Thursday, January 5, 2012

Censorship in Radikal's reporting?

Yesterday, we gave a link to an artistic subversive interpretation of the Minister of Internal Affairs Şahin's definitions of terrorism. We also added a note by the artist: "According to the artist's note "[t]his is the work of a special-beautification (with eye and hand) association that has grown as no-exotic due to its activities in the back yard of turkish pop cinema (yesilcam). The association is called 2/5 bz, and in this work, it has used demoralization approach and reflected it on modern painting. ( 1991 - 2011 )."

This said, it appears, the artist is not the only one to interpret Şahin's definitions. In fact, Radikal, the Turkish Daily, seems to have censored the talk and among other things, removed Washington and "think tank" from Minister Şahin's definitions of places where terrorism and terrorist propaganda are bred (even though that part of the text is given in quotation marks). To see that section translated in full without Radikal's censor-smelling omissions and more, please see Claire Berlinski's text:

"The efforts of the terrorist group are not limited to vicious attacks. . . . There is psychological terror, scientific terror. There is a backyard feeding the terror. There is the terror propaganda. There is an effort to portray it as innocent, reasonable and right. . . . Some support terror by seriously distorting it, making it sound reasonable by inventing excuses. By drawing pictures, reflecting it onto canvas, writing poems, reflecting it onto poems, writing daily columns. . . . They try to demoralize the military and the police fighting against terror by making them subjects in their artistic work. In such ways, they take on those who fight terror. The backyard is Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Vienna, London, Washington, university lecterns, associations, NGOs. They have infiltrated all these places. Sometimes it is the cultural center, educational association. Other times it is a think tank."