Ataturk.com

September 25, 2007
By Tulin Daloglu

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University made me think about freedom of speech on America's college campuses.

Mr. Ahmadinejad - who represents a country the State Department calls a state sponsor of terror, who represents a country that helps Iraqi militias to kill American troops and who denies the Holocaust and calls for Israel's destruction - was allowed to speak at one of America's most prestigious campuses. But Archbishop Mesrob II Mutafyan, the Armenian patriarch of Istanbul, was denied the same privilege last week at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center.

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Ataturk.com Yönetimi

Gallipoli Youth Tennis Cup Launced in Australia

Umit Oraloglu & Pat Cash

Tennis Australia, in conjunction with Australian Turkish Business & Industry (ATBI), today announced a new international junior tournament, the inaugural Gallipoli Youth Cup.

The Gallipoli Youth Cup will be a Group 4 ITF (International Tennis Federation) event featuring an international field of boys and girls. The event will be held at Melbourne Park, home of the Australian Open, from 19-24 April 2008.

This unique sporting event aims to foster the already significant relationship between Australia and Turkey. The ATBI will also develop an education program, with school children from Victoria invited to attend the event where they will receive information on the history of the Gallipoli campaign, Ataturk and the ANZACs.

Turks rally to support secularism in İzmir

In a major show of strength over one million secular Turks demonstrated (May 13th, 2007) in the Aegean port city of Izmir against the Islamic-rooted government ahead of Turkey's early general elections.
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Does Prime Minister Erdoğan Accept Turkish Secularism?

an article by Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2007

On March 14, 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP), became Turkey's prime minister.[1] While the AKP makes no secret of its Islamic roots, it describes itself as a conservative party that fully accepts Turkey's secular system of government.[2] "A political party cannot have a religion, only individuals can," Erdoğan explained.[3]

Some U.S. officials accept such assurances. Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried, for example, has said that he sees the AKP as the Islamic equivalent of a European Christian Democratic party.[4] But is the AKP merely the Muslim version of a Christian Democratic party? Is Erdoğan committed to democracy and Western values?

Satellite Pictures of the Istanbul Demonstration

Istanbul was painted in red with Turkish flags yesterday (April 29, 2007) as about 1 million Turks demonstrated against the forthcoming election of Abdullah Gül as new President (elected by the parliment) of the Turkish Republic. The main concern of the protesters is the concentration of political power in the hands of the moderate Islamist party AKP.

In modern Turkish history, the military has regarded itself as the keeper of secularism. The armed forces leadership has issued a sharp warning towards the government and parliament that they consider the laical order of the Turkish Republic to be under threat.

The AKP also holds an absolute majority in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey but were elected by 1/3 of the votes by Turkish public due to 45% of the votes being divided by other parties that could not pass the 10% threshold therefore has no representation in the parliment. (results of the 2002 elections can be seen at Secim.com)

Picture taken from satellite on April 29 2007
Red sections are people with Turkish Flags on the roads

TR: Türkiye ve Laiklik

Son yıllarda Türkiye'de yaşanan politik ve idealojik değişiklikleri üzüntü ile izlemekteyiz. AKP Hükümetinin sözde laik tutumunun yanında Atatürk Türkiye'siyle uyuşmayacak davranışları, bizleri aşırı derecede rahatsız edecek duruma ulaşmıştır.

Her ne kadar AKP yönetimi kendilerini laik olarak göstermeye çalışsalar da, bu tamamiyle politik ve ulusu kandırmaktan öteye bir çalışma olmaktan ileriye gitmemekle, üzülerek amaçlarında başarılı olduklarını gözlemekteyiz.

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