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One day you are CIA director next day you’r Turkish government Lobbies Ex. CIA director Porter Goss hired

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Former CIA Director Porter Goss, now Turkish GOV. lobbyist.

Former CIA Director Porter Goss, now Turkish GOV. lobbyist.

The Turkish government has hired former CIA Director Porter Goss for lobbying activities, according to a form filed with the US Department of Justice that was published online.

The form, filed pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, was published on Friday by The Intercept, an online publication that focuses on reporting on the documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

Goss, who served as the CIA director from 2004 to 2006 under the George W. Bush administration, registered through his new employer, Dickstein Shapiro, a law firm which The Intercept said has a long standing relationship with the Turkish government.

According to the form, Goss will “provide counsel in connection with the extension arid strengthening of the Turkish-American relationship in a number of key areas that are the subject of debate in Congress, including trade, energy security, counter-terrorism efforts and efforts to build regionalstability in the broader Middle East and Europe; educate Members of Congress and the Administration on issues of importance to Turkey; notify Turkey of any action in Congress or the Executive Branch on issues of importance to Turkey; and prepare analyses of developments in Congress and the Executive Branch on issues of importance to Turkey.”

The form, dated April 23, indicates that Goss’ services will continue indefinitely.

The Intercept report called Goss’ decision to work for the Turkish government as an “odd choice” for the ex-CIA director, who once declared “there is no viable alternative to freedom – only freedom offers men and women the opportunity to reach their full potential,” given the poor press freedom record of the Turkish government, which “has arrested dozens of journalists, has violently suppressed peaceful protests and has censored social media.”

PKK’s urban wing vows to support ‘democratic protests’

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ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)’s urban wing has vowed to support the “democratic protests across the country” that started at Taksim Gezi Park in n_54243_4May while demanding a week-long mass protest starting Sept. 16 to demonstrate against the lack of education in Kurdish.

The Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), the urban wing of PKK, said in a statement on Sept. 11 that they would force the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to take steps in the democratization process by supporting the protests across the country.

The KCK said it would support the “democratic forces’ struggle in Turkey” and “side with the democracy and freedom” struggle against the “attack on the opposition in Turkey,” said the statement.

“The people’s democratic struggle in Turkey and the Kurdish people’s struggle for democracy and freedom will be united,” said the statement, vowing to continue the struggle until the government takes “serious steps at democratization and solves the Kurdish problem.”

The statement referred to the police intervention into the protests, as well as the Sept. 10 death of a 22-year-old protester in Hatay, Ahmet Atakan, while accusing the government of creating “a police state.”

The KCK also called on people to boycott schools for the first week of the education year, which will start on Sept. 16, in order to draw attention to their demand to “open institutions and schools in Kurdish language.”

“Families should not send their children to schools for a week. All families and children should hold protests in front of the provincial directorates of national education offices in each province with slogans of ‘we want education in mother tongues,’” said the statement. It also said that all the people in the region “regardless of their political views” should support these protests.

Kurdish rebels deny reports on Turkey withdrawal were “lies” and part of a “psychological war”

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January 31, 2013 – 14:02 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – A Kurdish militant group said on Thursday, Jan 31, media reports about the withdrawal of its fighters from Turkey under a peace process to end a 28-year-old insurgency were “lies” and part of a “psychological war”, Reuters reported.

Turkish intelligence officials began peace talks with the jailed leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) late last year and a recent report said its guerrillas would withdraw to northern Iraq by the Kurdish new year on March 21.

More lawyers arrested in crackdown on leftists in Turkey

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Only in Turkey Lawyers and Journalists get arrested and put in Jill,  

ISTANBUL /  Hürriyet Daily News

Hüseyin Hayatsever huseyin.hayatsever@hdn.com.tr

Opposition parties have expressed their fury at the arrests of nine lawyers, including Contemporary Lawyers Association (ÇHD) head Selçuk Kozağaçlı, yesterday for their alleged links with the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C).

Along with Kozağaçlı, ÇHD Istanbul department head Taylan Tanay, ÇHD members Avni Güçlü Sevimli, Ebru Timtik, Barkın Timtik, Naciye Demir, Şükriye Erdem, Nazan Betül Vangölü Kozağaçlı and Günay Dağ were also arrested yesterday “for being members of terrorist organization.” All nine are members of the ÇHD and were handling cases related to human rights breaches. The court decided to release lawyer Efkan Bolaç.

Protests against arrests

On Jan. 20, lawyers Dağ and Gülvin Aydın had been released after being taken to Istanbul’s Çağlayan courthouse. ÇHD members held protests against the arrests yesterday, while opposition parties described them as “intimidation both for lawyers dealing with human rights breaches and for citizens.”
The lawyers and other were taken into custody after anti-terror police raided dozens of apartments and offices on the morning of Jan. 18 in Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir, detaining 63 individuals suspected of “terrorism,” including activist lawyers and musicians. Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Mahmut Tanal said the detained lawyers worked on some of Turkey’s most controversial human rights abuse incidents, including the case of Engin Çeber, who died due to the torture in prison in 2008, and Festus Okey, a Nigerian citizen shot dead while in custody in 2007.

“This is an attempt to put lawyers on trial for artificial links with terror organizations. This is intimidation for all lawyers and citizens. Accusations and questions addressed to the lawyers show that there’s no legal protection for citizens in Turkey,” Tanal told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday.

“The first message given to lawyers is that lawyers defending the suspects of [alleged terrorist] organizations could be put on trial for links with the same organizations. The
second message is that participation in public demonstrations could be considered evidence of being a member of an illegal organization. They intend to spread fear among society with these detentions.”
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) lawmaker Hasip Kaplan said the lawyers had been ill-treated during the custody period. “Those lawyers were detained just because of their professional activities. There’s no convincing evidence for their detention,” Kaplan told the Daily News. Another CHP lawmaker, İlhan Cihaner, said the ÇHD lawyers particularly focused on defending helpless people.

Crowds at PKK funeral as bosses join peace chorus

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DIYARBAKIR

The southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakır sees tens of thousands come to pay a tearful farewell to murdered Kurdish women as major business leaders join in locals’ pleas for peace

Tens of thousands of people participated in a grand funeral ceremony held yesterday in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır for three Kurish women killed in Paris last week.

Despite worries of possible provocations and sabotage that would turn the ceremony into a violent protest, such fears did not materialize during the peaceful gathering, during which the women’s coffins were covered with the flags of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Speaking at the ceremony, Kurdish politicians, including Ahmet Türk – an independent deputy and head of the Kurdish umbrella organization Democratic Society Congress (DTK) – as well as Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, denounced military operations against Kandil mountain in northern Iraq, where PKK militants are based, once again stressing that Kurdish people demand peace, not war.

“Making peace is not possible while making war at the same time,” Demirtaş said.

Turkish Police forces launched raids in seven provinces early this morning against alleged members of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C),Lawyers taken into custody in morning raids

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ISTANBUL

Report By Turkish Daily News,

Police forces launched raids in seven provinces early this morning against alleged members of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), taking into custody at least 85 people, including 15 lawyers.

The lawyers are accused of “transferring instructions from organization leaders in prison to militants,” daily Radikal reported.

Nine of the 15 lawyers are reportedly members of the Progressive Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD), including an executive board member of the association, Oya Aslan, and Istanbul branch head Taylan Tanay.

An arrest warrant has been also issued for the head of the association, Selçuk Kozağaçlı, after police failed to locate him during the raid.

Kozağaçlı told the Hürriyet Daily News over the phone that he was in Beirut and planning to return as soon as possible, but he did not know the exact reason for the raid on the ÇHD offices.

A police search was also conducted at the ÇHD headquarters in Ankara, while 17 people were detained in İzmir on charges of being members of the DHKP/C.

The ÇHD said in a written statement that the raids were “police terror against defense.”

“The state is in an all out attack against people and institutions who oppose the system and struggle for democracy and freedom,” a statement posted on the association’s website read. Anti-democratic legal arrangements and exercises aim to “suppress society and destroy the opposition,” the statement said, adding that the ÇHD would continue its current stance and “defend the right to defense until the end.”

The lawyers taken into custody, most of whom worked for The People’s Legal Aid Bureau, are known for their stance on human rights and torture issues. They have represented the victims in many of the notorious torture and police violence trials of the recent history.

Among the trials the bureau was involved in were the killings of 12 inmates in Bayrampaşa Prison and five inmates in Ümraniye Prison during the “Operation Return to Life” in December 200 to end the hunger strikes at the time; the murder of Engin Çeber in Metris Prison on Oct. 8, 2008 by prison guards; the death of Nigerian citizen Festus Okey who was shot dead while in custody at Beyoğlu police station; and the trial of Berna Yılmaz and Ferhat Tüzer, two university students who were sentenced to eight years and five months in prison for unfurling a banner that read “We want free education, we will get it,” during a meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Roma citizens on March 14, 2010.

ÇHD Istanbul branch head Tanay and Efkan Bolaç, another lawyer taken into custody Jan. 18, were also the founders of the “İmdat Polis” (Help! Police!) hotline to combat police brutality. Bolaç also represents Ahmet Koca, whose beating by seven police officers in central Istanbul last summer was captured by an amateur camera. Koca is facing between one-and-a-half and five years in prison for “resisting a police officer” and “insulting a public official,” following complaints by the seven police officers.

The DHKP/C is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

In Turkey even Funeral are decremented, if you are Muslim the Government pay but not for non-Muslims

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Vercihan Ziflioğlu vercihan.ziflioglu@hurriyet.com.tr

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

The members of minority communities in Turkey demand contribution of municipalities to their funerals, similar to the sevices given to Muslim majority

Non-Muslim communities in Turkey have asked for municipal and state services at their funerals similar to the services given to the country’s Muslim citizens.

Municipalities do not provide non-Muslim citizens with free services such as allocation of a funeral car. A graveyard plot costs little money for Muslims in municipal facilities, whereas a plot in minority graveyards that have limited spaces may cost a fortune.

Speaking to the Hürriyet Daily News, authorities from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Cemeteries Directorate said even though they knew the cost of graves and funeral ceremonies for non-Muslim citizens is very high, they did not intervene. “[Non-Muslims] can afford organizing funerals in accordance with their religions and traditions. We do not interfere with them since we are not used to their traditions and ceremonies. Only if they prove their conversion to Islam with witnesses can we hold their funerals,” an official from the directorate said.

Equal citizenship

Burgazada Hagia Yanni and Samatya Hagia Nikola Greek Church Foundation head Andon Parisyanos said the Directorate of Religious Affairs must allocate funds to non-Muslim populations as a requirement of equal citizenship.

“Forget about funerals, we even pay the utility bills for the churches by our own means. However, the Directorate of Religious Affairs meets the expenses of mosques,” Parisyanos said, adding that funeral organization companies should also be supervised.

“Aid should be provided [to non-Muslims], but still it would be more convenient if we organized the funerals according to our traditions,” Parisyanos said.

“Last week, an acquaintance of mine passed away at [Istanbul’s] Medipol Hospital. [The officials at the hospital] told me that they had come across a deceased Christian for the first time and did not know what to do,” Parisyanos said.

Likewise, Garo Paylan, who is a member of the Yeşilköy Armenian School’s Executive Board, said the requirements of equal citizenship must be implemented. “The Directorate of Religious Affairs could allocate funds, which would be conveyed to the owners of the funeral homes through the Patriarchate,” Paylan said.

Yeznik Bahçevanoğlu, owner of an organization company that holds funerals for non-Muslims, said the cost of funerals range from 2,000 to 8,000 Turkish Liras, adding that the prices might vary and increase according to the company. When asked about pricing policies, Bahçevanoğlu said the prices were determined according to the classes of the plots.

“There is a standard price given by the Patriarchate; however, that price increases a lot when other expenses such as obituaries and coffins are added. If the Directorate of Religious Affairs could allocate resources, the prices would not be that high,” Bahçevanoğlu said, adding that some organization companies might exploit their clients.

Vasgen Barın, the Armenian deputy mayor of Istanbul’s Şişli district, in which non-Muslims are densely populated, said municipalities were not responsible for holding funerals.

“Some people may want to be buried in their hometowns; when they appeal to us, we provide them a bus in order to transfer the body,” Barın said.

US NGO calls Turkey only ‘partly free,’ cites declines in freedoms

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Turkey is only a “partly free” country due to a serious decline in civil liberties and political rights, U.S. nongovernmental organization Freedom House has said in its annual Freedom in the World report.

The report underlined the decline of civil liberties in Turkey as a major development, while sharply criticizing the rule of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“[Erdoğan’s] government has jailed hundreds of journalists, academics, opposition party officials and military officers in a series of prosecutions aimed at alleged conspiracies against the state and Kurdish organizations,” the report said.

Turkey was labeled “partly free” by the report, receiving a score of 3/7 on political rights and 4/7 on civil liberties.

Partly free countries are defined by the group as nations “in which there is limited respect for political rights and civil liberties,” an “environment of corruption, weak rule of law, ethnic and religious strife,” as well as single-party dominance in the political landscape.

Partly free countries include Togo, Uganda, Tanzania, Tunisia, Guatemala, Malawi, East Timor, Ecuador and others.

These people are not terrorists, BDP head says at Paris protest

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ISTANBUL

Three members of the  Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), recently found murdered in Paris, were conducting civil politics and were not terrorists, the Kurdish-focused Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) head said today during a protest held in the French capitol.

Responding to earlier comments issued by Turkey’s prime minister to French President François Hollande demanding an explanation as to why France’s leader was meeting with terrorists, Selahattin Demirtas called the murdered women ‘people who conducted civil politics.’

“Those should not be the kind of statements that a prime minister striving for peace makes,” Demirtas said. “These people are not terrorists. They were conducting civil politics. Instead of questioning that you should be working to solve these murders, these massacres. That is what the prime minister of Turkey should be doing right now.”

Thousands of Kurds and PKK supporters gathered in Paris today, including Diyarbakir Deputy Leyla Zana.
European PKK representatives, Zubeyiz Aydar and Remzi Kartal were also present at the protest.

The crowds chanted slogangs of revenge, according to daily Hürriyet.

Turkish snake oil salesman leaders are turning to jailed leader of a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to Resolve Kurdish Conflict

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ISTANBUL (Reuters)—The Turkish government and the jailed leader of a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have agreed on the framework for a plan to end a war that has killed 40,000 people since 1984, envisaging rebel disarmament in exchange for increased minority rights, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

The Radikal daily said senior intelligence officials had held meetings with PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan in his island jail near Istanbul, yielding a four-stage plan to halt the conflict.

Previous negotiations with the PKK were highly secretive and appeared to have run aground. The open acknowledgment of the latest contact has raised hopes for a renewed peace effort, including from the main pro-Kurdish party in parliament.

“Meeting with Ocalan…is a correct step, it’s logical and appropriate,” Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) leader Selahattin Demirtas told members of his party in the assembly in Ankara.

“Peace in Turkey can only begin with this step.”

Radikal said that after an initial end to hostilities the PKK fighters would withdraw from Turkish territory, after which disarmament talks would begin, before a final process of the militants laying down their weapons.

Ocalan will prepare four letters setting out his vision for a solution to the conflict to be addressed to the BDP, to the PKK commanders in northern Iraq, to Europe, where many PKK activists are based, and to the Turkish public, Radikal said.

The “roadmap” would involve releasing from custody thousands of people accused of PKK links.

It would also lead to constitutional reforms removing obstacles to Kurdish language education, strengthening local administrations and an ethnically neutral definition of citizenship, describing people as citizens of Turkey rather than Turkish citizens.

There was no official confirmation of any agreement and Radikal did not specify its sources but it is generally regarded as being reliable on the Kurdish issue.

Ocalan’s demands appeared to be limited, with no references to an independent Kurdistan, a federation or the concept of “democratic autonomy” which has been proposed by Kurdish politicians, according to the report.

While there was cautious optimism regarding the prospect of negotiations in Ankara, violence continued in the southeast.

Fourteen PKK fighters and a Turkish soldier were killed overnight after a group of militants, located in northern Iraq some 8 km (5 miles) from the border, opened fire on a military outpost, the local governor’s office said.

Demirtas said Ocalan, held on the island of Imrali since his capture, had shown a determination to work towards peace but that progress would depend on the government.

His own party, which is popular in the mainly Kurdish southeast, should be involved in any talks, Demirtas added.

PKK Demands Access To Ocalan
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has played down the concessions which Turkey would make to end the conflict, ruling out the prospect of Ocalan being released from Imrali and placed under house arrest or a general amnesty.

Erdogan is under pressure to stem the violence, Turkey’s main domestic security concern, particularly with presidential elections due in 2014 in which he is expected to stand.

From his prison cell, Ocalan has not been able to express his views on the process directly as he has not had access to his lawyers for 16 months, although he has had a meeting with Kurdish politicians.

The main opposition CHP party expressed support for the process for the sake of ending the bloodshed but said parties in parliament needed to work together to achieve a solution.

The leader of the nationalist MHP was fierce in his criticism of the state talks with the “Imrali monster”.

“Prime Minister Erdogan has crossed a threshold and dropped the government’s anchor in the bloody port of separatist terror,” the MHP’s Devlet Bahceli told his deputies.

There was a cautious response from senior PKK commander Murat Karayilan in northern Iraq, who said the active PKK leadership must be given direct access to Ocalan himself.

“The (PKK) armed forces are what is fundamentally important. For that reason we must have direct dialogue with the leader,” Karayilan said in an interview with a news agency close to the militants.

“There is the problem of convincing the broad command structure and fighters, not just the leadership,” he said.