When Egyptian youth took streets as of January 25, they never intended to replace Mubarak with another autocracy. They were killed, beaten, tortured, imprisoned to reclaim their rights and dignity, not to make some opportunist power seeker, wannabe Mubarak army officers benefit from the outcomes.

Your bullets are no different from those of Mubarak. And we all know your rule will be no different, either.

We have seen this before: it is the same script with different cast. Yet this time we won’t let you hijack the glorious revolution of the Egyptian youth. You don’t have the right to usurp the Egyptian triumph. You don’t have the right to steal our future. You don’t have the right to kill our optimism. Before January 25, we had the will but we did not know the way. Now we perfectly know how to do it. Do not think that Egyptians are the same as before they toppled Mubarek. You would be mistaken in your thought.

International actors maintain that they won’t “take sides” in the “Egyptian crisis”. It is our pleasure to remind that if you’re arming the party that is committing atrocities and furthermore harassing women sexually, then you’ve pretty much taken sides already. If you remain silent to this massacre, you are on the sides of killers. Loud and clear is that…

It is time again, once again, to stand up for Egypt.

We call all people whose heart beats with their sisters and brothers in Egypt to gather…

Saturday, November 26

13:0o – Bebek Park (Next to the Egyptian Consulate)

Contact:

+90 (533) 355-5204

Opposing to all kinds of military intervention into politics, Young Civilians aims to establish a liberal democracy in Turkey that is based on human rights, civil liberties, rule of law, tolerance and justice.

Young Civilians is a diverse group, both secular and religious with a variety of political affiliations (such as liberals, leftists, feminists, environmentalists, democrats), coming from different ethnic and religious backgrounds (such as Turks, Kurds, Muslims, seculars, Jews, Armenians, Alawites) who are drawn together by their passionate belief in democracy and by the liberal-democratic outlook they share.

Standing against any kind of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or way of life, Young Civilians condemns all forms of discursive or physical violence that can arise from or be the cause of such stigmatization, exclusion or degradation of persons.

Based on this value given to human rights, Young Civilians cannot be categorized with a single identity politics or ideology. Rather than taking a stance as the norm or the ideal, Young Civilians remains flexible in taking position in the face of injustices against different groups of people, by placing its common conscience at the center of its actions. Thus, Young Civilians can not only be seen as standing by the side of women banned from entering university because of wearing the hijab, but also as supporting the rights of a transsexual woman, who is ostracized for her anti-militarist statements.

Organizing protests, marches, campaigns, local and international meetings and conferences; Young Civilians’ most important “weapon” is political satire and the use of popular culture. Its language and style sets Young Civilians apart from previous and current civil movements, making it one of a kind as the most prominent youth group in Turkey.

Starting off with fifty people in 2007, Young Civilians has built a network of ten thousand followers online and two hundred active members, regularly contributing to the actions of the movement. Receiving personal donations from a variety of people, Young Civilians has been supported by more than five hundred donors up to now. The Prime Minister of Turkey acknowledged Young Civilians as one of the leading organizations contributing to the democratization of Turkey in his inauguration speech in 2010 and expressed his gratitude for the contributions of the organization in one of his press releases. Young Civilians has also featured in national and international media including The New York Times, Sky News, BBC, Guardian, Der Spiegel, Deutche Welle, Al Jazeera Englishand Voice of America.

Have you met Houssein?

26 years old Houssein is just one of many bloggers.

What differentiates him from the rest is the fact that he has expressing his views under an oppressive regime. For the last one and a half years, Hossein has been sentenced for his “so-called crime” of promoting human rights and the cause of democracy

Hossein -blogging under the name of Babak Khorramdin- was arrested along with his brother Hassan Ronaghi-Maleki on the December 13^th, 2009, with the charges of instigating public unrest after the elections.

Hossein was exposed to both physical and psychological torture.

Even though he is suffering from kidney cancer and heart problems, Ministry of Intelligence forces have disregarded the prognosis and refused to grant him medical leave. After attempting to protest such unhumane conditions by going on a hunger stike, Hossein was put into Evin prison in solitary confinement.

Hossein was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment last October. Neither his lawyer nor his family were allowed into the court room. Since then, he has been put under severe psychological and physical pressure to make him confess his alleged crime on television.

Today is Hossein’s birthday.

Like many others, he is paying a heavy and unjust price for his courage and his use of a basic human right; freedom of expression.

As they spend their birthdays in prison cells, let us use internet for promoting their freedom, and freedom of speech.

To free Hossein and to free internet, let us click:

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41445.html

An Open Appeal to the Prime Minister Erdoğan,

Gaddafi is the dictator of Libya since 1969.

As you read this, he is commiting a massacre against Libyan protestors marching for democracy.

As you have been for Egypt, we expect you to be concerned for Libya too. Against the cruelty of Gaddafi, you should stand by the downtrodden.

First things first, we expect you to return your Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights immediately.

Young Civilians

Related links:

Hurriyet Daily News

Contact:

bilgi@gencsiviller.net / mervealici@gmail.com

EVERYBODY LOVES WIKILEAKS PARTY

We now live in the Age of Wikileaks Spectacle.

Though what we saw was less than what was expected, we know it for sure that an age has succumbed and another has just began. Nothing will be the same again.

We are thrilled with the idea that “state secrets” are getting defunct. Now, we can read secret correspondences as like reading Hello while enjoying our coffee.

Thus, this Saturday, we will celebrate Wikileaks in our Young Civilian fashion.

At the party, we will also be giving out The First Unofficial Wikileaks Awards. The best informer, the best liar, the best Dr. Strangelove, the best “promoter of partisan press”, the best back stabber, the best gossip girl and more will be awarded.

Furthermore, the diplomat who authored the report suggesting  ”The future is certain. It’s only that damned past that keeps changing” will be nominated for a special Literary Award.

So now it is time for us to leak into the night life of Taksim in Istanbul!

All local, imported, national, imperialist, heavily-taxed drinks and all kinds of junk food will be available with with surprise newspaper columnists and authors influenced by wikies. .

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Young Civilians

4th December, Saturday 19.30 @ Ekvator Cafe / Taksim (Küçükparmakkapı sk. No:17)

Contact:  bilgi@gencsiviller.net / +90.533.355 5204

The conference was chaired by Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a lawyer by profession and president of the association, and Bekir Berat Özipek, an academic at İstanbul Commerce University. Turkish and foreign journalists as well as members of the Young Civilians, a group promoting democracy in Turkey, also attended the conference. The Young Civilians also contributed to the booklet, which was printed in English. Cengiz, who spoke on behalf of all contributors of the booklet, said they decided to prepare such a document in order to fight vast misconceptions about the Ergenekon case, particularly abroad.

“I was in Washington seven months ago. There I saw that there is a huge lobby working for Ergenekon. Ergenekon is, unfortunately, a completely different story abroad. They [the lobby] keep claiming that no such organization as Ergenekon exists. Then we started to think what we could do to fight the misconceptions. We scanned all Western media and saw that 90 percent of Ergenekon-related stories were in favor of the Ergenekon organization.

Then I collected many arguments raised by critics of the Ergenekon case as hypotheses and called a group of intellectuals, analysts, human rights advocates and journalists for a two-day workshop to respond to the arguments. We compiled the responses in our booklet: Ergenekon Is Our Reality,” stated Cengiz, about the booklet’s background.

Dozens of suspected members of the Ergenekon gang, including those from the military, academia and the business world, are currently in prison pending trial on coup charges. Many others are accused of contributing to devious plans to destroy Parliament and topple the government albeit not under arrest.

Ergenekon hearings have been taking place since October 2008. Critics of the Ergenekon case argue that the case targets Turkey’s military and secular circles as it is a maneuver by the government to weaken and eventually get rid of the secular order in the country.

According to Cengiz, however, the case is Turkey confronting its past, which is filled with shadowy acts of crime that mainly targeted non-Muslims, pious Muslims, Alevis, Kurds and intellectuals.

“Opponents of the [Ergenekon] case claim that the case is supported only by circles close to the government. For me, it is quite natural because these circles were the actual targets of the planned acts of Ergenekon. Furthermore, the case has gained the support of many others other than the supporters of the [Justice and Development Party (AK Party)] government, contrary to claims,” Cengiz remarked.

Ergenekon suspects are accused of having a hand in Turkey’s darkest incidents, including mass murders. For example, some suspects are blamed for the Gazi events of 1995, in which 17 people were killed in İstanbul’s Alevi-dominated Gazi neighborhood when unidentified individuals opened fire on a local café.

Other crimes Ergenekon is suspected to have had a hand in include the August 2001 murder of Üzeyir Garih, a Jewish-Turkish businessman stabbed to death in a Muslim cemetery in İstanbul’s Eyüp district; the 2002 murder of secularist academic Necip Hablemitoğlu; and the 2006 murder of businessman Özdemir Sabancı.

The accusations also include three coup attempts by military generals in the early 2000s codenamed Blonde Girl, Moonlight and Glove.

The “Ergenekon Is Our Reality” booklet mentions 10 main arguments put forward by Ergenekon critics, which are refuted in a group evaluation of participants of the above-mentioned workshop. The workshop was attended by nearly 50 individuals, including journalists, columnists, bar association members, rights activists and jurists.

Cengiz mentioned one of the arguments, which concerns the alleged “violation of the human rights” of suspects in the case. According to the argument, individuals were detained and arrested in violation of the law as part of the Ergenekon probe.

The veteran lawyer responded to the argument, saying: “Rights violations are not unique to the Ergenekon case. It stems from the Turkish legal system, which has many shortcomings and flaws. Human rights advocates say they are very surprised to see people speaking about rights violations in the Ergenekon case though they turn a blind eye to similar violations in other cases in which simple or ordinary people are tried. Furthermore, no allegation of torture or mistreatment has been made yet, though nearly 300 people have been arrested as part of the case thus far. The suspects were never denied the right to access to lawyers, either. Even some suspects are defended by 10 lawyers.”

He also said there are no limits on the length of the defense statements delivered by Ergenekon suspects during the trial. “Some suspects spent 15 days making defense [statements]. This is unbelievable. No other suspect in a different case would be given that chance,” Cengiz stated.

Kemal Kerinçsiz, an ultranationalist lawyer, spent 60 hours testifying in his own defense over the course of 12 hearings. Four hearings were devoted to Workers’ Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek’s 18.5-hour-long defense statement. The prosecution also spent many days reading the Ergenekon indictments aloud.

Timing of Ergenekon case, pressure on prosecutors

In a question-and-answer session, one of the journalists asked why prosecutors overseeing the Ergenekon probe picked 2007 and 2008 to start such a gigantic case. Cengiz, in response, pointed to the importance of the emergence of the evidence related to the Ergenekon criminal organization and the political atmosphere available for the launch and conduct of such an inquest.

“I chatted with one of the Ergenekon prosecutors before. He said he did not know what they were following at the beginning of the Ergenekon probe. They did not know where the emerging evidence would take them. They felt there was something extraordinary with what they were probing. After a while, it turned out to be the Ergenekon case,” he said.

Cengiz also said Ergenekon prosecutors would not be able to maintain such a large-scale case if the political atmosphere did not permit it.

“However, Ergenekon prosecutors are under immense pressure. This pressure stems from the judiciary itself, as well. An Ergenekon prosecutor once complained that a chief prosecutor had given them massive documents to examine, but none of them were related to the Ergenekon case. Such paperwork is most probably aimed at keeping the prosecutors busy and preventing them from spending the necessary time on the Ergenekon case,” he noted.

Asked whether the Ergenekon case will take decades before its conclusion, Cengiz said, “Absolutely not.”

“There are court sessions almost every day. If this were an ordinary case, it’d be right to expect it to take many years to reach conclusion. But we are talking about the Ergenekon case. Prosecutors and judges are working hard to conclude the case as soon as possible,” he added.

Ergenekon hearings are held at the Silivri courthouse in İstanbul four days a week. The prosecution examines documents (indictments and folders of evidence) on the fifth day, which saves a great amount of time in the case.

Objection to case due to ‘allergy’ to AK Party

Cengiz also drew attention to a point that hints at people’s objection to the Ergenekon case. According to the lawyer, most people have a strong position toward the case only because they are “allergic” to the AK Party.

Among the participants of the said workshop were İstanbul Bar Association member Fethiye Çetin, Agos weekly Editor-in-Chief Etyen Mahçupyan, former public prosecutor Reşat Petek, former head of Diyarbakır Bar Association Sezgin Tanrıkulu and political analyst Ahmet Turan Ayhan.

Today’s Zaman

03 July 2010, Saturday

A group of members of the renowned pro-democracy NGO staged the sarcastic performance yesterday in front of Renault’s assembly plant in Bursa. The performance mocked the recently made corporate decision by the French carmaker’s Turkish subsidiary Oyak-Renault to ban headscarves.

The decision, which was made when an employee at the Bursa plant wanted to go shopping at the Renault facility with his wife, his mother — who wears a headscarf — and his father on Feb. 27, has angered Renault employees. While the employee and his wife were allowed to enter the facility, his mother was refused entry. The security guards at the gate told the employee that the company’s management ordered them not to allow anyone wearing a headscarf into the facility.

The Young Civilians have become the voice of the public’s ensuing distaste for the company, of which the Turkish Armed Forces Assistance Center (OYAK) owns almost half. The group has prepared a “Renault Driver’s Manual” which urges the driver to remove all scarves from the vehicle in order to start the engine. Bringing the idea to life, a headscarved member of the group tried to open the doors of a Renault car but failed to do so because the car would not let her in with her head covered, another member, this time one who did not cover her head with a scarf, managed to get into the vehicle but failed to start to the engine because she had a scarf draped around her neck. It was only when she removed her scarf that she was able to start the car.

Speaking on behalf of the pro-democracy group, Murat Fırat said they wanted Renault to add the standard of outfits required to drive their vehicles to their manuals and stop selling cars to the headscarved from now on. “We wanted to save them some time, so we prepared the manual ourselves,” he said in a cutting message to the company.

“Although we were able to highlight the stupidity of Renault’s decision with such a sardonic protest, what we really want is for our friends and their families to be able to enter Renault’s facilities with or without headscarves,” Fırat said, discussing the motive for their protest.

Oyak-Renault’s record is notorious in terms of its respect for religious sensitivities. In December 2008 it was accused of having intimidated its pious Muslim employees.

Hundreds of lawyers staged a protest at an İstanbul Bar Association ceremony on April 3 at which Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) Deputy Chairman Kadir Özbek was given an award, though his position entails no role directly related to the law, and he is only responsible for the appointment of members of the court, which many believe are made not in the name of justice but to cover crimes committed and let the culprits get away.

The Young Civilians  protested the award by sending a wreath in Schmidt’s name.

Because the bar did not notice that it was a mockery, the wreath of the Young Civilians, bearing the message “Carl Schmidt from the Nuremberg Bar” was exhibited during the event among the others on display.

The Young Civilians and the İstanbul Bar Association were in the headlines previously with another of the NGO’s protests against the bar. Members of the Young Civilians hung a banner reading “Coup-maker Bar, Welcome to Taksim,” along the windows of a hotel when the members of the bar arrived at Taksim Square for a march against the government. The Young Civilians, among many other civil society organizations, accuse the bar of being sympathetic to anti-democratic endeavors.

Though still hard to believe, that is exactly what the Young Civilians have managed to do in a few years with their indisputably inspiring performance, according to many observers.

“Young [military] officers uncomfortable” was the main headline of the ultranationalist Cumhuriyet daily on May 23, 2003, which inspired the group to choose “Young Civilians” as the name of their organization and a red athletic shoe as its symbol as an apparent protest against soldiers’ boots. Courage, wisdom, dynamism and a strong sense of humor have helped them gain wide public appreciation since then. Currently, the group is still not that big, composed of a few thousand subscribers to its network, but has a much larger popular support base throughout the country. Interviewed by Sunday’s Zaman, academic experts on civil society, activists and artists underlined that the key to their success is that they are heterogeneous with respect to ethnicity and religious conviction without having any political affiliation and employ political satire very effectively for widely sought-after values such as democracy, cultural pluralism and respect for human rights.

Non-polarized, impartial stance

People have so far seen the Young Civilians protesting against the government, the opposition parties, the army and the judiciary, simply everyone they think has breached any of the values they fight for.

The last time the Young Civilians hit the headlines was when they organized the “First Traditional Folder-Carrying Footrace” from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) headquarters to the Constitutional Court in Ankara last week, mocking the main opposition because it has run to the top court after every government bill aimed at raising democratic standards in the country. However, only a week ago, the group’s stance was no less critical of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following his remarks on the possibility of deporting all Armenian citizens illegally working in the country.

Certainly, the military and the judiciary have received the lion’s share of their criticism. When the General Staff issued a threatening and poorly written memorandum against the government in the middle of the night on April 27, 2007, the group swiftly issued a counter-statement and said they “do not have the intention of falling victim to the games of midnight coup-making by some amateur coup leaders.” And, they were no less courageous when they nominated a judge who ruled to release a naval colonel arrested on suspicion of drafting a plan to undermine the government only 19 hours after his arrest for the Guinness World Records, stressing that anyone who could read the heavy case material that quickly must be the “world’s fastest reader.” Observers specifically applaud this non-polarized and impartial style.

“They are making politics independent of ethnic, religious, political and gender identities. They are, in fact, not homogeneous with respect to any of those and merely a free and democratic sociopolitical order keeps them together. For instance, I see a headscarved girl carrying a banner criticizing Erdoğan, and I am not surprised at all,” said Professor Bekir Berat Özipek of İstanbul Commerce University, noting that they have rather a “conscience based” approach.

Creative sarcasm employed skillfully in good faith

Civil Society Development Center (STGM) Chairman Levent Korkut agreed on the Young Civilians’ politics-neutral approach, too. “This is a heterogeneous and non-polarized group containing many differences within it. They are certainly not acting as a proxy of a particular political ideology either,” said Korkut, who also teaches at Hacettepe University in Ankara.

Experts point out the group’s talent for using humor as a tool in their demonstrations. Media Association (Medya Derneği) Chairman Salih Memecan, also one of the most famous cartoonists in Turkey, said humor is vitally important while putting up a fight for freedoms, and he observed that the Young Civilians are highly successful in employing it. “I am even worried that I may lose my job if, one day, they also begin drawing cartoons,” he stated, in appreciation of the quality work the Young Civilians do.

Özipek’s assessment of the group focused on its talented use of humor, too, but also drew attention to another dimension — that they use it in good faith and in an inclusionary way, which is uncommon for Turkish humor. “Humor is a mode of resistance against authoritarianism for them, and they use it skillfully for a more democratic and libertarian Turkey, which is so noteworthy because the old language of Turkish humor had plenty of pro-establishment and statist elements in it. Those who are alienated by the official state discourse, be it ethnically or religiously, like pious people, Kurds, Alevis have all been subject to an exclusionary and critical treatment for so long. In the Young Civilians, I see all those estranged are rather embraced,” he said.

Creativity is seen as another strength of the group’s use of humor in demonstrations. Memecan, Özipek and Korkut have all expressed their appreciation for the group’s inventiveness. “It is certainly not the only NGO in Turkey, but creativity is what these youngsters have. Even those opposing the group cannot help but admire their inventiveness,” Özipek said. Having noted that Turkey is going through an enormous fight for democracy, Korkut lauded the Young Civilians’ creativity, which makes them highly productive, putting their shoulders to the wheel in the country’s struggle for the consolidation of democracy. “In Turkey, NGOs have a problem of being unable to produce and eventually create an effect. The Young Civilians here are certainly an example for others with their fertile imaginations and their influence,” he said.

Setting an example for civil society

Korkut detailed his reasons in labeling the Young Civilians as an example for other NGOs. “They are doing what civil society should actually do in Turkey, showing them how to use and develop their capacities. Reaching out to people and the media is something they do very successfully,” said the STGM chairman, adding that many NGOs in the country rather opt for taking funding mainly from the European Union for their projects but pay little attention to the effect they create. “The Young Civilians, however, are raising funds on their own and focusing on how to be more influential,” he concluded. Indeed, the group depends solely on modest donations and fees from its members.

Professor Fuat Keyman of Koç University also believes that the Young Civilians set an example for Turkish civil society. “They showed very well that an NGO could overcome financial and organizational weaknesses and be very influential once there is a will and endeavor and when these two are combined with creativity,” he noted.

04 April 2010/ Turkish Daily “Today’s Zaman”