Creationist Oktar Forces Closure of Educators’ Website
A complaint by Adnan Oktar (also called Harun Yahya) led to the banning of another internet site yesterday (September 24). This time, the 2nd Civil Court of First Instance of Gebze in Istanbul banned the internet site of the Union of Education and Scientific Workers, Egitim-Sen, egitimsen.org.tr. [The Nigde branch website is still available, in Turkish, and discusses what happened.) The site was banned without any warning.
The access to the site was banned as a reaction to the Union’s press release about Adnan Oktar’s Creation Atlas, which was sent to the schools free of charge on February 28. The union of educators questioned the motivation behind the sending of these books to schools. An English translation of the Union’s press release has been provided in the Comments by a kind reader.
Oktar’s complaints have already resulted in banning of the internet sites Eksi Sözlük (Sour Dictionary, a popular news and opinion site), superpoligon.com and WordPress.com since April 2007. The 2nd Civil Court of First Instance banned evolutionist Richard Dawkins’s site for the same reason.
Law 5651, passed on May 4, 2007, gives the bureaucracy the authority to censor any internet site without a trial. Several groups are protesting this. (click for article)
The biologist PZ Myers weighs in about Oktar. Click here.
Law 5651, passed on May 4, 2007, gives the bureaucracy the authority to censor any internet site without a trial.
No it doesn’t. Not as simple as that. The law is here. The relevant subsection is 8-4. Had it been that simple, people wouldn’t be going to courts and getting injunctions. Actually, the law is far more onerous than that and, for example, requires all manner of records to be kept ‘just in case.’
For the cases concerning Oktar only the bureaucratic and technical infrastucture required by this new law are being used. People could always sue for perceived insults (not just libel). I don’t think people who pay lip service to freedom of expression understand what kind of a beast it can be and what level of tolerance it requires from the populace.
I attempted to get a sense of what people might be thinking by asking around online and found that very few people were willing to stick to principle. When you ask the pious about the famous cartoons, the decent about swearing, the conservative about sex, the AKP-partisan about Erdogan being drawn as various animals etc. they all seem to want the government to step in.
I’ll quote H.L. Mencken:
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
This man Oktar needs to be stopped.
The Union’s press release that is said to have caused this ban can be read here (click; in Turkish of course).
My attempted translation of the said press release follows.
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What is the purpose behind Harun Yahya’s Creation Atlas being sent to schools free of charge? – 02/28/2007
Distinguished members of the press,
Nowadays, a 764-page book titled Creation Atlas is being sent via parcel delivery services to high school biology and philosophy teachers and to expert academicians in related fields. The said book, Atlas hereafter, is replete with unscientific claims and is authored by a certain person of adopted name Harun Yahya, also known to the public as Adnan Hodja. The Atlas is presented as the first volume of a planned seven-volume series. It is seen that the purpose of the Atlas is to influence teachers who cover the theory of evolution in their classes, to propagandize students with the idea that evolution is in fact an unproven theory, and by means of reactionary sophistry, to make creationism dominant in the education system. It is also understood that this thick book called Atlas printed on expensive glossy paper by this person —who shares the same views about the theory of evolution as held by the AKP government and its Education Minister, Huseyin Celik, and by their American counterparts, Evangelical Christians and the reactionary Bush administration— is slated to be sent free of charge to thousands of philosophy and biology teachers across Turkey.
We, as the Union of Educators, are asking: where is Adnan Oktar —who presents himself as Harun Yahya and has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia seven times to date— finding the monies to meet the printing and shipping costs of this luxury Atlas he is distributing free of charge? Who is financing this project? More importantly, how are the names of biology and philosophy teachers determined one by one, school by school? What is the role of local Directorates of National Education on that account?
Distinguished members of the press,
The hypothesis that the ablution water increases red-cell counts in your blood as found in the Religious Culture and Ethics Knowledge textbook, the fossil exhibitions that are being opened in various Turkish cities and universities without any explanation as to how the fossils were acquired and wherefrom, and the Education Minister’s zeal to bolster reactionary content in education are in reality nothing but an effort to substitute charlatanry as the dominant force in science’s place. The proposal to teach both evolution and creation theories as made by AKP’s Education Minister Huseyin Celik back in the days when curricular changes were on the agenda is now finding its echo in this campaign of Adnan Oktar’s. Is the government now collaborating with centers of charlatanry and sophistry to introduce to schools practices that it failed to get public approval for? Very serious evidences to that effect are coming to our attention. It appears that AKP’s Education Ministry that failed to inject the creation lie into schools by curricular changes has found its remedy in clearing the way for the National Values Foundation, chaired by the person whose adopted name is Harun Yahya, to organize conferences in schools. The last example of these efforts to make education more religious has come from the province of Mersin. The Mersin Provincial Directorate of National Education has granted formal permission —with a communiqué dated November 22, 2006 and numbered 1472— to persons affiliated with the National Values Foundation to organize conferences in schools across the province on the subject of Space and Earth Sciences. By such naming of the subject matter, a mere cover has been laid over truth. The conferences thus organized have directly moved on to criticize the theory of evolution, and aimed to carry on the propaganda for creation theory. Turgut Aksu, the person charged with giving the conferences, is business school graduate and claims to be working for NASA. From his CV, it is understood that this person who presents himself as an expert in space science and genetics has received no education whatsoever to back his claim to such expertise. Then, how is it that the Directorates of National Education allow such persons to give school conferences on a subject they are not experts of? The official Directorate communiqué sent to schools is attached for your attention. That a Foundation, chaired by an author whose books are found objectionable to be on school library shelves, is permitted by Directorates of National Education to give school conferences is a point that needs utmost scrutiny. In the past days, this Atlas, which was also distributed free of charge in France, has been found objectionable by the French Education Ministry, and its distribution has been banned. It is worth noting that Adnan Oktar, who defends the Moderate Islamic model for Turkey as crafted by the USA as part of its Greater Middle East Project, has also targeted France whose laic education system Turkey had adopted as a model. It is clear that none of these could be realized without large financial and political support and backing. It is imperative that the hidden powers behind the religion-in-science-education campaign of this mentally unfit person, who also claims that the 9/11 attackers were Darwinists, are found out as soon as possible, and their activities are banned. This Atlas, which is wholly based on sophistry and attempted to be made credible by visual elements, must immediately be prevented from entering schools; in addition, formal investigations should immediately be launched against those responsible for enabling this crew to organize school conferences by official Directorate of National Education communiqués. The Union of Educators calls upon education and science workers not to accept, and to return to sender, this Atlas sent to them free of charge.
As you can see, the press release is snearing at AO, calling him a charlatan, sophist, mentally unfit, etc. So far, so good; it is all justified imo. But as you can also see, the AKP government and a named minister of this government are badly disparaged, too. Sorting out the truth of the matter, and identifying correctly who it is that must be stopped are correspondingly difficult.
I just read in the paper that, in Balikesir I guess, some young activists were fined (62 Lira each) for occupying sidewalk space while selling communist pamphlets. Now, sure, we don’t want street vendors proliferating creating an untaxed underground economy; and the municipal police merely enforced the law in this example. But why?
Correction:
The official Directorate communiqué sent to schools is attached for your attention. That a Foundation, chaired by an author whose books the Ministry of Culture found objectionable to be on school library shelves, is permitted by Directorates of National Education to give school conferences is a point that needs utmost scrutiny.
There is an actual need to be objective in describing who is rigthful in a certain case. Here, there is an individual who is trying to protect his rights against defamation, slander and insult. He resorts to justice and the source of this negative dissemination is turned off. This is the decision of a court and nobody has the right to discuss its content.
Now, Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya) is in this case the individual harrassed by various circles through slanderous campaigns against himself. He has applied to court and won the case against these sources. The world is to interpret the circumstances as to justice and objectivity.
If Egitim-Sen, Charles Dawkins or anybody has some arguments to discuss with Adnan Oktar, they should bring up their ideas, points and thesis through evidence and scientific facts rather than insults or defamation.
Charles Dawkins was called to a debate with Adnan Oktar, but he rejected a face to face discussion. Where does he find the right to talk after him through slanders?