Western Resistance

Other human rights are not respected in Erdogan's Turkey. According to the Guardian, practices in the country's mental health institutions are archaic and cruel. A two year report by the US based lobby group, Mental Disability Rights, concluded that practices in Turkey, including routine abuse of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) breached all EU regulations.

"Inhuman and degrading conditions of confinement are widespread throughout the Turkish mental health system," the report says. "People with psychiatric disorders and people with intellectual disabilities are subject to treatment practices that are tantamount to torture." Thousands of people are detained arbitrarily and illegally, often for life, with no possibility of legal redress, the report says. "The prison-like incarceration of Turkey's most vulnerable citizens is dangerous and life-threatening."

Many children are incarcerated in asylums, and at the largest child psychiatric hospital near Ankara, half the children die every year. Dehydration and starvation are believed to be the main causes of the high mortality.

The situation of homosexuality is another embarrassment for the EU. Human Rights Watch on 26 September protested at the attempts of Selahattin Ekremoglu, the deputy governor of Ankara, to close KAOS GL, a gay and lesbian group, on "moral grounds." A letter he sent to the group on 15 September announced that court proceedings had started to dissolve the group. He cited part of the Turkish civil code that forbids "establishing any organisation that is against the laws of morality".

But the most glaring of Turkey's Human Rights issues, is that of the Kurds, who live on its eastern border. The following comments come from a report "Human Rights Violations Against Kurds in Turkey", which can be downloaded from: Kurdish Human Rights Project, and was submitted to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2004:

Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkey has not recognised the existence of a separate Kurdish ethnic community within its borders. Over 20 million Kurds presently live in Turkey and for decades have been subjected to economic disadvantage and human rights violations which bear the hallmarks of systematic persecution intent on destroying Kurdish identity. In 2003, the European Court of Human Rights found at least one violation of the European Convention on Human Rights in 76 cases against Turkey, most of which were brought by Kurds.
The past year has been critical for Turkey to demonstrate that the legislative reforms of 2002 and 2003 have markedly improved the human rights situation of the population in Turkey. This is of particular importance as the European Union determines Turkey's eligibility for accession in December.

The report is large and documents numerous cases of torture, still being practised against Kurds, and abuse of land rights.

FOUNDER OF MODERN TURKEY: ATATURK & SECULARISM

In marked contrast to the Islamist Erdogan, the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, seems positively enlightened. Born in 1881, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a national hero during the Dardanelles campaign, he led the national liberation struggle against the British from 1919 onwards, and brought full independence to the nation. Most importantly, he ended the Ottoman dynasty, which had lasted for six centuries. In 1923, on October 9th, he created the Republic of Turkey.

President until his death in 1938, Ataturk introduced reforms in all areas of society, a society that had previously been ruled by clerics and lackeys of the Ottomans. He established Turkey as a secular nation. He wanted the country to be western, and stopped the wearing of the Fez, replacing it with western hats for civil servants. On February 17, 1926, the laws of Sharia were officially abolished, and a legal system, based on the Swiss model, was introduced. On 9 April, 1928, a clause in the constitution, which declared that Islam was the country's official religion, was removed. In the same year, the Arabic script which had formerly been mandatory was ordered to be replaced by Roman script. At the same time, the teaching of Islam in schools was banned to minors.

What irked Islamists the most happened after Ataturk's death. In 1935, the official weekly day of rest, which had formerly been the Muslim sabbath of Friday, was abolished, and replaced with Sunday. The traditional family titles were replaced with western surnames and forenames. The Kemalists were not without faults. After his death, the One Party State was gradually eroded, and in 1946 the "Democratic Party" was born, and from 1950 onwards single party rule had vanished forever. A clause, however, remained in the civil code - to criticise Ataturk could lead to a writer being jailed for up to fifteen years.

DEMOCRACY, SECULARISM & MILITARY DICTATORSHIPS

From the 1960's onwards democracy, which in many ways had reintroduced a form of Islamism back to parts of the country, was made more fragile and was sometimes crushed under the rule of the military dictatorships.

The first Military Coup d'Etat came on 27 May 1960, when Gen. Cemal Gursel ousted President Celal Bayar and Premier Adnan Menderes from power. Various politicians were tried, and Premier Menderes was executed. By 1965, the military relaxed its grip enough for a coalition government to be introduced in October. Elections were reestablished, but on March 12, 1971, the government led by Suleyman Demirel was forced to resign by the army. His government had lost a lot of control to leftist protesters, so much so that in 1970, martial law had been imposed in Istambul.

The army allowed governments to be elected, but they viewed their role, as described by Burak Sansal as more to guide the process of Turkey's democracy, rather than impose its rule. Demirel was elected again in 1980, and once again the military intervened, forcing him to resign on September 12. The years around this period had been extreme politically, with martial law imposed in 13 of Turkey's 67 provinces from 1978 onwards, reaching 20 by 1980. According to Sansal, martial rule came to an end after a new constitution was accepted in a 1982 referendum, and in the following year, on 6 November 1983, martial law officially ended as Turgut Zal of the Motherland Party became Prime Minister in a general election.

When democracy reemerged, the secularism of Turkey remained more or less intact. The following came from an article written in March, in the Australian.

Turkey's secularism is almost unique in the modern world. It is not designed to free religion from the interference of the state but to free the state from the interference of religion.

Istanbul and Ankara look very secular, with their peroxide blondes, raucous media and racy night-life. But out in the countryside, where most Turks live, it's a different story. There, in eastern Anatolia, headscarves are common and honour killings of women are hardly unknown.

In the most devastating novel of Turkish politics, Snow, by Turkey's foremost writer, Orhan Pamuk, published last year and set in the eastern city of Kars, an Islamist worker murders a school principal because he has obeyed the state instruction to refuse admission to girls who wear headscarves.

One pointer to the future might be that middle-class city families typically have one or two children, but rural, more fundamentalist families might have eight or 10 children.

This is the background that lies behind the tangled situation that makes up modern Turkey. While the military are still predominantly pro-secular, the AKP party of Erdogan is playing directly to the people of the rural heartlands, who find it easier to look back into a traditional Islamic past, rather than into the modernist, potentially European, future.

EXPECTATIONS

The countries from the European Union whose leaders are most supportive of Turkey's accession to Europe are primarily Britain and Germany. France, a country which formerly opposed the joining of Turkey as a full member of the EU, changed position and now sides with Britain and Germany. Austria is the most opposed to full membership, according to an analysis in the Independent. It wishes for Turkey to negotiate for "priviliged partnership" instead of full EU membership. Turkey has stated that it will not accept "second class" status. Austria's Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel has said he wants the EU to acknowledge popular concerns over its expansion. On Friday September 30, he said on Austrian TV that it was necessary to "understand people's concerns about the EU's ability to truly welcome" new member states.

On Thursday, September 19, according to the BBC,

In an open letter published on Thursday Italy's Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said Turkey had "fully satisfied the conditions" laid down for opening membership talks on 3 October. Turkey's bid represented "an opportunity for a major relaunch of the entire European project," he said, calling for an end to "our selfishness and uncertainties".

The discussions will be starting this Monday, October 3, at Luxembourg. The criteria for joining will have to comply with an 8000 page book of EU rules, so debate is likely to become prolonged.

There are many hurdles to be overcome before either side gets its way. Britain under Tony Blair's leadership has been most keen to have talks ratified as soon as possible. This is, perhaps, because soon Britain will have to pass over its current role of "Presidency" within the EU.

But inside Turkey, which has been debating and attempting to gain entry to the European "club" for 40 years, it appears that the once-hopeful attitudes of Turks themselves are becoming despondent about being full partners within the EU, according to an article in the Sunday Times Today it described the views of a young westernised Turkish woman, who formerly wanted to be part of the EU,, but has changed her mind only recently.

(That her) views are shared by many of her compatriots is evident from a poll yesterday that showed 57% of Turks wanted to join the EU - down from 68% a year ago. Support among workers is even lower: only 44% of trade unionists are in favour and a mere 24% believe that Turkey will ever be admitted.

They may be right to feel unwanted: just over half of people in the EU's 25 countries oppose Turkish entry. In Austria, the country leading the opposition to full EU membership for Turkey, eight in 10 are against.

Tonight, on October 2, Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and other foreign ministers will be holding emergency meetings to try to persuade Austria to change its mind.

Tomorrrow is the big day of decision. A lot is at stake. You can be sure that, whatever the result, we at Western Resistance will keep you informed.

EU UPDATE: OCT 3
Austria refuses to change position

Last night (Oct 2), the Austrians refused to compromise on its opposition to Turkey's accession to the EU. Britain's Home Secretary, Jack Straw, chaired negotions that continued until these broke up with no agreement only hours before official negotiations on Turkey's entry were due to begin. The Times reported that initial optimism that Austria could be made to budge on its stance gave way to gloom.

A dinner of EU foreign ministers overran by two hours, but to no avail.

By the early hours, tempers were flaring and British diplomats stormed around the EU complex with long faces.

The talks are due to start again this morning, but hopes of securing a deal were fading last night. A clearly exhausted Mr Straw said: "We have been unable to reach agreement. It's a frustrating situation, but I hope and pray we may be able to reach agreement. We have a situation where 24 have decided to move forward and one has not. It is not the first time that has happened, and I am sure it will not be the last."

I will be adding more details to the Turkey: Special Report at the end of the day. But it is important to remember that Britain, or at least Tony Blair and his lickspittles like Jack Straw are the ones most eager to have Turkey as part of the EU. Straw has been issuing threats and warnings of "dire consequences" if Turkey is not allowed to accede. But this is the view of foreign ministers, who will probably not have any influence ten years from now, when Turkey, should it become approved today, finally gains full membership.

The vast majority of European people do not want Turkey to join, and their view is more important than Tony Blair et alia, who want to add a bit of kudos and a few stars to their curriculae vitae. Results of various polls are given by the BBC. Let the people decide.....

AUSTRIA IS BRIBED TO AGREE
Update at 8pm GMT

The fairly optimistic section, written above was a posting I made this morning, before noon, GMT. Sadly, in the intervening hours, a lot has happened, and Austria has been offered a deal to stop their opposition.

An article posted this afternoon in the Times explains how the deal was done. This morning, with no agreement from Austria, and protesters gathered outside the conference in Luxembourg, the chances of negiation talks even beginning seemed nigh-on impossible. At noon, the expected celebrations prior to the talks, scheduled to go ahead at 3pm, were abandoned. Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, had decided at first not to arrive, but after the announcement of Austria's agreement, he told CNN - Turk news agencies that he would be flying in for the delayed celebrations.

The issue which persuaded Austria was the decision to allow its ally, Croatia, to also begin negotiation talks on joining the EU. In March, when Croatia did not hand over war crimes suspects, the nation was suspended from the process. Now it is included, and it seems that if Turkey does decide to go ahead with negotiations, then we will have two new nations for the price of..........

A report from Cyprus' FinancialMirror states

No details have yet been released, but it is understood that Austria has backed down over a clause allowing for the option a privileged partnership that would fall short of EU membership.

Turkey is now studying the text before it gives its response. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously said that Turkey will not bother starting talks if anything short of full membership is offered.

EU leaders agreed unanimously last December 17 that Turkey could start accession negotiations on October 3 if it fulfilled certain conditions, including signing the extension of the EU-Turkey customs agreement to all new member states. Membership talks are expected to last at least ten years.

Reuters relates how Jack Straw spoke of the talks being "on the brink of a precipice".

Turkish financial markets rose with hopes of a deal after yo-yoing all day with the uncertainty. Stocks, which had fallen some 2.3 percent from Friday's close, ended up 1.9 percent as Ankara studied the draft agreement. The lira and bonds also recovered earlier losses against the dollar.

Erdogan got rather snappy in a press conference, televised on Channel 4 news this evening, and even sounded as if his words had a veiled threat within:

In Ankara, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told a meeting of the ruling AK party that Turkey was not prepared to compromise further on the conditions for opening the long-awaited talks.

"Those in the EU who cannot digest Turkey being in the EU are against the alliance of civilisations. What I declare is this: the costs resulting from all this will be paid by them.

So there is still confusion.
Sorry that this is such a crap update. When Abdullah Gul is in Luxembourg, there may be signs that things may deteriorate. Personally I hope they do, and I know that most European citizens, especially those protesting, share that view.

UPDATE - OCT 3 11.45pm GMT

EU: Alea Jacta Est - And After Crossing the Rubicon?

Finally, there has been a decision. Turkey's foreign minister Abdullah Gul,has boarded his plane, and should soon be in Luxembourg for the celebrations.

According to Reuters, Turkey has decided to engage in the historic negotiations.

"This is a truly historic day for Europe and for the whole of the international community," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said after chairing some 30 hours of negotiations.

Straw said he was convinced the EU would be better off for welcoming in Turkey but cautioned: "This is the start of a negotiation process ... It is going to be a long road ahead."

The Guardian ten minutes ago wrote

"We have reached a historic point," Gul said in Ankara before departing. "Full membership negotiations will, God willing, begin tonight."

There will be ten years for Turkey to show good willing, to reform itself, to truly establish the secular democracy that Kemal Ataturk dreamed of. Already its value has bounced back up in the Stock Markets. If left to revert to a Muslim enclave, it would be forced to ally itself with its eastern neighbours.

By deciding it does now want to join Europe, maybe there is some hope that the Islamification of Turkey, started by Erdogan, will be superceded by a willingness to become European, rather than Middle Eastern. The decision now will mean a lot of soul searching for those in Turkey. Do the populace in the rural heartlands really want western liberal secularism, or Middle Eastern fundamentalism? Time alone will tell.

June 12, 2006

Turkey: The Battle Between Islam And Secularism

The Guardian today discusses the problem existing between Turkey's defenders of its secular constitution, and its Islamist contingent. The Islamists have gained influence since the general election on Sunday, October 30, 2002. On 3 November, the Islamist AKP (Justice & Development Party) won 363 out of 550 seats in the Turkish parliament.

The leader of the party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured) was not allowed to take his seat as prime minister, due to his conviction on a charge of inciting religious hatred. This related to his reciting a poem in 1998 which consequently meant he was banned from holding public office.

The AKP party was set up in 2001 from an amalgamation of members of banned former Islamist parties, so his deputy in the party, Abdullah Gul, took office as caretaker prime minister. Gul was a former leader of the Islamist Virtue Party. Regarded as a "moderate", he was appointed Prime Minister on 16 November, 2002.

Lawmakers from the party called for a change in the constitution to allow Erdogan to stand as a member of parliament,. In February 2003, Turkey's electoral commission allowed Erdogan to stand for election to parliament. On 9 March 2003 Erdogan won a seat at a by-election in the southeastern province of Siirt. On 11 March, following Gul's resignation, he was finally declared prime minister.

At his by-election victory speech, Erdogan had declared his commitment to secularism, which has been in place in the country since the days of Kemal Ataturk. As we described in our special report Ataturk created the secular Republic of Turkey on October 9th, 1923. The following year, Ataturk abolished the remnants of the Ottoman Caliphate, the last such body in the world.

Between Ataturk's day and the present, the army and judiciary have been staunch upholders of secularism. When any Islamist parties gained power through elections, the army has mounted coups to depose them.

But that all changed when Erdogan and his band of Islamists came to power. The issue of the hijab came to the forefront. Erdogan's wife Emine is always depicted wearing this item, even though the hijab is banned for anyone in government employ.

On November 10 2005, the Grand Chamber of the European Court in Strasbourg, the last stage of appeal in Europe, ruled that the secular ban on the hijab was legal. Leyla Sahin had complained that she had been banned by Turkey's constitution from wearing the hijab as a medical student at Istanbul University' in 1998.

Erdogan initially refused to comment, but Abdullah Gul claimed: "Turkey cannot move forward with such bans." A few days later, Erdogan launched into a scathing attack on the hijab ban while on a trip to Denmark. He stated: "Hundreds of thousands of girls cannot go to universities because of the ban on wearing Islamic headscarf. This ban is a problem which requires a solution sooner or later."

Following on from the decision by the European Court to support the hijab ban, moves by Islamists to have the constitution altered gained a new momentum supported by, amongst others, the Capital Women's Platform This group had been formed in the 1990s by women, many of them teachers who had lost jobs by refusing to remove their headscarves.

The hijab issue was to have serious consequences. Last month it led to the death of a judge, Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin. On May 17 a lawyer smuggled a Glock automatic pistol into the Council of State in Ankara (the Supreme Court) and shot five judges. Ozbilgin died, but one of his colleagues injured in the attack, Mustafa Birden, had been targeted for abuse by Islamists.

He had earlier this year decided that not only should a teacher not wear her hijab at the school where she was employed, but she was also banned from wearing it on the way to work. His photograph, with the other judges, had appeared in the Islamist newspaper Vakit, and he became a subject for death threats.

The conflict between secular traditions and the desire for the Islamists to revert back to even older traditions has been escalating, long before the shooting of the five judges. The Guardian highlights the case of Veysel Dalci (pictured), a representative of Erdogan's AKP party, who became the focus of a heated controversy regarding AKP's respect for secularism.

On Sunday 23 April, the country commemorated Sovereignty Day, the anniversary of the founding of the first national assembly in 1920. And in the town of Fatsa in the province of Ordu on the Black Sea coast, Veysel Dalci was scheduled to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at a monument to the founder of Turkey's secular republic, Kemal Ataturk. But on the day, Dalci was seen to be chewing gum. A local army garrison commander complained to state prosecutors.

Dalci, a 38-year old pharmacist and father of two, was subsequently arrested, charged with insulting Ataturk's memory. He told CNN Turk TV that he had been chewing gum to cover the odor of garlic from a meal he had consumed the previous night. "After laying a wreath at the monument, I noticed I had gum in my mouth. I am very sorry," he said. He was jailed for two days before being bailed, and now awaits trial. He subsequently denied that he had been chewing gum.

A month before Sovereignty Day, between March 28 and March 31, violent riots took place in the mainly Kurdish town of Diyarbakir, in the southeast of Turkey, a fiercely traditionalist enclave. The riots which were the worst in a decade, happened following the funerals of members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). They were in support of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed PKK leader, and had caused the deaths of at least 16 civilians, including three small boys. Stones and molotov cocktails were thrown, and a journalist, Ilyas Aktas was shot in the head and fatally wounded.

On April 27, the Turkish Daily News stated that Erdogan had said: "For those who keep their children in the streets or allow them to be used by the [terrorists], their tears tomorrow will be in vain". On May 8 29 youths were put on trial. 36 more minors were charged the following day, bringing the total indicted to 301.

Violence associated with the PKK has cost 37,000 lives since the current insurgency began a decade ago.

It is against this background that Turkey's officials sat down today to talk in Luxembourg to formally open the negotiations for Turkey to join the European Union. As the Guardian states:

The run-up to the momentous day has been anything but smooth. Political violence, assassinations, ethnic conflict, political trials, and human rights violations in recent weeks are generating fear and instability in the country. "There is a fierce and potentially very bloody struggle going on," said Soli Ozel, an Istanbul political scientist.

Diplomats, politicians, and analysts believe the upheaval is being staged by hardline nationalists aimed at destabilising Turkey, discrediting the AKP government of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and shattering its hopes of integration with Europe.

"The EU reform process has not only been halted," said Cengiz Aktar, director of the EU research centre at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University. "We're currently going through a counter-reformation."

"The main problem right now in Turkey is the power struggle between political Islam and the status quo," said a veteran leftwinger jailed for seven years in the 1970s and still wary of speaking publicly. "Turkey is divided in two and has been ever since Erdogan came to power. On the one side you have the forces of political Islam and on the other those of militant secularism."

Today, the Turkish Daily News reports a speech by Erdogan, in which he says: "Turkey is a member of the global community. We need to be in constant communication with the rest of the world. We can't afford to isolate ourselves. There is no going back on the economic program. There is no tolerance towards corruption."

One result of today's negotiations concerned the vexed problem of Cyprus, which is divided in two, with one part that of Greek nationals, already belonging to the EU, while the north of the island is part of Turkey, following its invasion in 1974. According to EuroNews today the Cypus issue proved a touch nut to cack for diplomats. Turkey does not officially recognise Cyprus, but if it wants to join the EU, it must acknowledge all 24 members of the EU, including Cyprus.

However, today Turkey managed to pass the first of 35 policy chapters which would lead to accession to the EU. It was warned that it must accept Cyprus as an independent entity. Erdogan, however, was bullish on the issue. While his diplomats thrashed out issues in Luxembourg, he was in Croatia, another country hoping to join the EU. There, he said that he did not think 24 EU members would acknowledge any vetos put forward by Cyprus.

Erdogan and his AKP party have been keen exponents of the accession of Turkey into Europe, but some within the country are officially casting doubts about its true motives. Bulent Arinc, a parliamentary speaker of the AKP, has demanded that Turkey's secular constitution be redefined. Next year, there will be votes for Turkey's presidency, which is currently held by Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a pro-secularist. The president, according to a revised version of the constitution, holds the executive power, and there are fears that an AKP president will work towards removing secularism.

By using the EU as a political "safety net", Erdogan is said to be avoiding the threat of a military coup, which has been the fate of previous governments which have veered not nearly so far in the direction of Islamism.

Last week, businessmen told Erdogan that he had spent less time bringing in promised reforms, and more time becoming immersed in religious matters.

June 18, 2006

Turkey: UK Artist Faces Jail For Lampooning Islamist Leader

The Islamist President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not have a sense of humour. That much became obvious when Musa Kart, political cartoonist for the secular newspaper Cumhuriyet, was fined 3,000 Euros, ($3,793) in March last year. Musa Kart had depicted Erdogan as a cat, entangled in a ball of wool, with a speech-bubble saying: "Don't create tensions, we promised we're going to solve it" This cartoon appeared in his paper, and was reprinted in a local paper called Sakarya, and once again Erdogan sued.

Musa Kart was convicted of "publicly humiliating" the prime minister, states Fecoweb. The cartoon had appeared in May 2004, after the Islamist PM had tried to undermine the strict rule of secularism which apples to Turkey's universities. Erdogan had tried to force legislation, which would have allowed graduates of Islamic clerical training schools to enter universities. The secularist president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, refused to allow the bill to go through parliament.

We have recently described the current battles between Islamists from Erdogan's Justice & Development Party (AKP) and upholders of the nation's secular traditions, first laid out by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s.

Musa Kart is not the only cartoonist to have fallen foul of Erdogan's arrogance and spite. When in 2004, Hilal Incesu commented on how Erdogan had sued another newspaper, Evrensel for showing a caricature of the president, receiving a fine of 6,000 Euros, ($7,586) he too was prosecuted. Hilal Incesu, who is cartoonist for Ulkede Ozgur Gundem newspaper, received a 50 month suspended sentence.

So the work shown below, which was displayed at an art exhibition in Istanbul, the commercial hub of Turkey, is not going to be taken lightly by the Islamist Prime Minister.

The Sunday Times reports that this work, by British artist Michael Dickinson, was removed from the exhibition by Turkish police.

The artist has been told that he will most likely be charged with "insulting the dignity of the Prime Minister". The organizer of the show, Erkan Kara, will be put on trial on September 12 for the same charge.

The 56-year old artist, who is part of the Stuckist movement, has depicted Erdogan as a dog in a pet show, being awarded a rosette by President Bush. The work is titled "Best in Show". A small shiny turd appears to have fallen out of the Erdogan pooch's behind, though it could have been left by the corgi in the left of the picture.

Dickinson states: "It's such an Alice in Wonderland feeling. The law is so absurd...This law exists in Turkey about insulting 'Turkishness' or the State. You're not allowed to state your opinion."

This much is true. Last year, there were 60 Turkish academics, publishers and journalists either facing prosecution or in jail for offending the powers that be.

Article 301 of Turkey's penal code prohibits anyone "who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly", and the sentence for infringement is up to three years' jail. In January we reported that Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's most famous writer, had charges agains him dropped for "insulting Turkey". Pamuk's case was dropped because it created a national outcry. We mentioned the cases of editor Hrant Dink and publisher Abdullah Yildiz, whose less famous status has not brought them support from Europe and beyond.

According to Andy Davey of Fecoweb: "The revised code, which goes into effect on April 1 2005, includes prison sentences for those who "insult" the state, publish classified information or cover such issues as rape or euthanasia. The new law also bars religious officials such as Muslim imams, Christian pastors and rabbis from criticizing the government during religious services. A call to disobey the government will be punishable by prison sentences of up to two years."

Michael Dickinson and Erkan Kara may face three year jail sentences, if found guilty. The work was par of an exhibition entitled Global Peace and Justice Coalition, and Dickinson had done the picture to highlight the way Erdogan had sued cartoonists for depicting him as an animal.

Born in Durham, Dickinson has lived in Turkey for 20 years, and he teaches English at Yeditepe University.

This situation will hopefully bring some pressure to bear on Erdogan and his tyranny, and will make it plain to all those who have supported Turkey's accession into the European Union, including Blair, that Turkey is not ready.

One of the foundations of a modern democracy is the ability to criticise those in power, and to do cartoons of them, and to make fun of them. Freedom of expression is a vital factor for a democracy to call itself a democracy, and not a tyrannical regime.

Charles Thomson of the Stuckist art movement has written to Blair, saying that an applicant for EU membership must not censor political comment and still be allowed to join up. He wrote: "I trust you will communicate your strongest condemnation and ask for this case to be abandoned."

I believe this case should not be abandoned. Because of his British connections, Dickinson's case will highlight to those in the rest of Europe that Turkey under Erdogan simply is not capable of becoming part of Europe. And equally importantly, putting Islamist Turkey under the lens of democratic accountability will also make it easier for those within Turkey, writers, editors, publishers, cartoonists, artists, to be able to have the freedom of expression that others take for granted. If Turkey's laws remain as they are, it should kiss goodbye to European Union membership.

Erdogan is, despite all the evidence of hypocrisy and tyranny, popular within Turkey. But a man who can even have Piglet removed from state television, because the cute character offends his Muslim sensibilities, is not fit to sit at the table of Europe.

July 1, 2006

Turkey: Mrs Ataturk And The Muslim Headscarf

Turkey continues to hold the memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) in such high esteem that a clause in the penal code still means that to criticize the founder of modern Turkey, a person can receive a jail sentence of 15 years. We provide a sketch of his life and achievements, and his transforming a backward Islamist nation into a secular one, in our Special Report on Turkey and the European Union.

Official Turkish accounts state that when Ataturk died on November 10, 1938, it was following a short illness. What is not mentioned is that this illness was cirrhosis of the liver, brought on by excessive drinking.

And for a man who brought a large nation from the medievalism of the Ottomans and sharia law into secularism, as well as being a military hero during the Dardanelles campaign, in all of his 57 years he was only married for two years, and though he adopted eight children, seven girls and a boy, he never sired children during his short marriage.

The woman he married was Latife Hanim Usaklgil, born in 1898, who was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Izmir on the western coast of Turkey. The couple had met four months previously, on September 11, 1922 while Ataturk was in Izmir, at the head of the Turkish Army. In this, his last major military campaign, Ataturk was suppressing the last substantial Islamist stronghold to remain in the nation. Latife visited him at his headquarters, and offered him the ability to stay at her family estate in Goztepe. The relationship flourished.

Ataturk was devoted to his mother, who had raised him and his sister single-handedly after his father died in the 1880s. Shortly after his mother died on 14 January 1923, Latife and Ataturk became wed in a civil ceremony. The marriage took place on 29 January, and though Western women wear veils at weddings, Latife's face was uncovered.

The same year, their eight children were adopted, but after an apparently stormy relationship, Ataturk divorced Latife on 5 August 1925.

In the Presidential villa, the only items which remain of Latife are a dressing set of hairbrushes and other items, still laid out before a mirror in Ataturk's bedroom.

After the divorce, Latife became a recluse, written out of history books, or mentioned as a footnote only, dying eventually in 1975.

But who was Latife Ataturk? When she was married to Kemal, she was urging Turkish women to throw off the hijab, the Muslim headscarf, yet in several photographs she is depicted wearing one of these items, even in the presence of her secularist husband.

There was a chance to find out more about the private life of Latife and Kemal Ataturk, as her diary entries, and the letters exchanged between her and her husband still exist. In 1980, a court had banned the publication of their contents in the Turkish media. When this edict drew to an end, in February 2005 Turkish officials decided that the documents would remain a secret. The Turkish History Foundation announced that Latife's family had demanded that the documents should be kept secret.

According to the BBC< some Turks thought it would cast a more personal light on the brief marriage, while others believed they contained revelations which would damage the reputation of a national icon.

Some of Ataturk's aides recorded that Latife was argumentative and was annoyed by her husband's drinking. Occasionally she would tell him off in public. Fluent in several languages and educated in the West, the BBC states that her "never wearing the veil is believed to have inspired many of Ataturk's reforms".

Today's UK Independent describes how, eighty years ago, Mrs Ataturk encouraged her countrywomen to emancipate themselves by throwing away their veils, even though Emine Erdogan, the wife of the current Islamist Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is never seen in public without her hijab.

Finally, a new book describing the private lives of Latife has been produced, the product of 25 years' research. It has been on sale for two weeks, and already has sold 20,000 copies. The author is Ipek Calislar.

Calislar's book gives Latife far more credit for influencing modern Turkey than conventional historians have allowed her. A campaigning suffragette, Latife was described by the contemporary New York Times thus: "Her clothes are a pledge of reform. Her riding breeches indicate her intention of sweeping away harem conventions."

Latife lobbied for laws to allow women to vote, and at one stage she even sought to become an MP, but was snubbed by Ataturk as a result. In the first year of the marriage, on October 29, 1923, the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the Republic of Turkey, with Ataturk named as President. The following year, Sharia law was abolished, and the Ottoman Caliphate evaporated into a mere memory. Islam was suppressed and madrassas were closed. In 1924 a new constitution was introduced, which remains to this day. In 1925, (here almost certainly with the help of Latife), western dress was encouraged in favour of traditional costumes, and the Western Calendar (as opposed the lunar 19 year Islamic system) was introduced.

On February 25, 1925, while Latife was still married, the Grand National Assembly banned all religious activities in politics. Less than a month later, the southeastern regions of Turkey, mainly Kurdish, rebelled against the "godless" government in Ankara, forcing Ataturk to introduce the Maintenance of Order law. For the next four years, this law was employed to suppress any Islamist organisations which threatened his secularist reforms.

How much Latife may have contributed to this crusading energy which Kemal Ataturk pushed into making his reforms may never fully be known, but the period during his marriage saw perhaps more dramatic and radical change than the subsequent years.

But now, it appears that Erdogan is trying to turn the clock back, and his greatest support comes from the southeast of Turkey, the same regions where in 1924 the Islamists tried to derail secularism. Ironically, as well as being supported by many traditional Islamists in this region, Turkey is also threatened by terror groups from the same heartland, the PKK, who are still mounting bombing campaigns.

Erdogan is the Prime Minister, and the current President of Turkey, occupying the same position once held by Kemal Ataturk is the fiercely secularist Ahmet Necdet Sezer. We wrote on June 12 of the battle between traditional secularism and the attempted reversion to Islamism, as exemplified by Emine Erdogan and her husband, currently dividing Turkey.

Next year, there will be elections for the presidency, and Erdogan has made it plain that he intends to stand. In 2002 when it came to power, his party, the Justice and Development Party or AKP pledged to remove the ban on the headscarf in public institutions, such as schools, universities and even the president's palace, introduced during the time that Latife was married to Kemal Ataturk.

Emine Erdogan, who like other wives of AKP party members, is never seen without her hijab, and she has never attended any functions at the presidential palace. She often speaks publicly about the issue of the hijab, and is an ardent campaigner for the ban on headscarves in schools to be removed. She claims that because of the ban, many girls are not sent to school and educationally suffer. Instead of enforcing an obligation that all children attend school, she manipulates the argument to pretend she is in favour of women's rights and equality.

Women were given the vote and granted the right to hold public office in 1934, four years before Ataturk died. But Recep Tayyip and Emine Erdogan are conspiring to do away with the secularist reforms of Ataturk. Where the national hero had aligned his nation with the values of the west, the Erdogans and the AKP are trying to align the nation with the Islamic ummah, and the nation is in conflict.

Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition People's Republican Party (CHP) is a secularist and states of Erdogan's presidential ambitions: "Turkey cannot have a president whose wife wears a headscarf." He views the hijab as a sign of "backwardness".

The deputy leader of the CHP is a woman, Canan Aritman. She recently wrote to Emine Erdogan a letter, which she made public, in which she said: "The way you dress while on trips abroad where you are representing the Republic of Turkey offends Turkish women. I respect your personal preference. But women in the modern Republic of Turkey have accepted a non-veiled, contemporary Western style of dress. If you must go on visits abroad with your husband, be like a contemporary Turkish woman. If you can't be that way then please stay at home."

The real truth about Latife Ataturk may never be known, but one thing is certain. She was brave, forward-thinking, and an iconoclast. According to the new book by Ipek Calislar, she helped to push her husband's reforms forward, to take a country out of the dark ages of the Ottomans. In 1923, when she was married, literacy in Turkey was below 10%. WIthin 15 years, more than a third of the population had become literate.

The issue of the hijab has divided parliament and the press, and came to a head on May 17, when an Islamist lawyer shot five judges at the Council of State in Ankara, on account of rulings which were made there, concerning the hijab. One judge, Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin, died from his injuries. The issue of the hijab is one that goes to the very heart of the dilemma for Turkish citizens. Faced with the demands of joining Europe, which is officially secular, or moving backwards to traditional Islamism as practiced a century ago, there will be more conflict and anxiety ahead.