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Turkish publishing house releases Armenian Genocide book “As the Poppies Bloomed” in Turkish

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The Turkish Aras publishing house has published the Turkish-language edition of the Armenian Genocide novel As the Poppies Bloomed (Gelincikler açarken) by Los-Angeles based Syrian-Armenian writer Maral Boyadjian, Ermenihaber reports.

The novel tells the story of young lovers Anno and Daron, who fall in love as their Armenian village, Salor, comes under increasing threat by Turkish authorities in the period leading up to the Armenian Genocide. The couple wants to marry and continue life in their homeland, but they are unprepared for the dangerous secret Daron’s father keeps or the dark days ahead.

Maral Boyadjian paints a timeless love story against the backdrop of one of the most dramatic tragedies of the early twentieth century – the Armenian Genocide. Unforgettably touching, As the Poppies Bloomed reveals a beautiful and heart-wrenching tale of love, loss and hope of two young Armenians who face seemingly insurmountable odds while the land of the sultans breaks apart and World War I rushes toward them along with the greatest massacre the world had ever known.

Born in Aleppo, Maral Boyadjian moved to Los Angeles, U.S. together with her family as a child. In 2011-2014, she paid visits to Van, Bitlis, Mush, Shenik and Sasun, the fatherland of her grandparents, survivors of the Armenian Genocide, for the first time. Boyadjian’s novel As the Poppies Bloomed was published in the U.S. in 2015.

 

Source Panorama.am

German court opens trial against Turkish spy

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A German court has opened a trial against 32-year-old Mehmet Fatih S., who is accused of working for the Turkish intelligence agency MIT. He reportedly posed as a journalist to gain access to Kurdish politicians, DW reported.

German prosecutors say that the Turkish man has worked for the Turkish intelligence service since 2013. Between September 2015 and his arrest in December 2016, his mission was allegedly to spy on the Kurdish community in Germany, focusing on Kurds based in Bremen.

The Turkish MIT agency allegedly paid the man $35,800 for his services. Mehmet Fatih S. is said to have moved to the northern city of Bremen in January 2016 to get closer to Kurdish politician Yuksel Koc. There, he spoke to Koc’s acquaintances and gathered information online to learn more details about his life, posing as a reporter for a Kurdish TV broadcaster.

15 Turkish security officials indicted for attacking protesters during Erdogan visit to US

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A total of 19 people, including 15 identified as bodyguards of Turkish president, were indicted Tuesday in Washington in connection with scuffles that broke out outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence.

“19 people, including 15 Turkish security officials, indicted for attacking protesters during Erdogan visit to DC in May,” Associated Press tweeted.

As reported earlier,  bodyguards of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attacked peaceful protesters in front of the Turkish Ambassador’s residence in the US capital city on May 16.

Ankara silent on Turkish agents allegedly caught in Iraq assassination plot

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Armed Kurdish militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party stand behind a barricade during clashes with Turkish forces, Bishil, Diyarbakir, Sept. 28, 2015

By Amberin Zaman,

A Kurdish militant group claimed today that it has captured Turkish intelligence officers. Diyar Xerib, a Kurdish leader linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said the PKK had “arrested” two Turkish nationals working for Turkey’s national spy agency MIT, but had refrained from publicizing the incident so as not to create problems for the local government.

“No doubt the PKK can publish news about the arrests of the MIT officials who wanted to make the area a place to carry out their dirty operations, the biggest of which was to assassinate a prominent PKK official,” Xerib told the pro-PKK Roj news outlet.

News that the PKK had captured Turkish intelligence officials first surfaced last week. Accounts vary but according to several Iraqi Kurdish news organizations, the Turkish spies had traveled to Sulaimaniyah, the de facto administrative capital of the eponymous province in the eastern part of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The men were said to be planning to assassinate a senior PKK figure, most likely top field commander Cemil Bayik, and ended up ensnared themselves. Bayik occasionally travels to Sulaimaniyah for meetings as well as for medical treatment.

Eyewitnesses report spotting the burly guerrilla commander there in a grey business suit but without a tie.

The mountainous region bordering Iran is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The PUK has cordial relations with the PKK. The Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party is closely allied to Turkey.

Xerib did not provide any details about where or when the alleged MIT agents were apprehended. He did, however, threaten to release photographs of the men and unveil their identities. It’s not clear what if anything the PKK is demanding in exchange for their release. The PKK has held Turkish citizens, including soldiers, in the past. The rebels usually release them unharmed amid a blaze of publicity calculated to showcase their strength.

The Turkish government remains silent on the matter, neither denying nor confirming that any Turkish officials have fallen into PKK hands. Fearing official reprisal, the Turkish media has largely followed suit. If the story of a botched assassination proves to be true, it will be a huge embarrassment for the Turkish government. The Aug. 23 expulsion order for the PUK’s long-time Ankara representative Behruz Galali suggests it may well be.

Iraqi Kurdish officials told Al-Monitor on condition that they not be identified by name that reports confirmed that two Turkish nationals had been seized by the PKK on Aug. 5 in the Dukhan area near Sulaimaniyah. One of the officials described the reports of the alleged plot to murder Bayik as “far fetched.”

The Turks had traveled from Turkey to Erbil and were driven to the Sulaimaniyah area. The officials said Turkey had failed to inform the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) about their planned mission but had then sought its help to free the men. Turkey is accusing the PUK of leaking information about the MIT operatives to the PKK. The PUK denies any knowledge of the scheme.

Saadi Ahmad Pira, a veteran PUK official, told the Voice of America that Galali’s expulsion from Ankara followed “a failed operation.” He asserted that the PUK had received no prior notification from the Turkish authorities, saying only, “There was an act, an intelligence operation conducted by Turkey. It was not successful. Not only was it not successful, it even ended with damage inflicted on the Turks.” He declined to elaborate.

Pira noted, however, that Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was in Erbil on Aug. 23, had raised the matter in a meeting with him and Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, whose ailing father Jalal remains notionally in charge of the fractious PUK.

There are unconfirmed reports that Turkish consular services in Sulaimaniyah have been suspended since Aug. 24. Al-Monitor was unable to reach Turkish officials for comment.

Some analysts scent a connection between Turkey’s actions and a planned referendum on Iraqi Kurdish independence. Turkey says it wants the KRG to cancel the vote planned for Sept. 25.

One of Turkey’s biggest objections to the referendum is that it will cover the disputed areas, notably the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, which the Iraqi Kurds and Baghdad both claim for their own. Kirkuk is home to a large ethnic Turkmen population with strong kinship ties to Turkey. Ankara has sought to mobilize the Turkmens to advance its own political agenda in Iraq with mixed results. The PUK currently controls much of Kirkuk, where PKK fighters also joined in the fight against advancing Islamic State militants in 2014.

Another theory making the rounds is that the the Turkish government may seek imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan’s help in bringing the MIT agents back to Turkey. The PKK leader has remained off limits ever since April 2015, when the latest round of peace talks between the government and the PKK collapsed.

Turkey has long sought to either capture or kill high value PKK targets and has asked the United States for help in locating them. Turkey is believed to have renewed the request during Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ visit to Ankara on Aug. 22. The idea was floated during the Barack Obama administration and is being mulled by the current one.

Few believe that eliminating the PKK leadership would have a lasting impact on the group, which has been fighting the Turkish army, NATO’s second largest, for the past 33 years.

Past efforts to dismember the PKK have ended in failure. The PKK did experience internal fissures after Turkey netted Ocalan in 1999 with American help. A group of dissenting rebels led by Ocalan’s brother Osman sought to seize control of the outfit but were forced out. Some believe that driving a wedge between it and its sister organization in Syria, the People’s Protection Units — the United States’ top partner in the campaign against IS — can weaken and ultimately unravel the PKK.

Amberin Zaman is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse who has covered Turkey, the Kurds and Armenia for The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Los Angeles Times and the Voice of America.

‘Every Armenian is a proof’: Turkish journalist probes into exclusive archive on Genocide survivors

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An editor for CNN Turk, who earlier published an exclusive record on Genocide survivors, has continued his searches to find the Zarmanyan family’s descendants after the news story appeared in the headlines of Tert.am.

Serdar Korucu, who conducts probes into Armenian archives to collect Armenian language telegrams, recently received an email from an Armenian family in Marseiile informing him of their connection to Archbishop Grigor Zarmanyan (the man mentioned in the records).

According to document bearing the Armenian Patriarchate’s stamp, Zarmanyan, who was the community’s religious leader at the time, died in the vicinities of Mosul, Iraq in 1916 after facing exile upon the Turkish authorities’ demand.

In a French language document reporting Zarmanyan’s death, the patriarch mentioned his wife and two daughters’ names, adding that all the three were still alive.

“To be frank, I don’t even know if there is any document the Turkish authorities can unconditionally adopt and not reject given that certain people in Europe are still able to find explanations denying the Holocaust committed at the heart of Europe just 25 years after the Armenian Genocide. The important thing for me, however, was to follow [assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist] Hrant Dink’s principle saying that ‘every Armenian is a proof’. This particular family[’s story] stands as such an example. What happened to them, and where did they go after the Genocide, and how was their life arranged later? Now I am hopeful that by establishing connections with this family, I will be able to bring more details to light,” he said in comments to Tert.am.

Turks celebrate 1964 napalm bombing of Cyprus

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By Uzay Bulut,

Cyprus is Turkish, after all. Turks can do whatever they want there. They can even celebrate dropping napalm on Greeks and slaughtering them.

On August 8, Muslim Turkish Cypriots and illegal settlers from Turkey celebrated the 53rd anniversary of Turkey’s napalm bombing of Greek Cypriot civilians in the Turkish-occupied enclave of Kokkina in Cyprus. Mustafa Akıncı, the president of the self-styled “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC), which is recognized only by Turkey, also participated in the celebrations.

In August 1964, Turkish warplanes dropped napalm bombs on Kokkina in the Tillyria peninsula, hitting residential areas and a hospital, and killing more than 50 people, including 19 civilians. Ten years later, in 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus and has occupied almost 40 percent of the island ever since.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece issued a note of condemnation regarding the celebrations:

“We are dismayed to note the celebrations of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, including Mr. Akinci himself, of the 53rd anniversary of the use of chemical weapons and dropping of napalm bombs by the Turkish air force on the Tillyria peninsula. This was the first use of banned chemical weapons in the history of our planet.

“Today, when the whole planet bows to the victims of wars and such hostile acts, the holding of and participation in such celebrations is an affront to international law, to the memory of the fallen, and to the whole of humanity.”

The Republic of Cyprus declared independence in 1960. Afterwards, Turkey escalated its preparations to invade the island, which included but were not limited to establishing a bridgehead at Kokkina in 1964 and smuggling arms and fighters from Turkey into the area in order to strengthen Turkish positions there.

According to the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus in London,
“When in August 1964 the [Cypriot] Government attempted to contain the Kokkina bridgehead, Turkey’s air force bombed the National Guard and neighboring Greek villages with napalm and threatened to invade. The other major purpose served by the enclaves was the political and physical separation of the two communities.”

Another preparation for the occupation by Turkey was its disguised violent attacks against Turkish Cypriots to further escalate inter-communal conflicts and alienate Turkish-speaking Cypriots from Greek Cypriots.

General Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, a Turkish army officer, for example, said in televised comments in 2010 that Turkey burned a ‎mosque during the Cyprus conflict “in order to foster civil resistance” against Greeks on the islandand that “The Turkish special warfare department has a rule to engage in acts of sabotage against respected values [of Turks] made to look as if they ‎were carried out by the enemy.”

The deadly military assault against Kokkina in 1964 is celebrated by many Turkish Cypriots and settlers from Turkey as the “8 August Erenköy Resistance Day.” Turks now call Kokkina “Erenköy,” Turkish for “the village of the [Islamic] saints.”

In 2014, for example, the community leader of Kato Pyrgos, Costas Michaelides, condemnedthe formal Turkish celebrations in Kokkina, describing them as a “disgrace.” “The memories are alive because the victims, those who survived, are here. The crosses [on the graves] are here. However, many years pass, 50 or 150, we will see this in our daily lives, because they remind us of this cowardly attack against the unarmed people of Tylliria,” he said.

The Turkish narrative does not deny the smuggling of arms and fighters to Cyprus in 1964; the problem is Turks do not view these acts as illegal activities or crimes against the Republic of Cyprus. They see them as “heroism.”

During the celebrations on August 8, Mehmet Kadı, the mayor of Yeni Erenköy (Yialousa), said:
“53 days ago, today, in August 1964, the villagers, students and our mujahideen [jihadists] struggled together, fought for this land and did not allow the enemy to enter here.”

The enemy that Kadı referred to is the Republic of Cyprus and Greek Cypriots, the natives of the island who still comprised the majority in the northern part of Cyprus back then.

The Turkish Cypriot Minister of Economy and Energy, Sunat Atun, also issued a statementregarding “the Erenkoy resistance” and referred to it as “an act of heroism.”

“Turkish Cypriot people engaged in powerful and honorable resistance in the face of the inhumane attacks by the dual of the Rum [ethnic Greeks] and Greece. About 500 students from Anatolia and a group of Turkish Cypriots from Britain started landing in Cyprus to defend their homeland when attacks against Turkish Cypriots escalated in 1964.”

Mustafa Arıkan, the head of the Erenköy Mujahedeen [Jihadists] Association, also announced that during the commemoration, “for the first time, family members of 28 martyrs were given plaques.”

On July 20, 1974, Turkey mounted a bloody invasion of the island. The second Turkish offensive, codenamed Attila 2, took place between August 14-18. The invasion was accompanied by the mass murder of Greek Cypriot civilians, including women, and infants, unlawful arrests and torture of Greek Cypriots, and rapes of Greek Cypriot children and women, among other atrocities.

Zenon Rossides, the then-Cyprus representative to the United Nations, sent a letter on 6 December 1974 to the UN Secretary General, which said in part that Turkey “launched a full scale aggressive attack against Cyprus, a small non-aligned and virtually defenseless country, possessing no air force, no navy and no army except for a small national guard. Thus, Turkey’s overwhelming military machine embarked upon an armed attack including napalm bombing of open towns and villages, wreaking destruction, setting forests on fire and spreading indiscriminate death and human suffering to the civilian population of the island.”

The greatest consequence of the invasion was that Turkey changed the demographic structure of the northern part of the island, terrorizing around 200,000 indigenous Greek Cypriot majority population (more than one-third of the population) into fleeing to the southern part of the island.  It is estimated that more than 100,000 Turkish settlers have been implanted in northern Cyprus since then. Lands and houses belonging to Greek Cypriots were then distributed to Turkish Cypriots and to Turks brought from Turkey to settle in those areas.

Turkish supremacists act so blatantly in Cyprus because they claim Cyprus is a Turkish island. Thus, bringing in Turkish fighters to Cyprus to kill Greek Cypriots, importing tens of thousands of settlers from Turkey, deploying around 40,000 Turkish soldiers there, forcibly changing the demographics of the island, seizing the homes and other property of Greek Cypriots, and wiping out the island’s historic Hellenic and Christian identity through the destruction of its cultural heritage are all legitimate acts according to the Turkish narrative.

Cyprus is Turkish, after

all. Turks can do whatever they want there. They can even celebrate dropping napalm on and slaughtering Greeks.
Employing Orwellian rhetoric, Turkey calls the military invasion of Cyprus “a peace operation.” In 1974, Kemalists and Islamists of all political parties supported the invasion of Cyprus. Moreover, Turkey does not recognize Cyprus as a Greek island or even as “a nation.”

According to the official website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Cyprus has never been a Greek Island. It is both useful and important to keep in mind that there has never been in Cyprus a ‘Cypriot nation’ due to the distinct national, religious and cultural characteristics of each ethnic people who, in addition, speak different languages.”

The Turkish ministry cannot be more wrong. Never until the Turkish invasion in 1974 did the northern part of the island have a Turkish majority. Both the north and south of the island were majority-Greek and majority-Christian until 1974. “Cyprus has been a part of the Greek world as far back as can be attested by recorded history,” writes the author Constantine Tzanos.

“After the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the defeat of the Venetians, it fell to Ottoman rule from 1571 to 1878. In 1878 it was placed under British administration, was annexed by Britain in 1914, and in 1925 became a British colony.”

However, the Cyprus question has been one of the key aspects of the Turkish foreign policy for a very long time. Actually, Cyprus has never ceased to be a “national cause” for Turks ever since the Ottomans first invaded it in 1571. A Muslim sovereign is not allowed to relinquish land once it has been conquered. And they can even celebrate their war crimes and murders.

Showing no regard for the sufferings of Greek Cypriots, many Turkish Cypriots and their leaders – including Mustafa Akıncı – have celebrated the deadly assaults on their Greek neighbors. But a community leader who genuinely aims for a peaceful resolution and coexistence in Cyprus would condemn the use of napalm bombs on unarmed civilians and the destruction of that part of the island, and would commemorate the Greek Cypriot victims as well.

Sadly, Turkish Cypriots’ celebrations of the brutal warfare against Greek Cypriot civilians have discredited all of their erstwhile statements that they support a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the island and justice for all its inhabitants.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20882

 

 

Harut Sassounian: Turkish activist admits major blow when Texas recognized Armenian Genocide

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By Harut Sassounian

Armenian-Americans knew that they had scored a major victory for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide when Texas became the 46th State to recognize it. What Armenian-Americans did not realize is that the recognition by Texas had a devastating impact on the Turkish community’s lobbying efforts in that State.

Ferruh Demirmen, Ph.D., revealed in an article in Turkishnews.com the degree of despair he and his fellow Turks suffered in Texas when the State House recognized the Armenian Genocide on May 19, 2017. It is not very often that we come across a Turkish lobbyist who acknowledges total defeat at the hands of the Armenian community.

Demirmen starts by blaming his fellow Turks for “years of Turkish apathy and passivity, combined with Armenian aggressiveness and Western prejudice” for the passage of the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. He also credits the activism by the Armenian National Committee of America, Western Region (ANCA-WR), for arranging “tours involving Armenian activists at town-hall meetings,” visiting “State elected officials individually,” and establishing ANCA-WR chapters in “Dallas, Austin and Houston.”

The Turkish activist also credits the success of the genocide resolution to the support of “State Representative Scott Sanford, who is also the Executive Pastor of a Baptist church in Texas.” Having done an incredible amount of research for his article, Demirmen recalls that “at a gala organized by ANCA-Dallas in April 2016, Representative Sanford was awarded ‘Advocate for Justice Award’ for his ‘strong dedication to raising awareness about the Armenian Genocide.’ ” At the gala, a letter from Republican Senator Ted Cruz was read recognizing the Armenian Genocide, according to Demirmen.

On January 26, 2017, Representative Sanford introduced Texas House Resolution HR-191 to recognize the Armenian Genocide. The Resolution was first presented to the Trade & Intergovernmental Affairs Committee (TIAC) which called for a public hearing at the State Capitol in Austin on April 24. Demirmen regrets that the Texas legislature chose “April 24 for the public hearing, a date considered symbolic for Armenian allegations, [which] was the first sign that TIAC was pro-Armenian in its outlook.”

Demirmen is unhappy that “the hearing was closely coordinated with ANCA-WR and Rep. Sanford, and while the Armenian side had long known about the hearing, the Turkish side knew of the meeting less than a week in advance.” As a result, only six Turks attended the hearing (five from Houston and one from Dallas), while “a large crowd from the Armenian side was present. Also present [at TIAC] as an ‘observer’ was Rep. Sanford.” Demirmen expresses his regret that only four Turks, including himself, testified in committee, whereas 21 Armenians had testified. “The Armenian side ended up having five times more chances to present its case than the Turkish side. Thus the Armenian side dominated not only in terms of ‘presence’ in the hearing, but also in the testimonies given,” Demirmen admitted. “Among those who testified for the Armenian side were representatives from the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission, and Houston’s Holocaust Museum,” Demirmen reported. In addition, “hundreds of letters were emailed to state legislators. Many more phone calls were made by the Armenian community.”

Among the objections raised by Turks who testified against the Resolution, were: 1) the “impropriety of Texas legislators to intervene in matters affecting U.S. foreign policy, 2) the damage the bill could do to trade relations between Texas and Turkey, 3) the divisive aspect of the resolution, and not the least, 4) the fact that the resolution is defamatory toward Texas residents of Turkish heritage,” Demirmen complained.

None of these objections made an impact on the TIAC members who approved the Resolution unanimously on April 24. The Texas House took up the Resolution on May 19 approving it with 137 yes votes (eight members were absent and five abstained).

In utter despair, Demirmen describes the outcome as “a feat masterminded by ANCA-WR and endorsed by the Texas House of Representatives. While the resolution has no legal force, for all practical purposes, and for the public at large, it was a declaration finding Ottoman Turks guilty of a heinous crime.”

Demirmen acknowledges that “the Turkish response, at least at the grassroots level, to HR-191, was feeble. … Turks are no match to Armenians on activism on the ‘genocide’ issue…. The Turkish side has only itself to blame for its lethargy and passivity.”

The Turkish activist concludes his article by blaming the ATA-Houston (American Turkish Association) for not bothering to oppose HR-191. He calls the group, “the happy-hour-conscious association, founded in 1979, was not interested in the Armenian issue….”

Even though Demirmen blames Texas Turks for their inactivity, there is actually only one reason why the Resolution was adopted: Because it tells the truth! The State of Texas finally acknowledged the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide!

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

Turkish Beaches becoming killing Beaches One killed, four wounded

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One person was killed and four others were wounded early on July 30 when an armed assailant opened fire between two beach clubs in the southern resort of Bodrum.

The assailant carrying a double gun reportedly first came to the Çilek Beach Club in the Göltürkbükü neighborhood at around 3 a.m. and asked where the Sess Beach Club was.

He then headed toward the Sess Beach Club, which was next to the Çilek Beach club, randomly opening fire with the double gun between the two clubs.

Around 400 people were in the two clubs at the time, while three staff members – identified as Furkan Say, Nesibi Güneç, Yasin Kaya – and two customers were wounded. The 18-year-old Say, who had been working as a bellboy at the club, later succumbed to his injuries at hospital.

The assailant reportedly fled the scene in a car.

Gökhan Balcı, an accountant for the Çilek Beach club, said they did not know the motive of the assailant.

“A person who came to our facility entered and asked about the Sess Beach club. He later moved away and began to randomly open fire. We lived a nightmare. We do not know about the assailant and we do not know why he did such a thing,” Balcı said.

He also denied claims that a disagreement had broken out between staff at the two beach clubs.

Gendarmerie teams have reportedly launched an investigation into the attack to apprehend the assailant.

Turkish lawmakers banned to say “Armenian Genocide”

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YEREVAN. – Turkish parliament has approved a package of internal regulations, one of them banning lawmakers from saying Armenian Genocide in the parliament, editor of the Armenian department of Agos newspaper Pakrat Estukyan said.

The real goal of this law is to limit the speech of lawmakers that are not pleasant for the authorities,

“The ruling party and leadership are worried about speeches of certain lawmakers, for example Garo Paylan,” he said, adding this is the reason that ruling party together with nationalist party pushed the draft bill.

Estukyan believes new regulations are especially targeted against the lawmakers from Democratic People’s Party.

The amendments were supported by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), while the opposition voted against. The amendments suggest imposing fines on lawmakers who will insult “the history of the Turkish nation”. The phrases “Armenian Genocide”, “Kurdistan” will be banned.

The editor also recalled that the oath of Turkish MP, famous Kurdish human rights defender Leyla Zana has been denied and she can be deprived of a parliamentary seat. The reason is that while taking the oath Zana said she would be faithful to the Turkish nations (using plural), not Turkish nation

Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet faces nebulous accusations in trial

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Turkish journalist on TrialEmployees of the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet are being tried on charges including the alleged support of “terrorist organizations.” The case is seen as a indicator of the state of the Turkish justice system.

The Cumhuriyet journalists may be looking at very long jail sentences. The defendants, whose trial began on Monday, could get between seven-and-a-half and 43 years in prison. What exactly they are charged with, however, remains unclear.

The group includes some of the best known names in Turkish media, such as the Kadri Gursel, the paper’s chief editor Murat Sabuncu, cartoonist Musa Kart, and investigative reporter Ahmet Sik.

According to the prosecutors, the 19 reporters are on trial for “aiding an armed terrorist group without being mebers of it.” Two of these groups are named: the movement around the preacher Fethullah Gulen, and the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK. Critics slammed the accusations as vague.

“Kadri Gursel […] is one of the country’s leading writers and opinion-formers,” DW’s Dorian Jones from said on Monday Istanbul. “He wrote a column for a very prominent newspaper and was ousted because of a tweet the president (Erdogan) didn’t like.”

“He is accused of not only supporting the Kurdish rebel group the PKK, which has kidnapped him two decades ago, but on top of that he is also accused of supporting the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is a person Kadri Gursel has written expansively about, exposing and criticizing for many years,” Jones told DW News.

The first week of the group trial is likely to be taken up by prosecutors reading out the indictment and defense lawyers giving their opening statements. At the end of this segment, however, the judges will decide whether to release some of the defendants on bail. Twelve of the reporters are currently in jail, five have already been released from custody pending the outcome of the trial, and the last two, including Cumhuriyet former editor-in-chief Can Dundar, are being tried in absentia. Dundar is currently in Germany.

The case of Ahmet Sik gives some indication of the sort of thing the public prosecutor’s office deems to be such an offense. Sik, an investigative journalist, was arrested at the end of December 2016. The public prosecutor referenced posts on his Twitter account as grounds for the arrest. Anadolu reported that the investigation was based on claims that Sik was “denigrating the Republic of Turkey, its judicial bodies, military and security organization” and “propagandizing for a terrorist organization” in his Twitter postings and in some articles he had published in the Cumhuriyet daily.

Sik went after Gulen at wrong time

What Ahmed Sik did was primarily to ask questions and highlight inconsistencies in government propaganda. For example, in some of his tweets he considered the case of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov. Karlov was shot on 19 November, 2016, by a former policeman with jihadi motives. The government says the gunman was a follower of the Gulen movement. In that case, Sik asked on Twitter, how did they explain the fact that the assassin was a police officer?

Sik also addressed the arrest of the actor, director and politician Sırrı Sureyya Onder, who represented the pro-Kurdish opposition HDP in the Turkish parliament. Together with former deputy prime minister of Turkey, Yalcin Akdogan, Onder published a statement proposing a possible solution for the Kurdish conflict. The member of parliament was then arrested and charged with supporting a terrorist organization. Sik’s conclusion: “If the action which [Peoples’ Democratic Party MP] Sırrı Sureyya Onder is being charged with is a crime, isn’t there supposed to be a bunch of suspects, starting with those sitting in the [Presidential] Palace?”

Sik had already spent a year in prison in 2011 and 2012. Back then, his crime was to criticize the Gulen movement’s influence within the apparatus of state – precisely what Erdogan is doing today. The only difference is that, at that time, Erdogan and Gulen were still the best of friends.