TERRORISM AS NEWSPEAK

"The hevals over at KurdishInfo have an informative little article from DIHA about Osman Baydemir's legal battles:

AMED (DIYARBAKIR) (DIHA) - Anything said and done by Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Osman Baydemir since he was the head of Human Rights Association (HRA) Diyarbakir Department in 1998, was made a matter of law case or interrogation. Becoming subject for interrogation for 193 times, law cases and interrogations against Baydemir were multiplied in 2004.

The article continues to give a breakdown of how many charges were in different court jurisdictions, how many were acquitted, how many are still ongoing, etc., and it finishes with some of the more recent charges against Osman. Some of those are still ongoing, such as the charge against him and 55 other DTP mayors for sending a letter of support for Roj TV to Danish PM Rasmussen and for sending an Amed municipality ambulance to carry a gerîla's body to his family.

Perhaps one of the most ridiculous charges is the one in which Osman is accused of "demeaning the people publicly by paying respect to differences of race and region," a charge stemming from a magazine interview. Where else in the world is someone charged with being a terrorist for making statements respecting differences in race or region? Or can anyone imagine someone in the US being charged as a terrorist for saying "Mr. Abdullah Ocalan?"

Only in Turkey and nowhere else. "
Rasti