicted Say of inciting hatred, insulting Islam
and offending Muslims on Twitter. Although not sentenced to jail,
he is on probation for five years on condition that he not re-offend
Muslims, even if he is just re-tweeting what someone else said. Say
could have been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The case renewed
brewing concerns about the influence of religion on Turkish politics.
Say's "crime" was a series of tweets posted earlier last year. In one
message he retweeted a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyam in which the
11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy: "You say rivers
of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern to you? You say two huris
[companions] await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?"
In other tweets, he made fun of a muezzin (a caller to prayer),
implying that the particular muezzin's call lasted only 22 seconds
because he wanted to go out for a drink. Another retweet by Mr. Say
posits: "I am not sure if you have also realized it, but if there's
a louse, a non-entity, a lowlife, a thief or a fool, it's always an
Allah-ist." Bad taste, maybe, in a country where Muslims comprise
roughly 98% of the population, but hardly a crime?
Turkey is not a particularly safe place for artists and intellectuals,
or women for that matter, who may wish to criticize Erdogan's
government. In 2007, a journalist Hrant Dink, who had written about
the Armenian genocide of 1915, was shot dead on an Istanbul street. A
judge last year fined Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate writer, $3,700
for saying in a Swiss newspaper that Turks "have killed 30,000 Kurds
and 1 million Armenians."
Pointing to the Say and Pamuk cases, as well as the prosecution of
numerous journalists, artists and intellectuals for voicing their
views, critics have accused the governing AK Party of undermining
the secular values of Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk, and pandering
to Islamists, who have recently asserted themselves with renewed
intensity. Say himself claimed that his prosecution was politically
motivated. An atheist, Say had often criticized the Islamist-rooted
party, accusing it of having a secret agenda to promote conservative
values.
The European Union, which Turkey seeks to join, admonished Erdogan
about the Say conviction. A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton said Brussels was "concerned" by the prosecution,
which "underlines the importance for Turkey to fully respect freedom
of expression." Amnesty International said in a report last month
that "freedom of expression is under attack in Turkey," calling for
legislative reforms to bring "abuses to an end."
Dozens of journalists are in detention in Turkey, as well as lawyers,
politicians and lawmakers - most of them accused of plotting against
the government or having links with the outlawed Kurdish rebel movement
the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Meanwhile, Erdogan continues with
his sultanic project to build at state expense over the Bosporus the
largest mosque in Turkey, as Fazil Say calls his conviction "a sad
day for Turkey."
Madeleine Albright has said that foreign policy is getting other
countries to do what you want them to do. Obama should use the
occasion of the Erdogan meeting to take heed of the clarion call of
another British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who said in his
"Iron Curtain" speech delivered in Fulton, Missouri March 5, 1946,
"All this means ... that freedom of speech and thought should reign;
that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any
party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of
large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the
title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here
is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let
us preach what we practice - let us practice what we preach."
Turkey's human rights record is execrable. When Obama meets Erdogan
next month, he should preach a little of what we try to practice.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameszirin/2013/04/16/the-obama-erdogan-conference-let-us-preach-what-we-practice/
Forbes
April 16 2013
By James D. Zirin
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Washington May
16 to meet with President Obama, largely to discuss his country's
relationship with the US and the European community, and most probably
Erdogan's on-again off-again relationship with Israel. Undoubtedly,
a strong US alliance with Turkey, with its vibrant economy and
geo-political position, is of tremendous strategic importance to the
United States. In the run-up to the meeting, however, Obama might
well consider Turkey's human rights record, particularly how many
nations are left on this planet where someone could go to jail over
a Twitter post? North Korea, Iran, China? Maybe. But Turkey is the
latest to win that dubious distinction.
Fazil Say, 42 years-old, is an internationally recognized Turkish
pianist and composer, who has performed with major orchestras
throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic and the
Berlin Symphony. His personal style of composition, rooted in the
folk music of Turkey, evokes Bartok: a fantasia-like basic structure;
and a variable dance-like rhythm.
An Istanbul court convicted Say of inciting hatred, insulting Islam
and offending Muslims on Twitter. Although not sentenced to jail,
he is on probation for five years on condition that he not re-offend
Muslims, even if he is just re-tweeting what someone else said. Say
could have been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The case renewed
brewing concerns about the influence of religion on Turkish politics.
Say's "crime" was a series of tweets posted earlier last year. In one
message he retweeted a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyam in which the
11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy: "You say rivers
of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern to you? You say two huris
[companions] await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?"
In other tweets, he made fun of a muezzin (a caller to prayer),
implying that the particular muezzin's call lasted only 22 seconds
because he wanted to go out for a drink. Another retweet by Mr. Say
posits: "I am not sure if you have also realized it, but if there's
a louse, a non-entity, a lowlife, a thief or a fool, it's always an
Allah-ist." Bad taste, maybe, in a country where Muslims comprise
roughly 98% of the population, but hardly a crime?
Turkey is not a particularly safe place for artists and intellectuals,
or women for that matter, who may wish to criticize Erdogan's
government. In 2007, a journalist Hrant Dink, who had written about
the Armenian genocide of 1915, was shot dead on an Istanbul street. A
judge last year fined Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate writer, $3,700
for saying in a Swiss newspaper that Turks "have killed 30,000 Kurds
and 1 million Armenians."
Pointing to the Say and Pamuk cases, as well as the prosecution of
numerous journalists, artists and intellectuals for voicing their
views, critics have accused the governing AK Party of undermining
the secular values of Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk, and pandering
to Islamists, who have recently asserted themselves with renewed
intensity. Say himself claimed that his prosecution was politically
motivated. An atheist, Say had often criticized the Islamist-rooted
party, accusing it of having a secret agenda to promote conservative
values.
The European Union, which Turkey seeks to join, admonished Erdogan
about the Say conviction. A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton said Brussels was "concerned" by the prosecution,
which "underlines the importance for Turkey to fully respect freedom
of expression." Amnesty International said in a report last month
that "freedom of expression is under attack in Turkey," calling for
legislative reforms to bring "abuses to an end."
Dozens of journalists are in detention in Turkey, as well as lawyers,
politicians and lawmakers - most of them accused of plotting against
the government or having links with the outlawed Kurdish rebel movement
the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Meanwhile, Erdogan continues with
his sultanic project to build at state expense over the Bosporus the
largest mosque in Turkey, as Fazil Say calls his conviction "a sad
day for Turkey."
Madeleine Albright has said that foreign policy is getting other
countries to do what you want them to do. Obama should use the
occasion of the Erdogan meeting to take heed of the clarion call of
another British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who said in his
"Iron Curtain" speech delivered in Fulton, Missouri March 5, 1946,
"All this means ... that freedom of speech and thought should reign;
that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any
party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of
large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the
title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here
is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let
us preach what we practice - let us practice what we preach."
Turkey's human rights record is execrable. When Obama meets Erdogan
next month, he should preach a little of what we try to practice.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameszirin/2013/04/16/the-obama-erdogan-conference-let-us-preach-what-we-practice/