Turkey is watching you ... with US help!

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Apr 26, 2009 at 17:45

We have read many approving words about the past US-Turkish cooperation. But its future may be no less productive and exciting despite all the disappointments. Last December Turkey's public prosecutor Kursat Kayral asked U.S. officials to identify for him those who dare post videos on YouTube with images and comments that Turks consider 'insulting' and sacrilegious. Turkishness and Ataturk are above all reproach after all, aren't they? And those who disagree in public - irrespectiive of the validity of their arguments - should be in secret identified by the US and their identities shall be handed over to the Turkish agents for further use . How ? The Turkish newspaper "Hurriyet" says that Turkish authorities knowing the identities of the blasphemers will arrest them if they are ever so stupid as to set foot on Turkish soil ...

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/04/Prosecutor-seeks-to-ID-YouTube-posters/UPI-67711228421614/

Arrest ? And then what ? A show trial and three or four years years in Turkish jail ? ... Or perhaps the blasphmers may be taken care of even abroad ? ... Accidents happen ... - as we know , don't we ? And there a few millions Turks in Europe already as furious about insulting Turkishness as Kursat Kayral and his bosses.

But for me - disregarding the dire implications for international law and human rights - the most interesting thing about this incredible request is why Turkey has turned just to the US ? Are our poor insulted Turks unable to identify the culprits worldwide themselves ? They need US internet technology ? Can't they see that they try to make the country of the 1st Amendment part of the Turkish conspiracy to suppress freedom of speech worldwide? Are the Turks no longer satisfied with banning websitses and users ? By last August the Turks banned 853 websites. At present they seem to be changing and brutalizing their strategy. Now they want to punish, terrorize and humiliate foreign blasphemers. And one should bear in mind that Turkish revengefulness has a very long memory and little respect for international conventions. The "Midnight Express" story can happen in a new form again to anyone unaware of what diabolical trap the Turk has set this time. And to the Turkish mind insulting Ataturk is much much worse than possessing drugs.

The second interesting thing is the US reaction. Who are exactly "the US officials" who have been asked to do this small favour to so 'modern' and 'secularist' and 'US-friendly' Turkey exposing identities of persons disliking sweet Turkishness and thus allowing the revengeful Turks targeting them as they fancy to? And what did the Turks offer in exchange ? At any event, the officials must have already responded. But who made the decision and what kind of decision? I'd love to know. Can Obama's enthusiasm about Turkey and Ghazi Kemal - the butcher of Smyrna and Pontus - be a hint of what has been done behind the closed door to please the Turk ? If so , let's watch out ! Büyük Türk Aga ( Big Turkish Brother) is watching us.

Be as it may, I will never go to Turkey and would like to advise anyone who has expressed critical views on Turkey here or elsewhere on the Internet to spend their holiday rather outside Ataturkestan.

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