One writer all writers at risk

U.S. ally tortures —
Turkey's Government arrested, tortured, annulled acquittal, now sets February 9 retrial of researcher, writer Pinar Selek
Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Pinar Selek was writing about why the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has opted for violence.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle news, Pinar Selek said, “‘I was watching TV and I saw a photo of me. They said that there had been an explosion, a fire in the spice bazaar. […] They said it was a terrorist attack and a young boy said he’d laid the bomb with Pinar Selek. I was watching it and it was total rubbish.’” [The main witness for the prosecution later admitted that his testimony had been obtained under torture.]

In 1998, Writers in Exile reports, Turkish officials arrested Pinar Selek for alleged propaganda for PKK— after a month in custody, Selek realized she was being charged with having committed a terrorist bomb attack on the Egyptian Bazaar in Istanbul on behalf of the PKK. She spent two and a half years in prison where she was severely tortured.

“‘They arrested me and took all my documents,” Selek told Deutsche Welle. “‘They started asking me questions about the people I’d been speaking to. I never wrote their names down,’ she said. She knew her reputation as a researcher would be ruined if she did.”

She described in some detail the brutality of police. “‘They hung me on the wall in a Palestinian sling … They passed electroshocks through my brain. They dislocated my shoulder — lots of things. I just told myself, just resist for two minutes, two minutes, two more minutes. That’s how it happened, two minutes at a time.’”

In 2006, after an eight-year trial, Pinar was acquitted. By then, numerous experts had confirmed that the explosion on the Bazaar had been caused not by a bomb, but by a faulty liquid gas bottle. The main witness for the prosecution admitted that his testimony was obtained under torture.

In 2009, Turkey’s Supreme Court annulled the [acquittal] judgment and in February 2010 ordered the Criminal Court to retry the case and impose life imprisonment on Selek, claiming she was a leading member of the outlawed PKK. The senior public prosecutor had concluded that there was no bomb involved in the Bazaar explosion — a person could not have planted it; however, the Court of Appeals in Ankara did not accept the appeal of the senior public prosecutor and is demanding life imprisonment under stiffened conditions for Pinar Selek. The reopening of the lawsuit at Istanbul High Criminal Court number 12, which had given the decision of acquittal in 2008, will take place February 9, 2011.

During the past ten years, Pinar Selek has become an icon of the democracy movement in Turkey. It is obvious, Writers-in-Prison Vice-President Christa Schuenke (following the trial as official observer) writes, “that antidemocratic forces within the Turkish penal jurisdiction are trying to use their influence in order to gag a courageous writer.”

The Turkish writer and sociologist is a scholar in the Writers-in-Exile program of German P.E.N. She is a passionate advocate for the rights of different kinds of minorities such as socially disadvantaged children. She also defends the civil rights of ethnic minorities like Kurds and Armenians.

A recent psychological assessment of Selek reveals she is suffering from post-traumatic stress. She told Deutsche Welle that, with the trial coming up, “the anxiety she felt during the torture comes back to her like an echo.”

Sources and notes

Pinar Selek needs public support — to demand immediate dismissal of the trial — not only in her own country but also all over the world. christaschuenke 'at' mac.com.

“Appeal for Pinar Selek,” (Christa Schuenke Vice President of P.E.N. Germany in charge of Writers-in-Exile), http://www.pen-deutschland.de/htm/aktuelles/pinar-selek,aufruf-english.php 

On April, 20, 2010, Yasemin Öz, board member of the Feminist Cooperative Amargi in Istanbul, wrote to P.E.N. Germany, “‘Pinar Selek is a prominent writer and feminist, peace activist in Turkey. Pinar Selek is one of the frontier members of our organization. For years, members of our organization are trying to support Pinar and making campaigns in and abroad to avoid this unjust trial against Pinar. During all these years, we received support from many people and organizations in and abroad. With this support, we hope the justice will come in the end.’” http://www.pen-deutschland.de/htm/aktuelles/pinar-selek,aufruf-english.php

“Turkish human rights activist Pinar Selek faces third trial — Pinar Selek, a writer living in Berlin, faces her third trial in Turkey. She is accused of planting a bomb and killing seven people. Observers, however, say the trial is politically motivated; Pinar Selek's third trial is slated to begin on February 9, after over a decade of legal proceedings” (Author: Natalia Dannenberg, Editor: Kate Bowen) February 2, 2011, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14809844,00.html

Writers in Exile Network

Writers from other countries enrich and invigorate the cultures that take them in.

A project of International P.E.N., the Writers in Exile Network formed in response to the growing number of writers fleeing persecution. The Network works on behalf of writers who have been forced into exile and provides personal and professional information and guidance to help writers integrate into a safe country. The Network’s goals are to help writers to establish themselves in their new environment and to resume their careers. [International P.E.N. Writers in Exile Network Statement of Intent, Adopted at the International P.E.N. Congress, Moscow, May 2000], http://www.pen-deutschland.de/htm/en/e_wie_network.php

P.E.N. (originally Poets, Essayists and Novelists) is an international NGO based in London, England, and founded in that country in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers worldwide. International P.E.N. today includes a variety of writers including journalists and historians.
_____________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
____________________________

Self-fulfilling prophecy — a Setup

West-Persia relations persist in
cruelty, mendacity, hegemony
It does not have to be this way.
Re-reporting, editing, comment by Carolyn Bennett

“Respecting the rights of nations is not just a recommendation but a requirement. Instead of common logic, other instruments are used — that is not called a dialogue; it is called an order” [Islamic Republic of Iran’s chief negotiator at Istanbul meeting with six powers].

Disproportionate power and the inordinate wielding of power, brute force, caustic coercion and condescension — the flagrant, age-old arrogance of power renders the hegemon unstable, delusional and, of course, suspect by the world’s sovereign nations and peoples.

Old hegemons late last week went to Istanbul, Turkey, intent on fulfilling their own prophecy. As if falsifying evidence or packing data to make research results come out the way the researcher wants, the hegemons failed (caused to fail) a conference. With good intentions, this could have been a quiet teleconference. But there were no good intentions leading up to or within the meeting. The actors, particularly the United States and Britain, wanted the world to see the failure they had set in motion.

The way of the hegemon— aided and abetted by mass corporate multimedia

• Bullies engage in long-standing aggression: they taunt and threaten and commit violence against their prey 
• They conspire over time in setting the world against that nation or people (Saddam Hussein and Iraqis, Taliban and Afghans and Pakistanis)
• They agree to a conference (with their prey) and, leading into the scheduled conference, they announce to the world that “no progress” will come out of the conference; the conference will be a failure because a key conferee is a bad guy, an arm of an “axis of evil,” an uncooperative setter of conditions
• Powers come to conference, the hegemon fulfills his prophecy and quips: “See, I told you so.”
• No compromise. No progress. The status quo stands.

The Islamic Republic of Iran together with Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany met Friday and Saturday in Turkey. Agence France Press yesterday reported, “Talks between world powers and Iran ended Saturday without progress in tackling concerns over Tehran's nuclear program, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said no more are planned.” 

Iran’s chief negotiator responded: “Respecting the rights of nations is not just a recommendation but a requirement. Instead of common logic, other instruments are used — that’s not called a dialogue. It’s called an order.” 

I agree.  

My way of being is such that it refuses me the luxury of ignoring cruelty and mendacity — not matter the perpetrator or at whose expense. 

Nuclear power, for whatever reason or use, is ill advised and dangerous for the short and long term but the United States cannot reasonably expect any nation, if it can do otherwise, to lay down its defense or development measures when all around that nation is nuclear armed to the teeth. Iran has nuclear bombed no nation or people; the United States can never make this claim.  

Only the United States of America has dropped a nuclear bomb on cities and civilians. Only the U.S. is raining remote bombs on the peoples of Southwest Asia, the Middle East, the southern tier of the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Aden. 

Anglo Saxons have exacted unspeakable cruelty on the peoples of India and Africa and Asia. Western Europeans and North Americans have committed and sustained cruelties against peoples of the Americas, Central and Western Europe. Consider the Roma. Consider Indians of the Subcontinent and North America. Consider the Japanese and Vietnamese and Pacific and other indigenous islanders. The West has a history flowing with blood and unspeakable cruelty lasting to the present day. 

Nuclear materials are dangerous no matter the use but the U.S. and Britain are in no position to lecture or demand that nations put down their arms or restrict their energy sources when the policies and practices of United States and Britain have retarded growth, created and sustained poverty, obstructed progress, oppressed peoples, terrorized and failed nations. They are persisting, moreover, in destroying the whole world, on a variety of fronts, for their pleasure.  

The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, a Briton, told reporters after the weekend conference that was set up to fail, “We had hoped to embark on a discussion of practical ways forward, and have made every effort to make that happen. I am disappointed to say that this has not been possible.” 

In the face of several years’ histrionics against Iran, this simply is untrue: entrenched power set the conference up to fail. The ridiculousness of Aston’s remarks would be laughable if the foreign relations situation in the Middle East and Persia were not so grave. 

For the world and for women in particular, it is sad indeed that the likes of Catherine Aston and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whether camouflaged in trouser or skirt suits, are mindlessly reading the hegemon’s chauvinistic, mendacious, cruel script. 

This is why it is not enough to set our hopes on women in high office, women in power. We must find women who are secure in their womanhood — not chauvinists or “one of the boys” or women who want to please men or be “just like them”: clones of entrenched ancients. We must find honest change agents, serious, courageous women who will be leaders dedicated not to personal image or the hegemon’s script but to assisting substantive world progress. 

The Iranian chief negotiator’s words at the Istanbul conference can be more than the content for headlines or slogans. They are worth pondering in a movement to uproot entrenched power. Demand that world powers of all stripes desist in hegemony, mendacity, chronic cruelty; and seriously engage with all nations for the benefit of all nations and peoples.

“Respecting the rights of nations is not just a recommendation. It is a requirement.”

News source 

“Multilateral nuclear talks with Iran end without agreement,” France 24 International News, January 22, 2011, http://www.france24.com/en/20110122-multilateral-nuclear-iran-talks-turkey-istanbul-end-without-agreement-ashton-jalili-p5
http://www.france24.com/en/20110120-iran-talks-should-include-ending-sanctions-russia

_________________________________________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
_________________________________________________________

Old Soldiers, old wounds, endless-war dead

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

PERSISTENT FOREIGN PRESENCE IN
AFGHANISTAN
Anti-war activists in a congressional hearing hall wave signs saying ‘No More War,’ ‘New General, Old Graveyard.’

U.S. and NATO casualties are soaring and undercutting U.S. and Europe’s public support for eight years of an overt war against Afghanistan. U.S. allies Canada, the Netherlands and Poland have announced plans to withdraw combat forces.

Entrenched General David Petraeus takes over U.S. forces in Afghanistan and in congressional hearings [echoing U.S.-led Iraq invasion-occupation-speak] engages in doublespeak. “Any drawdown would be based on security conditions on the ground, gradual and limited to the 30,000 ‘surge’ troops… It is going to be a number of years before Afghan forces can truly handle the security tasks in Afghanistan on their own.” By the way, the U.S. House of Representatives is headed toward a vote “within 72 hours on [another] $33 billion emergency war funding” bill.

June 30 update Afghanistan
A suicide bomber detonated an explosive in a vehicle at the gate of a NATO base occupying Afghanistan. Other fighters armed with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the airport.

The Taliban said the attack was a message to the head of U.S. Central Command, David Petraeus, put forward by the U.S. president to takeover leadership of NATO and U.S. operations in Afghanistan that they can strike at will. The Taliban attack was in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.

“Violence in Afghanistan is reported to be “at an all time high,” this month being “the deadliest month for international forces ... since the war began nine years ago.” [“Taliban attacks NATO base,” June 30, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/06/201063053238108506.html]

JULY 1 UPDATE AFPAK
Eighteen people (est.) died today and more than 70 suffered wounds when suicide bombs exploded in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. Doctors said Lahore’s main hospital has declared a state of emergency and they expect the death toll to rise. Lahore has experienced a string of attacks against minority communities in recent months. In May of this year, more than 80 people died when twin attacks hit mosques of the Ahmadi minority sect.

IRAQ
Twelve people died and 18 suffered wounds Tuesday when bombs went off in the town of Baiji in northern Iraq and in the capital city, Baghdad. Recent attacks have targeted Iraq’s economic institutions.

SAUDI ON
PALESTINE
Saudi Arabia’s 86-year-old King Abdullah is scheduled to meet today with the U.S. president at the White House. The discussion is expected to cover Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, the nuclear standoff with Iran, the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, mutual national security efforts, and economic co-operation. Next week President Obama is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.… “The Saudis have linked achieving a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal to alleviating other regional tensions, including the perceived threat from Iran.”

IRAN, TURKEY, ISRAEL
Despite concerns and objections of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, “Israeli municipal authorities moved ahead with plans to demolish 20 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem” and establish more Israeli settlements in the area. The secretary general said again that the planned moves were “contrary to international law and against the wishes of Palestinian residents.”

“Israeli commandos shot at activists on the Mavi Marmara [part of the six-ship ‘Freedom Flotilla’] from their helicopters.” The Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER) stated during a press conference on Monday referencing autopsy reports.

Stepping back into international negotiations despite the new wave of sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear work, Iran said today it will soon resume nuclear talks with Turkey and Brazil but under certain conditions and not before the end of August.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has postponed talks between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany over his country’s nuclear program. The Iranian president has called for new negotiating partners, saying that more countries should be involved.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a television interview on Monday, “Israel has atomic bombs and it refuses to comply [with] the NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] but no one is imposing sanctions on it. How do you explain that? [A fair world would] scrutinize Israel as much as one does North Korea.”

Israel [estimated to retain an arsenal of 100-200 nuclear warheads, often threatening attack on the Islamic republic] recently has refused U.S. and international calls to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to open its facilities for IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] perusal. Iran has vowed to meet certain conditions of the nuclear swap deal crafted by Turkey and Brazil, Erdogan said, and in signing the Tehran agreement Iran promised “to enrich uranium only for peaceful purposes … If Tehran fails to comply with the ten articles of the agreement, we will impose sanctions ourselves.” As it stands, Erdogan concluded, “Iran was being punished over a mere possibility that it could make nuclear weapons in the future.”

HOW MANY (estimated) two-theater U.S.-led WAR DEAD?
Casualty sites reporting

June 29, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 181]

Wounded 31,865-100,000;

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000;

Suicides 18 a day

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count figures:

96,813 – 105,563,

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,408 U.S., 4,726 Coalition;

AFGHANISTAN: 1,144 U.S., 1,889 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources
“Top U.S. general plays down Afghan expectations,” June 30, 2010,
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20100630/twl-oukwd-uk-afghanistan-usa-d4a870c.html
“Twelve die in Iraq unrest, suicide bombing ,” June 30, 2010, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100629/twl-iraq-unrest-575b600.html
“Saudis urge U.S. on Middle East peace,” June 29, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/06/201062951518293452.html
“UN blasts razing of Jerusalem homes,” June 24, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201062411715429597.html
“Turkish autopsy: Israeli soldiers shot activists from choppers,” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60670
“Iran postpones nuclear talks,” June 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/2010628124311454616.html
“Turkey slams ‘blindness’ on Israel atomic bombs (charges international concerted action with ‘blindness’ on Israel’s nuclear arsenal over Iran’s nuclear program),” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60654
“Iran to resume nuclear talks with Turkey, Brazil before powers,” World Bulletin June 29, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=60669