AKP Watch

AKP Watch January 23rd, 2008

YouTube managed to be banned twice in Turkey within a week by having rulings from two separate courts consecutively.

The initial ruling came from Ankara Criminal Court on 17th January. Four days later, YouTube stated that they removed alleged videos and filed an appealed to lift the ban. However very same day, in another city, the Criminal Court of Sivas ruled to ban YouTube again. As of today, there are two seperate court orders to ban YouTube in Turkey.

As Turkish Traditional Media is almost totally under ruling Islamic AK Party’s control, YouTube emerged as an alternative free speech platform for opponent voices such as Yalcin Kucuk, Tuncay Ozkan and Nihat Genc. For this reason, surpression of internet based opposition is the one of highest priorities of Islamic AK Party government.

Although Turkish Courts are doing great job to silence internet based opposition, recently Islamic AK Party passed a new internet legislation to form an internet authority enabled by unrestricted powers to ban any internet site without court ruling.

Meanwhile yet another free speech platform, WordPress is still banned in Turkey since last six months.

• AK Party , Censorship , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Islamofascism , Turkey , Wordpress , YouTube
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AKP Watch October 24th, 2007

As news agencies publish pictures of eight captured Turkish soldiers, AK Party issued an executive order to cease all public broadcasting regarding recent terrorist attacks in southeastern Turkey.

Censorist Molla Akman on Duty

Head of Radio and Television Higher Authority (RTUK), Zahid Akman a.k.a Censorist Molla faxed cease and desist notices to all media companies in Turkey. As of 23rd October, Turkish Media Outlets are no longer broadcasting news or any kind of programming including commentaries about recent terrorist attacks.

Turkish Journalists Association: Blatant Censorism

Turkish Journalist Association immediatelly issued a press release and indicated that the decision is clear attempt to censor media to prevent fundamental right of citizens to access news and information.

 Erdoğan is Clueless and Paralyzed

Prime Minister  Erdoğan and rest of AK Party Cabinet feeling very desperate and clueless upon the recent attacks. The pressure from United States and Barzani preventing Erdoğan to step out the border and take action against PKK , meanwhile public outcry reached to new heights damaging Erdoğan’s reputation in Turkey. 

AK Party, once satiristicly called as Arabic Kurdish Party among nationalists, has stong ties with Barzani, the main supporter harboring PKK in Northern Iraq.

The ties are established in very high and personal level, for example, Çalık Holding, owned by Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak awarded billion dollars construction contracts by Barzani’s autonomous Kürdistan Authority and most of AK Party representatives from Southeastern Turkey are Kurds and under heavy influence of Barzani.

The censorship decision proved that Erdoğan decided to fight with freedom of speech instead of terrorist PKK and their supporters in Iraq.

• AK Party , AKP , Censorship , Erdogan , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Kurds , PKK , RTUK , Terrorism , Turkey , Zahid Akman
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AKP Watch September 23rd, 2007

AK Party Opposition TV channel Kanalturk is once again targeted by the Islamist AK Party government. The channel have been shut down for six days as a penalty for Kanalturk’s broadcasts prior to July 22 general elections. The justification for the punishment was that while Kanalturk presented news about opposition parties in an objective manner, it discriminated against the ruling AKP by broadcasting PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s previous political statements and by doing so harmed his image.

Erdoğan would probably break a Guinness World Record, since he is most likely the world’s first and probably the last leader who believes his very own statements in the past is damaging his reputation and going to court for preventing the broadcast of his own speeches.

 Erasing the Past

Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to erase his past as a radical islamist by pressuring media companies to not broadcast his previous speeches.  As a part of new image building strategy, AK Party has zero tolerance those who exposing their past. Earlier journalist Sezai Şengün of Daily Star Newspaper, fined approx. $10,000 for publishing Erdoğan’s photos with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a designated terrorist by US State department, who has participated in and supported terrorist acts committed by al-Qa’ida and the Taliban.

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Censorist Molla

The suspension decision made by minister of censorship Islamist Zahid Akman, who earlier appointed by Erdoğan to head of RTUK (Islamic High Board of Radio and Television). Akman (aka Molla) is a controversial figure in Turkish media, once described as “Censorist Molla” by Serdar Turgut, the editor-in-chief of widely circulated Turkish daily Aksam, pointing out his jihadist past as a islamist sect (tarikat) member and his loyality (biat) to his former sect. Akman has a pivotal role in AK Party’s strategy to surpress opposition by abusing RTUK’s unlimited powers which even include a permanent suspension. Akman frequently inviting media executives to RTUK to attend mandatory Nazi style briefings to adjust their broadcasting policy according to AK Party terms. 

Prior to RTUK, Akman was an executive in Kanal 7, an islamist TV Channel founded by former Walfare Party which was a precursor to AK Party. Kanal 7 and their non-profit charity organisation Deniz Feneri under money laundering and terror finance investigation by German Authorities and most of Kanal 7 executives currently under arrest in Germany. (Source: Evrensel in German and Hurriyet in Turkish)

Akman previously prevented TV Channels to air the movies Brokeback Mountain and Valley of the Wolves (Kurtlar Vadisi).

• AK Party , AKP , Censorship , Erdogan , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Islamofascism , KanalTurk , Opposition , RTUK , Turkey , Zahid Akman
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AKP Watch September 2nd, 2007

AKP Watch is sick and tired to write posts about Adnan Oktar, but he is not tired to seek court orders to ban bloggers in Turkey.  It’s look like Oktar committed to be an internet celebrity, even his fame will surpass famous Mahir of 99’s.

Bad news arrived as Jim Collela wrote on his blog: [CORRECTED] “the CNN Political Ticker Blog and Flickr Blog are also blocked because of the same court order (decision no.: 2007/195) enacted by Adnan Oktar.”

AKPWatch double checked and now it’s confirmed, the CNN Blog is also affected by the recent block of WordPress by AK Party connected Islamist/Creationist cult leader Adnan Oktar (a.k.a Harun Yahya). Oktar, acting like a proxy to AK Party, obtained a court order to block WordPress in Turkey which effected all WordPress powered sites, even the ones not using wordpress.com domain name, such as CNN Political Ticker and Yahoo owned Flickr Blog.

Adnan Oktar and his infamous creationist nonsense is very populer among AK Party circles, even an AK Party’s Gaziantep MP Ahmet Uzer distributed Oktar’s 800 pages Creationist book to member of parliments. (Source: mainstream turkish newspapers,  Radikal on 27/02/07, Sabah on 03/03/07, Vatan on 02/03/07) 

When MP Ahmet Uzer defended himself, he unintentionally revealed that Oktar’s creationist book –Atlas of Creation- approved by Ministry of Culture and Turism as a scientific book. (Source: OlayMedya)

Moreover AK Party officals decided that Adnan Oktar books will be purchased by all public libraries in Turkey. Currently legendary even poet Nazim Hikmet’s book are banned in public libraries in Turkey. (Source: Hurriyet on 03/02/07 and Hurriyet on 13/01/07)

Oktar and his famous book is favored among AK Party elements, for example, AKP appointed governors writes recommendation letters to distribute the book in the schools, multiple AK Party municipals including Ankara and Istanbul provides exhibition areas, childred from primary schools brought to those exhibitions, and more surprisingly Istanbul Governor approves Oktar aide to teach creationism seminars in schools (Source: mainstream Turkish newspapers, Hurriyet on 25/06/2006 and Radikal on 11/03/2007)

The fourth largest blogging platform in the world, WordPress, still remains banned in Turkey since 15th of August 2007.

• AK Party , AKP , Adnan Oktar , Censorship , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Harun Yahya , Islamist , Turkey
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AKP Watch August 31st, 2007

A prominent Anti-Islamist AKP opponent, investigative journalist and bestselling author of famous controversial Anti-AKP books, Ergün Poyraz still remains detained since his arrest one month ago.

Poyraz widely known by his bestselling books about AK Party, PM Tayyip Erdoğan, President Adbullah Gül and their background supporter islamic sect leader Fethullah Gülen.

Bestselling Author 

According to the sales reports provided by  Turkish Publisher Association, Poyraz’s bestselling book, “Children of Moses: Tayyip and Emine” (”Musanin Çocukları: Tayyip and Emine”) following top selling “The Secret” in Turkey for five consecutive months since it’s published in February 2007. 

Surpressing Opponents

PM Erdoğan’s propaganda minister Press Director Akif Beki (aka Goebbels of AKP) earlier sought a court order to ban Poyraz’s bestselling book, fortunatelly the court dismissed the request.

As Erdoğan’s initial plan to surpress Poyraz failed, most likely, Fethullah Gülen’s organisation stepped in to help by utilising their followers penetrated in Police Department to create some phonny evidence to secure Poyraz’s arrest.

The EU is silent 

It’s very interesting to see that the Poyraz arrest went unnoticed by European Union. The EU was very sensitive when it comes to Turkey’s legendary article 301 prosecutions involving famous Turkish writers such as Orhan Pamuk and Elif Safak last year. Poyraz case will be a hallmark for EU’s inconsistency and of hypocrisis towards AK Party opponents. Besides the arrest of Turkey’s arguably most important opponent writer did not mentioned at all in Western Media.

 AK Party’s Nazi-Inspired Crusade against Free Speech

AK Party’s full blown Nazi-Inspired crusade against free speech is being carried out without pause: Earlier this month, former MP Emin Şirin arrested upon an unsigned letter sent by an unknow informer claiming his connections with infamous Ümraniye Mob. Under detentition center, Şirin queried about the chrismas mass (organized by Turkish Catholic Church) he attended. Under EU supported Islamic AK Party regime, even attending a chrismas mass might cause your arrest. Besides Şirin, AKP opponent Journalist Hayrullah Mahmut also arrested and released next day.

• AK Party , AKP , Akif Beki , Censorship , Erdogan , Ergün Poyraz , European Union , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Islamofascism , Opposition , Turkey
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