{"id":27556,"date":"2015-01-08T01:54:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T01:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=27556"},"modified":"2015-01-08T01:54:36","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T01:54:36","slug":"no-yes-buts-see-the-paris-massacre-for-what-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/no-yes-buts-see-the-paris-massacre-for-what-it-is\/","title":{"rendered":"No yes-buts! See the Paris massacre for what it is"},"content":{"rendered":"

The appalling terrorist attack in Paris against the Charlie Hebdo magazine is the worst case of targeted killings of journalists and not only the people of France but every individual that valued freedom and human life was shaken by it.<\/p>\n

As the leaders of countries with established democratic traditions were quick to point out, killing of journalists and policemen in Paris was a direct assault on democracy, media and freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

There can be no excuse or mitigating circumstances for what happened in France. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu\u2019s initial reaction, while condemning all kinds of terrorism but then adding that \u201cracism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, which is on the rise in many regions of Europe,\u00a0 affecting and triggering each other\u201d was plainly wrong.<\/p>\n

The official statement<\/a> from his Ministry and the condemnation issued by the President\u2019s Office<\/a> later have sounded somewhat better but neither explicitly referred to an attack on \u00a0freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

Clich\u00e9d statements<\/a> declaring that \u2018terror does not have religion\u2019 or \u201cIslam is the religion of peace\u201d can no longer be appropriate responses to the numerous and increasingly brutal atrocities committed by extremist Islamist militants.<\/p>\n

Of course, they do not espouse the Islam of our parents and millions of other believers worldwide. Yet, it is high time Muslims in general and the leaders of the Muslim countries in particular, own up to the fact that the perpetrators of such callous acts take Islam as their reference.\u00a0 They have a growing mass of sympathisers worldwide, approving their actions. Examples<\/a> of that were clearly seen in some of Turkey\u2019s media hours after the Paris attack.<\/p>\n

In several Muslim countries, freedom of expression is limited to hate speech and insults directed at minority faiths and the non-religious. Criminalising criticism of religion (by that read only Islam) is common practice in many Muslim countries. In 2014 alone, more than 100 people were accused of blasphemy in Pakistan. In countries with punitive laws against blasphemy, people, including children get killed by mobs as a result of for their alleged insults to Islam.<\/p>\n

The very same countries together with some Islamic organisations have been trying to introduce curbs on free speech at the United Nations Human Rights Council for years. Their Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights that bans \u201cholding in contempt or ridicule the religious beliefs of others\u201d is in contradiction with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights which say that freedom of expression should be protected even when it causes offence.<\/p>\n

In Turkey, too, AKP government has passed laws that make it illegal to insult religious values. The well-known pianist Fazil Say was prosecuted for comments considered to be offensive to Islam.<\/p>\n

It is not only the leaders of the Muslim world that should be accountable. Those in other countries that did not do their best to uphold the principle of free speech and found excuses to turn a blind eye to the Iranian leader Humeyni\u2019s fatwa against Salman Rushdie or have kept silent about the Danish cartoon controversy and sidled up to obnoxious regimes in the name of cultural sensitivity, share the responsibility, too.<\/p>\n

It is the freedom to speak, believe and insult in democracies that made it possible for \u00a0those extremists to settle, thrive \u00a0and express their objectionable ideas in the countries they now so brutally attack.<\/p>\n

When the Turkish Foreign Minister shifts part of the blame for the cold-blooded \u00a0murders on to Islamophobes and racists in Europe, he would do well to remember a recent Pew Survey which showed that 72% of French people viewed Muslims favourably.<\/p>\n

Compare this with the highly negative attitudes of Turkey\u2019s population towards atheists, other religions and nationalities, shown time and time again in international and national surveys and yearly reports by international organisations!<\/p>\n

I do not suppose that the results of the 2011 \u201cSurvey of Values in Turkey\u201d by Istanbul\u2019s Bahcesehir University showing that \u201c64% of those surveyed would not want an atheist as a neighbor, 48% would not want a Christian, 39% would not want anyone with any other religious persuasion and 39% would not want foreign migrants\u201d as neighbors would be any better if surveyed today.<\/p>\n

This is the time to uphold to defend the principles of independence, freedom of thought and expression, the guarantors of our democracy\u201d.principles such as valuing human life and dignity, freedom of thought and expression, freedom of belief and non-belief. It is time to rehabilitate our common humanity and to reinforce our solidarity against those who are determined to destroy them.<\/p>\n

So, stop beating around the bush and see the menace for what it is!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The appalling terrorist attack in Paris against the Charlie Hebdo magazine is the worst case of targeted killings of journalists and not only the people of France but every individual that valued freedom and human life was shaken by it. As the leaders of countries with established democratic traditions were quick to point out, killing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27556"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27558,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27556\/revisions\/27558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}