Cyprus-Forum.com

[DrCyprus]

Indeed religion is bad, but you should know that Christianity is NOT a religion.

τζιο παπάς έννεν παπάς, εν παπαθκιά με αρτζίθκια.

[Tim Drayton]

A judge has written to the imprisoned journalist Can Dündar. There follows my translation of the letter. The original can be found at:

http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/hakim ... 97367.html

"Mr Can Dündar
Silivri Closed Prison A-1/5
Silivri/İstanbul
7 December 2015, Karşıyaka

There is undoubtedly a great deal that can be written. But this must be put in the correct words. To cap it all, this is while enduring days in which we have the greatest difficulty finding the right words to express our ideas, thoughts and defiance.

I know that as a jurist I should enter the debate from the legal standpoint. This is what is expected of me. It would be fitting for me to examine the components of the alleged offences and whether there are grounds for detention. But I cannot bring myself to do it. One part of my mind keeps on remembering that what is happening has nothing to do with the law and that, in many events and lawsuits that have been experienced in the past ten years, it is not the law that holds sway but lawlessness, revenge and the law being turned into an instrument. In a place where this goes on, how relevant can it be to deliberate on the workings and norms of the law?

After some tiny things had come to pass, I experienced my first great trauma when İlhan Cihaner was taken from his room with his arm twisted behind his back. I said, “Do they dare to go so far? Can they disregard the law to this extent?” They are indeed capable of so daring and disregarding.

When Mustafa Balbay, Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık were detained, it somehow proved impossible to explain to those who, in response to cries that, “They are journalists,” replied “Everyone is equal before the law – wait for the trial” that what was happening was not the law. However, more or less the same people took great pleasure in explaining, following the breakup of the “coalition” out of which these decisions derived*, that what had happened was not the law and that those who passed these remand orders could not be considered to be judges, in denial of their own responsibility and that of the force they drew their legitimacy from.

I am now very curious: Will those who react similarly to your and Erdem Gül’s detention, those who say, “They are not journalists but terrorists” or “The independent judiciary is doing its duty – wait for the result,” say such things in the future? Do they not see that the reasons in Balbay, Şener and Şık's remand orders (in fact non-reasons) are the same as those in your orders right down to the syntactic and spelling mistakes? If what remanded Balbay, Şener and Şık was not the law, how can that which places you in remand be the law?

I am pained when it is said that these things we witness are being done in the name of the law, justice and due process, thinking, “If these things are the law and justice then what am I doing? Is this the law that I believe in, that I am part of, that I struggle to keep alive every day?” I lose my sense of attachment to the profession of which I am part, to jurisprudence in which I have been trained and which I have applied for nearly thirty years.

I do not know. If you were me, would you be able to find more appropriate words if the profession and ideals to which you have devoted your life and to which you were attached with love, passion and devotion had been brought into this state? I think you would, but I cannot find them.

You have expressed the heart of the matter in your own article. Let me also say it one time:

You are not alone. Or, what is of value is this loneliness of yours.

Regards
Murat Aydın
Judge, Karşıyaka/İzmir Judicial Complex"
* He is referring to the split the occurred between the ruling AKP and the Gulenists.

[Tim Drayton]

...
I also have my doubts about the repeat elections held because RTE couldn't get the result he wanted in June - apart from the fact that they were blatantly gerrymandered through means ranging from the state TRT television not giving any coverage whatsoever to opposition parties even though it has a statutory mandate to be impartial to the HDP party having more than one hundred of its election offices burnt down and its election manifestos confiscated to EU election observers being beaten up and expelled from polling stations by AKP thugs (to say nothing of the six HDP election workers who were hospitalised at polling stations by thugs from that party) - because the result, which was declared in an amazingly short space of time and deviated markedly from what all the polls predicted, appears to many people to have been doctored. If so, the argument that this is what the Turkish people voted for does not hold water.
...

The HDP have applied to the Constitutional Court for the cancellation of these sham elections:

http://www.radikal.com.tr/politika/hdp- ... u-1489977/

I am glad to hear this. The opposition should not just lie down and accept the result. I don't hold any hopes with regard to the Turkish judicial system, now under the AKP's political control, but this is the highest possible domestic remedy after which the case can go to the European Court of Human Rights.

[kurupetos]

Indeed religion is bad, but you should know that Christianity is NOT a religion.

τζιο παπάς έννεν παπάς, εν παπαθκιά με αρτζίθκια.

You can joke about it, because you are in a very primitive state that does not allow you to understand it.

As long as you keep breathing, there's hope, doc... but keep in mind that you are running out of time...

[repulsewarrior]

Turkish Today's Zaman newspaper (01.02.16) reports that political commentators have warned that a recent circular by the National Police Department, which has alarmed the police departments of all 81 provinces across Turkey and regards "insult crimes" against senior state officials, particularly President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aims to quell all criticism of the President and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government officials.
According to a report published in the Cumhuriyet daily on Saturday, the National Police Department sent the circular on Jan. 6, in which it warned the Turkey's police departments to take immediate legal action against individuals who engage in "any insult crime" against Erdogan and other senior state officials."

The circular in question includes three orders: "When senior state officials are insulted, suspects will be detained immediately and the necessary legal proceedings will be launched against them;" "Counterterrorism and intelligence units [of police departments] will be informed to conduct detailed examinations of the suspects;" and "Those investigated suspects will be held in custody at events attended by senior state officials."

The circular also reminds the police departments that an individual who insults senior state officials will face four years in prison and this sentence might increase by one sixth under the Turkish Penal Code's (TCK) Article 299, which is frequently being used as the basis for cases involving charges of insulting Erdogan.

...not exactly on topic, but food for thought.

[Tim Drayton]

Turkish Today's Zaman newspaper (01.02.16) reports that political commentators have warned that a recent circular by the National Police Department, which has alarmed the police departments of all 81 provinces across Turkey and regards "insult crimes" against senior state officials, particularly President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aims to quell all criticism of the President and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government officials.
According to a report published in the Cumhuriyet daily on Saturday, the National Police Department sent the circular on Jan. 6, in which it warned the Turkey's police departments to take immediate legal action against individuals who engage in "any insult crime" against Erdogan and other senior state officials."

The circular in question includes three orders: "When senior state officials are insulted, suspects will be detained immediately and the necessary legal proceedings will be launched against them;" "Counterterrorism and intelligence units [of police departments] will be informed to conduct detailed examinations of the suspects;" and "Those investigated suspects will be held in custody at events attended by senior state officials."

The circular also reminds the police departments that an individual who insults senior state officials will face four years in prison and this sentence might increase by one sixth under the Turkish Penal Code's (TCK) Article 299, which is frequently being used as the basis for cases involving charges of insulting Erdogan.

...not exactly on topic, but food for thought.

Turkey teeters ever closer to totalitarianism, I'm afraid. The same Western powers that insist the dictatorial Assad dynasty must go in Syria are quite happy to see one born in Turkey. It's all about interests, not principles, obviously.

[repulsewarrior]

http://newirin.irinnews.org/turkeys-hid ... an-crisis/

...also an article worth reading, perhaps there is nothing new in the reporting, but it is compelling, the photos tell several personal stories too. 200,000 displaced in less than two months.

[repulsewarrior]

http://dailynous.com/2016/02/16/canadia ... on-turkey/

...a Canadian reply, you might like Tim.

[Tim Drayton]

Can Dündar and Erdem Gül were released at 3.15 this morning. The two journalists applied to the Constitutional Court arguing that their detention was unlawful and the case against them was a breach of press freedom, and the court yesterday ruled in the two journalists’ favour. However, there was doubt as to whether Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 14, which was conducting the trial against the two on ludicrously trumped up charges of espionage for simply reporting an event that nobody disputes took place (lorries carrying arms to jihadists in Syria being intercepted by the police), would recognise the ruling by the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country. Thankfully, it has released the two from pre-trial detention, showing that some semblance of the rule of law still remains in a Turkey in which Erdoğan is attempting to silence all voices of dissent and establish a Putin-style dictatorship under the veneer of constitutionality. However, the trial against the journalists continues and they are subject to a ban on travelling abroad.



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

[Tim Drayton]

It seems that the Constitutional Court in its ruling addressed the merits of the show trial being staged against Dündar and Erdem, and concluded that their acts did not constitute espionage but journalism activity and there lacked any strong suspicion as to guilt. With the highest court in the country having reached this conclusion, legal experts are concluding that the case against them is now a dead duck.