"Erdogan Must Be Joking"

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the opening speech at the 38th International Congress of Asian and North African Studies (ICANAS) in Ankara, in which he claimed that " unfortunately the voices of scientists, intellectuals and artists do not rise loudly enough against injustice in the age we live in."

"Joke or derision?" 

In reaction, independent parliamentary candidate Prof. Dr. Baskin Oran and Prof. Dr. Ahmet Insel, Oran's election campign aidee, have published a statement on Baskin Oran's website. They first asked, "Is this a joke or derision?" and then made a list of former Minister of Justice Cemil Cicek's past treatment of intellectuals:

• In September 2004 he was the one who by saying, 'We support making adultery a crime' , turned attention towards this absurdity and away from Article 301.
  
  
• When Minister of Justice, he was the one who allowed Hrant Dink to be tried under Article 301 (then 159),
  who called on the Minority Rights and Cultural Rights Report "intellectual nonsense" and intellectual mischief".
  
  
• In September 2005, when the Armenian conference could finally take place, it was him who hit his fist on the parliamentary podium and said, 'They stabbed us in the back'.
  
  
• It was he who in September 2006 said that 'the person really responsible for 301 is Orhan Pamuk', and he who said in February 2007 that "I have seen how hypocritical and spineless intellectuals are in the 301 discussion'.
  
  
• It was Cemil Cicek who said in September 2006, 'We cannot abolish 301. Wait, and the judiciary will make fine adjustments'. He is still in cabinet, this time as the State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister responsible for the coordination of human rights institutions and affairs" and also as government speaker!
  
  
• If we leave Cemil Cicek's real identity to the side for a moment, what about Prime Minister Erdogan preventing the Human Rights Advisory Committee, which is meant to meet at least three times a year, from meeting since October 2004? As Prime Minister then and now, he has to explain why.
  
  
• We also expect an explanation from President Abdullah Gül, because at the time, he was the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of human rights.
  
  
• If he can stay silent on human rights violations, if he can offer Cemil Cicek, who supports these violations, first the post of Minister of Justice and now that of coordinator of human rights affairs, then we call on Prime Minister Erdogan to be serious, to first think and then talk. (NZ/AG)