I think, the point is missed up there.
The point I was trying to make was if a person should go to jail because of their 'feelings'.

Because those women, apperantly only said 'they DONT LIKE Ataturk'.

Liking or loving somebody is a feeling.

I was trying to say that it is one notch worse than other cases.

I agree with you on that. A person should not go to jail for expressing their feelings about something.

Sure. It is outright oppresion in a softcore package.

Unfortunately it's an international phenomenon...we are in a cycle now. It seems to come around about every 100 years. Adams had the

Alien and Sedition Act

threatened for wearing peace T-shirt

Now we have the

Military Commisions Act

The act was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on 12 June 2008...but they are fighting it.

the beginning of the end

....Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

I must say, the ideas of 'aah..this is a cycle; it is happening all over the world; look what was happening 100 years ago' are annoying me a lil bit.

Assume that 'a woman is burnt' today somewhere in the world or in Turkey. I, personally, would criticize and condemn it.
Then, would you come up with the idea that 'look it was happening in the middle ages, in Europe too' or 'look some women were burnt in Malaysia'?
It would be pathetic. would not it?
or it would not make it less acceptable. would it?

I think, in generic terms, you are completely forgetting the principles of how civilizations/human beings advance.
The ideas like 'The world has gone shit', 'the world goes crazy' are quite short sighted and derived from the luck of understanding of the philosophy- 'law of transformation'- ( the cycle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis).
Nothing goes shit or crazy without a reason.
When something happens, it causes a reaction which itself bound cause another reaction.
There have been American policies in the middle east, Afghanistan, pakistan etc; They created al kaida. Al qaida caused 9/11; 9/11 caused paranoia of security in the west; it resulted tin those strange laws etc etc..
They will go away or they will be transformed into milder form in the future.
So calm down..

Everything happens in context. Things do not happen in a vacuum. Looking at the larger whole gives perspective, and possible answers to potential solutions.

If the world is in an ice age, ignoring that fact when considering the cold is not reasonable.

We are not saying that "two wrongs make it right".

On the contrary... I think a lot of Turks agree with the element of injustice in these isolated incidents. Sure. What usually triggers us is that Turkey is actaully on the right path, and is on its way to eliminate a lot of these factors of discrimination in the future. It will take some more time, but it is, and has been happening.

I personally don't like it when foreigners come to these forums and gibber away as if, their countries were any different just 20 years ago. Someone from Poland comes along and gibbers away as if poland was any different during the Cold War era. Another comes from the US and gibbers away about human rights as if it wasn't in the US that you couldn't get a haircut at the same place as whites only as recently as 1960s.

Turkey is going through what every other developing country is going through today. Due to its geopolitical importance, and yes Turkey occupies a critical region on the map of power dynamics, Turkey is doing quite well. In comparison to its neighbours, it has a moderate system, not a dictatorship of one sort of the other. More importantly, the people, who happen to be living within the borders of Turkey, regardless of their ethnicities, are also changing, just as China is changing, or Latin America.

I think that I, as well as quite a few other posters, feel as if these threads are being started to rub shit on our faces. The truth is that we all have enough shit rubbed on faces already.

If you try to highlight a social injustice, at least try to show the courtesy of implicating that the issue is not unique or special to Turkey. Maybe that way, if you demonstrate your impartiality first, people may open themselves up in different ways than outright counter-attacks.

Well, just a short reaction as Im off to watch the second half of bad playing Turkey (what happened to them! When they play in their own teams they are so good, but in the Euro08 they seem to have forgotten how to play! Such a shame, I really hope they can get through).

It is not about rubbing shit in once face. The only reason I, and some others (among them thehandsom whom you probably also accuse of rubbing shit in one's face) criticize Turkey is because we love it. Just like you want, I want Turkey to develop the way others have before Turkey. The reason I said that saying that the same things in other countreis happens as well, is because there is a tendency on this website, that one says something 'bad' about Turkey, some people immedaitly say 'Yeah but it happens there and there too, and you are all anti-Turkish'. And those people have never tried to explain their opinions in a sophisticated way, on the contrary, many of us have been threatened by them And when we say something about Islam, the contra-argument is always about Christianity. I dont see the point, for me they are both as useless. So that is all I wanted to say But at least you (cynicmystic) are not of the type who tries to shut up people with 'Got it' and 'You cannot speak about my country'