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Why is it that Turkey progressed and Pakistan regressed?
Secularizing theocracy
By Waseem Altaf
Excerpt: …. Why is it that Turkey progressed and Pakistan regressed?
When in 1928 the Turkish Parliament was opting for a secular state and the constitutional provision declaring Islam as the state religion was being deleted, 21 years down the road in 1949 Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly was passing the Objectives Resolution, moved by Liaqat Ali Khan, the Prime Minister, proclaiming that the future constitution of Pakistan would be modeled on the ideology and faith in Islam. In the 1973 constitution Islam was declared as the state religion.
When in the 1920’s sovereignty of the people was being established in Turkey replacing the sovereignty of the Caliph, in 1949 Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly was bestowing sovereignty upon Allah.
When in the 1920’s the Turkish Parliament was adopting time-tested European models to reconstruct their civil, commercial and penal law, Pakistan’s 1973 constitution envisaged that ‘All existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah.’
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Read full article » https://www.facebook.com/irfanafridikk/posts/700511826634235
Amnesty International calls for action in Turkey as reports of alleged police brutality continue
Rights group calls for drastic action in Turkey
Urgent steps must be taken by the Turkish authorities to prevent further deaths and injuries and allow protestors access to their fundamental rights , as well as ensuring the security of all members of the public, Amnesty International said.
Amnesty International kept its office, which is close to the Taksim area, open as a safe haven for protestors escaping police violence throughout the night. 20 doctors are currently in the office and treating injured protestors. Other civil society organisations have taken similar actions.
“Excessive use of force by police officers can be routine in Turkey but the excessively heavy-handed response to the entirely peaceful protests in Taksim has been truly disgraceful. It has hugely inflamed the situation on the streets of Istanbul where scores of people have been injured,” said John Dalhusien, Director of Amnesty International for Europe.
Amnesty International observers at the protests witnessed the use of water cannon against peaceful protestors as well as those throwing stones at police.
The human rights group also said it had received information that injured demonstrators in detention and on the streets have been prevented from accessing appropriate medical care.
“The Turkish authorities must allow peaceful protest to proceed, urgently revise police tactics and investigate – and hold accountable – those responsible for the abuses we are seeing,” said Dalhusien. [Amnesty International]
Courtesy: Aljazeera
http://blogs.aljazeera.com/topic/turkey-elections/rights-group-calls-drastic-action-turkey
Via Twitter
Al-Qaida jihadi terrorists (Turkish & 2 central Asians) who trained in Pakistan, busted in Spain
‘Al-Qaeda trio’ arrested in southern Spanish towns
The arrests were made as part of one of the largest international operations to date against al-Qaeda, the Spanish Interior Minister said
Police have arrested three suspected al-Qaeda members in southern Spain.
Explosive material was seized at an address in San Roque where a Turkish man was arrested. Two other men were held near Almuradiel.
They are thought to have been planning an attack in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, according to the Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz.
The arrests are part of one the biggest international operations to date against al-Qaeda, Mr Diaz said.
Turkish forces kill 15 female Kurdish rebels
Turkish security forces have killed 15 female rebel Kurds in the southeast of the country on Saturday, AFP cites the country’s interior ministry as saying. One member of a local group fighting alongside Turkish security forces was killed in the clashes, while three more were wounded. The female rebels belonged to a women-only unit of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The operation follows a large-scale offensive against PKK militants near the Iraqi border that left seven police officers and six rebels dead.
Turkey’s former military chief arrested over alleged anti-government plot
By Associated Press
ISTANBUL — A former Turkish military chief suspected of leading an Internet campaign to stir revolt was jailed Friday in a sweeping investigation of alleged conspiracies to topple a civilian government that has stripped the armed forces of political clout.
Gen. Ilker Basbug, 68, was the most senior officer to face trial in the anti-terror probes that began years ago, netting hundreds of suspects, many of them retired and active-duty military officers. The government casts the inquiries as a triumph for the rule of law and democracy, but suspicions of score-settling, long imprisonments without verdicts and other lapses have tainted the legal process.
The investigations serve as a pivotal test for Turkey’s ability to put its own house in order even as it seeks a higher profile in a turbulent region where the Turkish brand of electoral politics and Islam-inspired government is viewed by some as worthy of emulation.
Perhaps most notable about Basbug’s arrest was the muted public response in a country where civilian leaders were once beholden to the generals, and any hint of conflict stirred fears of a coup. The power balance shifted in the past decade as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan undermined the premise that the military brass were the untouchable guardians of secularism, as enshrined in the constitution. …
Read more » The Washington Post
Turkey’s military chiefs forced to ‘quit’
– Turkey’s military chiefs ‘quit’
New Turkish land force chief appointed after Isik Kosaner and top commanders quit over rift with government.
General Isik Kosaner, the head of the Turkish armed forces, has quit along with the heads of the ground, naval and air forces.
The country’s state-run Anatolia news agency said on Friday that the military chiefs wanted to retire because of tensions with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the recently re-elected prime minister. Anatolia reported Kosaner as resigning “as he saw it as necessary” ….
Read more → aljazeera
More details → BBC urdu
Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk: The destiny of this pageant lies in the Kingdom of Oil
The Middle East earthquake of the past five weeks has been the most tumultuous, shattering, mind-numbing experience in the history of the region since the fall of the Ottoman empire. For once, “shock and awe” was the right description.
The docile, supine, unregenerative, cringing Arabs of Orientalism have transformed themselves into fighters for the freedom, liberty and dignity which we Westerners have always assumed it was our unique role to play in the world. One after another, our satraps are falling, and the people we paid them to control are making their own history – our right to meddle in their affairs (which we will, of course, continue to exercise) has been diminished for ever.
The tectonic plates continue to shift, with tragic, brave – even blackly humorous – results. Countless are the Arab potentates who always claimed they wanted democracy in the Middle East. King Bashar of Syria is to improve public servants’ pay. King Bouteflika of Algeria has suddenly abandoned the country’s state of emergency. King Hamad of Bahrain has opened the doors of his prisons. King Bashir of Sudan will not stand for president again. King Abdullah of Jordan is studying the idea of a constitutional monarchy. And al-Qa’ida are, well, rather silent.
Who would have believed that the old man in the cave would suddenly have to step outside, dazzled, blinded by the sunlight of freedom rather than the Manichean darkness to which his eyes had become accustomed. Martyrs there were aplenty across the Muslim world – but not an Islamist banner to be seen. The young men and women bringing an end to their torment of dictators were mostly Muslims, but the human spirit was greater than the desire for death. They are Believers, yes – but they got there first, toppling Mubarak while Bin Laden’s henchmen still called for his overthrow on outdated videotapes.
But now a warning. It’s not over. We are experiencing today that warm, slightly clammy feeling before the thunder and lightning break out. Gaddafi’s final horror movie has yet to end, albeit with that terrible mix of farce and blood to which we are accustomed in the Middle East. And his impending doom is, needless to say, throwing into ever-sharper perspective the vile fawning of our own potentates. Berlusconi – who in many respects is already a ghastly mockery of Gaddafi himself – and Sarkozy, and Lord Blair of Isfahan are turning out to look even shabbier than we believed. Those faith-based eyes blessed Gaddafi the murderer. I did write at the time that Blair and Straw had forgotten the “whoops” factor, the reality that this weird light bulb was absolutely bonkers and would undoubtedly perform some other terrible act to shame our masters. And sure enough, every journalist is now going to have to add “Mr Blair’s office did not return our call” to his laptop keyboard.
Everyone is now telling Egypt to follow the “Turkish model” – this seems to involve a pleasant cocktail of democracy and carefully controlled Islam. But if this is true, Egypt’s army will keep an unwanted, undemocratic eye on its people for decades to come. As lawyer Ali Ezzatyar has pointed out, “Egypt’s military leaders have spoken of threats to the “Egyptian way of life”… in a not so subtle reference to threats from the Muslim Brotherhood. This can be seen as a page taken from the Turkish playbook.” The Turkish army turned up as kingmakers four times in modern Turkish history. And who but the Egyptian army, makers of Nasser, constructors of Sadat, got rid of the ex-army general Mubarak when the game was up?
And democracy – the real, unfettered, flawed but brilliant version which we in the West have so far lovingly (and rightly) cultivated for ourselves – is not going, in the Arab world, to rest happy with Israel’s pernicious treatment of Palestinians and its land theft in the West Bank. Now no longer the “only democracy in the Middle East”, Israel argued desperately – in company with Saudi Arabia, for heaven’s sake – that it was necessary to maintain Mubarak’s tyranny. It pressed the Muslim Brotherhood button in Washington and built up the usual Israeli lobby fear quotient to push Obama and La Clinton off the rails yet again. Faced with pro-democracy protesters in the lands of oppression, they duly went on backing the oppressors until it was too late. I love “orderly transition”. The “order” bit says it all. Only Israeli journalist Gideon Levy got it right. “We should be saying ‘Mabrouk Misr!’,” he said. Congratulations, Egypt!
Yet in Bahrain, I had a depressing experience. King Hamad and Crown Prince Salman have been bowing to their 70 per cent (80 per cent?) Shia population, opening prison doors, promising constitutional reforms. So I asked a government official in Manama if this was really possible. Why not have an elected prime minister instead of a member of the Khalifa royal family? He clucked his tongue. “Impossible,” he said. “The GCC would never permit this.” For GCC – the Gulf Co-operation Council – read Saudi Arabia. And here, I am afraid, our tale grows darker.
We pay too little attention to this autocratic band of robber princes; we think they are archaic, illiterate in modern politics, wealthy (yes, “beyond the dreams of Croesus”, etc), and we laughed when King Abdullah offered to make up any fall in bailouts from Washington to the Mubarak regime, and we laugh now when the old king promises $36bn to his citizens to keep their mouths shut. But this is no laughing matter. The Arab revolt which finally threw the Ottomans out of the Arab world started in the deserts of Arabia, its tribesmen trusting Lawrence and McMahon and the rest of our gang. And from Arabia came Wahabism, the deep and inebriating potion – white foam on the top of the black stuff – whose ghastly simplicity appealed to every would-be Islamist and suicide bomber in the Sunni Muslim world. The Saudis fostered Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida and the Taliban. Let us not even mention that they provided most of the 9/11 bombers. And the Saudis will now believe they are the only Muslims still in arms against the brightening world. I have an unhappy suspicion that the destiny of this pageant of Middle East history unfolding before us will be decided in the kingdom of oil, holy places and corruption. Watch out. ….
Read more : The Independent.co.uk
British PM calls Gaza ‘prison camp’
ANKARA : British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday urged Israel to lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip, slamming the current state of the Palestinian enclave as a “prison camp”.
“Let me be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change … Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp,” he said in a speech to a business association during a visit to Turkey.
Speaking later after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Cameron defended his description, saying that “even though some progress has been made, we’re still in a situation where it’s very difficult to get in, it’s very difficult to get out … “We’ve long supported lifting the blockade of Gaza,” he said.
Read more >> Mail&Gardian
Ex-Mossad Officer Criticizes Israel’s Handling of Flotilla Raid with Alex Jones – Must watch all parts
Ex-Mossad Officer Victor Ostrovsky Criticizes Israel’s Handling of Flotilla Raid with Alex Jones
Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itk02YXuAZM&feature=player_embedded
Deaths as Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship
More than 10 people have been killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army says….
31 May 2010
Courtesy: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10195838.stm
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