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Turkish Journalist: Why my sons will be Jewish or Christian

By

Orhan Kemal Cengiz Turkish columnist

Orhan Kemal Cengiz
Turkish columnist

ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ: I became a father late in life. I am 47 years old. My older son Cem is two years old and my younger son Can is just 40-something days old.

When I went to the census office to get their identity cards, the officer asked me which religion my sons belonged to. I told him to leave that part empty. When I was doing this, I had a few thoughts in my mind. To be honest, I am not a religious person; I do not define myself as Muslim, even though I was born into a family which had a Muslim background. Even if I had defined myself in a specific way, I would have preferred to leave this religion part on their identity cards blank because I believe it is their choice to define themselves under any religious or nonreligious title.

However, there was another reason urging me to give importance to the “emptiness” of this religious section on my sons’ identity cards: I hoped to save them from mandatory religious lessons when they enroll in school. I thought if it is not written in their identity cards that they are Muslim or that their religion is Islam, then no one can force them to attend religious lessons. I was wrong, however.

We have a very complicated story about mandatory religious lessons. Religious lessons became mandatory in Turkey after the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup. However, even in the ‘80s the exemption procedure was much easier than today. I, for example, was easily exempted from religious lessons in those years when I went to high school. My family just delivered a petition and no one asked why or on what grounds we wanted to get that exemption.

In today’s Turkey, after the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power it became more and more difficult to be exempted from mandatory religious lessons. For example, Alevi students cannot get exemptions because the AK Party regards Alevis as Muslims and does not recognize their different sect. Because of this, Turkey has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) two times — in 2007 and 2014 — in two different cases brought by Alevi citizens of Turkey challenging mandatory religious lessons. The ECtHR concluded that these are not neutral lessons but are tools of indoctrination about Sunni Islam. After the last condemnation of the ECtHR, both President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu showed their unwillingness to remove these lessons from the curriculum or even to turn them into optional lessons.

From the Hurriyet daily’s news I have learnt that the Ministry of Education has just sent a circular to all schools across the country to give more instructions about who should be subjected to the mandatory lessons. In the circular the ministry said that those on whose identity cards the religion section is empty should be registered in religious lessons. The circular further said that everyone except Jews and Christians should be registered in these lessons.

I made an inquiry and learnt that if you declare that your child is Jewish or Christian you are required to get a document from the church, synagogue or other official religious institution. Well, against this fascistic understanding of education, which sees itself as even above parental rights and preferences, I will have to seek documents from a church or a synagogue when I get to register my sons in school.

My sons will be “Christian” or “Jewish” at least on paper to escape from the propaganda machine of the state.
I hope I will get help from my non-Muslim friends to overcome one of the oppressive barriers in Turkey.

Armenian genocide denial case comes before ECtHR

By

Orhan Kemal CengizBy ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ,

Last week I was talking to a law professor from the US. To give him a glimpse into the level of nationalism found in Turkey, I said, “Just look at how all these Turkish people with different worldviews around this table unite when I say something.” Then I proceeded to say, “Turkey still denies the Armenian genocide.” Just as I had predicted, the professor witnessed quite a heated debate over my words.

Most people in Turkey united behind Doğu Perinçek in his case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Tuesday. It’s a long story, but for those of you who do not know the Perinçek v. Switzerland case, it can be summarized as follows: During a conference in Switzerland, Perinçek said that the “Armenian genocide is an international lie.” He was given a prison sentence and fine under Swiss laws punishing the denial of genocide. According to these laws, to my understanding, denying any genocide constitutes hate speech or racism.

Perinçek brought this case to the ECtHR, and the ECtHR found that he breached Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights regulating freedom of expression. This past Thursday an appeal hearing on the case was held in Strasbourg.

I am personally a little ambivalent about punishing the denial of any genocide unless the words concerned clearly constitute hate speech targeting a certain vulnerable group. When it comes to freedom of expression, the stakes are too high, and therefore limitations to it should really be exceptional.

However, when I look at the comments and reactions to the case in Turkey, I see that people see this case as the ECtHR’s refusal to define the events of 1915 as genocide. People in Turkey should focus on another case: the Taner Akçam v. Turkey case, in which the ECtHR criticized and condemned Turkey for limiting the debate on Armenian genocide with prosecution and the threat of prosecution under the infamous Article 301 that prohibits “denigrating Turkishness.”

If people genuinely defend Perinçek’s freedom of expression concerning the Armenian genocide, they should then defend people in Turkey who claim that what happened in 1915 was genocide.

When it comes to freedom of expression, as I said above, there is a clear and undisputable exception to it that should be banned and punished: hate speech and threats. Just remember how “The Cut,” a film shot by Fatih Akın whose central theme is the events of 1915, was received in Turkey. Even before it was shown in cinemas, Akın and Agos, the Armenian-Turkish weekly that interviewed him about the film, were openly threatened by several ultranationalist organizations. In some of these threats posted on Twitter they even dared to say, “We are watching you with our white berets.” This was a reference to the fact that Hrant Dink’s murderer was wearing a white beret when he shot Dink from behind. I have not heard about anyone being arrested for these threats. When Akın’s film hit theaters, only viewers above the age of 18 were allowed to watch it.

You see, if we really wish to discuss “freedom of expression” and the Armenian genocide debate, there is still a long way to go in Turkey. And focusing on the Perinçek case, in which the ECtHR rejected using a prison sentence to punish genocide denial, would not bring anyone in Turkey closer to furthering freedom of expression or enriching democracy in this country.

Orhan Kemal Cengiz, Turk Intellectuals Who Recognized The Armenian Genocide.

By

By:Hambersom Aghbashian

Orhan Kemal Cengiz (born in 1968) is a Turkish lawyer, journalist and human rights activist. He received his law degree from University of Ankara in Turkey in 1993 , worked in London from 1997 to 1998. A Turkish NGO that works on human Orhan Kemal Cengizrights issues ranging from the prevention of torture to the rights of the mentally disabled. He writes for Today’s Zaman  (English-language daily based in Turkey) and Radikal. (daily liberal Turkish language newspaper, published in Istanbul ) . After threats were made to his life in 2008, for his work on the Malatya Bible murder case ,he asked for, and eventually received, a bodyguard. His request was supported by Amnesty International. (1)

Orhan Kemal Cengiz has actively been involved in human rights issues by appearing at meetings and seminars in many other countries including Demark, Bosnia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, and Albania. He is the author of many articles and has written several legal handbooks relating to human rights issues. In addition, he has translated several other works relating to human rights (2). On October 18, 2013 Cengiz wrote in RADICAL about the progress in negotiations on Turkey’s accession to the EU, and mentioned that while the European Commission is pleased that the “activities in Turkey marking the anniversary of the Armenian genocide [on April 24] could take place peacefully and unhindered ”, one recalls that not so long ago, in 2005, an academic debate on the Armenian question held in Istanbul caused significant tensions.(3)

                            In 2003, he published the report “ Minority Foundations in Turkey: An Evaluation of Their Legal Problems”, which attracted the attention of the government and the European Union. “We were not only talking about the legal gap,” he tells ESI(European Stability Initiative) , “we were also talking about this huge mentality which criminalized the very existence of Christians in Turkey.”  Cengiz founded and co-founded various civil society organizations concerned with human rights, such as the Human Rights Agenda Association (2003), which he still chairs, the Civil Society Development Centre (2004), which provides capacity-building support for Turkish NGOs, and new sections of the Izmir Bar Association. (These include a section dealing with torture, which initiated 2,000 legal cases, another section dealing with human rights, and an international committee)( 4).

According to Orhan Kemal Cengiz , Turkish newspapers have exposed attempts by official institutions to control academic research on the Armenian genocide. Out of thousands of master’s theses and Ph.D. dissertations in the social sciences are written each year in Turkey, only four theses have been written on the issue and they all reflect Turkey’s official position on the massacres. He added  ” True, the Armenian taboo has been broken in Turkish civil society and intellectual life, yet, it continues to exist in this or that form in the official realm”. (5)

” Will Erdogan visit Genocide Memorial in 2015? Orhan Kemal Cengiz ‘s reaction” . Under this title Armenpress  (Dec.2, 2013), stated that Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a well known Turkish writer and publicist who recognized the Armenian Genocide, wrote in an article in “Al-Monitor” that the Turkish nationalists accused the prime minister saying ” Erdogan has done many things to upset us, don’t be surprised if  he apologizes to the Armenians”. And after a long analysis he concludes that” If Erdogan doesn’t turn the world upside down with a last- minute surprise , we are likely to see more refined and sophisticated version of Turkey’s denial policy of the past century.(6)

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1-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orhan_Kemal_Cengiz.

2 -http://www.archons.org/conference/bio-cengiz.asp

3-http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/4248991-brussels-finally-hands-out-good-grades

-http://www.armeniangenocidedebate.com/kunta-kinte-039armenian-seed039-denial-racism-orhan-kemal-cengiz

5-http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/fa/contents/articles/originals/2013/12/turkey-armenia-genocide-academic-research-media-exposure.html

6-http://armenpress.am/eng/news/742270/will-erdogan-visit-genocide-memorial-in-2015-orhan-kemal-cengiz%E2%80%99s-reaction.html

Also featured in Nor Or Feb. 20, 2014 No 8

Hrant, embarrassment, a disaster, judges as the ombudsman who voted in favor of punishing Hrant Dink under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code

By

By:

ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ
o.cengiz@todayszaman.com

The government has introduced a new institution which we all welcomed at first. I am talking about the newly established ombudsman.

However, the government’s choice to fill the role has shaken all the country’s democrats from head to toe. It’s like a bad joke; it is an insult to anyone with a little intelligence in this country. Our conscience was deeply wounded with this appointment.

The government appointed, through parliamentary election, one of those judges from the Supreme Court of Appeals who voted in favor of punishing Hrant Dink under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) for the infamous article that brought about charges of “insulting Turkishness” to be the ombudsman. Actually, later on I learned that he was not only one of the judges who voted to sentence Hrant, but he, in particular, was one of those who actively lobbied to get this punishment. This former judge has taken his oath before Parliament and will very soon take office as Turkey’s first ombudsman.

I do not know if you remember all this time later what it was that lead to Hrant’s murder. He was first labeled an Armenian who insulted Turks, and then, of course, became an open target and was shot down in front of the Armenian Agos weekly in 2007. It is such a sad, painful story to remember.

Everything started with a media campaign. Hrant had uttered some words that made some circles extremely angry; he said Sabiha Gökçen, Atatürk’s adopted daughter, was actually an Armenian. His words made headlines.

Then some lawyers and some notorious figures brought lawsuits against Hrant by cherry- picking some of his words from one of the pieces in a long series of articles he published in the Agos, where he was editor-in-chief.

In this series of articles, Hrant was speaking to Armenians and advising them to get rid of hatred of Turks in order to emancipate themselves from the chains of the past. The Turkish judiciary, however, read his words in a completely distorted manner. He just said “replace the poisoned blood associated with the Turk with fresh blood associated with Armenia.” Both the court of first instance and the court of appeals evaluated this sentence as if Hrant was insulting Turkish blood, and he was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence.

I think what Hrant said was unmistakably clear. Interestingly, back then “expert opinions” requested by the courts reaffirmed that Hrant’s words had nothing to do with insulting Turkishness, but the court of appeals just wanted to understand his words as an insult under Article 301.

And now we have one of those judges who punished Hrant as the nation’s ombudsman. How on earth can a judge who has the capacity to misunderstand these words that were so clear be relied upon to understand the true meaning of the words of citizens who have problems with state institutions? Is his appointment as ombudsman a reward for his deliberate misunderstanding of Hrant’s words? Has he been appointed by the government for that very purpose, namely, to make sure that he will always misunderstand the words of citizens when they have a conflict with the state?

It is hard to believe that the government chose one person out of 70 million in Turkey to be ombudsman and that this person happened to be the one who sent Hrant Dink to his death by deliberately misinterpreting his statements.

In my view, with this move alone, the government cancelled out 1,000 good things they have done, like they killed our hopes for the future of this country.

The ICC (International Criminal Court) and crimes against humanity in Turkey

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By: ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ

As you see below, the situation is very complex. But we are left with a quite simple question: While Serbs continue to deliver Serbian butchers to The Hague, who will try Turkish butchers who committed crimes against humanity in the ’90s against Kurds in Turkey?

Finally Ratko Mladic, the former chief of staff of the Army of Republika Srpska, has been arrested and he is on his way to The Hague. This is, of course, a step forward for justice for the victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. I am sure it will be a huge relief for Bosnians to see Mladic accounting for the crimes he has committed before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

This news, of course, was also met with great happiness in Turkey by Turks, who have a deep affinity with the Bosnian victims for historical and religious reasons. Mladic and his men used to call Bosnian Muslims Turks. Whether they are aware or not of Mladic’s deep-seated hatred for “Turks,” Turkish people welcomed the news of the arrest of this perpetrator of genocide, who is called the Serbian butcher in Turkey.

In Turkey, most people focused on Mladic’s arrest without thinking too much about its implications for the Serbian people and political system. Delivering war criminals and genocide perpetrators one after another to the ICTY, an ad hoc international court, is a manifestation of a strong political will on the part of Serbia, is it not? In this way, the Serbian political establishment has parted ways with the bloody past of Serbian fascists. Some Serbs are really facing up to their past atrocities, in spite of strong ultranationalist segments that are still alive in that society.

Interestingly enough, between 1992 and 1995, while Bosnian Muslims and Croats were being butchered, there was another serious crime committed in southeastern Turkey. During the ’90s more than 3,500 Kurdish villages were destroyed and tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings were committed. While most Turks welcome the delivery of Mladic to the ICTY, most probably they don’t know that those involved in this destruction of villages and extrajudicial killings committed crimes that are defined as “crimes against humanity,” and thus they could also be transferred to The Hague if Turkey became a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity mean, amongst other things, “murder” and “deportation or forcible transfer of population” when committed as part of widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population. This definition is a perfect definition of the crimes that were committed against Kurds in those years. And we also know that the drafters of the Rome Statute also intended to cover the atrocities committed within the borders of a sovereign country. I have not heard about any person being put on trial because of their role in the destruction of villages in southeastern Turkey. Amongst those tens of thousands murders, only 20 of them are now being addressed in a trial in Cizre, murders allegedly committed by Col. Cemal Temizöz between 1993 and 1994 in this district.

We also know that some founders and commanders of JİTEM, which was responsible for most of these extrajudicial killings, are now being tried in the Ergenekon case for being members of this organization. It is, of course, quite significant to see them behind iron bars, but it is also quite sad that we cannot see them giving an account for crimes against humanity. Imagine if Mladic was being tried in Serbia for being a member of a terrorist organization that aims to overthrow the Serbian government. Would it then be said that justice was being served?

Interestingly enough, as far as I can see, most of Turkey’s hesitation regarding the ICC and reluctance to be a part of it stems from the possibility that the prosecutor in The Hague may press charges against people who have committed crimes against Kurds. Retroactive application of the Rome Statute is not a known practice, but bureaucrats in the Turkish Foreign Ministry may be keeping in mind the possibility that the ICC may adhere to the interpretation that in the case of an “ongoing violation” (reluctance to investigate extrajudicial killings and the inability of Kurds to return to their villages that were destroyed) it would be possible for past crimes, which were committed before a state party ratified the Rome Statute, can be tried by the ICC.

As you see, the situation is very complex. But we are left with a quite simple question: While Serbs continue to deliver Serbian butchers to The Hague, who will try Turkish butchers who committed crimes against humanity in the ’90s against Kurds in Turkey?

Owen, Cemal and 1915

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By: Orhan-Kemal-Cengiz

The article was quite interesting for a number of reasons. The first was obvious: A country known as a bastion of democracy is being invited to face its past. And from this article we understood that “facing history is still a hot debate,” even in a place like the UK.Owen started his article with a few quotes from British Foreign Secretary William Hague: “We have to get out of this post-colonial guilt. … Be confident in ourselves.” Jones’s article is a challenge to the “lets forget everything and reach eternal peace” mentality. Hague’s way of relating to the past is quite popular in Turkey, as you probably know. Interestingly, Owen was criticizing Hague’s approach to history by making a comparison with British expectations of Turkey. Owen said, “A foreign country such as Turkey can rightly be berated for failing to come to terms with an atrocity like the Armenian Genocide, but the darkest moments of our own history are intentionally forgotten.”

After reading Owen’s piece in The Independent, I came across a few interviews with Hasan Cemal in different newspapers, all of which were about his new book titled “1915: Armenian Genocide.” The book has not yet been published, but it is already quite famous in Turkey. Some criticize Cemal while some praise him for his soon-to-be-published book.

Cemal is quite a well-known figure in Turkey. He is a journalist and writer, writing a regular column for the Milliyet daily. He is the grandson of Cemal Paşa, one of the three leaders of İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress [CUP]), which organized the massacres of the Armenians in 1915.

I think his book is quite timely and meaningful. So far I have only seen the cover of the book and read a few sentences from its preface. On the cover, Cemal’s photo appears; in it, he lays flowers at the site of the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan. Obviously, the book will spark quite an intense debate in the coming days, and the discussion has already begun.

Like Owen, Cemal emphasized the importance of facing the past in the interviews he gave. He said: “We cannot move forward without confronting and taking into consideration the events of the past. We cannot keep an eye on the anguish of the past. Moreover, the pain of 1915 is not a story, it is a current day issue.”

I want to conclude this piece with some words I underlined in the preface to Cemal’s new book:

“I cannot forget that Yerevan morning in September 2008. In the first sunlight of the morning, the peak of Mount Ağrı [Ararat] would emerge and then vanish in the fog. ‘The hand of history,’ I had written that morning, ‘will show the way for those who wish to see.’ In 1919, the colonial army of England had opened fire on people in India, committing a crime against humanity by bloodying its hands with the Amritsar Massacre. In 1997, Queen of England Elizabeth II, while apologizing to the people of India, had said that what happened in Amritsar was a tragedy, but ‘history cannot be rewritten, however much we might sometimes wish otherwise.’ Surely we cannot change history; however, facing history is in our hands. Without facing the grim realities of the past, how can we ever move forward? We cannot remain silent in the face of pain! We cannot allow yesterday to take today hostage. … Real peace and democracy can unfortunately only be arrived at by passing through intolerable pain, as in the case of Hrant Dink, through paying a big price. It is evident that some stones in the lives of certain societies don’t happen without the paying of a price, or they don’t sit where they are supposed to.”