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  1. #1
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Turkey's child murders revive death penalty debate

    “I can find no words to say after seeing my baby yesterday in that condition. I am calling on the state to hang him as an example to all. They should not give him a glass of water but hang him in order to douse the fire in my heart.”

    This desperate intonation came from the mother of 6-year-old Gizem Akdeniz, whose fate scorched the conscience of the nation after her brutally disfigured body was found. Press reports said she was murdered by a male relative who reportedly wanted revenge on Gizem’s family for refusing to let him marry her older sister.

    Following a massive manhunt and his arrest, the suspected young killer, only named as S.A., was said to have confessed to this crime committed in Adana. In his confession to police, made available to the press, he reportedly said he had tricked little Gizem by telling her they were going on a picnic. Instead, he took her to a secluded place, bound her hands and legs with tape, stabbed her repeatedly with his knife, poured petrol on her and set her alight while she was still alive. He then waited 25 minutes for her cries to die out before leaving the scene of the crime.

    News of Gizem’s brutal murder came only days after a similar incident, this time in the city of Kars. Nine-year-old Mert Aydin was murdered by A.B., a 23-year-old with a police record who was also arrested following a massive manhunt. According to the autopsy, the unfortunate boy died after having been hit on the head with a stone, strangled and then raped.

    These are just the latest and most gruesome of incidents involving the death of young children, so it is no surprise that the public is clamoring for the death penalty, which Turkey abolished over a decade ago in compliance with EU criteria after Ankara’s candidacy for membership was accepted.

    Turkey became the first predominantly Islamic country to abolish the death penalty — a fact that was taken as a turning point with regard to its European orientation. This did not mean, however, that executions were carried out easily in Turkey prior to the abolishment of the death penalty.

    The last execution took place in 1984, even though the death penalty was not abolished until 2002 —​ except for treason during times of war or a threat to national security​ —​and then in 2004 for all crimes, including treason.

    Executions under democratically elected governments could only be carried out in Turkey with parliamentary permission, which was not easy to obtain given the controversial history of political executions in the country, including that of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who was ousted by a military coup and sentenced by a military court to death by hanging in 1961 for treason.

    In 1984, a young left-wing activist, Hidir Aslan, was the last person to be executed after he was accused of killing three police officers during a bank robbery. There is still controversy surrounding his case.​

    The recent cases of brutality against children have forced even Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and members of his government to pay lip service to the notion of capital punishment in an effort to appease public anger.

    When asked by reporters on May 2, after the body of Gizem Akdeniz was discovered and her alleged murderer arrested, if the government was considering reviving the death penalty, Erdogan conceded that the punishment for such crimes should be death.

    Such crimes merit the death penalty. Even if we do not reinstate the death penalty, I have instructed our friends to work on much tougher punishments. We have a problem in our country concerning the abolishment of the death penalty in relation to our EU membership process,” he said. “But there are other options that can be considered in view of this problem, including life without parole, because it is not possible to remain insensitive in the face of such crimes.”

    Minister of Energy Taner Yildiz, who is known to frequently comment on topics outside his area of focus, was more direct, saying that child killers should “definitely be executed.”

    “What I say may not comply with the system, but I am expressing my belief. The rights of that child of ours rest on her mother and father, and their decision should be the valid one. If it is execution, then the answer to this is execution,” he said, bringing an Islamic interpretation to the topic.

    The reaction among the parliamentary opposition to reinstating the death penalty was mixed. The Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which is vehemently opposed to the government’s “Kurdish opening,” saw a political opportunity to strike at Erdogan.

    “Where was your conscience when the monster of Imrali was killing 40,000 people, when he was killing children? Where was your conscience when the death penalty was abolished?” MHP deputy and party spokesman Oktay Vural said during a May 2 press conference. Vural held up photos of children killed in raids by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish separatist group that has been waging a campaign of terrorism in Turkey since the mid-1990s.

    Vural’s “monster of Imrali” reference was directed at PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan — the Erdogan government’s key interlocutor in its “Kurdish opening” — who received a death sentence in 1999 after being nabbed by Turkish special forces in Kenya.

    Ocalan’s sentence was never carried out and subsequently commuted after the death penalty was abolished. The MHP frequently uses this against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The irony is that Ocalan received his death sentence while the MHP was part of the coalition government of the day, which also abolished the death sentence for crimes other than treason.

    Erdogan has used this in the past to hit back at the MHP. Yet, according to the MHP, the AKP government should have executed Ocalan before abolishing the death penalty for all crimes, including treason, in 2004. The sparring has continued between the two parties ever since.

    The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which brands itself as a center-of-left party, responded predictably to the current debate, stating it is categorically opposed to the death penalty under any condition. Aylin Nazliaka, a CHP deputy and spokeswoman, told attendees of a May 2 press conference in Ankara that they opposed the death sentence because of the basic right to life.

    “We are against anything that prevents the exercise of this basic right. We are against the death penalty under any condition. If there are so many child murders and murders of women, there is the need to take legal steps against this. Current laws and the way the state monitors these events are insufficient,” said Nazliaka.

    While not taking an active part in the current debate, the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) predictably stated it was against the death penalty, even though this has more to do with Ocalan and the party's links through family ties to PKK militants.

    Regardless of the debate following the horrible murder of innocent children, which also covers the equally horrible crimes committed against women, few expect a reinstatement of the death penalty in Turkey anytime soon.

    Already under the critical eye of the West, which sees Turkey turning increasingly away from European standards of democracy and law, it is unlikely that the Erdogan government will risk further censure by going down that path — whatever its beliefs on the matter. But it is not only reactions from the West that the government has to consider.

    Despite the public outcry and calls for the death penalty that follow dreadful crimes — a phenomenon that is also not alien to the West — the Turkish public has rarely been at ease with this penalty, which in the past never stopped terrible crimes from being committed anyway.

    The need for “closure” — as it is politely put in the United States, where the death penalty exists in many states — for affected families is very real and cannot be denied. Whether there can ever be closure for people who lose loved ones in such brutal ways is also questionable.

    This has little to do with how advanced and educated a society is. There is, after all, the recent example from Iran of the mother who found peace after forgiving her son's killer just before he was to be hanged.

    Life provides few answers for such terrible dilemmas.

    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...#ixzz30gzlBCmg
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #2
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Gift from God’: Erdogan sees coup as ‘chance to cleanse military’ while PM mulls death penalty

    Almost immediately after Friday night’s coup attempt in Turkey began to falter and scenes of pro-uprising soldiers surrendering their weapons started to pour in, Turkey’s leadership promised that the plotters would pay the highest price

    “As you know the death penalty had been removed from our legal system. We will discuss… what further measures we should take to prevent such future attempts,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Saturday morning when the arrests of pro-coup officers and soldiers were in full swing across the country.

    This uprising is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army,” President Recep Taiyp Erdogan stated earlier on Friday night, addressing a large and desperate crowd of his supporters.

    The overnight coup attempt has been the latest, but not the first, in a string of Turkish military uprisings throughout the decades, exposing the complicated relationship between the army’s leadership and Islamist-leaning President Erdogan.

    The tensions between the military and Erdogan span back as long as his political career. In 1997, senior army officers pressured then-Prime Minister Necmeddin Erbakan to step down because he advocated for strengthening Islamism across Turkey and turning away from the West. Erdogan, an Erbakan supporter who was then mayor of Istanbul, was arrested and banned from pursuing a political career for five years for reading out a nationalist and Islamist poem in public at the time.

    The most significant crackdown on the military to date came in 2010, when the so-called Ergenekon trials were launched.

    The 2,455-page indictment listed dozens of charges against 275 defendants, including several generals and high-ranking officers, accusing them of being members of an alleged clandestine ultranationalist network called Ergenekon, which, according to the court, had conspired to overthrow Erdogan’s government.

    Life sentences were given to former armed forces chief General Ilker Basbug, former army commander Hursit Tolon, and several other retired generals and colonels. The case was opened in 2007 when 27 hand grenades were discovered in a house in Istanbul.

    The existence of Ergenekon was never proven, but accusations soon began circulating that the explosives had been intended to be deployed in a coup attempt.

    Since Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Independence Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, the government has taken a number of legal moves to control the military’s domestic expenditures and policies.

    https://www.rt.com/news/351630-erdog...relationships/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. #3
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Facing the death penalty: General who led Turkish coup in Istanbul charged with treason as eight of his fellow plotters flee to Greece by helicopter to avoid retribution

    General Erdal Ozturk has been arrested and charged with treason

    Two majors, a captain and five privates arrived in a military helicopter

    Greece arrested eight soldiers for illegal entry and led off in handcuffs.

    They have now requested asylum in the EU state, reports Turkish media.

    Istanbul's most senior soldier has been charged with treason as eight leading members of the plot to overthrow the government have fled to Greece.

    General Erdal Ozturk who commanded the Third Army Corps has been detained is is facing treason charges for his role in the aborted coup.

    His men attempted to seize strategic locations across Istanbul last night when they were confronted by thousands of unarmed civilians who came out in support of Presdient Recep Erdogan.

    Erdogan has suggested the ringleaders could face the death penalty even though Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of its attempts to join the European Union.

    Turkish officials have said 161 civilians have killed and 1,440 wounded.

    Almost 2,900 troops have been arrested, including at least two generals.

    Eight soldiers landed in Alexandroupolis today and tried to claim asylum in the EU state, after a coup in neigbouring Turkey that left more than 265 people dead.

    Officials said 161 of the victims were mostly civilians and police officers, with 104 members of the coup.

    Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu immediately demanded that the captain, two majors and five privates were returned 'immediately' to Turkey where they would face punishment.

    Greece claimed it would have to consider international laws before returning them, although it promised to send the helicopter back.

    However, Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that Greece has now promised to return the 'treacherous soldiers' to be punished in Turkey.

    The news comes after Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildrim said the nation would consider bringing back the death penalty to deal with them, after it was abolished in 2004.

    The blackhawk helicopter landed in Greece today after a night of violence in Istanbul, where more than 1,500 people were injured.

    Some 104 plotters were killed, while more than 200 people - at least 41 of them police officers and 47 civilians - fell as 'martyrs'.

    Footage shows Greek officials leading the men out in handcuffs after they were arrested for illegal entry into Greece.

    A spokeswoman for Greece, Olga Gerovasili, today said that they are in contact with Turkish authorities and will arrange 'the return of the military helicopter as soon as possible'.

    As for the eight military passengers, she said: 'We will follow the procedures of international law.

    'However, we give very serious considerations to the fact that (the Turkish military men) are accused, in their country, of violating the constitutional order and trying to overthrow democracy.'

    Greek police say that the eight arrested Turks include two majors, four captains and two sergeants first class.

    This differs from Turkish sources that said they were two majors, a captain sand five privates.

    Last night, the army had told people to stay indoors so that they could depose President Erdogan, but they were met by civilians who confronted them, defending the government.

    Ordinary Turks confronted rifle-wielding soldiers, climbed atop tanks and laid in front of military vehicles in an effort to take back control of the country.

    President Erdogan called on people to take to the streets, leading to reports of groups of soldiers surrendering at several key locations in Ankara and Istanbul, including Bosphorus Bridge.

    This morning the President used Twitter to call on supporters to prevent any additional military action, adding: 'We should keep on owning the streets no matter at what stage because a new flare-up could take place at any moment.'

    More than 2,800 rebels have been detained after 100 rebels laid down their arms and submitted themselves to advancing civilians and police officers.

    Today, thousands of Turks were in the streets celebrating and rounding up the remaining soldiers, some of whom were publicly beaten by the crowds.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4EeSOoLWH


  4. #4
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Erdogan Not Ruling Out Death Penalty For Coup Supporters

    ANKARA (Sputnik) — On Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that the Constitutional Council and political parties in Turkey would discuss the feasibility of returning death penalty, following the military coup attempt in the country on Friday.

    "In a democracy, the demand of people can not be ignored. It is your right. This [instituting of death penalty] will be evaluated within the frameworks of constitutional process by corresponding authorities, which will make the decision," Erdogan said in a speech broadcast by the local NTV TV channel.

    The coup attempt was suppressed by early Saturday, with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim stating that all coup supporters were identified and would be apprehended as the country was returning to normal life.

    At least 265 people were killed and 1,470 were injured during the events, while nearly 3,000 people have already been detained, according to the prime minister.

    http://en.ria.ru/middleeast/20160717...upporters.html

  5. #5
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    Turkey’s EU Talks to Cease if Death Penalty Reintroduced

    BERLIN — A reintroduction of the death penalty by Turkey would effectively end the country’s European Union membership talks, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

    “A country that has the death penalty cannot be a member of the EU,” the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a news conference in Berlin. “The implementation of the death penalty in Turkey would thus mean the end of membership talks.”

    Mr. Seibert also criticized the Turkish response to Friday night’s coup attempt. He said there were “revolting scenes of caprice and revenge” against soldiers on Turkish streets and that the abrupt dismissal of thousands of judges this weekend “raises grave questions and concerns.”

    But Mr. Seibert didn’t say that the weekend’s events in Turkey would have consequences for the country’s deal with the EU to limit the refugee flow to Europe, which Ms. Merkel has relied on to reduce the number of people applying for asylum in Germany.

    “The EU-Turkey refugee agreement is, for now, to be seen separately from the weekend’s events,” Mr. Seibert said. He added that the agreement remained “in the common interest of Europe and Turkey.”

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/turkeys-...ced-1468838946
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  6. #6
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    From Poconos retreat, Muslim cleric Gulen: 'We will oblige' if extradited for Turkish coup

    SAYLORSBURG, Pa. - The reclusive Muslim cleric blamed by the Turkish government for last week's failed military coup said Sunday that he did not believe U.S. authorities would give in to Turkish demands for his extradition.

    But during a rare interview at his gated retreat in the Poconos, Fethullah Gulen, 77, said he would comply if the State Department asked him to leave.

    "If a request from what is essentially a dictator is taken seriously in the United States, I think it would run contrary to what the United States stands for," he said, speaking through an interpreter, of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former ally turned bitter foe.

    "But if there is any possibility of a forceful extradition, of course we will oblige," he added. "But I'm not worried about that. I'm not worried that the U.S. government will give credit to claims that Erdogan is making. I will not beg anybody. I have enjoyed my freedom here. I will leave without grudges in my heart."

    Gulen, who just two days earlier was accused by Erdogan of plotting the quashed military uprising half a world away, spoke for nearly an hour and a half to a handful of reporters, most of them from foreign media outlets.

    Dressed in a dark blazer and blue slacks, the mustachioed cleric addressed a wide array of topics, ranging from his multitude of followers, members of a movement known as Hizmet - or Turkish for "service" - to the pain he has felt as Turkish officials have lain the deaths of civilians at his feet.

    "My friends know my sensitivity to any living being," he said. "In my room once there was a bee that was trapped in a cleaning machine. I tried to save its life, but I couldn't and I cried for days. When I saved the life of an ant in my bathroom, I was happy like a child.

    "This is my sensitivity and compassion toward any living being. . . . For humans, my sensitivity is so much more."

    Again Sunday, Gulen denied any involvement in Turkey's failed coup while condemning "oppression" in his native country.

    "During the last two years, our experience has resembled that of Robespierre in France," he said, referring to the ruthless leader of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

    Gulen, who teaches a philosophy based in Islamic mysticism mixed with advocacy for education and democracy, has attracted a multitude of followers who run universities, hospitals, and a large media empire in Turkey and, in the United States, a loosely affiliated network of professional associations and charities in addition to charter schools funded by millions of taxpayer dollars, including some in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

    But nearly 5,000 miles from Gulen's wooded 26-acre retreat in the rural hamlet of Saylorsburg, Erdogan continued to rail against the man he has labeled a terrorist.

    Gulen has been a frequent target of Erdogan, who blames him and his movement for problems plaguing Turkey. Gulen's followers, however, accuse the Turkish president of paranoia and exaggerating the cleric's influence against Turkey's increasingly autocratic regime.

    Since Friday, Turkey has detained as many as 6,000 people in a crackdown on alleged coup plotters while funerals were held for some of at least 265 people killed in the failed uprising.

    "Once they hand over that head terrorist in Pennsylvania to us, everything will be clear," Erdogan told a crowd massed Saturday night.

    At a funeral Sunday, the president vowed to "clean all state institutions of the virus" of Gulen supporters, while crowds chanted "Fethullah will come and pay."

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the State Department would consider an extradition request from Turkey that was backed by solid evidence of Gulen's involvement in the coup.

    However, speaking Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, Kerry said the United States had not yet received such a request.

    "We have not had a formal request for extradition - that has to come in a formal package" sent to the Justice Department, Kerry said. "Give us the evidence. Show us the evidence. We need a solid legal foundation that meets the standard of extradition in order for our courts to approve such a request."

    Kerry was adamant that the U.S. had no involvement in the military uprising - as Turkish officials suggested.

    "The United States is not harboring anybody, we're not preventing anything from happening," he said. "We think it's irresponsible to have accusations of American involvement when we're simply waiting for their request" for the extradition.

    As tensions flared between the two NATO allies Sunday, the residents of Saylorsburg, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it stop off Pennsylvania Route 33 about 88 miles north of Philadelphia, were both bemused and concerned to suddenly find themselves and their world-famous neighbor at the center of an international dispute.

    In nearby Wind Gap, American flags festooned lampposts and nearly every home on Broadway, the main drag through town. In nearby Ross Township, residents recalled the last time events there drew the attention of the world: a caught-on-video 2013 attack by a gunman on a township council meeting that left three residents dead.

    Those who live closest to the Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center described the Gulenists who live on its sprawling grounds as friendly neighbors, who often go door-to-door inviting residents to dinners and events at the retreat.

    One 80-year-old man, who did not wish to give his name, said Gulen followers used to bring flowers and Turkish desserts to his wife.

    "You don't know what they're up to," he said. "But they do try to make friends. We've never had a problem with them."

    Glen Packer, 64, whose house sits next door to the compound, said protesters occasionally gather in front of the retreat, disturbing the neighborhood's typical tranquility. One such group - a crowd of 150 pro-Erdogan demonstrators - rallied across the two-lane road from the property Saturday, draping themselves in Turkish flags and chanting "Obama, send him home" and "a terrorist lives here."

    "They seem nice enough," Packer said Sunday of the Gulenists. "But whatever, I just live here."

    Gulen came to the Golden Generation retreat, a former summer camp, in the late 1990s at the request of Kemal Ozgur, a microbiologist and a follower of the Gulenist movement. The two met in Minnesota, where Gulen had come to receive medical treatment for diabetes and a heart ailment, which still affects his health. He has remained in Saylorsburg ever since.

    Gulen's spokesman, Y. Alp Aslandogan, an urbane, thin man dressed in a dark gray suit, greeted visitors to the retreat Sunday, offering a tour of the grounds and an overview of the Hizmet movement.

    While the Gulenists have been on the retreat property since at least the 1990s, property records indicate the Golden Generation purchased the acreage in 2014 for $250,000.

    Children ran across carefully manicured lawns, while mustachioed Turkish men in casual clothes strolled across the landscaped acreage, where stone paths curved around gardens and ponds.

    "This place has a unique combination of being very peaceful and very tranquil," he said. "It is good for his health. His doctor said the situation in Turkey was too stressful.

    These days, Gulen spends most of his time in his quarters - a sparsely furnished set of rooms filled primarily by a mattress on the floor, covered by a thin gray quilt, upon which he sleeps. Shelves of books line walls, competing for space with an electric space heater, a Turkish flag and a small, fringed rug woven in burgundy, blue and white.

    Typically, he speaks once or twice a week to followers who flock to the retreat from across the world, Aslandogan said. The speeches are later shared over the internet.

    "This is his primary means of communication with the movement," Aslandogan said.

    But speaking to reporters Sunday, Gulen downplayed his role as a movement leader.

    "I am not the head of them," he said. "Just because I was one of the early people and I'm older than them, they respect me and attribute many things to me, but that is incorrect."

    He added: "I see myself as a termite and these participants are also termites. When God wishes, he can enable them to accomplish great things even though they are individually insignificant."

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...kish_coup.html

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