Report 17 July 2006
PM's least favourite cartoonist gets Freedom of Press Award. PM Erdoğan had previously sued cartoonist Musa Kart for this image.......
Penguen Magazine subsequently published a front page cover featuring 8 animal caricatures of the PM in support of the original cartoonist. You could read the background at http://www.fecoweb.org/News/07-4-05Turkish%20cartoon%20lawsuit.html but this link seems to have disappeared. So try http://www.counterpunch.org/dickinson03312005.html instead.Will the PM ever learn to be tolerant or at least intelligent enough to realise that legal action and attempts to censor expression merely creates a greater spotlight for the "offending" images? After all, this PM should be acutely aware of the need for freedom of expression since he was imprisoned for publicly reciting an Islamic poem including the lines:
"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..."
.......more love, peace and understanding from religious commentators eh!
Back in 1984 British pop group Frankie Goes To Hollywood received invaluable media attention when their single Relax was banned by the BBC for indecent lyrical suggestion. Of course Relax went onto become a No:1 hit for weeks.
Now it is the duty of WEMW to publish the cartoons of the PM so the public can better appreciate the mentality of the PM, his advisers and the prevailing attitude of authorities in Turkey.
While discussing the recent Prophet Mohammad cartoon controversy, a Muslim Turk and close associate of NPP commented that we in the West never produced cartoons about Jesus. Of course, we laughed because Jesus and the Bible have been the brunt end of endless jokes. One need only point to Monty Python's The Life of Brian as an example of the West coming to terms with satirical humour about spiritual belief.
Arther C. Withernee, Correspondent for WEMW
Report 17 July 2006
