Kurdish Smugglers Become Terrorists AFTER Being Killed?

Thirty-five people were killed in a Turkish military air raid along the Iraqi border on the night of Dec. 28.

Firstly, the Turkish army announced that it opened an investigation about the attack on the border area, which was close to several bases of the PKK, a terrorist organization according to Ankara, Washington and Brussels.

Then, the AKP government declared that it was “an operational fault” and it was a large group of smugglers who were accidentally hit.

These are the facts. I'm still perplexed, though. Were they really smugglers? Didn't they know that it was only the PKK which kept infiltrating the border with such large groups to attack the Turkish border posts, defying the Turkish-American intelligence-sharing cooperation with the help of drones?

This question makes me think that there may be somebody behind the scenes, who tries to do something cloaked. The victims, these dewy-eyed teenagers, may have been used as a bait to create certain political and social conditions. These possibilities shouldn't be seen as a conspiracy theory, especially after witnessing what is happening today.

It is highly probable that the government informants inside the PKK gave wrong information about the latest "border infiltration," because -especially after the recent relocation of the U.S. drones in Iraq to the Incirlik base in Turkey- the air strikes against the PKK bases started to fatally impair the terrorist organization.

The Turkish authorities may have fallen for the trick. Now, the PKK is stepping up to the next phase to use the blunder to lobby for stopping the air strikes and harness popular support among the Kurdish people. Turkish journalist Serdar Akinan was in the funeral in Uludere today and he posted the following photo, showing that the coffins were draped in the flags of the PKK, which is calling for a Kurdish uprising now:

One may keep asking: If these victims were just smugglers, why are their coffins draped in the PKK flag now? Did they become PKK militants AFTER being killed?

Edit: It is reported that most of the victims are belonged to a Kurdish clan that is one of the backbones of the pro-government militia. Some say that the PKK were pointing this clan as a target, through Roj TV, calling them "traitors."

Listening to the 'Real' Egemen Bağış

Egemen Bağış, Turkey's EU Minister, visited Hürriyet today.

With other newsroom editors, I also had the opportunity to ask a couple of questions, regarding the EU negotiations, as well as other foreign policy issues like the genocide denial law in France.

Bağış surprised me a lot. I was expecting to watch the seemingly shallow politician I know from the media... the one that recently rebuked French President Nicolas Sarkozy with a very rude Turkish expression, just before saying that his 'heels become higher as he lies,' like a dwarf Pinocchio.

At Hürriyet meeting, though, I found Bağış almost as a non-partisan expert, free of such a populist rhetoric, surely because it was a Q&A session not directed at a political audience, but conducted as an honest meeting during a visit of courtesy.

Bağış, who briefly worked at Hürriyet's New York office in the early 90s, drew an accurate picture of the relationship between the European Union and Turkey. In contrary to the public chutzpah of Turkey's current foreign policy, he hinted that the internal debate in the government is much more realistic. As an instance, he vigorously emphasized that, as Turks, we shouldn't be too proud of our standing, especially on the economic front. He said that he is well aware that Germany, for instance, will still have an economy three times bigger than Turkey, even if Ankara can reach its goals in 2023.

At the same time, Bağış was rationally optimistic about the future of Turkey-EU relations. He believes that it all boils down to the political possibilities, which may well be in Turkey's advantage. Sarkozy's demise in the 2012 presidential elections seems likely, although it is not guaranteed. The French President tries to make profit from Turkophobia to get the far-right votes, a politically safe method as it is perceived as "less racist," comparing to a wholesale Islamophobia. Thanks to this tactic, he may win the elections narrowly. But he should also be aware that this tactic, which worked in the previous elections, may already be outdated. He may need to find another "hat-trick" to win this time.

So, if Sarkozy loses, which is more probable, there may be a domino-effect in the EU, which may be concluded by Turkey's full membership. With Sarkozy's fall, the Greek Cypriots whom are abused by the anti-Turkish Central European lobby in the EU will be without their patron. Then, even Angela Merkel -who is currently not blocking any negotiation chapters with Turkey- may change her mind about Turkey's EU membership, when she will remain as the only powerful player of the anti-Turkish front. Merkel is more pragmatic and less ideological.

After talking an hour or so, I wished that we could hear the "real" Bağış more frequently. Of course, I understand that it is not possible. After all, this is Turkey, not a Scandinavian country, and this is the way that we're doing politics. And maybe this is why we are not living in an environment like the one in Scandinavia...

From Frustration To Celebration

Isn't it ironic that the official website of Valérie Boyer, the sponsor of the latest anti-democratic bill in France, was being hacked twice today, as a southeastern Turkish city was celebrating the 90th anniversary of its liberation from the French occupation.

The city, which was occupied by France right after the World War I, was named Antep. The French force was mainly consisted of Armenian legionnaires, who massacred and insulted the population of this overwhelmingly Turkish city. The resistance kicked out the occupiers soon, triggering the Turkish Independence War on a national scale. After the Republic of Turkey was founded, the city was renamed as Gaziantep (Antep the War Veteran) by the Turkish parliament.

The first Turkish hacker who put a message on Boyer's website was mentioning this occupation and condemning the "hypocrisy" of the French parliament. "We know that the Armenians in Turkey are not ethnocentric hate-mongers like the diaspora Armenians. However, the real miserable are the French politicians who are violating the truth for sake of votes," the message was reading.

I should admit that I don't like politics at all. Sometimes I ask myself: Why are we accusing the French politicians while it is obvious that politics, itself, is about lies and manipulations? Then I shake myself and realize once again that the pursuit of truth may be tiresome, but it is good for our common conscious.

Anyway, let's forget the crises now: I would like to say "Merry Christmas" to my Christian friends and tell them that Turks will be so happy to host them next Christmas in Demre, the one and only home of Saint Nicholas, as a New York Times ad tells today:

Why Sarkozy is the Defected Silicon of European Politics

The latest bill for the criminalization of the denial of the "Armenian genocide" in France is just like a French breast implant:

It seems hot at first, then -in chronological order- unnecessary, stupid and dangerous.

It is obvious that French President Nicolas Sarkozy planned to snatch some Armenian-French votes before his upcoming re-election bid. Meanwhile, he surely didn't want to anger Turkey at this crucial time, especially in relation to Ankara's key role in Syrian issues.

"I respect the convictions of our Turkish friends - it’s a grand country, a grand civilization - and they must respect ours," he said today.

As Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has tweeted consequently, there is a paradox in Sarkozy's backtracking defense. If this bill is passed, France will be jailing people for their convictions. A Turkish -or a Japanese or a Rwandan- historian who would argue that the tragic events of 1915 shouldn't be called as a "genocide" would be fined and jailed in France.

In Turkey, however, there is no law which directly penalizes a person who suggests that these events were simply genocide. It is true that some nationalist prosecutors had used Article 301 of the Penal Code to try to do it in the past, but any far-reaching anti-terrorism law in any Western nation (like in the U.S.) can also be used to curb free speech, if you find a dumb enough prosecutor. (By the way, Article 301 has made it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions and it should of course be abolished asap. But guess, who prepared it? Of course, European Union's favorite Turkish administration in history: The AKP government!)

The next time I will visit France, I will tell my French friends, if possible also through television or a newspaper, that we know that the terminology shouldn't be fetishized, but I don't believe that it can be called a genocide; what historically important was the fact that hundreds of thousands of lives were perished because of the failures of the Ottoman administration, whether they were ill-intended or not.

And I will say that we also know that Sarkozy doesn't represent the whole France. We are well aware that he is just after a few hundred thousand votes. We are smart enough to see that he is a defected piece of political silicon --soon or late, he'll be recalled or declared as a carcinogen.

However, we're still deeply offended. Especially, by the fact that the French parliament approved this bill that will curb free speech on a symbolic date for Turks: The day that Yılmaz Colpan, a Turkish diplomat in France, was killed by Armenian terrorists of ASALA in 1979. We didn't forget that France had declared ASALA as a terrorist organization, only after it started to kill French citizens, too.

When the bill has got the final approval, I will have no fear to violate this Middle Ages kind of law in France. After all, I am a journalist living in AKP's Turkey, which makes me a thousand times likelier to end up in jail for defending free speech...

The Crying Connection: North Korea vs. Iran

You've probably have already seen the video that shows North Koreans weeping hysterically over the death of Kim Jong-il:

I've read almost everything from and outside of North Korea about the sincerity of the criers. I came to conclusion that almost all of them are really crying, which is even more tragic, I believe.

A few of them, though, seem like impostors. They probably over-acting when the camera is around. When I see such people who cry in a suspiciously exaggerated manner, I instantly recall the following video. It is probably shot in an Iranian mosque during a Shiite mourning ceremony and the fake-crier is possibly an Azeri man. Check it out and compare:

How Many Turkish Journalists Are Really Jailed? Simply, Sixty-Four.

New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its annual prison census, which tracks cases of journalists jailed for their work globally.

The report alleges that Iran is the world’s worst jailer, with 42 journalists behind bars, while "imprisonments were also reported in the stable democracy of Turkey, which was holding eight journalists."

With this factually low figure about Turkey, CPJ has managed to outrage independent journalists all over the world and gave a weapon at the hands of the pro-government forces in Turkey, who are systematically undermining the media freedoms.

After all, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had found out that Turkey was holding 57 journalists in April 2011, including prominent reporters like Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık. More up-to-date reports by other independent observers like the ones by the Council of Europe or the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), as well as the Freedom For Journalists Platform (GÖP), an umbrella organization comprised of 94 national and local media associations in Turkey, revealed that the current figure is 64.

Following the huge reaction, CPJ posted a reply to its blog and stepped back to tell that there were "several tallies, but one conclusion on Turkish press freedom: Press freedom in Turkey is under assault."

Unfortunately, such a weak response doesn't fulfill the expectations of those who would like to hear a more precise clarification, because the pro-government media in Turkey is still using CPJ's unexpectedly wrong report as an evidence to prove that there are not so many arrested journalists in Turkey.

Without such a clarification, as Haluk Şahin, a prominent Turkish journalist and scholar, has recently tweeted, CPJ can now be renamed as "CHJ, Committee to Harm Journalists, especially the Turkish ones."

Moreover, some readers who reacted on the blog of CPJ imply that this New York-based organization is twisting the facts to adopt a similar line with the U.S. foreign policy. They allege that this is why they are highlighting the grave situation of Iranian journalists, while underrating the Turkish ones.

I don't want to believe in this conspiracy theory. Like Alison Bethel McKenzie, IPI's Executive Director, has recently written in a letter to the New York-based organization, "I hold CPJ, and the remarkable work it does in the defence of press freedom in enormously high regard. But, in this particular instance, I am unable to understand the reasoning or methodology behind the conclusion at which CPJ has arrived."

So, now CPJ should publish a full announcement, not a blog post, about Turkey, admitting that they did a poor job in the Turkish chapter in the report, where they referred only to one source, Bianet (and even this sole referral was misleading).

Finally, they should also explain why they relied on the figures given by the Turkish government to decide who were imprisoned because of journalism and who were not, while using a completely different methodology in Iran. Then, maybe, they can truthfully determine the world's worst jailer of journalists...

AKP's Hardest Nut to Crack: Fenerbahçe

Turkey's governing AKP tamed the army, castrated the media and dominated the judiciary, but is it cracking against a football club? Fenerbahçe President Aziz Yıldırım, Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and the club's best footballer Alex de Souza in the good old days...

Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been governing the country since 2002, has finally "cracked," according to many observers.

With the "crack", a deep rift between the leading figures of the party is meant...

I am not sure if the current tension inside the party will have long-lasting effects, but the process is worth attention, indeed.

As Milliyet columnist Kadri Gürsel has cleverly pointed out today, the government has challenged the army and the media in recent years. Both of these challenges were concluded by the decisive victory of the government. The political role of the army as a guardian of the secular Republic was finished and the free media was transformed into a mouthpiece of the government.

After sharing the bounties from these two fronts, AKP recently turned its attention to another venture of billions of dollars: Football. Nonetheless, the match-fixing probe, which started in July and tended to be conducted through dubious legal methods similar to the ones used in Ergenekon case, seems like a harder nut to crack for the government.

After all, among the arrested is the president of Turkey’s reigning football champions Fenerbahçe, Aziz Yıldırım, who is also a very important businessman, operating in construction and the arms trade. Fenerbahçe is still behind Yıldırım, maintaining his innocence, as the club is threatened to be relegated because of allegations.

As the so-called Republic of Fenerbahçe, which traditionally boasts about having over 25 million passionate fans, threatened to vote against AKP in the next elections, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan backpedaled in a rarely seen move. The Turkish parliament came up with a surprising and unprecedented cross-party compromise and immediately ratified the legal arrangement to abolish the "disproportionately" heavy sentences for match-fixing.

However, President Abdullah Gül took another unexpected step to veto the bill last week, warning that it looked like it was tailor-made to save Aziz Yıldırım. Even more dramatically, Prime Minister Erdoğan stood by the bill and sent it back to the President, his long-standing comrade whom he had a Putin-Medvedev style relationship with. Legally, Gül has no option but to ratify the bill now.

The issue doesn't mean that AKP has been split. On the other hand, even some leading AKP figures admit that there is something wrong with the current situation. Is Gül playing for the leadership of the party while he is approaching the end of his term? Will Erdoğan insist to keep AKP as his one-man-company, even when there are speculations about his health?

Gül visited Erdoğan at his home today and I believe that only these two politicians can answer these questions now. Hence, other leading figures in the party should already be considering the prospective positions to take if the "crack" becomes apparent. I observe that only Bülent Arınç, the number-three of AKP, has given some clues so far, signalling that he would take the side of Gül against Erdoğan. But what about others? And how will millions of Fenerbahçe fans vote in the next elections?

As Arab Dictators Fall, It is Time for the West to Look in the Mirror

Arab dictatorships keep falling down, because they exceeded critical mass.

As top-down systems, they started to contradict with the social reality too severely that this reality adapted them to new conditions forcefully.

The American and the Western authorities, just like the Russian and Chinese ones, may be too happy too early, though. Because there are similar contradictions in their systems, too.

Seemingly unconnected developments in recent days show that we all must stay on alert:

* The French parliament debates a bill, which would jail anyone who rejects that the tragic events of 1915 in Ottoman Turkey was a genocide, as Armenian nationalists claim. A Turkish Parliamentary delegation is holding talks in Paris in an attempt to prevent the passage of the proposed resolution that they argue that is against freedom of speech: An integral Western value.

* Even after it was accidentally revealed that it was an underground Neo-Nazi terror organization that killed eight Turks, not the Turkish mafia in Germany, the German government has difficulty to admit the problem. German authorities keep saying that they keep fighting "extremism" and "anti-semitism," as if the victims were not Turks who were killed by skinheads, but Jews who were killed by fanatic Christians. When will they name the recent racist trend as "anti-Turkism?" Didn't they take the lesson after the Nazi era?

* The Dutch senate debates a proposed ban on slaughtering animals without stunning them, a move that Muslim and Jewish groups say violates their religious rights. If the Netherlands does outlaw procedures that make meat kosher for Jews or halal for Muslims, it will be the second country after New Zealand to do so in recent years. It would join Switzerland, the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, whose bans are mostly traceable to pre-World War II anti-Semitism.

* Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Brevik, who confessed in his hundreds of pages long manifesto that he was among the ranks of a modern "crusaders" who strive to clean Europe from Muslims, is declared insane in a psychiatric assessment, which probably means that he won't be jailed.

* Meanwhile, in a German court (yes, a German one)... a psychologist said that an alleged Islamic extremist who has admitted killing two U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt airport earlier this year is mentally fit and can be held criminally responsible for his actions.

* Meanwhile, in a U.S. court... (yes, a U.S. one) an American private may get a death penalty for treason. Let's see if this alienated young man, who was once seen curled up in the fetal position in a meeting room, be declared insane or not... And let's don't forget: He is being accused of risking lives by leaking evidence about war crimes like the Collateral Murder video. He didn't massacre 77 civilians or killed two soldiers...

We should admit these contradictions between our practices and values, bravely face our problems and solve them for sake of humanity... Otherwise, the Protestor will get the whole world down...

It is Not the Turkish E.T, It is Homoti

"Where the hell did this creepy bootleg E.T. footage come from?" a recent post on io9.com asks.

I'd like to answer this question:

This is Homoti, a movie starring Müjdat Gezen, a veteran Turkish comedian. It tells the story of an alien (Homoti) who fell down to Earth from a planet called Homo. The similarities with the legendary Turkish E.T. are obvious, but they are actually very different movies.

If you're interested in cult movies, you should know enough about the Turkish E.T. You should have also heard about other remakes of Hollywood blockbusters: the Turkish Star Trek, the Turkish Exorcist, the Turkish Wizard of Oz, etc. with all their absurdities and "unbelievable" visual effects.

I've had written about the Turkish Batman, but probably the most famous of these old grotesque flicks is the Turkish Star Wars. On the other hand, although it is generally mentioned in the list, the Turkish Dracula (aka Dracula in Istanbul) is actually of a different breed, as it is not just a kitsch copy, but a tasteful adaptation.

The Turkish E.T. is also on the list, while Homoti is not. Because this relatively new movie (produced in 1987) is deliberately funny, unlike the other ones. Müjdat Gezen emphasizes that they produced the movie for video as a joke with his friends and never distributed it. So it may be a cult now, but not in the way that the Turkish E.T. and the others from older times...

Am I the First Target of Turkey's Internet Filter

I'm suspecting that I become the first target of the new "Internet filter," adopted by our democracy-loving government.

Despite all efforts, emrekizilkaya.com, which I directed to my about.me profile, cannot be accessed from Turkey at the moment. It can be accessed in any other country. Neither the domain name registrar, nor Turkish ISPs could help me solve the problem.

* * *

I was at the Turkish-Arab Media Forum in Istanbul a couple of days ago. I listened to my Egyptian, Tunisian and Libyan colleagues who excitedly lauded the democratic promises of the New Media and praised the Turkish model.

I liked most of them. I deeply appreciated some. But still, with both conclusions, several of them reminded me of Claude Levi-Strauss' words: "I have never known so much naive conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty."

No: Whatever the marketing campaigns tell you, the social media didn't have a crucial role in the Arab Spring. It seems that it only played a secondary role in Egypt.

And again, no: The current government in Turkey was actually not an ideal democratic model.

Maybe my Arab colleagues, whom I exchanged business cards with, are now reading these words.

And if they unsuccessfully tried to reach my blog through emrekizilkaya.com, they probably understood both of these realities.

All in all, in its current form, it seems that the Turkish government has got the potential to be even harsher against the media than those overthrown regimes.

Look: Even without facing a popular uprising, there are scores of Turkish journalists behind prison bars and Youtube is still banned. Imagine what would happen to the social media if this government faces dissent by masses, like in the Arab Spring countries...

And my personal website?

I promise, if our government gives emrekizilkaya.com back, I will be a good boy and forward it to the personal website of our tech-savvy Transportation Minister instead of my own...

EDIT: After the post, a couple of Twitter friends in Turkey told me that they can reach emrekizilkaya.com without any problem. I still can't reach it, like several of my friends and our technical department at my newspaper. Now I'm not sure about the reason. I'm waiting for a response from the domain registrar and the Turkish ISP. I don't think that this is normal, knowing the fact that Youtube could be reached in different parts of Turkey during the first days of the execution of the ban.