Dear Mr. Khan,
I write to you as your supporter and well-wisher. You have provided us with hope after a very long time and having desperately clutched at it, I am unwilling to to let you be squandered, like Bhutto and his daughter before you. Hence I address to you this letter.
Khan sb! Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are pygmies atop big political parties. They are incompetent, corrupt and self serving. Yet as I look at the state of our nation, I do not feel threatened by them. Democratic process was going to deal with them and your growing popularity and almost certain victory in the next elections shows that one cannot fool all the people all the time. As a Pakistani who believes in Jinnah’s Pakistan I feel threatened rather by a certain line of thinking – a line of thinking that still...
Lifestyle
Dear Secretary of State,
I have a question for you.
Before you arrived in Turkey, its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told a United Nations forum in Vienna that the international community should consider Islamophobia as a crime against humanity “like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism.”
When Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned Erdogan for “comparing Zionism to fascism” and described the Turkish leader’s remark as “a dark and false statement”, I found myself wondering how you would respond to it when you arrived in Turkey.
Before your plane landed, a senior State Department official who did not want to be named said Erdogan’s statement was “particularly offensive”. The official’s main concern seemed to be that it would “complicate” your ability to work...
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Dear Prime Minister,
On 17th October last year your Parliament passed the authorization for a military intervention in the neighbouring country for one year by 507 of the 550 votes.
The time you needed without any further agreement of the Turkish Parliament for your military operations has come to an end. (oder am 07.10.08 vielleicht lieber: is coming to an end. NP) Now, after recent battles with the PKK, you will need fresh authorization from Parliament for future intervention.
The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has always rigorously condemned the extremism of the totalitarian PKK. We mourn for the Turkish soldiers who have lost their lives just as we do in the case of the PKK supporters. However we call on you emphatically to recognize at last the existence of some 15...
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Dear President Van Rompuy,
Dear President Barroso,
Dear President Schulz,
On behalf of the European Federation of Journalists, I am writing to draw your attention to the alarming press freedom situation in Turkey ahead of the visit of Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, on 21 January in Brussels regarding the EU accession of Turkey.
While we welcome the continuous dialogue and progress made on the EU accession of Turkey, we would like to highlight the regressive developments in the areas of human rights, in particular, freedom of expression and information, in Turkey.
To date, 60 journalists still remain in prison as a result of their work as journalists. The majority of them were accused of committing terrorist activities under the Turkish Penal Code that aims...
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Dear Mister Prime Minister:
On behalf of all of the people of Israel, I would like to apologize to you for the cowardice and fathomless idiocy of the Prime Minister of Israel. As you know, this weekend Benjamin Netanyahu sent you an “apology” for Israel having defended itself against the genocidal terrorists who attacked Israeli soldiers armed only with paintguns when they boarded the terrorist “flotilla” ship that you sent out to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Hamas enclave in Gaza. Netanyahu spoke only for himself when he apologized to you for Israel’s defending itself and its people, this two generations after the Holocaust. He does not represent anyone at all in the country when it comes to this “apology.” No one else in the country, except for some anti-Israel...
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Dear Mr. President,
Turkey is a longstanding and valuable ally of the United States. On a bipartisan basis over the course of ten Presidencies, the United States has supported democratic and economic reform in Turkey, as well as the emergence of civilian control over the military and the expansion of human rights and civil liberties. In order to anchor Turkey in the West, the United States has consistently supported Turkey’s inclusion in the premier security and economic institutions of Europe—NATO and the European Union.
We are concerned, however, that in recent years Turkey’s progress has stalled and in some crucial areas regressed. As noted in the U.S. State Department’s most recent Human Rights report on Turkey: “The arrest and prosecution of journalists, writers, and Kurdish...
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Dear Presidents J-C. Juncker and Donald Tusk,
November 9, 2015
We, at the Atatürk Society of America (ASA) and the Atatürk Society of UK (ASUK), are extremely dismayed and concerned about the deliberate delay in the publication of the EU Progress Report on Turkey, which is traditionally issued in October. Reuters quoted EU officials and diplomats saying “Brussels decided to keep the potentially explosive document under wraps until after Turkey's November 1 parliamentary election - the second national vote this year - because the EU was seeking Ankara's cooperation in stemming the flow of Syrian and other refugees to Europe”.
We take the liberty to remind that suppressing and delaying the official announcement of the report on Turkey’s non-compliance with EU criteria, in favor of...
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2015… The 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide… 100 years passed from the atrocities of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Even after a century the justice is not restored. Turkey denies what their forefathers have done; they deny the fact – the Genocide of 1.5 million Armenians. Even though the Turkish authorities continue their denial policy, the whole world, people from different parts of the world condemn what Ottoman Turkey did 100 years ago. On different levels and from different parts of the world one can hear announcements, calls to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Recently the European People’s Party (EPP) adopted a resolution on the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. With this resolution the EPP reaffirms its recognition and condemnation of the Genocide and Great National...
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Dear Supreme Commander and General Philip Breedlove, et al:
As a natural-born American citizen, I write this letter to express grave concern regarding the Turkish-Russian relations following the shootdown of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet on Tuesday, November 24th.
I believe that, upon examining the crisis at the present, the Turkish government’s actions, led by President Erdogen, are not congruent with North Atlantic Alliance’s best interests.
This portends the grave crisis in the regional security and stability during the ongoing and protracted Syrian war that could threaten to unravel towards the large regional warfare between The Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey, which would parlay to the inducement of the Third World War.
It is my understanding the purpose of...
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Dear Minister
Our human rights organization welcomes the German government’s decision to terminate the Bundeswehr mission in Turkey and to withdraw the “Patriot”-missiles.
Nevertheless, we are alarmed that you – and other EU-politicians – are planning to continue supporting the Turkish government, and that you even expressed “understanding for the Turkish military offensive against the PKK”.
As you know, the current policy of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not focused on safety, stability, peace and reconciliation, but on war and escalation. De facto, Erdogan is not only fighting the PKK, but also the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. For the last two weeks, the Turkish air force has been carrying out merciless attacks against those who are trying to protect the...
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