Three more people were arrested Tuesday in the ongoing investigation into the sexual abuse case of seven girls in southeastern Anatolian province of Siirt, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The total number of arrested suspects reached 18 in a case that has shaken the country, as it was alleged that the abuse was ongoing for two years and around 100 people, including the elders of the city and the deputy principle of the school where the girls were studying, were under suspicion of participating in the crime. Four of the girls, who were two pairs of sisters, were studying at the same boarding school. Allegations that the authorities were trying to cover up the abuse were strongly rejected by authorities.

Meanwhile, developments in another sexual abuse case in Siirt, this time between children, which came to light amid media coverage of the case involving the seven girls, were still ongoing. Before the shock of the rape allegations was over, on Monday newspapers ran a story reporting that eight children from Pervari district of Siirt allegedly raped two toddlers, aged 2 and 3, and killed one last year in April. The boys, whose ages ranged between 11 and 14 at the time of the crime, were alleged to have attempted to kill both toddlers but managed to kill only one.

Dearest Trudy , Although your facts maybe  correct in this case I ask why you need to post constantly this type of news. What do you gain from spewing bad news across an internet forum where people are trying to learn turkish and culture. This is neither this is just sick and situations like this have occurred all over the world why because humans are evil when given the right circumstances and pushes. But in all honestly this is not the place to get your 5 min of fame for posting such crap.

Why all the drama to post bad news instead of something good?

Do you  prefer people to worry and be  stressed by always being informed about the bad news around, and being unaware that there is no good news  - why don´t people broadcasts the good news - because nobody wants to brighten people´s lives so people can live with healthy minds and emotions - they prefer others to feel worse than themselves by sending this type of fatalistic message. To put fear in their minds

We can only control our own little corner of the world, and seeing others worse off makes us feel safer.

very dissappointed.......... meh

What a weird mentality! What a reply to the post!

Spritzer, Trudy can post whatever news she wants. If you want to post articles about how great gender relations are in Turkey, you are free to do so.

Wow, what a sick bunch! I am so glad that this is coming to the light, when the rights of less powerful in the society are violated, nobody takes interest in pursuing justice.. so I´m really happy that this is investigated. I hope that the criminals are harshly punished and I hope that no criminal is left behind and without charges!

(I´m afraid that if the Churt was spritzer (and many other Turks), this would never be allowed to talked about!!!)

My idea, CW. I didn´t respond cause I know I posted loads of positive things.  But I assume spritzer is new here.....

I think spritzer wants to say everybody should clean their door steps first. It isn´t difficult to find similar news about another country. I think you are free to talk whatever you want. But she has a right to be offended too. She is Canadian, but your approach to subjects makes her angry. In the end you all have freedom of speech. It is your decision to use it positively or negatively. Have a good night.

My approach Gokuyum? And that is? I posted loads of positive news and these articles can be found in Turkish newspapers! I didn´t write them myself!

Damn it, I´m defending myself as if I´m the criminal!

First for you to insinuate I am turkish is aracist remark. But for your information I am not turkish/kurdish or have any relatives or boyfriend living there. I asked a question which is very logical and for you to spew your crap again is allowed in such a negative way toward me is pushing it. So let the shit hit the fan. Oh look what I found in the news and catwoman lets see your excuse for deleting this after such a derrogatory remark to me. Maybe you need hormone replacements.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/04/rotterdam_police_new_paedophil.php

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/04/at_least_3000_die_workrelated.php

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/new-confessions-convicted-dutch-sex-killer

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/sexual-abuse-admission-dutch-ex-priest

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-swimming-teacher-accused-sex-crimes

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/court-rules-school-not-blame-girl%E2%80%99s-abuse

Honey, if you want to get back with Catwoman, then don´t give links to Dutch news. I am, she isn´t. This is just pathetic.

no the response from her was pathetic and childish. I am just showing that any bad news can be found if you want to find it and really this is not about turkish culture most turks already know this news as it is in their papers so why share with casual people who just want to learn about culture and language

If you don´t get that, I´m not going to explain. 

So, you found several articles about sex-related crimes in my country. That´s bad yes, but I never said they won´t occur here nor that my country/countrymen are so great/the greatest. Satisfied now?

well trudy I am surprised they do happen considering your country has all those prostitutes lined up for the taking - what is the legal age there for sex 14?

oh my mistake  I just found this

The Netherlands

Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid en Diversiteit (Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity) is a Dutch political party founded in 2006.^[28] The party currently has no parliamentary representation and did not receive enough signatures to partake in the 2006 elections.^[29]

The PNVD seeks to have the legal age-of-consent lowered to 12, and, in the long run, completely eliminated, except in dependent or intrafamilial relationships. They also aim to equalize the legal age where one can perform in pornography with the legal age-of-consent.^[30]

The former Dutch Pacifist Socialist Party also supported the lowering of the age of consent to 12.^[31]

now if you want people to make their opinions about your country by the news I just posted than ok they can.

this is my point - dont bring the shit unless you are willing to shovel yourself

And the last time you read a recent newspaper was in 1875?

Posting about sex abuse makes me ´a cougar on the prowl´? 

I´m amazed that you seem to know so much about me/my personality based on one posting you disapproved of. Kudos. 

Awwww.. I´m amazed at your ´mature´ response! Nobody said that this sort of crimes dont occur everywhere, but it´s exactly this kind of medieval attitude that allows such things to continue. We don´t have to talk about Dutch criminals here, and if you feel like there needs to be more positive news, you´re free to post them! But to say that someone cannot post negative news is simply sick.

Shame on you as a forum moderator and ruler of this site for you to constantly sling your verbatim garbage only for the sake of protecting your friend. If this is your approach wtf are you a moderator here?

"medieval attitude" " turkish attitude" in early comment you have to be joking. I can ascertain that to comment on anyone´s narrow-minded back-assward approach to this subject is futile because some people just don´t get it they cannot understand whether it is because of them lacking to remove their head from their (glorious cheeks god has given them)

My suggestion is please give us some good news about accomplishments from the young people in Turkey. We all know perverts exist in every country and we all know about war, history of war feel the effect of this, including the people who walk on the dark side of the street. Just add some good with the bad try to balance it out instead of throwing two detrimental news articles up one after another.

(We can only control our own little corner of the world, and seeing others worse off makes us feel safer. ) and from my understanding Trudy does not live there.

very dissappointed.......... meh

see you edited out the statement about having turkish mentality  part how nice of you to do this after the fact

I saved it for you catwoman this is what you said :

 

What a weird mentality! What a reply to the post! {#emotions_dlg.you_crazy} Can only be Turkish I guess.

 

Spritzer, Trudy can post whatever news she wants. If you want to post articles about how great gender relations are in Turkey, you are free to do so.
4.           catwoman
8631 posts
Private message
Shame on you

and a racist remark so tell me why are you moderator again....

 Maybe it would be interesting for you to know about what was our PM´s reaction over that "rape allegation". He was on TV on teusday night and angrily said, " why are you (media) making it a current issue which is something happened a year ago!?!". The same approach as yours.

 I, too, noticed that...but didn´t save...because I didn´t know it was to be deleted later...But, haha! I haven´t yet made my decision about whether I should be offended or proud of  "having a weird mentality".

Quite frankly, I would rather such things not be in my head at all.  We all know the world is full of ugly things, but who wants to focus on them? Is the glass half empty or is it half full?

Spritzer, why are you getting your panties all twisted up over an article posted in the "news" section here?  This isn´t a propoganda site where only the rosy-rainbow-lollipop news gets posted! 

Many of us here are interested in what´s happening.....good, bad and ugly....and are appreciative when someone takes there time to share something they have heard or learned.  Hiding our heads in the sand and pretending things like this don´t happen serves no purpose.   And no one is ignorant enough to think it doesn´t happen where they are from so save your breath on that rant! 

If you had taken the time to read just a teensy little bit you would know that Trudy has posted countless postive pieces on the subject of Turkey. 

Now why don´t you go on and make yourself a nice cold spritzer and chill. 

In light of all this rhetoric I will make a suggestion to TC. My suggestion is make a back door forum for crap like this that will not pop up in the forum column - this way those that seek this type of  excitement and the need to post alarming news posts can do so and those that wish to see this maygo to that particular area of forum - this would work and not offend some of the younger members and nonmembers who come to TC to read posts. You could place a "this may offend " little warning on this section. I am now asking if any TC memebers  concur to this idea

or would your prefer to see titles like  guess who raped and murdered now.......

This is not the Turkey tourism board. So, we don´t have to say that Turkey is walhalla, heaven on earth, and everything is perfect. When stuff happens in Turkey, it´s news, and it might as well be posted on here. News is not "crap". I like to know what is in the news in Turkey at the moment. I don´t have any Turkish news channels on my tv anymore, and I like to know what is REALLY going on, so I appreciate people posting the actual news on here. Keeps me updated. There´s already enough happy stuff on here, and from the post titels you can always filter what you read to be only positive stuff.

Just by saying that some crazy people are living in Turkey, or somebody did something bad in Turkey, nobody is saying that their own country is perfect. Horrible stuff happens everywhere, but for Trudy to post all the bad things about Holland on a Turkish forum would be REALLY strange

Spritzer, this is now a segregation. you are suggesting that some people (young or random) shouldnt have an access to such information on TC.

Besides, it looks like everything offends everyone these days.

If people are learning about Turkey why not learn all the bad and good?

I personally do not want to hear anything about rape or murder. But what can you do? Bad news always hit first and is more sensational.

Maybe the media stirring it up because nothing was done in this regard? There must be a reason? I dont know.

I don´t see anything wrong with posting this, however I think the area and the ethnicity involved should have been clearly mentioned. I have said this before in threads about honor killings, passing these off simply as "Turkish" is misleading.

Aside from that, let´s examine this incident to see why it´s not really a regular rape case like those spritzer posted.

-First of in small cities like this, people know eachother. Considering how many suspects are involved, probably hundreds or even thousands of people knew about it, no one did anything.

- At least several "honor killing" incidents seem to occur in said city per year. You can make a simple google search to verify this. It´s highly probable that if one of the victims had a boyfriend she would be killed.

-People of this region are known for their claims of how religious they are, their high moral values, how all their women wear hijabs bla bla. Many also claim they are seyids (descendants of prophet Muhammad). You would probably not be able to eat something in the street in Ramadan without geting attacked. Latest (March 2009) election results from said city:

- DTP (Kurdish separatist party): 49.4

- AKP (Religious(?) party): 45.8

- Rest: <5%

- A few days after this incident, another one surfaced where a group of YIBO school students raped 2 toddlers, killing one. Same city, this time Pervari district.

- After these two incident, major of the city made a public announcement along the lines of "Leave our city alone".

- R.T. Erdoğan, our current president, has been elected to the parliament from this city, with huge support. Also his wife happens to be from the same city. He has expressed some discomfort in these issues having widespread public attention.

- In a few months time the first case will be dismissed as it has gone beyond a certain time limit (zaman aşımı, don´t know it in English). There seems to be some effort to make this happen, from shady religious fanatic organizations of the region and their political accomplices.

As you can see, this is not really a simple rape case. This is one of the darkest moments in the history of mankind. Had this happened in biblical times, it´s story would not have been different than the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah. Unfortunately, those miracles don´t happen anymore. Of course you can always emulate it by quarantining the city and carpet bombing it till nothing is breathing. Just my two cents.

Yersu, thank you for your two cents. Interesting to read.

.

.

 Yeah, that´s exactly it. Because some part of media is stirring it up, RTE is getting angry. You can find the clues about his anger in yersu´s post.  

Exactly !! you said this before and immediately labeled as racist as far as i remember...

Since when telling the truth is racism?

I asked the same question too

Well aren´t you just the sweetest thing to take notice of me and think that I´ve been away but really I haven´t....I just haven´t posted. 

I find it strange that you would think someone emailed me and asked me to comment.......Oh wait!!!!   Is that how it works for you?  Is that why you posted about this topic?  Who was it that asked you?  Can you share the email?  Oh this is so intriguing! 

Now if you would be so kind, please tell me and the rest of the class.......what stones did I throw exactly?  Did I say anything about your hormone level? Hhmmmm.......No I didn´t. 

Did I accuse you trying to gain 5 minutes of fame by posting (such an odd comment by the way...)?  Nope, didn´t do that either...... 

Were you insulted because I suggested you have a spritzer (which you obviously enjoy since you named yourself after it)....................OR were you just pissed because someone else weighed in on the topic and didn´t agree with your rhetoric? 

Since the influence of mainstream media. If you dont repeat after their slogans you are a narrow-minded bigot and racist.

That political party doesn´t exist. It was founded by a bunch of pedofiles, and everybody except for those pedofiles was outraged in Holland. But to be a real political party in Holland you need enough people to sign a paper for you, that they stand behind your party... ofcourse they didn´t get enough people to sign it. (As your quote acutally shows!) It´s okay for people to base their opinion of my country on news, as long as the news is actually what happened.

The legal age in Holland is not 14, it´s 16. But for a much older person to have sex with somebody under the age of 18 can also lead to problems. It will also not become 12... The legal age for sex is 12 though in one country that I know of, Vatican state! Yes, where the pope lives. In Turkey the legal age is 18, for the ones who want to know. What is strange, is that with parental consent, and with legal consent one can get married at the age of 16... hmmm. First two years of marriage without sex...yeah right.

And about the ethnicity of the people who did horrible things with little kids. I don´t think raping little kids is part of any culture or race in Turkey. Honour killings, that´s open for discussion. Women rights, open for discussion. Many issues, open for discussion. But going after infants isn´t okay in any ethnic culture in Turkey. (I wanted to say "in any culture anywhere" but I remembered people in certain countries who rape babies to be "cured" of hiv )

 I know you did...but a question...aren´t you afraid of being labelled as "racist" by those who already labeled yersu..?

Post deleted due to personal insults.

  I am a little famous with that label here, and members who agreed with me, are also subjected to be called with that name calling...

 Haha! luckily "even the deaf sultan in Egypt heard that" I am not one of those, yani ben yırttım  Well, to be serious, I wouldn´t care if they labelled me as racist only because I don´t think the same way as them.

I will try to make you people understand where I come from, when I call people racist with some of the remarks they make towars Kurds or Gypsies.

Part of my family has a different ethnic background. Before the second world war, they were always judged. They were of this group, so they must be like this... don´t trust them...they are greedy, all people from this group are greedy. Judge judge judge, that´s all people did. They never made an effort to get to know my family, or learn what the culture was all about.

When the war came, my family had to hide, pretend like they weren´t what they really are. As if the years of name calling and judging weren´t enough, now they had to fear for their lives. Most of my family survived, by hiding somewhere and changing the way they looked. Some of my family got caught and survived, but was severely traumatized. Some of my family got caught and died under horrible circumstances.

Excuse me, if my hair stands straight up if I hear people talk about entire groups of people... "they´re like this"... "oh, something bad happened? It must have been somebody of THAT group"... It reminds me too much of the stories that my family told me, of how they were treated before the war started, and sometimes even after the war was finsihed. Because, no, when the people who survived came out of hiding, people didn´t leave their judging where it belonged, in the garbage... people continued with judging and discriminating, only a little less then before.

People who exactly know in advance what somebody will do, just because they are from a certain culture, *bleep* me off. I´m not  some sort of hippy. I don´t believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I know from my personal family´s history where all this pre-judging and YES racism, can lead to.

Great post!

Everyone at one time or another has been at the receiving end of racism.

In 1755 my people were taken form their land, put on ships and sent to the gallows in England, some were sent back to France, which they had never seen in their life and others landed down in Louisiana.  Many thousands died, all because they would not pledge allegiance to the crown of England so they were perceived as a threat.  It was genocide.

I have been called a F@’ing French Frog because I am French.

I have been beaten up by English people because I speak French.

I have been called a square head because my last name is English.

I have been beaten up by French people because my last name is English.

I have been treated of half bread because I have native Canadian blood in me.

I have been looked down on by native Canadians because I am not pure blood native.

I even have been put down by certain members of my family because I moved away and made a comfortable life for myself.

They say I am better than them that I know everything just because I did not stay in a little backward country town and moved to the “big” city.

When someone calls me a F@’ing French Frog I look at them and croak like a frog.

When they call me square head, I tell them “at least I can fit in a box”.

When they call me half breed I say I rather be a half breed than a no breed.

If you let those comments or action get to you then the people saying those words or doing those actions have won over you, they have the power.

If you get outraged, scream and such then that is what they remember but if you stay calm then they are the ones that have lost because they did not get a reaction from you.

In the end it is the way you react to racism, ignorance and stupidity that leaves the last impression.

So I am proud to say that I am a half breed square head frog and if people are not happy about that it is not my problem but theirs.  They are the ones that are miserable and sad.

And yes it is sad that their is racism but that is how the world is! 

"So, catwoman, if Trudy can post whatever news she wants, then I believe I can also post the following news and you can allow it to be remained here."

30 April 2009, Thursday

TODAY´S ZAMAN -  İSTANBUL

Ten soldiers killed in PKK terrorist attacks

Ten soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in two separate in attacks carried out by members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey yesterday.

In the first attack, nine soldiers were killed and two others were wounded by an explosion in Diyarbakır yesterday morning. The soldiers were traveling in an armored vehicle along the Diyarbakır-Bingöl highway in Lice when the blast occurred. Experts said there had been at least 100 kilograms of explosives planted along the highway.

“A tank and an armored personnel vehicle were patrolling for road security. There was an explosion after the tanks passed and nine died,” Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ announced at a news conference in Ankara.

 “Our guess at the moment is that it was a homemade bomb of very powerful explosives. Most likely it was remote controlled or detonated by cable,” Başbuğ told reporters, noting that the attack had made the military more determined than ever to fight terrorism.

Two of the soldiers killed were special sergeants while the other seven were privates, Başbuğ added.

The slain soldiers patrolled the same highway every day to ensure the security of the civilians using the road. Such patrols have resulted in the discovery of explosives buried under the soil by PKK members many times, military sources said.

News of the second PKK attack came on Wednesday afternoon from Hakkari´s Şemdinli district, where one soldier was killed when PKK terrorists opened fire on security forces.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) launched ground and air operations against the PKK terrorists following the attacks.

The attacks followed a recent announcement by the PKK that it wouldn´t be staging any attacks against Turkish security forces in the region until the summer.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stressed Turkey´s determination in its fight against terrorism while expressing his sadness over the killings yesterday. "Such heinous attacks will not influence the counterterrorism fight of our heroic security forces, which they carry out with determination."

"We will continue our struggle in all fields. This struggle has many aspects, regarding security, politics and socioeconomic and socio-psychological factors. We will continue to take steps in all these fields as part of our struggle. We will carry on with this struggle hand in hand with those who support rights and freedoms until we achieve our goal," Erdoğan told a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) yesterday. The attacks also followed the detention of nearly 100 people for alleged ties to the PKK during police operations two weeks ago. Among those arrested were several members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), Turkey´s largest Kurdish political party. Officials said the raids and arrests were the culmination of a one-year investigation into the PKK´s "urban extensions."

DTP Chairman Ahmet Türk said his party was "deeply sorry" for the killings and that children and youth should not be made to pay the cost of the country´s problems. He added that there was a greater need than ever for giving democratic politics a chance to solve problems.

The DTP does not recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization, although it is recognized as such by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The PKK has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey´s Southeast since 1984 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, but it is less powerful than it was in the 1990s. Its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was captured in 1999 and is serving a life sentence on the prison island of İmralı.

Turkey has launched repeated aerial attacks on PKK targets in northern Iraq and staged a ground offensive across the border last year. The government has taken some steps to grant more cultural rights to Kurds, acknowledging that military action alone cannot resolve the situation.

Metehan - i´m not Kitty but you can post all kinds of news you want - just open a new thread and do it