RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13863/turkey-insulting-erdogan

Since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 2014 election, there have been 66,691 “insult investigations” launched, resulting in 12,305 trials thus far, and the “numbers are increasing.” — Yaman Akdeniz, professor of law, Istanbul Bilgi University.

Ahmet Sever, a spokesperson for Turkey’s former president, Abdullah Gül, authored a book in which he wrote: “We [are] faced with a government or, more precisely, with one man, who considers books to be more dangerous than bombs.”

Meanwhile, as Erdoğan continues playing a double game with the West, as part of his decades-long bid to become a member of the European Union. That plan may well be why his justice minister announced in December that he would be unveiling a new strategy for judicial reform. The EU should not fall for this transparent ploy. Instead, it should be demanding that the Turkish government cease prosecuting innocent people — including those whose only “crime” is criticizing Erdoğan.

The criminalization in Turkey of “insulting the president” reached a new low in early March, when a father and daughter in Ankara accused one another of engaging in the punishable offense, as part of an internal family feud.

According to Istanbul Bilgi University professor of law, Yaman Akdeniz, since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 2014 election, there have been 66,691 “insult investigations” launched, resulting in 12,305 trials thus far, and the “numbers are increasing.”

Özgür Aktütün, chairman of the Sociology Alumni Association, told the independent Turkish daily BirGün that although Turkey has been “a society of informants” since the Ottoman Empire, “what is striking in recent times is the [rampant] use of [whistleblowing] on every issue.”

“Insulting the president” is a crime according to Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, adopted in 1926. If convicted, violators face up to four years in prison — and longer, when the insult is public.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273186/yet-again-germany-horrified-migrant-murder-young-stephen-brown

In modern-day Germany, it is an all-too-common, and tragic, love story. Girl meets migrant. Girl dates migrant. Girl argues with migrant. Migrant kills girl.

The victim this time was Cynthia, 21, a beautiful young woman and native of the cathedral city of Worms, who worked as a nurse and whose dream was to become a midwife.

“She lived for her work,” said Cynthia’s uncle after her murder in early March. “She wanted to become a mid-wife. She was happy, loved parties, cheerful.”

But Cynthia, whose last name can’t be revealed due to German law, won’t be realizing her life dream of delivering babies due to her boyfriend Ahmed, 22, a Tunisian.

Ahmed had arrived in Germany in October, 2017, and applied for asylum. He had met Cynthia only four months before he murdered her. Cynthia lived in the upper story of the family home, which she had to herself. Occasionally, Ahmed stayed overnight. Police say Cynthia was murdered in her room.

One night in early March, Cynthia and Ahmed got into an argument. The Tunisian then took a knife and stabbed Cynthia, apparently while she was lying on her bed, numerous times. She suffered 10-15 stab and cut wounds to her back, neck, hands and lung.

Ahmed gave himself up to police the next morning, confessing his guilt without providing a motive. The police then went to Cynthia’s home and indeed found her body there.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-rise-means-trouble-in-paradise-11552950243

Viti Levu, Fiji

On a recent visit to Fiji I was able to confirm that the majestic islands of the South Pacific remain as close to paradise as one can get in this world. But alongside the sparkling crystal waters and coral gardens, I saw something darker at work in the region.

As U.S.-China competition intensifies, the thinly settled islands scattered across Oceania will become geopolitical flashpoints. The contest has already begun to impose strains on fragile societies. These strains will intensify as strategists in Washington, Beijing and Canberra seek to further influence political developments in tiny, almost inaccessible island-states.

U.S. interests in the South Pacific run deep. The American naval presence in the region, originally dispatched to protect U.S. whalers, is 200 years old. American statesmen have long believed that the country’s security depends on U.S. power in the Pacific. President John Tyler extended the Monroe Doctrine to Hawaii in 1842; a century later the importance of the region was driven home by the brutal island warfare of World War II. Even in an era when many Americans want to limit the nation’s overseas commitments, voters and Washington strategists alike will remain focused on maintaining security and stability in the South Pacific.

For many years, the main diplomatic drama in the region revolved around the bidding war between Taipei and Beijing for diplomatic recognition. In exchange for aid packages, island-states would agree to recognize either Taiwan or the mainland. For small states without many goods to sell, diplomatic recognition turned out to be good business. Of the 17 countries world-wide that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, six are in the South or Central Pacific.

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/281731/chinas-plan-for-global-supremacy

In 2013 my friend Eduardo Medina-Mora became Mexico’s ambassador to the United States. We had known each other since 1988, when I was preparing a study of Mexico’s tax and regulatory system for a U.S. consulting firm, and Eduardo was running a small Mexico City law firm after a stint as press officer for the Ministry of Fisheries. We kept in touch over the years. In 2003, when he headed Mexico’s foreign intelligence service, the CISEN, and I ran the fixed income research department of Bank of America, we compared notes over dinner in Mexico City. He went on to serve as attorney general and other senior posts.

Eduardo complained that no one in the Obama administration seemed responsible for Mexico. “We don’t even know who to call when a problem comes up,” he told me at his office at Mexico’s Embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue, where I called on him to offer my congratulations. “It’s easier for [then Mexican President Enrique] Peña Nieto to get the president of China on the phone than Barack Obama. What would you advise me to do?”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13913/britain-war-on-christianity

“Christian street preachers should be free to share the gospel, even where it means challenging the beliefs of others.” — Christian Concern, in a petition to UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

In recent years, dozens of Christians — clergy and non-clergy — in Britain have been arrested or fired from their jobs due to their faith. Much of the harassment is based on three sections of two British laws that are vague and open to subjective interpretations.

At an appeal hearing at Bristol Crown Court, attorney Michael Phillips emphasized the importance of freedom of speech, even in cases where the speaker does not necessarily hold the views being expressed. Another attorney, Paul Diamond, argued that there is no right not to be exposed to contrary ideas. He added that should passers-by not wish to hear the preaching, they are able to walk away.

“Christian street preachers should be free to share the gospel, even where it means challenging the beliefs of others.” — Christian Concern, in a petition to UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

In recent years, dozens of Christians — clergy and non-clergy — in Britain have been arrested or fired from their jobs due to their faith. Much of the harassment is based on three sections of two British laws that are vague and open to subjective interpretations.

At an appeal hearing at Bristol Crown Court, attorney Michael Phillips emphasized the importance of freedom of speech, even in cases where the speaker does not necessarily hold the views being expressed. Another attorney, Paul Diamond, argued that there is no right not to be exposed to contrary ideas. He added that should passers-by not wish to hear the preaching, they are able to walk away.

The unlawful arrest of a Christian street preacher in London has drawn attention to the continuing use of hate speech laws to silence Christians in multicultural Britain — even as incendiary speech by Muslim extremists is routinely ignored.

On February 23, Oluwole Ilesanmi, a 64-year-old Nigerian evangelist known as Preacher Olu, was arrested at Southgate Station in North London after complaints that his message about Jesus was “Islamophobic.” A video of the arrest, viewed more than two million times, shows how two police officers ordered the man to stop preaching because “nobody wants to listen to that,” confiscated his Bible and then arrested him for “a breach of peace.”

The video was filmed by Ambrosine Shitrit, co-founder of Eye on Antisemitism, a London-based organization that tracks anti-Semitism on social media. Shortly before Ilesanmi’s arrest, Shitrit had seen him interacting with another man, who turned out to be a Muslim. She thought the Muslim was about to assault Ilesanmi when she went over and started filming with her phone. When the police arrived in response to an emergency call, the Muslim man left the scene.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13882/turkey-putin-ally-nato

On March 7, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey would never turn back from the S-400 missile deal with Russia. He even added that Ankara may subsequently look into buying the more advanced S-500 systems now under construction in Russia.

With the S-400 deal, Turkey is simply telling its theoretical Western allies that it views “them,” and “not Russia,” as a security threat. Given that Russia is widely considered a security threat to NATO, Turkey’s odd-one-out position inevitably calls for questioning its official NATO identity.

Turkey has NATO’s second biggest army, and its military love affair with Russia may be in its infancy now, but it undermines NATO’s military deterrence against Russia.

On September 17, 1950, more than 68 years ago, the first Turkish brigade left the port of Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, arriving, 26 days later, at Busan in Korea. Turkey was the first country, after the United States, to answer the United Nations’ call for military aid to South Korea after the North attacked that year. Turkey sent four brigades (a total of 21,212 soldiers) to a country that is 7,785 km away. By the end of the Korean War, Turkey had lost 741 soldiers killed in action. The U.N. Memorial Cemetery in Busan embraces 462 Turkish soldiers.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2019/03/kia-ora-gaza-z-word.html

Kia Ora Gaza Mission is an anti-Israel group in New Zealand led, for want of a better word, by veteran leftwing activist Roger Fowler, an Auckland resident and ‘Freedom Flotilla’ alumnus.

Last year, Dr David Cumin, director of the Israel Institute of New Zealand, reportedly criticised Mr Fowler thus:

‘In April an article about Roger Fowler sought volunteers to violate international law by joining a “flotilla… to break the siege and blockade of Gaza”.

The article failed to mention the United Nations report authored by Sir Geoffrey Palmer that determined the Israeli and Egyptian blockades on Gaza are a “legitimate security measure” due to security threats Israel faces from Gaza and recommended “All humanitarian missions… should do so through established procedures and the designated land crossings”.

Aid is easily distributed to Gaza — there are thousands of truckloads of goods that move from Israel to Gaza each week. Yet a “veteran human rights campaigner” is actively encouraging the exact activity Palmer recommended against.

Hamas has ruled Gaza since just after Israel unilaterally withdrew and forcibly removed all Jews in 2005.

Hamas executes homosexuals and political dissidents, doesn’t allow a free press, and misuses aid for terror.

Yet in a Māori TV interview, Mr Fowler compared Israel — where women and minorities have equal rights and political representation, there is a free press, and world-leading innovation — to Islamic State. He has not condemned Hamas.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47615231
“Mr Tanis was known to Dutch police, the prosecutor added.A local businessman told BBC Turkish that Gokmen Tanis had previously fought in Russia’s republic of Chechnya.Jihadist groups, including those aligned with the Islamic State (IS) group, have long operated in the region.”He was arrested because of his connections with [IS] but released later,” the businessman told the BBC.”

A man has been arrested following a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht which left three people dead, police say.

Five others were injured in the incident, and authorities say the attacker’s motive remains unclear.

Gokmen Tanis, a 37-year-old Turkish man, was detained several hours after the attack. It is not yet clear where he was arrested.

The incident sparked a city-wide manhunt and the closure of schools.

What happened on Monday?

At about 10:45 local time (09:45 GMT), police were called to reports of a shooting on board one of the city’s trams at the 24 Oktoberplein junction.

One witness told local media that “a man started shooting wildly”.

Several of the injured are in a critical condition.

Another witness told Dutch public broadcaster NOS that he had helped an injured woman when the tram came to an emergency stop.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/03/night-descends-on-our-age-of-reason/

Night Descends on Our Age of Reason By Peter Kurti

“From the first, Pell denied the allegations with which he was charged. As one of the two boys concerned is deceased, the jury relied solely on the testimony of a single complainant. But this testimony was confused, inconsistent, and filled with errors. Even so, the jury accepted this testimony, and Pell was convicted in relation to offences alleged to have been perpetrated against both boys.”

Searching investigations by the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Australia have helped address egregious offences committed against young and vulnerable people over many years. The Christian churches, particularly the Catholic and Anglican churches, have been forced to confront terrible harm done to minors in their charge. The consequent collapse in the moral standing of the churches in Australia has been catastrophic.

Public opinion towards senior church leaders — bishops, in particular — hardened during the Royal Commission’s enquiries. Criminal trials have led to prison sentences; and internal church investigations have resulted in bishops being deposed and, in some cases, stripped of their orders because of a proven failure to act on information about perpetrators of sexual abuse. But now a senior Australian bishop is judged to have done much worse.