Turkey charges pianist Fazil Say over Twitter posts | Hacker News Reader

Turkey charges pianist Fazil Say over Twitter posts

nytimes.com

63 pointsozgune45 comments

It can happen here.

I made a joke over Twitter and the cops seized a $15k firearm collection and I racked up $15k in legal bills.

No warrants, no charges, no actual investigation. Lots of tricks, lies to my lawyer, backtracking, etc.

I'd love to have my day in court because the joke was taken out of context from a long discussion of Just War Theory (which was being read and enjoyed by dozens of people, including some First Ammendment lawyers), but even in the US the authorities have the ability to leave you hanging in limbo for years.

Footnote:

http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-am-tjic.html

If you threaten a US senator, and you have stockpiled this many weapons, I think you really should have seen this one coming.

> If you threaten a US senator

Absolutely agreed.

If some nut case puts up a website with the home address of someone, rants about a bounty on their head, etc., by all means, have an investigation and perhaps charges.

...but there's a difference between saying "This SOPA bill is insane. Rope. Lampposts." and driving to a person's house with a noose in the back seat.

... and there you go doing it again.

There's not much room to joke about assassination and lynchings in a country that has a very recent history of assassinations and lynchings.

It's in bad taste, it can incite violence, and given your statements here, as well as those you've made elsewhere, I'm unsurprised that the law came down on you.

> ... and there you go doing it again.

No, there YOU go doing it again. That comment was in a long thread of context, and you willfully ignored that. The comment was also non-actionable and was clearly political hyperbole.

> There's not much room to joke about assassination and lynchings in a country that has a very recent history of assassinations and lynchings.

Sure there is.

It's little thing called "the first amendment". Perhaps you've heard of it? Read it closely. It makes no reference to "...unless there were lynchings in the last century".

> No, there YOU go doing it again. That comment was in a long thread of context, and you willfully ignored that. The comment was also non-actionable and was clearly political hyperbole.

Not really, no. SOPA actually exists, and you joked about hanging its supporters. The only context that would have made it remotely appropriate is neutral one, in which it was clear to any observers that encouraging the hanging of SOPA supporters (even 'jokingly') was not your position.

> It's little thing called "the first amendment". Perhaps you've heard of it? Read it closely. It makes no reference to "...unless there were lynchings in the last century".

Then let me rephrase: There's no room to joke about lynching elected representatives (or anyone) in civilized mature discourse.

There is also a long history of case law that restricts "fighting words", despite the first amendment.

My only take-away from your repeated reference to assassination/lynching is that you're someone who is likely to incite if not participate in violence, and beyond that, you personally decrease the overall quality of rational discourse in US politics.

You may not be enough of a nutcase to try to assassinate a politician -- I'm honestly not sure, given your remarks here, and your ownership of the tools to do so -- but your seeming need to joke about assassination contributes to a culture of political violence that may very well incite someone to do what you won't.

He did not threaten any senator. He made a joke and argues it fits in the context of a discussion running at the time. The joke was, with respect to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords:

  1 down, 534 to go. It is absolutely, absolutely  
  unacceptable to shoot 'indiscriminately'. Target only 
  politicians and their staff, and leave regular citizens 
  alone.

Now you can argue this is in bad taste or, if you feel it was meant seriously, you can argue it is a reprehensible opinion, but there is no reason to arrest someone over this. If we start doing that, we can rest half the worlds population. I've made worse jokes in my life, where it was firmly obvious from the context, tone and body language that I could not possible be serious. Making jokes is a way of dealing with incomprehensible tragedies. Pure text is an unfortunate medium for such jokes, because it lacks tone and body language. People that know you may interpret it correctly; others may interpret it otherwise. Especially if taken from its narrative context.

I would not like to be arrested over some joke overheard by a passing policeman who didn't understand the context and neither do I even remotely understand or accept this guy being arrested.

That lacks one of the key elements of a joke: humor. I'd need to see the rest of the conversation to understand if somehow the context makes it funny, but out of context it looks quite serious.

Being funny is a poor quality to require of something in order to consider it a joke. Firstly, because it is subjective, secondly because unfunny jokes are still considered jokes (why did the chicken cross the road...)

I thought it was funny.

The following sequence is generally considered to be humorous and is used by comedians often and to great effect:

* something generally considered 'bad' happens or is relayed

* the comedian remarks that that thing should not have happened

* then unexpectedly follows up with something that would actually make it worse, placing the previous remark in a new light

* all this while it is obvious, from his tone and body language, that he actually truly strongly disapproves of the original 'bad' thing

The sequence usually contains toying with expectations, seemingly contradicting yourself, obvious sarcasm and generally putting the audience on the wrong foot by making ludicrous statements you couldn't possibly be serious about.

It reminds me of the Fabrice Muamba case [1]:

A student has been jailed for 56 days for posting offensive comments on Twitter about the on-pitch collapse of Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba.

District judge John Charles told Stacey: "It was racist abuse via a social networking site instigated as a result of a vile and abhorrent comment about a young footballer who was fighting for his life. At that moment, not just the footballer's family, not just the footballing world but the whole world were literally praying for his life. Your comments aggravated this situation.

How can a tweet aggravate someone's medical condition beats me.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17515992

Scary, because Turkey aims to join the EU. I hope they won't be accepted as long as such things are going on.

Sadly I think some countries that are dominated by radical Christians have already joined :-(

I think the pro-Islamic government has clearly shifted policies after 2005 accession talks. Nevertheless Islamic fundamentalism is nothing new in Turkey [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivas_massacre

Turkey is in a transition process which will turn it into an islamic piece of shit country like Iran. Secular holly crap :) From the perspective of current prime minister of Turkey Atheist = Thinner-addict

I know Islam is the cry-baby of organized religions, but the Turkish state (specially the secular military junta tha runs the show) uses these sort of thought crimes to both silence opposition, and also to pander to the right-wing factions.

This has nothing to do with the secular military. In fact, the current pro-Islamic administration has imprisoned more than 10% of the generals in the military (trial ongoing for four years); and recently started "cracking down" on liberal journalists, NGOs, artists, professors, and so forth. This trial seems to be a continuum of those crack downs.

This. The ongoing "Ergenekon" case is the poster child of jail without prosecution.

We think you're guilty, so we'll toss you in jail. But we can't come up with your charge right now because we're in the process of writing it. But you're a flight risk so it's okay.

I'm fine with people being punished for crimes but a lot of people were kept in for years before they were even charged. Some of them barely maintained their health and sanity. This is the sort of fascist-style suppression AK and Erdogan regularly engage in to make an example of people.

This is not very comprehensive but okay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_(organization)#Debat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspects_in_the_Ergene...

Meanwhile, I get extremely angry when Erdogan and his gang enjoy hero status in the Western press because they have taken steps to allow headscarves in government institutions. They did this not because of human rights, they did it to appeal to their heavily anti-secular constituency. Never mind the Ergenekon case and other horrors that AK is part of!

For a long time, he's vocally sought to increase tax on or ban alcohol, he's also suggested that everyone have multiple children, and recently his administration has spoken out against abortions, saying that he shall ban them. Whether this will happen is doubtful but I hope it sheds some light into what sort of people we're dealing with.

First, I don't see Erdogan et al. being styled as heros in the Western media (except for the self-hating, more left-leaning ones). We know very clear that their politics isn't about human rights but re-islamization.

Second, they run a pretty Nazi-like agenda: pure Turkish blood ideology (when it comes to marriages), supporting demographic pressure, strict top-down government, militarization, ideological intolerance, brutal assimilation of Kurds and other minorities, one can even count their recent anti-Israel doctrine and their attempts to establish themselves as the protector of Muslim interests and their volkisch politics to protect the Turkish immigrants in Western Europe (where they clearly influence politicians of Turkish origin and use their network of mosques and religious institutions to steer "their" population). It's a neo-Osmanic power game similar to what the Nazis did in the 1930s.

To expand on that, the new (now 10 years long) party in control of Turkey's government has been fining and jailing media companies, journalists, and prominent businessmen who don't toe the party line. A common technique is to charge "unpaid taxes" that exceed the value of the person or company's assets.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/09/16/turkey.press....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41935210/ns/world_news-europe/t/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/business/turkey-seizes-219...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/26/idUSL2690587920070...

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&...

http://www.economist.com/node/17155758

They have popular support for this. They have been re-elected twice, gaining millions of votes each time.

The crackdown on dissent in the military is important because under the 20th-century regime, the military had the duty of maintaining the secular character of the state and would regularly overthrow governments that seemed to become Islamic. The charge that people in the military are planning to overthrow the government is immediately believable, but so many people have been arrested and the evidence against them is so thin that it appears like a partisan purge. Here is some commentary:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/burhan-gurdogan/turkey’s-ergene...

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2011/12/güleni...

Soner Cagaptay has been the most prolific writer on the subject:

https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=soner+cagaptay+ergenekon

Turkey has recently begun also arresting officers involved in the 1997 coup against the same Islamic party. They waited ten years to collect the power to do this.

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/world-article.php?yyyy=2012&...

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-279788-saner-the-impaler-amo...

Turkey's military has since surrendered its command.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/8671...

Meanwhile in Parliament, a member of the ruling party can assault an opposition member and the legislature will vote to approve of the attack.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-parliament-sees-fre...

Turkey is currently the base of operations for the rebel forces of Syria who are largely Islamic fascists. I do not believe this to be a coincidence.

http://content.usatoday.com/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?...

http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/11762/wjc_analysi...

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/10/22/scoop-obama-adminis...

http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/2012/03/christians-expelle...

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/06/save-syria-demand-...

Actually Christianity is the crybaby of religions.

Islam prefers violence (to the extend a religion can prefer anything).

Thanks for the downvotes, but why?

The first statement is backed up by the war on christmas hysteria every yeah as well as christianity is oppressed meme. Both of which are crybaby bullshit.

As for Islams tendency to commit violence, numerous examples can be named, such as the USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Africa and the murders of Theo Van Gogh.

Because its more geopolitics than religion. Christians have been ultraviolent in certain times and places, as have Muslims. Separating politics and religion is like getting the chocolate back out of the milk.

Bring back the Spanish inquisition, eh?

These modern prejudicial stereotypes you're subscribing to come from demographics, geopolitics and relative power differentials, IMO.

What did Theo van Gogh's assassination have to do with demographics, geopolitics, or relative power differences? The simple fact of the matter is that he was killed for insulting (or more accurately, criticising) a religion.

Are some issues, such as the issues surrounding Israel, a lot more complicated than religious differences? Absolutely. Are all of them? Absolutely not.

Are you suggesting that there are no political issues with Muslim integration in the Netherlands? That there are no power differences between that subculture and the majority culture? No tensions?

Facts are simple for people who choose their frames of reference. Reality, nothing is simple. When I read about the past of Mohammed Bouyeri, I see a displaced kid looking to find something solid to hang on to, to build his life around and gain respect. I think he was misguided and that he chose the wrong path. But I think religion is just a scapegoat; it's a convenient way for people to ignore the underlying social mechanics, to avoid dealing with the issue directly, dismissing a whole group on a prejudicial basis. And the irony is that this prejudicial approach will breed more violence, because it fosters the very alienation that caused this kid to feel like his identity was being attacked.

Theo was not a politician. He insulted Islam, and then he was killed. To attempt to paint any other picture is intellectually dishonest. Where the topic anything other than religion we would not be making any of these excuses.

The "silenced opposition" in Turkey is barely different from a terrorist organization. And most of that opposition is somehow soldiers. High Officers with great clout in the army and we're talking about an army with a habit of coup d'etats every 10 year.

How do you prevent descent from democracy to a repressive society, when the people vote against the rule of law?

Atatürk tried very hard to pull Turkey out of the Middle Ages. But Turkey, from an outside perspective, seems intent on heading back.

> How do you prevent descent from democracy to a repressive society, when the people vote against the rule of law?

There is no such descent I think, it is just that the new ruling classes of the country is more religiously conservative than their predecessors. The old ruling classes were actually more conservative but in racism, totalitarianism and militarism.

> Atatürk tried very hard to pull Turkey out of the Middle Ages.

This is a very common misconception. Modernization of the Empire/Turkey had begun long before Ataturk was even born. He is an important figure in Turkish history for sure but you can't attribute the progress of a whole nation to him.

There is something terribly wrong with this country! Fazil Say is not the first:

http://www.cartoonistsrights.org/recent_developments_article...

I thought Turkey was a secular country?

Turkey is secular by constitution, but the ruling AK party is Islamist.

Is there such a thing as a Muslim dominated country that's secular?

Think the equivalent to the Republican party in the US.

Because only the democrats have seen the light? Just because republicans pander to ensure they get votes from a certain base does not mean all republicans are fundamentalists. Some of us vote republican because there isn't a viable libertarian candidate.

Ah, but not all AKP voters are Islamist. The similarity is that both are primarily a union of social conservatives and pro-business voters (primarily -- Libertarianism as such isn't really common in Turkey from what I've seen, and analogies are rarely perfect.)

But if you don't think that the discourse in the Republican party isn't heavily influenced by Christianists...

(And the two countries' opposition parties are quite different.)

The USA is a secular country, but just try running for major office as anything but Judeo-Christian...

I'm a citizen of Turkey and in this lovely country the religion has often been used as a tool for achieving secular aims. That's just another example of it.

Turkey and its people look really nice on TV shows/documentaries! It sucks that your government is the way it is; anybody who values their freedom and exercises their right to free speech against anybody/anything would be too scared to visit regardless of how much they'd like to experience your culture first hand. (me included)

when did this happen? circa 1500 A.D.? oh, wait...

I may hate what you say but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.

He's an atheist, so nothing wrong about it for those in 'MURICA.

Nobody has the right to never be offended. Y u no understand that, Turkey?

Flagged. Every country has its own laws. News at Eleven.

This guy always had provocative speeches just for the sake of being provocative and the center of attention. More debatable and provocative stuff is circulated by columnists in everyday papers. It's just this guy is a little bit more prolific and annoying. Probably some district prosecutor just took a jab.

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