Erdogan May Have to Resign If His College Diploma is Fake

June 22, 2016 By administrator

Harut Sassounian

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN,

As if Turkish President Recep Erdogan did not have enough headaches, he now faces a new accusation that he may have forged his college diploma. If true, he would be forced to resign from his presidential seat and possibly go to jail or into exile.

Rumors have been circulating for some time that Erdogan may not have a college degree which would disqualify him from his presidential position according to Article 101 of the Turkish constitution which requires that presidential candidates “have completed higher education.”

Journalist Cengis Candar, in an Al-Monitor.com June 15 article titled: “Is Erdogan’s university diploma forged?” exposes the serious suspicions regarding the validity of the Turkish President’s college diploma.

As Candar explains, “Erdogan went to an imam-hatip school, a high school-level institution that educates religious preachers. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, graduates of those schools could pursue their higher education only in theology.” Nonetheless, when Erdogan ran for President in August 2014, he presented to the Higher Electoral Board a photocopy of his diploma claiming to have received a college degree in 1981 from the Dept. of Economic and Administrative Sciences of Marmara University.

The problem here is that Marmara University was founded only in 1982, making it impossible for Erdogan to have graduated a year before the University came into existence. Since the Dept. of Economics was established only in 1983, Erdogan could not have graduated from that department in 1981, as he claimed. Unfortunately, none of these suspected allegations can be thoroughly investigated in Turkey by the media or civil society in view of the dictatorial nature of the Erdogan regime which routinely shuts down newspapers and prosecutes all opponents.

The President’s aides are adamant that the accusations against Erdogan are not valid, as they emanate from members of opposition parties. The first complaint came from former judge Omer Faruk Eminagaoglu who presented to the Higher Electoral Board his suspicion that Erdogan did have a college degree because of the existing discrepancies in the photocopy of his diploma. The Electoral Board promptly rejected the judge’s appeal.

A second challenge was mounted by extreme Turkish nationalist Gokce Firat who presented detailed arguments to support the claim that Erdogan’s diploma is a forgery. Firat demanded to see Erdogan’s original diploma rather than the photocopy he had submitted to the Higher Electoral Board. The Turkish nationalist accused the President and Dean of Marmara University of aiding and abetting in the crime of forging Erdogan’s diploma. He claimed that the signatures of the President and Dean of Marmara University seen on the copy of Erdogan’s diploma do not match the ones on Firat’s own diploma from the same university. He also questioned the validity of the sequence of the number found on Erdogan’s diploma. Finally, Firat claimed that even the design of the Turkish President’s diploma is different from the ones held by other graduates.

Earlier this month, the pro-Kurdish HDP Party submitted an official parliamentary inquiry, asking Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz “to clarify the mystery surrounding the validity” of Erdogan’s university diploma. In response to a similar request to the Higher Electoral Board, the HDP received a notarized copy of the Turkish President’s diploma. However, the HDP announced that it will continue to challenge the validity of the diploma.

In his article, Cengiz Candar raised serious concerns about Erdogan’s legitimacy as President of Turkey should it be proven that his diploma is forged: “If taken seriously, the follow-up to the controversy could create monumental legal questions in Turkey. If it turns out Erdogan was never qualified to be elected president, whatever he has signed or implemented would have to be considered null and void from a purely legal point of view. Politically, it would provide an armory of ammunition to his critics whose numbers abroad are rapidly increasing. And if Erdogan’s university diploma proves to be a forgery, that would naturally provide ammunition to his international opponents to bring up the argument of whether his title is legitimate.”

While President Erdogan is demanding a DNA test to verify the ethnic origins of the 11 Turkish members of the German Parliament who voted to recognize the Armenian Genocide, it may be more appropriate to carry out a chemical analysis of his diploma. Erdogan should also undergo a psychological examination to evaluate his persistently irrational psychotic behavior!

German court blocks Erdogan’s attempt to silence top media boss

June 21, 2016 By administrator

Turkey‘s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lost a German court battle against a top media boss Tuesday, June 21 when his appeal in a bitter row over free speech was thrown out, The Local reports.

Erdogan had sought a court order to stop the Axel Springer media group’s chief Mathias Döpfner from repeating support for a TV satirist who insulted the Turkish leader in a now infamous “smear poem.”

After failing to get an injunction from a lower court last month, Erdogan also lost an appeal before the higher regional court in the western German city of Cologne.

The judges said they considered Döpfner’s letter of support “a permissible expression of opinion as protected under Article 5” of Germany’s constitution, the court said in a statement, according to The Local.

Erdogan could still seek recourse before Germany’s top tribunal, the Federal Constitutional Court.

The legal action came after Döpfner published in April an open letter in one of the Springer group’s newspapers, in which he backed Jan Böhmermann – the satirist who in a poem accused Erdogan of bestiality and watching child pornography.

Böhmermann’s recital of his so-called “Defamatory Poem” on national television in late March sparked a diplomatic firestorm and a row over freedom of expression.

During the broadcast Boehmermann gleefully admitted his poem flouted Germany’s legal limits to free speech and was intended as a provocation, The Local says.

In his letter, Döpfner took the comedian’s side, declaring: “For me, your poem worked. I laughed out loud.”

The Local. Cologne court blocks Erdogan attempt to silence media boss

Erdogan ‘Kissing the Hand He Tried to Break’ in Secret Syria Talks to Destroy Kurd

June 20, 2016 By administrator

gagrulenet illustration

Relations between Ankara and Damascus have improved in recent secret talks, as both sides are showing willingness for dialogue, Turkish mediator Ismail Hakki Pekin told Sputnik Turkey.

The governments of Syria and Turkey are engaging in dialogue and both sides are showing a willingness to negotiate their differences, the Turkish military’s former intelligence chief Ismail Hakki Pekin told Sputnik Turkey.

According to a recent report by Algerian newspaper Al Watan, there has been contact between the two governments mediated by the Algerian government.

Pekin is the leader of a delegation from Turkey’s Vatan party, whose members regularly visit Syria. He said that he has also been mediating between the two governments, and noticed a change in both sides after his most recent visit.

“We have been systematically working to normalize relations between Turkey and Syria for a long time, and came up with an initiative to provide the necessary basis for dialogue between the Turkish and Syrian leadership,” he explained.

“In my last trip, I noticed a softening from the Syrian side, and a similar tendency in representatives of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, when I told them about the outcome of our delegation’s visit. The Foreign Ministry as a whole received my information favorably. They used to reject everything out of hand.”

Pekin said the most pressing issue on the agenda during talks is improvement in the region’s security situation, which requires compromise from both sides.

“Security is of prime importance, the issue of ensuring the integrity of Syria and, related to that, the question of closing the Turkish border.”

“Turkey wants the Syrian leadership not to give support to the Democratic Union Party (PYD, a Kurdish opposition party in northern Syria) and prevent the strengthening of the Syrian Kurdish position in the region. But for that, Turkey has to help Syria,” Pekin explained.

“Turkey has to close the border, stop supporting opposition groups. Just that on its own would create the preconditions for a huge breakthrough in relations.”

According to Pekin, the governments have started to soften their positions because of the region’s changing geopolitical situation, and Ankara’s belated realization that stability is key.

“The integrity of Syria means the integrity of Turkey. If the US were to succeed in its project to split up Syria into pieces, the situation in Turkey would be much more unstable than today. The amount of terrorist attacks would increase significantly.”

“However, the US has been defeated in the region, and in these circumstances relations with Assad inevitably improve. Tayyip Erdogan will kiss the hand he tried to break.”

Watch short clip videos: https://www.facebook.com/gagrulepage/videos

An Armenian American Group Caves in to the Anti-Defamation League

June 19, 2016 By administrator

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan receives the ADL’s ‘Courage to Care’ award from ADL National Director Abraham Foxman in New York

By David Boyajian,

For several decades the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other leading Jewish American organizations (AIPAC, AJC, B’nai B’rith, and JINSA) have deliberately colluded with Turkey and Israel to defeat U.S. Congressional resolutions on the Christian Armenian Genocide and to diminish the factuality of that genocide.

Yola Habif Johnston, a director at JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), once admitted that “the Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing.”

The hypocrisy is breathtaking given these organizations’ loud, endless demands for recognition of, and legislation on, the Jewish Holocaust.

Starting in 2007, Armenian Americans in Massachusetts and elsewhere made international news by exposing the national ADL’s hypocrisy. In disgust, 13 Massachusetts cities and the umbrella Massachusetts Municipal Association kicked out the ADL’s alleged anti-bias program, “No Place for Hate.” Human rights advocates and many honest Jews supported those efforts. The Turkish government raged that its collaboration with Israel, the ADL, and other Holocaust hypocrites had been blown wide-open.

But in mid-May, a small group of Armenian Americans in Massachusetts — including the politically ambitious Sheriff of Middlesex County Peter Koutoujian and a few members of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) and the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) — struck a horrible “deal” with the two-faced ADL.

For his part of the “deal,” ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt casually “blogged” that his organization now “unequivocally” acknowledges the Armenian Genocide and “would support” (not “do support”) American recognition of that genocide.

Even Andrew Tarsy, former Director of the New England ADL, termed the pact “inadequate.” The ADL “ought to lead the conversation about reparations for these [Armenian] families … assets, land … everything that Holocaust reparations … has represented should be on the table.”

Of the many things wrong with this “deal,” let’s list a few.

The Horrible “Deal”

The “deal” was concocted behind the backs of the Armenian American community and the hundreds of activists — Armenian and non-Armenian — who started the campaign in 2007 and have battled the ADL since. Why haven’t the verbal or written details of the negotiations and “deal” been made public? Why the lack of transparency?
Greenblatt (former Starbucks VP and Special Assistant to Pres. Obama) isn’t the ADL’s highest official and may not have the authority to set policy. Have the ADL’s National Commission and National Executive Committee (its “highest policymaking bodies”) formally approved of Greenblatt’s “blog” post? We don’t know.
The ADL has long played word games with the Armenian Genocide. In 2007, for example, it disingenuously dubbed it “tantamount to genocide” but not genocide. Greenblatt’s conditional claim that “we would support U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide” is similarly suspect. Why not just “we support”?
The Armenian American activist website “NoPlaceForDenial.com” demands that the ADL “support U.S. affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, as it does with the Holocaust.” I authored those last six words years ago. They mean that as partial atonement the ADL must work as hard for acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide as it has for the Holocaust. Nothing in Greenblatt’s statement remotely suggests that the ADL would do that.
For three decades or more, the ADL has attacked Armenian Americans and worked with Turkey and Israel to defeat U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Yet the ADL has never apologized for its atrocious conduct. Ironically, the only ADL apology came in 2007 when National Director Abe Foxman apologized to Turkey because publicity surrounding the Armenian issue had embarrassed that country. The failure to obtain an apology from the ADL is scandalous.
Americans deserve to know the details of the ADL’s longtime Genocide-denial pact with Turkey and Israel. Where are the documents, and why was their release not part of the “deal”?

The Berman Affair

Armenian Americans won a major victory in 2014 when Attorney Joseph Berman, an ADL National Commissioner, lost his bid to become a Massachusetts Superior Court judge. Governor Deval Patrick had nominated him in 2013. I testified against Berman.

Following a widely publicized fight, the eight elected Governor’s Councilors refused to confirm Berman. His leadership position in the hypocritical ADL was one reason why Councilors opposed him.

While I was in close touch with several Councilors, an incident occurred that has never before been made public.

A Councilor who opposed Berman told me of receiving several calls asking that the Councilor vote for Berman. One such caller was Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, an Armenian American prominent in the recent ADL “deal.” I remain deeply troubled by that call. Why would Koutoujian do such a thing? I think I know, but only Koutoujian can answer that question. He did not return my recent call asking about his past activities in the campaign against the ADL.

The final Council vote on Berman was 4 to 4. Had the Councilor voted as Koutoujian asked, the ADL’s candidate and the ADL would have triumphed, and Armenian activists would have been defeated.

That and other significant incidents raise questions as to whether the recent ADL “deal” was negotiated in the tough, adversarial way required to defend Armenian interests.

Failing to Confront

When a few activists and I launched the battle against the ADL in July 2007 and events were moving quickly, AAA and ANCA initially delayed even issuing a statement. Perhaps they were concerned about retaliation or being called anti-Jewish.

The following year, moreover, several activists and I became convinced that these organizations were not fully committed to the ADL fight. At one point, we were told that at least one of the organizations would no longer try to convince cities to sever ties with the ADL.

In 2015, even the NoPlaceForDenial.com website, an essential news resource maintained by ANCA persons, disappeared. It reappeared after I persisted in complaining about its removal.

Indeed, the ADL came under renewed pressure months ago only because I informed ANCA and a pro-AAA person that Newton, MA had, perhaps unintentionally, invited in the ADL after having booted it out in 2007.

Sheriff Koutoujian himself has long been very close to various Jewish organizations. He once received an award from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. He has taken two trips to Israel. The second one, last year, concerned “counter-terrorism.” It was organized by the ADL and funded by Israel’s Gal Foundation, which sponsors ADL programs. Of the 14 Massachusetts law enforcement personnel on the trip, Koutoujian was the only sheriff. Koutoujian later co-narrated a slideshow of the trip at a synagogue in Burlington, MA. Koutoujian has also spoken at other Jewish venues.

He recently wrote this on his Facebook page: “Thank you to the ADL and the Boston Globe for recognizing this terrible moment [Armenian Genocide] for what it is.” So after three decades of the ADL’s conspiring with Turkey to abuse Armenians, defeat Armenian Genocide resolutions, and damage the cause of genocide prevention, the ADL is thanked and all is forgiven, while hundreds of Armenian American activists get no thanks whatsoever? Incredible.

It’s well-known that Americans often interact with powerful Jewish American political organizations in two related ways. First, a person may hesitate to publicly disagree with such organizations due to concern about retaliation and being labeled anti-Jewish. On the other hand, being friendly and deferential to these organizations may advance one’s career in politics, academia, business, and other endeavors.

This question must be asked: Could these two types of interactions have adversely affected the post-2007 Armenian American campaign against, and the recent “deal” with, the ADL?

The Anti-Human Rights ADL

The ADL has an appalling anti-Armenian record. Despite this, recent stories about the “deal” in the Boston Globe and an Armenian American newspaper depicted the ADL as now somehow virtuous. Neither told readers about the ADL’s three decades of hypocrisy and collusion with Turkey.

The ADL claims to be “the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency [which] protects civil rights for all.” What nonsense. If that were so it would never have been in the business of covering up genocide. Nor can acknowledging the Armenian Genocide magically now make the ADL a human rights organization. Indeed, the Armenian issue is just one of many that have unmasked the ADL.

The ADL, therefore, is not about civil or human rights. It’s just a Jewish political organization. For instance, it lobbied for an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey. Human rights organizations don’t do that sort of thing.

What about nice-sounding ADL programs such as “No Place for Hate,” “World of Difference,” and “Combatting Bullying”? They’re covers. The ADL uses them to penetrate schools, colleges, corporations, and communities to enhance its visibility and political influence.

So that’s the organization that some Armenian Americans just made a “deal” with – a deal that was fatally flawed from the day it was conceived. True human rights advocates and perceptive Armenians reject it.

The author is an Armenian American freelance journalist. For his activism and writing on the ADL issue he has been honored by Armenian American organizations, and has won commendations from the Massachusetts Governor’s Council, Watertown (MA) Town Council, and the Newton Tab newspaper. Many of his articles are archived at http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/David_Boyajian

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Turkey: Erdogan last mischief

June 19, 2016 By administrator

erdogan crime The cowardice of Europe to the Turkish president is unbearable. Captives that we are of the Agreement on migrants, arranged on our behalf by Merkel.

It happened near the village of Sirnak, there is less than a week. In this part of Turkey, which form a wedge between the Iraqi border in the east and the Syrian border to the west. In a region claimed by Kurdish separatists. At night, the residents of a refugee camp witnessed the arrival of military trucks, some carrying bulldozers. In a few minutes, seven pits were dug and bodies were buried hastily and covered. With just large stones without inscription to mark their location. How many were there? Refugees who have shown the graves to a Times reporter did not know, because they were hiding while taking place this macabre operation. They still have to realize that there were children in this mass grave.

Since the cease-fire with the PKK, the Kurdish separatist movement, has been broken, there are two years, swordsmen Erdogan hastily baptized indiscriminate terrorist civilians. Which, incidentally, is sometimes true, as the PKK continues to commit attacks against the Turks, including the heart of power in large cities like Ankara or Istanbul. arbitrary arrest

The problem is that Turkish President has given full powers to the army to fight the separatists and the latter in used and abused with the full approval of power. Arbitrary arrests, liquidations multiply, supposedly to fight terrorists. Neither opinion, which fears the power nor the press, increasingly muzzled, really protesting.

But the worst is the embarrassed silence and therefore complicit in Europe. Erdogan pretext justify his evil deeds in the fight against terrorism, European leaders leave the nearly. Forgetting that those Turkish President massacred brethren are these which peshmerga, Syria or Iraq, are central to the fight against the Islamic State alongside the Western coalition. Their fighting spirit is not for nothing in military setbacks suffered by jihadis on the ground.

The truth is that we attack of cowardice before the Turkish satrap. When we accept the forced resignation of the EU Ambassador in Ankara on the grounds that the diplomat criticized the way Erdogan made fun of human rights. When the Germans agreed to prosecute a comedian because he lampooned the Turkish President. When Angela Merkel feebly protested against the anathemas launched by Erdogan against members of the Bundestag with Turkish ancestry who voted a text on the Armenian genocide conviction. When we do not block the process of Turkish accession to Europe while the Turkish power checks of journalists and silenced media permanently.

Turkey: the former football star Hakan Sükür tried for insulting Erdogan

June 17, 2016 By administrator

The trial of the former star of Turkish football Hakan Sükür for “insulting” the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a controversial count for which he faces up to four years in prison, opened Thursday in Istanbul, reported news agency Dogan.

The prosecutor of the Istanbul Bakirkoy district claims against the author of the fastest goal in the history of the World Cup in 2002 in South Korea, one to four years in prison for “insulting” Mr. Erdogan in a series of tweets since erased, Dogan said, without specifying the content.

According to the daily Hürriyet, Hakan would Sükür refers to a corruption scandal in 2013 for the Erdogan’s entourage and launched without naming him: “Is this how you become a politician, impudent?” Absent when first hearing, the former player now lives in the US, according to his lawyer Ali Onur güncel quoted by Dogan. The trial was adjourned to give time to the defense to disclose the new address of the player to the court, the agency said.

Since his election to the presidency in August 2014, Erdogan accused by his critics of wanting stifle all dissent, has multiplied the proceedings for “insult” to both artists and journalists as individuals.

After a rich sports career, especially with the club Galatasaray Sükür had entered politics to Erdogan sides and had been elected in 2011 on a list of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002.

But hostile to Erdogan’s decision to launch a war on his former ally became his enemy number 1, the influential preacher Fethullah Gulen who lives in the United States which is deemed to be a follower, he had resigned from the AKP in 2013.

Hakan Sükür had denied it a few months ago have moved to the United States, ensuring that he went to “learn English”.

Aged 44, Hakan Sükür spent most of his career at Galatasaray Istanbul club with which he won 8 times the championship of Turkey and the UEFA Cup in 2000. In the national team he has 112 caps and scored 51 goals between 1992 and 2008 with a 3rd place at the 2002 World Cup.

Erdogan’s influence on German Turks

June 17, 2016 By administrator

zaman-erdogan Nothing goes between Berlin and Ankara. Since the German Bundestag has recognized the Armenian genocide earlier this month, the Turkish President Erdogan is furious, criticizing among other impure blood of German MPs of Turkish origin, and calling to give them the lesson they deserve. Eleven of them are now under police protection.

It must be said that the AKP Erdogan has influence on the Turkish community in Germany, this is explained by the dissenting journalists edition of the Zaman newspaper in Berlin with their colleagues of Arte.

http://info.arte.tv/fr/linfluence-derdogan-sur-les-turcs-allemands

Germany: German MP calls for a travel ban on Erdogan

June 12, 2016 By administrator

mp erdogan ban (DW) Sevim Dagdelen has urged action after receiving death threats over the Armenian genocide vote in Germany’s parliament. She said she wants Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to be prevented from entering Germany.

Sevim Dagdelen, a German member of the Bundestag, demanded that “anyone in Turkey who calls for violence against the German parliament to get an entry ban (to Germany). This includes President Erdogan,” she told the German newspaper “Bild am Sonntag.”

The Duisburg-born politician has a 100,000 euro ($112,000) bounty on her head, the paper reported, following a resolution adopted by the German parliament on June 2 calling the massacre of Armenians genocide.

German lawmakers voted to join 29 other countries by interpreting the killings of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 a genocide. Turkey, which was formed out of the Ottoman Empire, insists the killings were a collective tragedy in which equal numbers of Turks and Armenians died but denies it meets legal requirements to be termed a genocide.

Erdogan, personally, reacted furiously to the decision, sinking ties between the Berlin and Ankara governments to new lows.

Personal threats

Since the vote, Dagdelen and 10 other German MPs of Turkish origin have faced the ire of Turkish nationalists, receiving death threats and even having their personal details published in newspapers and in mosques.

Dagdelen, who is the Left Party’s migration policy spokesperson, told the paper that German Chancellor Angela Merkel should respond more forcefully to Erdogan’s attacks.

The politicians are now under 24-hour police protection after Erdogan compared them to terrorists and demanded they have blood tests to prove their Turkish origins.

The lawmakers have also been warned not to make trips to Turkey for the time being as their safety cannot be guaranteed.

Tolerance urged

Aydan Özoguz of the Social Democrats (SPD) called on Turkish groups in Germany to unequivocally denounce the Turkish response. Özoguz, who is the government’s integration commissioner, has also received death threats.

“I expect Turkish associations in Germany to clearly condemn the threats against MPs,” she told the “Bild am Sonntag” weekly paper, adding that Turks can remain committed to their origins without being an extension of Turkey.

Her comments were backed up by Green Party leader Cem Özdemir, who was one of the initiators of the Bundestag’s Armenian resolution.

“You may not agree with the resolution, but Turkish organizations must issue unqualified denouncements of the death threats,” he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.”

Earlier, he told the paper that Erdogan’s response to the issue was “unworthy of a head of state” adding that he was worried that “what if someone goes crazy,” referring to threat against him and his family.

Germany’s Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) supported German politicians and called the threats made against lawmakers inacceptable.

“No one should be dehumanized or threatened,” DITIB national spokesperson Murat Kayman said. “This is not up for discussion and there is no justification for it. That’s the basic agreement of civilized societies.”

Erdogan not wanted at Muhammad Ali burial, cuts US trip short without attending

June 10, 2016 By administrator

erdogan unwanted mohammad ali Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan cut short a trip on June 9 to the United States, where he had gone to attend the funeral ceremony of boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
According to information from presidential sources, however, Erdoğan and other government representatives, decided to depart for Turkey without participating in the full funeral ceremony for the late boxer in Louisville, Kentucky.

But according to another report, the president and Diyanet head Mehmet Görmez were rejected when they asked to read a piece from the Quran, which led the president to cut his program short.

Meanwhile, a short quarrel also erupted between U.S. secret service officials and Turkish presidential body guards, reportedly because a secret service official wanted to stand in the same place as presidential bodyguards as Erdoğan was getting into his car.

Before arriving in the U.S., funeral organizers had removed Erdoğan from the list of speakers on the grounds that there would not be sufficient time.

Former world heavyweight champion Ali, whose record-setting boxing career, flair for showmanship and political stands made him one of the best-known figures of the 20th century, died on June 3 aged 74.

He will be laid to rest on June 10.

Author Deniz Utlu: ‘Erdogan’s call for a blood test is simply lunatic’

June 10, 2016 By administrator

erdogan lunatic (DW) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s verbal assault on German parliamentarians of Turkish descent has been debated in the German Bundestag. Utlu is convinced that there is a method to Erdogan’s mad rhetorics.

German-Turkish relations have been strained since the beginning of June, when the Bundestag (German Parliament) passed a resolution declaring the extermination of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 by the Osman Empire during World War I to be genocide. The Turkish government responded with severe recriminations against Germany. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused German parliamentarians of Turkish heritage of aiding and abetting the PKK, an outlawed Kurdish labor party. He also expressed doubt about the true ethnicity of Bundestag representatives with Turkish roots and suggested that they take a blood test. Senior German politicians heavily protested in turn. Germans with Turkish roots active on the arts scene have, in contrast, been notably quiet in recent days. One of them however, author Deniz Utlu, is outspoken in this DW interview.

DW: Mr. Utlu, what is your view on the fact that President Erdogan has described German politicians as an extension of the PKK, thus seeking to silence critical voices in Germany?

Deniz Utlu: Unfortunately, this kind of denunciation has a history. There’s nothing new about that strategy, at least not on the national level in Turkey. How many journalists, authors and persons engaged in the cultural sector there have been sent to jail under the pretence that they’d supported Ergenekon, the PKK or some other outlawed entity? If Erdogan is employing this kind of rhetoric against German political figures now, they’re only getting a taste of what so many democratic forces in Turkey have long had to contend with. Most recently, the government has succeeded in making Turkish parliamentarians vulnerable by revoking their immunity.

What’s behind that blood test statement and the implication of ethnic purity?

Lunacy. And an image of humanity that Europe projected to the rest of the world 500 years ago and still hasn’t been eliminated. Behind that statement, there’s also the danger that fascists predisposed to violence will use this insanity as a pretense for further legitimizing their hate – also by invoking the fact that Erdogan has accused some of supporting terrorism.

What the statement doesn’t include is a call to political action as suggested in some media entities. I think we should take a differentiated view. Hysteria isn’t helpful. It’s monstrous and dangerous enough for such images to be seriously employed. We should defuse these images as they have been used in speech but not lend them additional credence by suggesting in newspaper articles that they are actual policy proposals from Ankara.

Is there a danger that these verbal attacks could be transformed into policy? And what kind of policy would it be?

No, I don’t see that happening, at least not in the near future. This is pure, empty rhetoric and bears no relationship to politics in the sense of governing and lawmaking. Neither is this the institutional state of affairs in Turkey. But what we do see is a drastic shrinking of the space in which democracy can maneuver and a strengthening of totalitarian forces.

What can and should politicians, culturally active persons, artists and authors in Germany do about it?

That’s a very important question. I think much needs to be done. Serious mistakes have been made here in the past ten years. For example in 2006/07, when Merkel and Sarkozy blocked negotiations with Turkey on admission to the EU. That came at a time when democratic forces in Turkey should have been reinforced through stronger relations with the EU, or even admission. If that had been done, we’d be at a different point today. That’s only one of many errors of omission by Europe and Germany with respect to Turkey.

What would be the next concrete step?

I have no recipe for success of course, and it’s a complex situation. But a couple of things might help. First, when negotiating with Turkey, we should avoid pouring salt in the wound, such as with the visa issue. It’s deplorable that we still require Turkish citizens to get a visa to visit Germany.

Lots of people with Turkish roots live in Germany, and each one has a story about harassment at the border. They’ll tell you about families and friends who haven’t seen each other in years or about traveling with a sick feeling in their stomach because having to beg for entry is demeaning.

That’s only one of many examples of Turkish people’s frustration with the EU. That frustration makes them receptive to demagoguery and authoritarian rhetoric. To sum it up: we should give political consideration to what Turks want and not play games with policy.

Secondly, every imaginable democratic or potentially democratic institution should be strengthened, and in every field of policy. For the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü, a Turkish cultural institute, to be admitted to the EUNIC just now is precisely the right decision. More Turkish-language authors should be translated into European languages and filmmaking supported. Humanitarian jobs like those of ombudsmen should be reinforced, and not only by financial means.

What is the role of the media in this context?

When reporting, I think it’s important not to reproduce divisive stereotypes and binary oppositional entities like the Occident and the Orient. This is a time to demonstrate how much Turkey belongs to Europe and how drastically oppressive the country’s current situation is. When I talk about belonging to Europe, I mean culturally and historically. We talk a lot about European values but often neglect the parallel reality, the centuries of destruction that had their start in colonialism. Turkey is a part of Europe in this respect as well.

And if values are sometimes renegotiated today – for instance, to protect persecuted persons – then that should be done with the goal of deepening these values rather than revoking them. We all have to join forces here. But instead, we’re digging ditches again of the kind that kept people apart for hundreds of years.

Interview: Klaus Krämer

Born in 1983 in Hanover, Deniz Utlu is a successful young author of Turkish heritage. Having studied economics in Berlin and Paris, he now lives in Berlin as a freelance author. In his first novel, “Die Ungehaltenen” (The Indignent), Utlu describes the existential rage and sadness of two Berliners whose fathers came from Turkey and are dying. The stage version of “Die Ungehaltenen” premiered in May 2015 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin.