Turkey Censors Darwin

As reported in the latest edition of Nature, government officials in Turkey have just censored the leading science periodical, Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology) for placing Charles Darwin on the cover. The editor was subsequently fired by the government agency that supports the magazine and many Turkish scientists are justifiably outraged.

In Turkey, as in many countries, the civil service is expected to mirror the ruling party's ideology. So, although they are keen funders of research, most senior government officials, in common with most of the population, do not believe in evolution by natural selection. The education minister Hüseyin Çelik, for example, has proclaimed his belief in intelligent design.

This is unfortunate considering that Muslim scholars and scientists were at the forefront of the scientific revolution long before Europeans got their act together. It's only been in the last twenty or thirty years that there has even been a crackdown on evolutionary ideas in Turkey. According to the History of Science Society:

In the 1970s, political Islam started to gain strength in Turkey as well as the rest of the Muslim world. Evolution became a minor culture war item, as a way for Islamists to demonstrate opposition to secular life without taking the risk of naming official secularism as a target. But creationism came into its own only in the mid 1980s, when in the aftermath of a short period of military dictatorship, religious conservatives gained control of the Turkish Ministry of Education. These conservative Muslims thought evolutionary ideas were morally corrosive, yet they found themselves in an environment where science commanded significant cognitive authority. So they needed a way to suggest that evolution was a fraudulent, scientifically dubious idea. They found the resources they needed in American “scientific creationism,” and invoked Christian creationists in a curious mirror image of the way Turkish secularists regularly relied on Western scientific authorities.

So there you have it. In an effort to reject Western secular ideas, fundamentalist Turks have embraced the Western fundamentalist rejection of science and reason. You wouldn't think that the very people that are most vocal about promoting war in the Middle East (isn't it curious how those most apt to honor the "prince of peace" are so ready to go to war) would also be the ones that conservative Muslims would be listening to for their approach on science and education. I guess that just shows that there is common ground between seemingly incompatible societies (though it doesn't offer us much hope at present).

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US Protestor Injured by Israeli Forces

I just received word that an American citizen, Tristan Anderson, has been critically injured by Israeli forces today. I'm relaying the information exactly as it's been communicated to me from my friends in the International Solidarity Movement.

URGENT- An American citizen has been critically injured in the village of Ni'lin after Israeli forces shot him in the head with a tear-gas canister.

13th Friday 2009, Ni'lin Village: An American citizen has been critically injured in the village of Ni'lin after Israeli forces shot him in the head with a tear-gas canister.

Tristan Anderson from California USA, 37 years old, has been taken to Israeli hospital Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv. Anderson is unconscious and has been bleeding heavily from the nose and mouth. He sustained a large hole in his forehead where he was struck by the canister. He is currently being operated on.

"Tristan was shot by the new tear-gas canisters that can be shot up to 500m. I ran over as I saw someone had been shot, while the Israeli forces continued to fire tear-gas at us. When an ambulance came, the Israeli soldiers refused to allow the ambulance through the checkpoint just outside the village. After 5 minutes of arguing with the soldiers, the ambulance passed."

Teah Lunqvist (Sweden) - International Solidarity Movement

The Israeli army began using to use a high velocity tear gas canister in December 2008. The black canister, labeled in Hebrew as "40mm bullet special/long range," can shoot over 400 meters. The gas canister does not make a noise when fired or emit a smoke tail. A combination of the canister's high velocity and silence is extremely dangerous and has caused numerous injuries, including a Palestinian male whose leg was broken in January 2009.

Please Contact:

Adam Taylor (English), ISM Media Office +972 8503948
Sasha Solanas (English), ISM Media Office - +972 549032981
Woody Berch (English), at Tel Hashomer hospital +972 548053082

Tristan Anderson was shot as Israeli forces attacked a demonstration against the construction of the annexation wall through the village of Ni'lin's land. Another resident from Ni'lin was shot in the leg with live ammunition.

Four Ni’lin residents have been killed during demonstrations against the confiscation of their land.

Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with live ammunition on 29th July 2008. The following day, Yousef Amira (17) was shot twice with rubber-coated steel bullets, leaving him brain dead. He died a week later on 4 August 2008. Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22), was the third Ni’lin resident to be killed by Israeli forces. He was shot in the back with live ammunition on 28 December 2008. That same day, Mohammed Khawaje (20), was shot in the head with live ammunition, leaving him brain dead. He died three days in a Ramallah hospital.

Residents in the village of Ni'lin have been demonstrating against the construction of the Apartheid Wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. Ni'lin will lose approximately 2500 dunums of agricultural land when the construction of the Wall is completed. Ni'lin was 57,000 dunums in 1948, reduced to 33,000 dunums in 1967, currently is 10,000 dunums and will be 7,500 dunums after the construction of the Wall.

UPDATE I: Also see the reports in today's New York Times and Ha'aretz.

UPDATE II: Anderson has undergone brain surgery and remains in critical condition. Anderson's story featured on Democracy Now!

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Lancet: Palestinian Health Declines

New report by England's premier medical journal paints stark picture.

Children are hardest hit by occupation, according to report.Image: AP / Charles Dharapak
The Lancet’s report, Health in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, presents a devastating picture of the impact that war and occupation have had on the Palestinian people. Infant mortality alone, between 2000 and 2006, is seven times higher for a Palestinian child than an Israeli (27 per 1,000 compared to 3.9) even though both are separated by only a few miles.

The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, introduced the report:

"Since 2000, the occupied Palestinian territory has experienced increasing human insecurity, with the erosion and reversal of many health gains made in earlier years... These setbacks, together with the latest Israeli air and ground attacks on Gaza, have plunged the region into a humanitarian crisis.”

The report argues that "hope for improving the health and quality of life of Palestinians will exist only once people recognize that the structural and political conditions that they endure in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are the key determinants of population health".

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Talking Turkey: or, Kurds and Ways

Kurdish language and identity is under attack by our closest ally in the Middle East.
Image: Kurdish Film Festival
The Turkish government is in an uproar over a lawmaker's choice to speak Kurdish before his country's parliament today. His comments were in honor of International Mother Language Day, a UN designated holiday to celebrate the diversity of languages. Ahmed Turk had diplomatic immunity from arrest even though speaking Kurdish is against the law. A previous activist was not so lucky.

In 1991, Leyla Zana spoke her native language when she was sworn in as a deputy. She had immunity as a lawmaker, but it was later stripped and she served 10 years in prison on other Kurdish-related charges.

The US support for Turkish repression against the Kurds has been an ugly stain on our government's claim to promote democracy and freedom in the Middle East. The think tank, Foreign Policy in Focus, has an excellent "Brief History" highlighting this bipartisan support for human rights abuses throughout the last three decades.

I found the following phrase in Kurdish: Yek ziman her bes nabê. It translates to "One language is never enough."

Please feel free to e-mail it to the US Ambassador to Turkey, James F. Jeffery, at: webmaster_ankara@state.gov. You can also contact the Turkish Ministry of Tourism in Washington, D.C. at: info.dc@tourismturkey.org.

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Congressional Report Back from Gaza

Congressmen Baird and Ellison take photos of the rubble at the American International school in Beit Lahiya, Gaza.
Image: Adel Hana, Associated Press
Brian Baird (D-WA-03) and Keith Ellison (D-MN-05) just issued the first official report from their tour of the Gaza Strip following Israel's 22-day assault that ended in January.

“The stories about the children affected me the most,” said Ellison. “No parent, or anyone who cares for kids, can remain unmoved by what Brian and I saw here.”

“The amount of physical destruction and the depth of human suffering here is staggering” said Baird, “Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed, schools completely leveled, fundamental water, sewer, and electricity facilities hit and relief agencies heavily damaged. The personal stories of children being killed in their homes or schools, entire families wiped out, and relief workers prevented from evacuating the wounded are heart wrenching – what went on here, and what is continuing to go on, is shocking and troubling beyond words.”

Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the targeting of civilian property, except where such destruction is rendered "absolutely necessary by military operations." For that alone, Israel could be charged with war crimes under international law. Furthermore, when Israel invaded Gaza (on December 27, while the US and EU governments were still at home with their families and unable to respond) they claimed it was because Hamas had broken the six-month ceasefire by firing Katyusha rockets into Israeli territory. In reality, Israel had already broken the ceasefire by entering Gaza and assassinating six Hamas members. The US media generally accepted Israel's distortion of the situation.


Data from The Lancet highlighting the rise in civilian deaths as Israeli assault continued.
Image: The Economist
The 22-day Israeli assault resulted in at least 1300 deaths with thousands more wounded. A team of British surgeons reported to The Lancet that Israel used illegal weapons such as white phosphorus and an experimental weapon known as DIME (dense inert material explosives) that resulted in limbs "cut off in guillotine fashion." Israel also bombed four UN-run schools after the UN explicitly gave Israel the coordinates of these facilities. A report from Gaza by the National Lawyers Guild stated that Israeli soldiers intentionally targeted civilians, including children, during the invasion.

Resident Khaled Abed Rabbo told delegates Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath how he witnessed an Israeli soldier execute his 2 year-old and 7 year-old daughters, on a sunny afternoon outside his house there. Two other Israeli soldiers were standing nearby eating chips and chocolates at the time on January 7, 2009. “I will never eat chocolate again,” said Abed Rabbo, who was formerly employed by the Fateh-led Palestinian authority. His third daughter, Samar, was also shot and paralyzed by the same Israeli soldier. Samar, 4 years old, is currently hospitalized for treatment in Belgium.

In what is now generally recognized as a situation worse than apartheid, it is the responsibility of US and Israeli citizens to vocally oppose the crimes that are being carried out in their name. We need many more victories such as that which took place at Hampshire College this week.

“If this had happened in our own country, there would be national outrage and an appeal for urgent assistance. . . People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in” said Baird and Ellison.

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