Erdoğan’s censorship now targeting media outlets in Europe
turkishminute.com
turkishminute.com
First of all, democracy is not happening, at all. If you have any opposite thoughts, yes thoughts, not actions, you can face real jail time. This can be a comment on Twitter, or even something you say in your neighbourhood, around friends, anything and anywhere. No cartoons, no essays, no personal blogs. You can have an pollice officer in your door knocking.
We have a big website called "eksisozluk" which motto was "sacred source of knowledge", and now is filled with entries, posts regulated and restricted with court orders, deleted accounts, and also imprisoned users.
Turkey blocked Youtube, Wikipedia and such websites for a very long time. Paypal is still not operating. Even they seem not related, everything is related. Journalists are in prison, some of them are in exile, or some even dead.
Sorry for not revealing news or links, because of time, but Google can do that for me in an instance. So go ahead and search.
They are doing everything in their power to succeed. And I believe this will go on for a long time.
Not sure it'll be accessible.
He controls all the mainstream media, and preachers in the mosques. What remains as a free ground to spread the criticic voice is internet, which has been partially censored up to now and is going to be heavily suppressed as of 2021. And social media will no longer be a safe place for criticizing Erdogan, unless utilizing secure VPN's.
When you indoctrinate uneducated people with religion and politics, you can control them anyway you want. Think about republican voters and how fanatic they have become under Trump's rule in mere four years. Turkey has been ruled by erdogan for the last 18 years, imagine how brainwashed their voter base is and how powerful erdogan has become.
Even if erdogan loses in the elections, which court/state authority can punish him in the event that he refuses to leave the presidency? None.
Fanatics? Is that how you refer to different political views? If so, we are all fanatics.
It means 'If you want peace, prepare for war.'
What common heritage are you speaking of?
Edit: Who knew such benign question would trigger so many. I guess foreigners have a different understanding of what heritage means. Heritage doesn't mean being conquered and/or exchanging words, food, building, etc. Heritage implies "descent". Just because you eat sushi doesn't mean you and a japanese person have a common heritage. Just because native american buildings like the hogan are in the US doesn't mean we share the same common heritage as native americans.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/native-american-houses-fact...
We specifically say they are native american homes, not "american" homes because even though the natives were conquered, their heritage is different from ours.
Over a million "Greeks" were deported to Greece in the 1920s, despite many speaking only Turkish and many "Turks" were sent back the other way. Not to mention that most of those inhabiting Turkey today - and identifying as Turks - have an awful lot of non-Turkish ancestry. It's not only Greek of course (plenty of Armenian, Kurdish, Arab, Albanian, Circassian, Bulgarian, etc), but Greeks and Greek culture has had a massive imprint on modern Turkey - and Turks have also had an impact on modern Greek culture.
Of course neither side is particularly happy to admit it, but it's very much there.
I don't know, there seems to be quite some common ground when it comes to food and drink, for example. That's part (and the result) of some shared culture, I'd say. Isn't it nice to realize that your neighbors might be people just like you are, who like to take their coffee in quite a similar way?
And? That doesn't imply common heritage.
> Do you think they haven't influenced each other?
That doesn't imply common heritage.
Also if you talking about the ottoman empire. isn't the greek position that the ottoman empire was bad for them and hence why they sought independence?
Or are you saying that greece should rejoin the ottoman empire and embrace the "common heritage"?
spot the american.
So you think australia and indonesia have a common heritage because they are neighbors, but the US and australia don't because we live an ocean away?
It's so funny, I was genuinely interested in this topic as my understanding of greece and turkey was one of conqueror and conquered, not "common heritage". I thought maybe there was history/ties/etc I was missing, but apparently it's just some politically driven people spewing nonsense.
Perhaps foreigners just don't know what "common heritage" means.
Spot the foreigner.
Edit: As I noted in my other comment, to say greeks and turks share the same heritage is like saying americans and native americans share the same heritage. American heritage stems from britain, but no sane person would claim that native american heritage comes from britain. I don't think any sane person would associate the ottoman empire with greeks. They would associate it with the turks because it was a turkish empire. I bet most greeks see their heritage as ancient greece.
The rest they have been allies, mercenaries, enemies,trading partners, etc...
It's far more nuanced than a single relationship type.
Joining Ottoman empire is just a non sequitur.
Perhaps it's just the language difference. For example, nobody here would say the native americans and non-native americans have the same heritage. We've been living with natives for hundreds of years, but certainly american heritage stems from britain while native american heritage doesn't. You'd be mocked ( a la Elizabeth Warren ) or canceled if you claimed american native heritage when you are not native american.
Seems like a lot of people are upset for no reason. But when politics and identity are involved, that's just what happens.
Western Turkey was inhabited by large Greek populations and colonies for a very long time, which was one of the reasons behind the Persian War. During the Hellenistic era, the Seleucid Empire, a Hellenistic kingdom, ruled most of modern-day Turkey. And then from the Roman era to 1453, the area remained largely Greek-speaking, with Constantinople (aka Istanbul) the center of Greco-Roman civilization, with the citizens thereof actually called "Greeks" by many peoples.
Of course the Arabic and Turkic invasions introduced new peoples and changed things up quite a bit, but there's definitely common heritage between many people in Turkey and the Greeks, to the extent that many 'Turks' citizenship-wise are ethnic Greeks and other ethnic groups that spoke Greek and had a long participation in the Greek and Roman kingdoms.
I'm not expert on the definition of the word "heritage" but my own impression is these countries share more than just a land border and adjacency to the Aegean sea. The people look similar, dress similar, eat extremely similar food, have similar drinks (raki vs. ouzo), live in similar houses. For much of the time I was in that area of Turkey I remember thinking it felt more like Greece than Greece did!
This should be no surprise (although it was to me). They have been neighbours for millennia and their cultures have mixed and intertwined with each other longer than the USA has existed. Much of the land between them has switched hands back-and-forth between various empires dating back to Alexander the Great (and beyond).
Comparatively, the native peoples of the Americas were culturally isolated for that same length of time until ~500 years ago when Europeans with a completely distinct culture showed up in ships for the first sustained contacts. There is almost no reasonable comparison to be made between the two circumstances.
You might have noticed that Turks hardly look Central Asian.
Despite hating Erdogan to my guts, i can assure you that this gulenist movement/terror group is a bigger threat to secularism and democracy in turkey and world alike.
A similar thing happens with China through stuff like Epoch Times or Guo Wengui's channel. The outlets that position themselves as strong opposition to the regime are themselves untrustworthy sources, which ironically just serves to bolster the position of the regime. ("See? You can't trust anything! Even in so-called free countries all the news is fake!" etc)
Do you have any recommendations for media organizations that are doing reliable reporting on Turkey but aren't propaganda fronts for one faction or the other?
I've skimmed a couple of books written by Fetullah gulen and what he preaches peace, love and cooperation amongst all. Of course, every group has it's idiosyncrasies, but can't find anything out of the ordinary with the gulen movement.
Has it been established with proof that the gulen movement is responsible for the coup?
He's a lovely fellow indeed: https://twitter.com/kyleworton/status/1086084532393136128
These well educated brainwashed army of his followers, who are hidden their secret agenda under the "peace, love and cooperation" are greater threat to Turkey and all these corresponding countries than Erdogan might dare to pose, whose followers are just uneducated, nationalist inferiority complex driven, unintelligent turkish people.
Yes, it is certain that it was fethullah gulen movement behind the coup. However, erdogan took advantage of this to gain the absolute power of the country and to suppress all the opposing voices.
1. Turkey wants a fight. I keep up on reading the western commentary and analysis about the region (Not the mainstream crap), and it's apparent to me that deeply-entrenched forces in Turkey want a fight. Our strategy so far is to do the best we can to ignore/placate them. I'm not sure how long that continues to work.
2. From time-to-time, we talk on HN about the internet becoming more and more walled off, with commercial ventures preventing competition and nationalistic devices like the Great Firewall of China preventing movement of information. There's not going to be one dramatic moment when we wake up and the net is gone. It's probably mostly gone now, and every day a bit more slips away unnoticed. We talk about and react to stories like this, but there are plenty of similar actions that nobody responds to. It's like Google customer support: the only way to make anything at all happen is to make a big stink, and in the long-run even doing that doesn't matter much to the average net user.
I am deeply unhappy and concerned about Turkey's future. I wish there was something I could to to help, but any response at all from the west will be used as political fodder. They're not in a good spot right now.
> Turkey wants a fight.
You need to make clear references about what and who you refer to when you say "Turkey".
Even with a totally oppressed media and everything else, Erdogan's support in Turkey is in the band of 30-40%. Majority of Turkish citizens are not happy with him.
Western world keeps doing the some mistake (if not on purpose) as they do with Russia, skipping that difference when bringing up all the negativity about him. As Putin, this just helps him solidifying his base, by using this to create a common enemy outside of Turkey.
With that said, I don't believe even Erdogan himself wants to have any fight with anyone outside of Turkey but just trying to protect country's interest internationally. That's why although his support is in a band of 30-40%, a solid 85% of Turkish people are supporting his international policies.
I have no politics in this matter, as I have no list of desired winners or losers and no desired end-state (aside from just being generally unhappy with the way things are in Turkey currently). I don't know how I could be less political.
It's a very complex situation, as you've pointed out. My only intent was to provide a shorthand evaluation of the area for others to dive down on if they desired. There is no one "Turkey", which is why I used the broad term. Of course it's much more nuanced. Thanks for the help.
Why? Surely politics falls under the 'anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.' rule.
If we don’t complain now, it may be too late later on.
That being said, there's many who talk about "big tech" censorship but ignore some of the other problems of modern big media. So it's not always people who are pro-freedoms bringing this up.
Is this "targeting media outlets"?
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.presstv.com/Detail/...
Google is allowed to look at Iranian [headlines] and they have this teaser:
"US's Treasury Dept. blocks, seizes website of 'Iran ... - PressTV"
"Apr 25, 2020 · Tried before 204.155.146.233 and other addresses that point to PressTV but in the look up translate pointer table it blocks the ip address that ..."
Oh, I love the smell of irony, even in the afternoon..
So much individual human mucking about with what could be basic universal principles. On one end, people who say that "this version of this written word is God's literal truth" when their version has a known history of edits, blatant rewrites, and translation errors. On the other end, recently started religions (Jainism is the first but not by far the only) that are at least as valid in their core principles but have their own dogma and assumptions.
Throw in Quakers etc who believe in a direct personal relationship with their God, and I can't see any consistency except "believe in us, and convince your friends! Their soul is in peril if they aren't with us!"
Without it there are more refugees in Germany (and other "core" EU countries), and the tense political atmosphere tips over.
Edit: I know you’re downvoting based on political stance. Would be great if we can engage in a discussion. Could you share your thoughts please?
They don't want to, and disregard the human rights of large numbers of people already in the country.
> Ethiopia
Can't afford to.
There is no solution without ending the war, and there's no solution to that without addressing the forces keeping it going. It's like many of the Cold War conflicts, a proxy for wars not being fought with Russia.
Any idea why?
Per Wikipedia:
> "Switzerland was easy to reach for refugees from the Nazis. Switzerland's refugee laws, especially with respect to Jews fleeing Germany, were strict and have caused controversy since the end of World War II. From 1933 until 1944 asylum for refugees could only be granted to those who were under personal threat owing to their political activities only; it did not include those who were under threat due to race, religion or ethnicity.[33] On the basis of this definition, Switzerland granted asylum to only 644 people between 1933 and 1945; of these, 252 cases were admitted during the war.[33] All other refugees were admitted by the individual cantons and were granted different permits, including a "tolerance permit" that allowed them to live in the canton but not to work. Over the course of the war, Switzerland interned 300,000 refugees.[34] Of these, 104,000 were foreign troops interned according to the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers outlined in the Hague Conventions. The rest were foreign civilians and were either interned or granted tolerance or residence permits by the cantonal authorities. Refugees were not allowed to hold jobs. Of the refugees, 60,000 were civilians escaping persecution by the Nazis. Of these 60,000, 27,000 were Jews.[33] Between 10,000 and 24,000 Jewish civilian refugees were refused entry"
Europe's relatively humanitarian laws about refugees are based in the knowledge of how many countries barred entry to Jews who were subsequently exterminated in the gas chambers.
It's also non-free countries. The Saudi royal family will go so far as to murder journalists in other countries to preserve their power. Letting a couple of million syrians die is nothing to them, and they're happily smashing up Yemen at the moment.
Fuck Saudi Arabia.
I see, thanks. Is there any sanctions, diplomatic pressure that can be applied?
I am just trying to put myself into the shoes of the average German who doesn't give a shit about geopolitical state of the world - they see a bunch of refugees with zero skills, language barrier and strong embedded religious fundamentalist views taking over. How is this difficult to see?
This feels unfair to Germans and Europeans in general because of some conflict thousands of miles afar. I can understand small numbers of refugees being taken in, I support rebuilding and financing such tasks in their home countries, but jeez...
If you were to talk to the refugees themselves, you'd probably find that they thought losing everything they couldn't carry and being stuck in a country where they can't speak the language, have no status, no recognition of qualifications, no right to work, and yet no safe way to return either isn't particularly fair.
> taking over
Could you elaborate on to what extent they are taking over? What political and military offices they hold, what property they own etc?
> taking over
Culture. Dilution of values. Fundamentalism which is so entrenched the religion (I suspect, high 90s % of strongly religious demographics, primarily Islam).
Long term, I see even worse divergence of national unity - these people are now speaking the language, but their own German dialect, their kids are raising with local kids, etc. I personally do not see Germans share most of middle-eastern/islamic values. You cannot forcefully assimilate 2 different polarizing cultures, it is a time bomb of cultural divide. No matter how humanitarian your views are, there is no going away from this fact.
I think the best solution is to provide aid - military, financial, food/medicine to these impoverished countries instead of taking refugees.
Edit: I can't respond to your comment below, but I basically have fundamental disagreement about aligning Holocaust with Syrian refugee crisis. You're trying to shoehorn a narrative from the perspective of the lawmakers, I am asking simple questions about assimilation and integration. We're talking past each other? Anyways, I learned a few things from your opinions about the history of these archaic refugee laws. IMO they should be with the neighbors, not transcontinental. Thanks for the discussion.
Bluntly, Europe's laws on refugees date from the time when millions had to flee Germany, and the "military aid" was incinerating Dresden. The options are integration or extermination, and sending people back to Syria where they will quite likely be killed counts in the extermination column. Germany has decided to try the not getting millions killed option for a bit.
It is part of Turkey's strategy fill Europe with Muslims and them wanting to reinstate the Caliphate.
In practice we don't need a deal, we need to secure the EU border as we should be.
- He does Germany's bidding by countering French interventionism in Libya / eastmed without Germany having to take blame for it
That's another recent event that went totally uncovered by USA news media firms. They thought some confused Americans might object to military aid that encourages Muslims to attack Christians.
Baku is far from a strategic rival to the United States. It’s not an ally either, more non-aligned. Transcaucasian geopolitics—-in reality, most geopolitics—-are not a daily priority for most Americans in a badly-managed pandemic.
Foreign wars playing on USA TV is a double-edged sword. Yes, we should be more aware of how our actions harm those in other nations. But, no, it isn't a good thing for the news firms to make us more worried about remote events, since that fear is itself the most common pretext to additional disastrous violence.
https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/eu-affairs/german-fm-maa...
> At a summit on Friday, EU leaders agreed to prepare limited sanctions on Turkish individuals over a row with Greece and Cyprus about offshore energy exploration, but postponed discussions on any harsher steps until March.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/260286/article/ekathimerini/new...
The European Union looks more and more like a banking cartel than a federation of nation states. Germany and Spain, that vehemently opposed sanctions in the last eurogroup, are doing good business selling weapons to Turkey. Weapons, that are then used by Turkey to openly threaten Greece and Cyprus. There was a slight concession in 2019, with a temporary stop on new contracts being awarded, but that obviously did not affect existing ones.
I recommend the 1980's "Deal of the Century" with Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. It's a black comedy about the insanity of countries selling weapons to their own enemies.
Germany is the inspiration of censorship around the world.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/06/germany-online-crackdow...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170720/01434337827/russi...
EU accession is not going to happen until Turkey is more like a normal European country.
And one would wonder if member states like Poland and Hungary would meet such criteria right now.
Children of Turkish Cypriot and Turkish marriages are not granted passports.
The relative isolationism of T/C as well as the high (recessive) Thalassemia, means T/C marry outside their villages quote often.
T/C are therefore dwindling every generation due to one T parent voiding their passport rights, or inbreeding reducing their lifespans.
I witnessed multiple shutdowns of accounts, criticizing Russian regime. No explanation was provided, like Google always does. Selling ads is more important, than life and freedom of people.
It seems, Turkey is not the only place where it's tough to get copyright claims sorted out in court, but the claim is that the (assumed) legal means are leveraged for going after political opponents.
The EU will have to understand that freedom of speech and the legal framework of copyright claims can be at odds and can be abused in this way. This isn't going to be easy, but leaving it to private companies to come up with something will likely not produce the desired outcome as they will all eventually go the path of least resistance and profitability (it's in general not a private company's job to defend values and reform the legal situation).