Cyprus-Forum.com

[Tim Drayton]

I am posting my translation of an article that appeared today in Turkey's Cumhuriyet newspaper.

The ‘Academics for Peace’ formation has issued a press statement with reference to its simultaneous gatherings at the Taksim Gönen Hotel in Istanbul and the Ankara University Political Science Graduates Association in Ankara.

In the text with the heading: ‘We, this country’s academics and researchers, will not be party to this crime’, it is stated that Turkey has breached its own law and the rules of international treaties to which it is party.

The text, in which 1128 academics, including Esra Mungan, Ahmet İnsel, Koray Çalışkan, Nazan Üstündağ, Gençay Gürsoy and Murat Paker, call for a ‘solution’ without delay has been drawn up bilingually in Turkish and Kurdish.

The announcement also bears the signatures of such foreign academics as Noam Chomsky, David Harwey, Etienne Balibar, Judith Butler and Immanuel Wallertein.

The full text is as follows:

We, this country’s academics and researchers, will not be party to this crime!

The Republic of Turkey has been condemning its citizens in Sur, Silvan, Nusaybin, Cizre, Silopi and many more places to actual hunger and thirst under curfews that have been in place for weeks, and, by attacking residential areas with heavy weapons whose use is only justifiable in a war, is breaching virtually all of the rights and freedoms protected under the Constitution and international treaties to which it is party, not least the right to life, the right to freedom and security and the ban on torture and ill-treatment.

This intentional and planned slaughter also constitutes a serious breach of both Turkey’s own law and the international treaties to which Turkey is signatory, international legal conventions and the imperative provisions of international law.

We call on the state to immediately desist from the slaughter it is committing against all of the peoples of the region, principally the Kurdish people, and the conscious migration policy that it is implementing, to lift the curfews, to identify and punish those responsible for the human rights violations that have taken place, to identify the material and non-material losses suffered by citizens living in places where curfews have been applied and make compensation, and, to this end, to permit national and international independent observers to enter destruction zones and make observations and reports.

We call on terms for negotiation to be drawn up and for a path to be charted towards permanent peace, and for the government to create a road map incorporating the demands of Kurdish political aspirations. We call on independent observers from all walks of society to be present at negotiation talks and state that we wish to be included among these observers on a voluntary basis. We oppose all of the regime’s measures aimed at stifling opposition.

We call on the state to cease as of now the violence that it is applying against its citizens, state that we, this country’s academics and researchers, will not remain silent and be partners in crime, and pledge that will continue ceaselessly to interact with political parties, parliament and international public opinion until this demand of ours is met.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turk ... cagiz.html

[Sotos]

Erdogan doesn't give a fuck about the academics and researchers. I remember when some years ago some people were celebrating that Erdogan would demolish the "deep state" in Turkey and then everything would be better. It turns out he is just as bad as the army generals.

[Tim Drayton]

My translation of another article in today's Cumhuriyet about the reaction in certain quarters to the above announcement.

[It will help to understand if you realise that Sedat Peker is a mafioso leader some of whose relatives stood in recent elections on the party ticket of the AKP, the former party of Turkish President Erdoğan who is constitutionally forbidden from supporting any political party but in fact continues to support the AKP as his vehicle for consolidating his dictatorship. Some insight into Erdoğan’s political leanings were revealed in a recent public pronouncement in which he openly stated that Hitler’s system of government might provide a useful model for the country to follow.]

Sedat Peker, who has been convicted of being the leader of an organized crime organization, has posted a text on his own person site with a link from his Twitter account containing threats against the academics whom Erdoğan has targeted.

Sedat Peker, who had said at the ‘Damnation to Terror’ meeting organised by the Fırtına Gazetesi newspaper published locally in Rize and held in the Republic Square: ‘rivers of blood will flow,’ has now threatened the intellectuals who have called for peace, whom Erdoğan has targeted.

What did Erdoğan say?

Erdoğan said, ‘These apologies for academics have got up and spoken of the state committing slaughter. You supposed enlightened ones, you are darkness, darkness. You are nothing like enlightened. You are in such darkness and ignorance that you are incapable even of finding your way out there. But we know our way round there as if it were the way to our own home.’

And now the threat posted at Sedat Peker’s site...

My valued friends,

I imagine your nerves are on edge, too. I have really struggled to understand the announcement that is tantamount to giving open support to the PKK signed by 1100 so-called intellectuals (but, unfortunately I have somehow been unable to understand).

Never mind a negative comment, they did not pen a single sentence in criticism of the PKK members who dig up roads and plant bombs in these trenches, have MARTYRED in an inhuman way innocent people whose only thought is to distribute sacrificial meat and have MARTYRED husbands in the presence of their pregnant wives and children in the presence of their fathers.

I wish above all to say the following to these so-called intellectuals and academics: Pray as you go to bed and get up for this STATE’s POLICEMEN and SOLDIERS. Woe betide you if, thanks to the arms in the hands of the terrorists you are in love with, the MUSLIM TURKS’ HOLY STATE is successfully made inoperative as a result of the perceptions you are creating all over the world (please believe these things I am saying because, trust me, the bells will then ring for you)!!!
If the STATE is one day unable to operate, that is, if terrorism and enemy countries achieve their aim, the children of this COUNTRY, that is the butcher Ahmets, the night watchmen Kemals and the computer engineer Yavuzes, in other words, all of the COUNTRY’S CHILDREN, will not start by searching for terrorists in the mountains.

They will place before themselves the announcement you signed and, saying that in reality you are the ones who are dangerous, will come to your luxurious haunts and workplaces (but, relax, they will not kill you in the presence of your children and spouses). They will take even their revenge in a manner that befits MUSLIM TURKS but will not forget to take a shower in your blood.

If you ask for my opinion, for the sake of your own lives, do not set about scuttling this STATE. The sole reason that you are able to stay alive even now is the existence of the STATE and its remaining on its feet. You need to grasp this well and good: If, as I have said in the lines above, the terrorists, you their supporters and foreign countries’ intelligence agencies, in short all of you, achieve your goal and you bring the STATE to a standstill, you will never see mercy from this COUNTRY’s CHILDREN.

I repeat: WE WILL SHED RIVERS OF BLOOD AND WE WILL SHOWER IN THE RIVERS OF YOUR BLOOD!!!

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turk ... cagiz.html

[DrCyprus]

[B25]

All of these criminal actions by Turkey is done with the blessing of the USA and the EU. Simple.

And really who gives a F what happens there, may they all kill each other and eventually get out of Cyprus.

[Tim Drayton]

Spokesman for the opposition CHP party, Haluk Koç, has said with reference to mafioso Sedat Peker’s remarks I have translated above, ‘Article 106 of the Turkish Penal Code is clear. The Republic prosecutors must take action against this third-class mafia chief.`

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/siya ... ecsin.html

[B25]

Spokesman for the opposition CHP party, Haluk Koç, has said with reference to mafioso Sedat Peker’s remarks I have translated above, ‘Article 106 of the Turkish Penal Code is clear. The Republic prosecutors must take action against this third-class mafia chief.`

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/siya ... ecsin.html

Err! I won't be holding my breath, lest the prosecutor gets topped as well.

Where's Paphitis when you need him to explain why his wonderful west is keeping schtum, whilst all these crimes take place, and they want to put this terrorist state in the EU FFS. Well, if they ever did, then Cyprus should leave, we don't need this trash here.

[Tim Drayton]

No news yet as to whether Erdoğan’s mafioso buddy will face prosecution, but ...

One of the signatories to the ‘Academics for Peace’ announcement, Prof. Dr. Bülent Tanju, has been asked to resign by his university, Abdullah Gül Üniversitesi, and, in response to a request by the Public Prosecution in Kayseri, the police in that city have started an investigation into him under articles 216 and 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for ‘inciting the public towards hatred and enmity and publicly denigrating state institutions’.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turk ... _acti.html

[Tim Drayton]

Meanwhile, in another initiative, after teacher Ayşe Çelik who is now being prosecuted after she phoned in to a live TV chat show from Diyarbakır and said, ‘Children are dying – don’t remain silent’ (a human rights organisation has put the number of civilians killed during the recent curfews in the south-east of the country at 170) twenty-six people have turned themselves in at the public prosecutor’s office (pictured below) saying, ‘We are all Ayşe teacher.’



http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turk ... tiler.html

[Kikapu]

Turkey slowly but surely is heading towards another civil war, and I don't mean with just the Kurds, but Turks against Turks also!