KK-Forum,
KK burde skrive om dette.
David Peterson fant bare 4 artikler (fra 12. og 17. desember 2001 og 14. og
24. januar 2002) om denne saken i hele verdenspressen (ingen i USA). De 4
vedlegges.
Sitat fra Robert Fisk's artikkel i The Independent
.... Fatih Tas of the Aram Publishing House faces a year in prison for
daring to print American Interventionism, a collection of Mr Chomsky's
recent essays including harsh criticism of Turkey's treatment of its
Kurdish minority.
... A spiky, inexhaustible academic of Jewish origin who has been an
inveterate critic of Israel and especially of the United States, Mr
Chomsky's condemnation of Turkey's treatment of the Kurds - and of the vast
arms shipments made to Turkey by the United States - was bound to enrage
Ankara.
....
Knut Rognes
********1***********
AP Worldstream
December 12, 2001 Wednesday
SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
DISTRIBUTION: Europe; Britian; Scandinavia; Middle East; Africa; India;
Asia; England
HEADLINE: Linguist and dissident Chomsky protests court case against his
Turkish publisher
DATELINE: ISTANBUL, Turkey
Noam Chomsky, the American linguist and political dissident, has attacked
a court's decision to prosecute his Turkish publisher over a book that
slams Turkey's human rights record.
In a letter to Istanbul-based Aram Publishing, Chomsky expressed sympathy
with the firm's director Fatih Tas, who faces a one-year jail sentence if
convicted on charges of conducting propaganda against the state. The trial
is due to begin in February. The charges are "a very severe attack on the
most elementary human and civil rights," wrote Chomsky, a professor of
linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Aram earlier this year published "American Interventionism," a collection
of Chomsky's essays and lectures translated into Turkish.
The book includes a translation of a lecture Chomsky gave at the University
of Toledo, Ohio in March. In the lecture, Chomsky said the Turkish
government had "launched a major war in the Southeast against the Kurdish
population," and described the conflict as "one of the most severe human
rights atrocities of the 1990s."
Chomsky said the lecture was based on material from "the leading human
rights organizations ... the most respected standard scholarship, and
official U.S. government documents."
In an indictment issued last week, Istanbul's State Security Court said
these and other passages in the book constituted "propaganda against the
indivisible unity of the nation."
No charges have been filed against Chomsky himself.
Turkey fought a 15-year war against Kurdish rebels demanding autonomy in
the southeast. The conflict has eased since the Kurdistan Workers' Party,
or PKK, announced a unilateral cease-fire in 1999, but the government
rejected the cease-fire and sporadic fighting continues.
About 37,000 people, mostly Kurdish rebels and civilians, have been killed
as a result of the fighting since 1984.
****2******
Dozens of Turkish writers and intellectuals have been jailed under strict
laws that forbid criticism of the state's conduct of the war.
New Statesman
December 17, 2001
HEADLINE: When a Turk can lose his liberty for publishing Chomsky, maybe
it is logical for God to see Blunkett as Moses
BYLINE: Mark Thomas
No matter what politicians say about the need for them, anti-terror laws
hardly ever work. They normally decrease the civil liberties that they are
designed to protect and, as was the case in Northern Ireland, give people
another reason for joining terrorist organisations. However, draconian as
internment is, you really know that things are going pear-shaped when David
Blunkett introduces laws to prosecute religious hatred. What kind of a God
would have Blunkett as his voice on earth?
If we are talking about a supreme being who created heaven and earth, I
just don't see how God would want a mealy-mouthed northerner doing his
work. If Blunkett is working for the Lord, and man is made in the image of
God, then we can only conclude that God is a twat (substitute for the word
God any one of the following that you would find more personally offensive:
Allah/Vishnu/Buddha/Jah/A N Other). States have invariably used
anti-terrorist laws as a loophole to dodge their obligations under
international conventions on human rights. The latest and most bizarre case
occurred in Turkey. Yes, I am aware that I mention Turkey a lot in this
column, but Blair and his corporate-minded government do manage to excuse
the most vile human rights abuse while peddling just about every munition
known to man to that country's regime. The utter barbarity of the Turkish
state, its ruthless oppression of the Kurds, and a dodgy kebab I once had
in Haringey have hardened the way I view that particular regime.
In November, the European Union praised Turkey for introducing laws that
will protect the right to freedom of expression, Article 10 of the European
Convention on Human Rights. However, the EU does not mention Turkey's use
of anti-terror laws, which directly contravenes the convention and
undermines those newly passed laws enshrining freedom of speech. Citing
Article 8 of the anti-terror laws - outlawing 'propaganda against the
indivisible unity of the State of the Turkish Republic with its territory
and nation' - Bekir Aldemir, the state prosecuting attorney, has just
charged Fatih Tas, the owner of Aram Publishing in Turkey, at the Istanbul
State Security Court for having the audacity to publish American
Interventionism, a collection of writings by Noam Chomsky. Fatih faces a
year in prison if found guilty.
To launch a prosecution over words written by one of the world's leading
linguists seems a tad obscene. In concentrating his prosecution on a
chapter in the Chomsky book entitled 'Prospects for Peace in the Middle
East', Aldemir compounds the obscenity. The words that rock the foundations
of the 'indivisible unity' of the Turkish state and could result in a man
going to jail for a year are these: 'Throughout the 1990s, this place the
Kurdish region of south-east Turkey saw the most serious crimes against
human rights, a still ongoing process . . .' That's it. Those are the
words. You can rearrange them in any order you like, but that is as
dangerous as they get. For those words, a man could lose his liberty. And
yet, by justifying these as emergency anti-terror laws, the Turkish state
has sought to avoid prosecution at the European Court of Human Rights for
these most blatant abuses and acts of censorship.
In a world where a man can go to jail for printing such words, but no
international government raises a murmur, I guess it is entirely logical
that God should choose David Blunkett to play Moses.
It is possible that Blunkett gets his inspiration from America: after all,
the US has recently imprisoned 1,100 people without trial or access to a
lawyer. In fact, it could have begun the process of privately executing
those it deems to be guilty.
Without wishing to sound like a certain bearded cave-dweller, maybe there
are some comparisons to be made with both the US and a certain demonic
ex-angel expelled from heaven who had an unhealthy attachment to the number
six.
You may say: how can you accuse the US of being the great Satan? For a
start, if the devil has all the best tunes, why has America ended up with
Paul McCartney, spewing out the political equivalent of 'The Frog Chorus'?
(Which, after it was used by CNN and the other PR outfits for
globalisation, should be renamed 'Talking About Free Trade'.)
On 7 December, the US Senate passed another bill that is bound to help the
flag-burners keep warm through the winter months ahead: namely, Senator
Jesse Helms's American Service Members' Protection Act. The bill sought not
only to block the US ratifying the International Criminal Court, but
actually to prevent the court's creation.
The court will be prosecute individuals for war crimes. Strangely, the US
wants none of this. Maybe that's because the prospect of its own countrymen
and -women appearing in the dock is slightly higher than for other
countries. Helms's original bill sought to prohibit military aid to any
Nato or 'major' non-Nato country if it ratified the court. This move was
meant to ensure that the prerequisite number of signatory states - 60 -
which would guarantee the creation of the court, was not reached. Although
this part of the bill has gone, it still gives the president the right to
invade any country that holds US military personnel under the court's laws,
as well as any foreign or non-military personnel working for the US.
Basically, anyone who wants to get Kissinger into court for war crimes will
be invaded by America - and that includes the host country for the
International Criminal Court, the Netherlands . . . Still worth a go, though.
The trial of Fatih Tas is scheduled for 13 February 2002
********3*********
New Statesman
January 14, 2002
HEADLINE: Kurds are freedom fighters in Iraq, terrorists in Turkey. We're
not quite sure about the status of Iranian Kurds
BYLINE: Tariq Ali
The last round of Indo-Pak fighting over Kashmir in the Himalayan
snowlands around Kargil coincided with the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia. On
that occasion, Indian jets crossed the border and bombed positions inside
Pakistan. If Nato could, why not India? Now again, as the border tension
increases, voices in Delhi are asking a similar question: if the United
States can bomb a country and change its government in response to
terrorist attacks, why not India? It is an apposite question, as Washington
knows. The Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad have carried out appalling
acts of terrorism in Kashmir. The attack on the Indian parliament was an
open provocation, designed to encourage a full-scale war between the two
states. Which is one very good reason why it shouldn't happen. It's true
that Pakistan's military intelligence created these groups and infiltrated
them into Kashmir, just as they did with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is
also true that, like the Taliban, these groups have acquired a relative
autonomy and can't be switched off like a light bulb. Washington knows that
well. It couldn't switch off Osama. London knows that, too; it couldn't
switch off the IRA. The real question is what to do about Kashmir, and the
simple answer is to ask the Kashmiris. Neither Islamabad nor Delhi wants to
know, because they already know: Kashmir would like to be independent.
Another reason for the sabre-rattling by Delhi is that it is desperate to
become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. An Indian friend in
Delhi tells me that Tony Blair's visits only feed this frenzy. Why? Because
if the leader of a medium-sized northern European country can prance around
and posture in this fashion because his country sits on the Security
Council, the only way to stop his visits is for India to join the council.
It's difficult not to sympathise.
Bad news from Sudan. I'm a bit reluctant to publicise the facts in case
they become an excuse for bombing that country again, but help is needed.
Abok Alfa Akok, an 18-year-old Christian from Nyala, in southern Darfur,
has been sentenced to death by stoning for the 'crime of adultery'. The
authorities claim that the sentence is legal because it is based on Article
146 of the 1991 Penal Code, under which adultery is punishable with:
1) Execution by stoning when the offender is married (muhsan);
2) One hundred lashes when the offender is not married (non-muhsan);
3) Male, non-married offenders may be punished, in addition to whipping,
with expatriation for a year.
This is a version of the sharia, or Koranic law, though disputed by many
scholars. It should never be used, and certainly not against those who
don't believe in it in the first place. Letters of protest against this
proposed barbarism should be sent to: His Excellency Lieutenant General
Omar Hassan el-Bashir, President of the Republic of Sudan, People's Palace,
PO Box 281, Khartoum, Sudan (telex: 22385 PEPLC SD or 22411 KAID SD; fax:
+249 11 771 724).
Some good news. This month, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican is
performing a Peter Sellars collaboration, the opera The Death of
Klinghoffer (see Peter Conrad, Arts, page 40), which became 'controversial'
after 11 September. The Boston Symphony Orchestra cancelled its scheduled
performances of choruses that re-enact the events that took place on the
cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985: Palestinian guerrillas took hostages and
killed an American Jew. The Boston Symphony said that 'sensitivity'
dictated that it should not perform this particular work. The composer,
John Adams, and the librettist, Alice Goodman, responded by saying that the
opera offered the 'solace of truth'. The opera's critics, who defended the
cancellation, included the distinguished musicologist Richard Taruskin. He
wrote: ' The contrast set the vastly unequal terms on which the conflict of
Palestinians and Jews would be perceived throughout the opera. The
portrayal of suffering Palestinians in the musical language of myth and
ritual was immediately juxtaposed with a musically trivial portrayal of
contented, materialistic American Jews.'
In other words, Taruskin was opposed to the politics of the opera, and used
11 September to defend censorship. As news of the Barbican's decision
spreads, tickets are likely to be in short supply. I've booked mine.
Back to bad news. Noam Chomsky's Kurdish publisher in Istanbul, Aram
Publishing House, is being prosecuted by the state for including a
ferocious essay on the condition of Turkish Kurds in a collection entitled
American Inter-ventionism. As we know, Kurds in Turkey are 'terrorists',
but Kurds in Iraq are 'freedom fighters' and we're not quite sure about the
present status of the Iranian Kurds. As the Turkish government is really
keen to be admitted to the EU, it must assume that publishing Chomsky is
providing succour to 'terrorism' and that it will win wide support. One
hopes that the country closest to Turkey will make its voice heard loud and
clear. Step forward Joschka Fischer: pentito extraordinaire and foreign
minister of Germany.
*********4********
The Independent (London)
January 24, 2002, Thursday
SECTION: FOREIGN NEWS; Pg. 16
HEADLINE: TURKEY PROSECUTES CHOMSKY PUBLISHER FOR ESSAY ON KURDS
BYLINE: Robert Fisk Middle East Correspondent
NOAM CHOMSKY, one of America's greatest philosophers and linguists, has
become the target of Turkey's chief of "terrorism prosecution".
Scarcely two months after the European Union praised Turkey for passing new
laws protecting freedom of expression, the authorities in Ankara are using
anti -terrorism legislation to prosecute Mr Chomsky's Turkish publisher.
Fatih Tas of the Aram Publishing House faces a year in prison for daring to
print American Interventionism, a collection of Mr Chomsky's recent essays
including harsh criticism of Turkey's treatment of its Kurdish minority. Mr
Chomsky, a linguistics professor at Harvard, is planning to fly to Turkey
for Mr Tas's first court appearance on 13 February and has already written
to the offices of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights,
pointing out that amendments to Turkish law were supposed to have provided
greater freedom of expression, not less.
Mr Chomsky plans to visit the Turkish city of Diyarbakir to meet Kurdish
"activists" and it will be a test of Turkey's freedoms to see if he is
allowed to visit the area.
In one of his essays, originally a university lecture, he says that "the
Kurds have been miserably oppressed throughout the whole history of the
modern Turkish state ... In 1984, the Turkish government launched a major
war in the south-east against the Kurdish population ... The end result was
pretty awesome: tens of thousands of people killed, two to three million
refugees, massive ethnic cleansing with some 3,500 villages destroyed."
This, according to the Turks, constitutes an incitement to violence. Mr
Chomsky has been suitably outraged, regarding the trial as part of a much
broader wave of repression directed against Kurds appealing for greater use
of the Kurdish language. Bekir Rayif Aldemyr, Turkey's chief prosecutor,
claims that the Chomsky essay "propagates separatism".
A spiky, inexhaustible academic of Jewish origin who has been an inveterate
critic of Israel and especially of the United States, Mr Chomsky's
condemnation of Turkey's treatment of the Kurds - and of the vast arms
shipments made to Turkey by the United States - was bound to enrage Ankara.
Mr Chomsky describes the prosecution as "a very severe attack on the most
elementary human and civil rights". The EU, so impressed by those changes
in Turkish law last November, has remained silent.
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