Tagged: Turkey

May 15th, 2018 Breaking News

Turkey slams French figures demanding change in Quran

(HURRIYET DAILY NEWS) — Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Ömer Çelik slammed a French manifesto proposing the removal of some verses from the Quran, saying those 300 prominent French figures demanding the changes were as “bigoted” as members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who infer violence from the holy book, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

“This is the most striking example of intellectual violence and barbarism. Whoever these people are and whatever they have been doing up till now, they will be written at the beginning of the history of bigotry,” Çelik said on Twitter.

“Barbarism is intellectually and politically centered in the modern world,” he added.

Çelik drew parallel between the “barbaric and immoral” proposal and the ideology of ISIL.

“They could not tell in a better way that they are the closest ideological relatives of Daesh. But this approach, which will be the subject of political psychiatry, reveals how barbarism has risen in the midst of Europe, and how this mentality, at least as dangerous as Daesh, keeps itself behind certain concepts,” he said, using the Arabic name for ISIL.

“These are the most dangerous ones; those who conceal themselves behind an intellectual and political image. This is the mentality of those who are so-called anti-violence, but in fact they worship the bigotry and violence. These 300 French figures are the same as Daesh which infers violence from the humanity’s guide Quran,” Çelik added.

On April 21, 300 prominent French figures, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister Manuel Valls signed a manifesto published in the French daily Le Parisien and demanded some parts of the Quran, which they claimed have included violence and anti-Semitic references, be removed.

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December 27th, 2017 Related News

Turkey’s Erdogan has eye on becoming global caliph

(WND) — By Bob Unruh

There are increasing signs that Turkey’s dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aims to turn his nation into the dominant component of a new Islamic caliphate, controlling even more territory than the Ottoman Empire.

Islam expert and author Joel Richardson wrote shortly after Turkey’s controversial election in which Erdogan was given virtually unrestricted power that analysts in recent years tried “to shout down warnings that Erdogan has a desire to return to the Ottoman era.”

“Today those same critics are taking a fresh look at the man they once made excuses for and even championed,” he wrote.

On the day Erdogan won the referendum allowing him to rewrite the Turkish constitution, effectively ending the secular democratic Republic of Turkey as envisioned by Ataturk, he made “a very symbolic statement,” Richardson wrote.

“Not only did he specifically avoid visiting the tomb of Ataturk (who turned Turkey into a secular government), but instead, he visited the tomb of Sultan Selim I.”

Richardson explained that Selim the Grim ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520 and was most remembered for his expansionist conquest over Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

“Erdogan was sending a very clear message. The era of Ataturk is over. There is a new Sultan Selim the Grim in power,” Richardson wrote.

Erdogan’s intentions are becoming clearer. He told an interviewer during a recent trip to Africa, for example, his nation now has 39 embassies on the continent, up from 13.

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August 7th, 2017 News You Can Use

Erdogan wants the keys to Mecca and Jerusalem and will stop at nothing to expand his Muslim caliphate agenda

(SHOEBAT) — By Walid Shoebat

The one obstacle for an Ottoman Caliphate is that Saudi Arabia holds the keys to Mecca and Medina while Jordan holds the keys to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. For a Caliphate to succeed it needs to hold both keys: the keys to the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa) and the keys to Mecca.

Erdogan wants these keys and will do everything in his power to restore what once belonged to the Ottoman Caliph, which was lost when Arabia betrayed the Ottomans by allying with the British during Ottoman fall. For that, Turkey is executing plans to redraw the Middle East region back to Ottoman times. All caliphates held such keys; the Ayyubids, the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt, the Ottoman Sultans, and then to have the modern Saudi kings hold it is unacceptable for Erdogan.

The plan to regain these keys starts by using Erdogan’s ally, Qatar, under the care of Erdogan’s neo-Ottomans. Now Qatar demands that Mecca become an international city for all Muslims while Saudi Arabia threatens “war”. In reality, this is all about control of these keys. Erdogan then moves in on Jerusalem (he must obtain these keys) demanding all Muslims to begin to visit it. What westerners do not understand is that this is expanding the Hajj to also be observed in Jerusalem as an extension of Mecca via the Umrah:

Turkey’s Directorate General for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has included the al-Aqsa Mosque [Temple Mount] into the religious Umrah program that will be effective as of April 15. One of the Muslim pilgrimages, the Umrah, which is not compulsory but is highly recommended for Muslims who can afford it, will also include the visiting of the al-Aqsa Mosque [Temple Mount] in Jerusalem, Israel.

By next year (2018), the world will begin to see the change. In Istanbul on Thursday was hosted the signing ceremony of the “Protocol of the Declaration of Jerusalem” as the Muslim youth capital in 2018. The Turkish Daily Sabah had this to say:

“The main objective of the declaration of Jerusalem being the capital of the Muslim youth in 2018 is to attract young people to Jerusalem from all over the world and defend the Islamic sanctuaries in it.”

The whole region is realizing that they need to redraw their political and governmental structure. They either be magnetized towards Turkey and its Islamism or towards secularism.

Even Israel see this. When the Temple Mount in Jerusalem had the fiasco with metal-detectors, Turkey took the lead in fomenting the violence. Israel had to make a diplomatic choice; does it cow-tow to Turkey or seek Jordan to deal with Israel’s capitulation to remove the metal detectors. And since Jordan holds the key to the Temple Mount, Israel finally reconsidered the equation of forces, responded to Jordan’s request instead of Turkey’s. This was the only way to thwart the Islamists’ plan to pour regional chaos on Israel. Arab states fearing the end of their rule, noted the Islamists’ attempt to create chaos claiming al-Aqsa (Temple Mount) was in danger. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Sheikh Raed Salah recently demanded a coup against these Arab regimes in the name of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israelis saw Netanyahu’s capitulation as weakness where Israelis using social media began circulating a mock-photo of the Israeli army’s entry into Old Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. The picture was created and the faces of Islamic figures were placed in place of Israeli military figures. In the photoshopped picture, the faces of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sheikh Raed Salah (the head of the Islamic Movement inside the Green Line) and Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories Sheikh Muhammad Hussein were installed on the bodies of the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces during the 1967 war Yitzhak Rabin and the then Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and the commander of the central region of the army, Uzi Narkis; a picture that Jews consider historic, coming four hours after the fall of Jerusalem.

In other words, Israelis are beginning to see Erdogan’s march towards Jerusalem and Israel’s capitulation fearing Erdogan. The Islamist Turkey wants the key to the Temple Mount (al-Aqsa) and will not mind using any excuse, even the controversy over some metal detectors installed.

And to add more prophetic chips on the table, Egypt, Somalia (part of biblical Cush) and the entire Arabian Peninsula is in the cross-hairs of Turkey’s expansion. While Qatar is in Turkey’s pocket, the rift with the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is growing.

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July 9th, 2017 Breaking News

Massive Istanbul crowd protests Erdogan’s crackdown on rights

(VOA) — By Ken Bredemeier

Tens of thousands of people massed in Istanbul Sunday to protest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on critics of his government in the wake of last year’s failed military coup.

The demonstrators chanted “Rights, Law, Justice” in support of the main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who was completing a 450-kilometer walk from the capital Ankara after a lawmaker from his party was imprisoned in June.

It was the biggest protest in several years against Erdogan, whose government has arrested more than 50,000 people and dismissed at least 100,000 civil servants he has characterized as supporters of the aborted coup. Turkey claims the coup was led by a cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who has been living in self-imposed exile in the United States for nearly two decades. Gulen denies any involvement.

The 68-year-old Kilicdaroglu’s 25-day march at first drew modest support, about 1,000 people who walked alongside him. But the crowds swelled in recent days as he neared Istanbul.

Kilicdaroglu, the head of the secularist Republican People’s Party, said that his march “cast off a shirt of fear” of Erdogan’s rule. “If only there was no need for this march and there was democracy, media freedoms, if civic society groups could freely express their opinions.”

Erdogan criticized Kilicdaroglu when he embarked on the march, saying justice should be sought in parliament, not on the streets.

The Turkish opposition says that Erdogan’s government has been moving toward authoritarianism, while the Turkish leader says that the crackdown on rights is necessary to thwart security threats to the ruling government.

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May 23rd, 2017 Related News

2017 has seen a terror attack attempted in Europe every nine days

(BREITBART) — by Raheem Kassam and Victoria Friedman

Europe, the United Kingdom, and Russia have witnessed terror attacks or attempted attacks every nine days in 2017 on average, analysis of security incidents has revealed.

Since January, around 45 people have been killed by mostly Islamic terrorists, while hundreds have been injured. The only known incident not linked to jihadism in 2017 was the attack on the Borussia Dortmund soccer team by a Russian-German national attempting to profit from short-selling stock in the company.

Attacks and attempted attacks have taken place in Austria, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Germany.

Security services in Britain — population 65 million — are known to be tracking 3,500 potential terror suspects or persons posing a threat. Meanwhile Belgium, with its population of just 12 million, is tracking around 18,000 potential jihadists.

A further minimum of 14 terror attacks have occurred in Turkey in 2017, a NATO member country currently being considered for European Union membership.

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March 30th, 2017 Related News

‘Very ominous warning’ from Turkish strongman just ‘a preview’

(WND) — Turkish citizens living in Europe are heading to the polls this week to vote on a referendum calling for expanded powers for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Members of Turkish expatriate communities in Germany, France, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland are able to cast their ballots between March 27 and April 9 at Turkish consulates.

When Turkish ministers from the ruling Justice and Development Party infamously tried to campaign for the referendum in Germany and the Netherlands, officials in those countries barred them from doing so, citing security concerns.

The moves prompted Erdogan to fly into a rage and declare: “If Europe continues this way, no European in any part of the world can walk safely on the streets. Europe will be damaged by this.”

Germany might have been able to brush aside the threat if it weren’t home to a sizable Turkish population. Roughly 3.7 percent of the country’s 82 million residents are Turks, and 1.4 million of those Turks are eligible to vote in the referendum.

Philip Haney, a former Customs and Border Protection officer who co-authored “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad,” said it’s an ominous sign for Europe that Turkish ministers felt the need to go into European countries to campaign for a Turkish referendum in front of Europe’s large Turkish population.

“It tells me they view Europe as an extension of their territory, of their sovereignty, of their influence,” Haney told WND. “This is a preview of what we can expect in the time ahead: an inordinate amount of malevolent influence exerted by rulers of countries, in this case in the Middle East, interfering with the sovereign authority of countries in Europe directly, no pretense.”

Erdogan’s threats amount to nothing less than a breach of European sovereignty, in Haney’s view. He noted German and Dutch leaders had the right, as leaders of sovereign nations, to deny entry to the Turkish ministers if they believed their presence would threaten public security.

“Erdogan’s saying that non-Muslim countries don’t have sovereign rights,” Haney said. “He’s saying, ‘If you do something we don’t like, there might be war.’”

Unfortunately, because there are so many Turks living in Europe, European leaders have no choice but to take Turkey’s threats seriously, according to Haney.

“Look what happened when these countries said, ‘No, no campaigning for Turkish leaders in our country.’ What happened?” Haney asked rhetorically. “They had riots.

“These people are supposedly the equivalent of lawful permanent residents, green-card holders. They’re supposed to be pledging allegiance to the countries that they’re going to, not making a fifth column for Turkey, and that’s why they didn’t let the Turkish ministers in. And Erdogan is threatening, ‘Look, this is what we can do. We can have riots in your cities. One word from me and they will break out into the streets.’ A very ominous warning.”

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Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense, agreed Europe must take Erdogan very seriously because of the large Turkish diaspora residing in Europe.

“What happened was that by preventing the Turkish leaders from coming in, it got the Turkish diaspora – those are the expatriates living in Europe – to rise up to defend Erdogan in effect,” Maloof told WND.

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March 20th, 2017 Related News

Is Erdogan inciting a holy war Against Christian Europe?

(THE CLARION PROJECT) — By Meira Svirsky

Furious over the recent EU ruling that allows for banning the hijab in the workplace, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Europe has started a “clash between the crescent and the cross.”

The remarks came just hours after Erdogan’s foreign minister warned that “holy wars” would soon start in Europe between Islam and Christianity (see below).

“Shame on the EU. Down with your European principles, values and justice,” Erdogan told supporters at a rally. “They started a clash between the cross and the crescent, there is no other explanation.”

In a ruling that upheld the dismissal of two Muslim women who refused to remove their headscarves at work, the European Court of Justice said businesses were allowed to prohibit the wearing of “any political, philosophical or religious sign.” The court further stated that such prohibitions can no longer be construed as discriminatory.

With Turkey embroiled in a row with The Netherlands over The Netherlands refusal to allow Turkish electioneering in The Netherlands, Erdogan’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned of a brewing holy war.

“Where are you taking Europe?” he asked, directing his commented to the government of The Netherlands. “It’s collapsing, it’s decaying. Soon there’s going to be a holy war. It’s going to start.”

Accusing the Netherlands of fascism across all their political parties — from the democrats to Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam party — Cavusoglu said, “All have the same mentality.”

Days earlier, Erdogan inflamed tensions, saying the Dutch government was “Nazi remnants, they are fascists.” He added, “I said I thought Nazism was over, but I was wrong. In fact, Nazism is alive in the West.”

Revving up the rhetoric against The Netherlands and Europe in general, Erdogan on Friday urged Turks in Europe to have five children, telling them, “You are Europe’s future.”

“From here I say to my citizens, I say to my brothers and sisters in Europe … Educate your children at better schools, make sure your family live in better areas, drive in the best cars, live in the best houses,” he added in a televised speech.

“Have five children, not three. You are Europe’s future. “This is the best answer to the rudeness shown to you, the enmity, the wrongs,” he said.

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November 18th, 2016 Breaking News

Former Muslims of Norway form group, speak out against Islam

(SPEISA) — On Thursday night, Ex-Muslim of Norway showcased their work and the need for ex-Muslims in the public debate in Norway – and the rest of the world.

– It is the first time we have a public meeting. We want to explain why we have started the association and what we stand for. And to say a little about the kind of challenges we face, both in Norway and elsewhere. We want to normalize criticism of Islam and normalize leaving Islam, says Cemal Yucel Knudsen (pictured) to Nettavisen.

Cemal Yucel Knudsen comes from Turkey and has Kurdish origin. He is a former Islamist and was active in the youth branch of Milli Gorus in Turkey. He is now an ex-Muslim, atheist, social commentator, leader and founder of EX-MN.

Lily Bandehy (pictured) is a refugee from the Islamic regime in Iran. She is deputy leader of EX-MN, an author, feminist, social commentator and Islam critic, with her own blog.

Walid al-Kubaisi is a refugee from Iraq and a board member of EX-MN, author, journalist, a regular columnist, social commentator, Islam critic, lecturer, and winner of the Freedom of Expression Prize 2016.

Eystein Emberland is a board member of EX-MN. He is a humanist, religion critic and one of the founders of the organization Secular Forum.

Leaving Islam does not come without consequences, and the penalty is non other than death. Therefore it goes without saying that these people are very brave, and they are certainly contributing to the current ongoing debate.

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