So it's mostly an abuse of the law via installed judges and misuse of the constitution. The parliamenters are immune to lawsuits during their duty, so it's easier for them to act so.

The case Havemann

A concrete clue look at the Merkel-critics for their presumption that it does not take quite as accurate the Chancellor in describing their past with the truth. It concerns Robert Havemann, a famous regime-critic who had to live under house arrest in the GDR since 1976 and was under permanent Stasi observation. The authors of a television documentary for WDR met in 2005 at the Search for a film about the Stasi secret to the Act of Robert Havemann - and in there was a controversial detail: a photo of Angela Merkel. The picture was in a series of Stasi shots that people showed who were staying around the plot of Robert Havemann over the years or those visited. What did Angela Merkel there? Was she the officers conducting the observation? Visited them the critics of a harmless reason? Not likely, because the access to the house only selected people were allowed. Visited they him so in an official capacity to pump him? From Merkel herself there to little enlightening. She was taken by a fellow student from the Havemann Family with the plot. That was all, no further comments. Spicy is in this context, however, a fact that is occupied. During her time in the Academy of Sciences she shared an office with Havemann's son, also worked as a physicist. Just a coincidence? Angela Merkel claimed that it had practically to do with Havemann Junior hardly anything. Merkel prevented publication

Assuming the already discussed WDR documentary "In the Eye of the power the images of the Stasi" in any case wanted to disclose the relevant Merkel photo, but got from the Chancellor office a rejection. For "reasons of protection of their privacy" permission was refused. In the film, then the photo of Merkel has shown herself but defaced. In some Swiss magazines, however, the controversial photo was published. There you suspect the Chancellor in numerous articles then, more practically, to have been active as a Stasi informant. A claim that would establish the authors of the WDR-Reportage otherwise not in their documentation. For this process to derive a spying activities Merkel, is quite wrong and untrustworthy, the author wrote Holger Kulick to the makers of the "Chronicle Berlin", had constructed such a relationship. Indeed, Merkel did Posted therefore not agreed to, because they do not want to fall in the back her political mentor Helmut Kohl, who at the time publicly against it struggled to publish his Stasi file. But is this statement? Is that really the only reason? Here alone is Angela Merkel's words.

It was Kemal Ataturk himself that set up the things that way.

What I meant is that after the defeat in Vienna the fate was sealed and it put the final nail into the box for votes of acceptance into the Euro club. It wasn't as clear before. The UK doesn't fear Turks because they didn't have the experience Hungary and Austria had for example.

WW1 and WW2 are both the result of mainly one mis-educated and ill-suited German ruler as the main initiator of the conflict(s), funny enough. WW1 it was the relative of the English king who was just plain stupid and thought war is better than economic dominance and didn't wait a couple days longer for some Austrian correspondence I forgot the details about or it would have been avoided in that year at least.

WW2 was funny enough initiated by Austria, who have always wanted to rejoin Germany.

The way I see it it's a family of monarchies across Europe and Russia who had their quarrels and caused the world devastating losses.

While it's important to process past atrocities, we need to prevent current ones, and I'd include many state sponsored activities of major forces in the world in the list atrocities. Modern genocide may look vastly different than a mass shooting. This is something where we can (without a time machine) make a difference.

And the thing with genocide is that some countries get away with denying some occurrences and only a select few are getting accused of it vocally. If all atrocities in all places were treated the same way, we might have better chances of processing them officially. I mean these aren't crimes where you can make a deal with the DA and remove some items off the list.

> UK has almost no Christianity?

I meant "a UK without Christianity".

I've found the following 2013 status report [1] which is surprisingly readable. From this document (my interpretations, not quotes):

As a prelude to EU membership, the EU and Turkey entered a Customs Union in 1995. The formal accession process, which requires that Turkey ratify and comply with 35 chapters, was started in 2001 but put on hold in 2004 by Turkey's refusal to accept Cyprus (a new EU member) as part of the Customs Union.

Between 2006 and 2011, hardly any progress was made, with the EC and EP basically playing good-cop bad-cop with Turkey: the Commission would highlight the few positive steps made, while the Parliament kept slamming Turkey over the slow pace of change. This made the support for the EU changes wither in Turkey.

In July 2012, Cyprus gained presidency of the EU and Turkey halted all formal talks, although the EC (again playing good cop) did continue negotiations about visa requirements between Turkey and the EU. Then the 2013 Gezi park protests happened, and that only soured the relationship more.

As of today, only 15 out of 35 chapters in the accession process have even been opened, and only one (Science&Research) has been completed. Since Turkey's first application for EU membership in 1987, 17 states have completed the full membership process, while Turkey's PM keeps making clear that he doesn't even understand the fundamental principles underlying Europe's free society.

No, I really don't see Turkey moving closer towards the European Union. Maybe when the AKP loses power...

[1] http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22517.pdf

Yes. After living even in a "conservative" town, I feel more welcome than I feel in the city I was born - Istanbul. In my first 5 years, I usually had to ask people to speak to me in German, they usually switched to English to make me more comfortable. Sure, I can give many examples of racism but the great thing about Germany is that racists aren't significant threats to my rights as a resident. Also, I think back in Turkey, there were many more cases of racism - it's just that they don't get any attention among "bigger problems" (what being a bigger problem is another topic I'd rather not dig into). After all, I'm happy that here people are ready to discuss such things.

> Why are some of us expats while others are merely "immigrants"?

I would guess if you came here to advance your career, then you are eligible to be an expat. Of course I'm kidding. I think many people, for not-so-evil-but-still-a-bit-disturbing reasons, would not like to be called an immigrant. I actually do not care and am happy with the word.

That's really all there is to it, everything else is exactly the same. Though usually people from wealthy countries would not like to be known as 'immigrants', they are expats, of course.

On the other hand wouldn't they be subject to certain laws to prevent or reduce the authoritarianism if they were part of the EU?

And I guess if we preserved the ruling house like the Brits and the spaniards did, and also some form of the Caliphate that acted like Vatican, maybe the things would be easier (I'm a secular agnostic, and I'm completely anti-nationalist). Nowadays there is no entity that is respected as a unifier of the Muslim world.

And further, maybe the Empire was better for middle-east. Here, the nation failed, for the bindings among people are mostly based on kinship, belonging to the same mahalle and memleket, and ultimately religion. But in Turkey you'll find many adjacent mosques and churches, for, AFAIK, it wasn't until nationalism took on that the major conflicts started. Under the Ottomans, yes, the muslim were a bit more advantageous, but not less subject to the sultanate than the christian subjects.

Also, I wouldn't discount monetary, climatic and religious reasons so easily. I'm a theological noncognitivist and have thankfully no serious financial issues but sometimes I think about moving to somewhere with a nicer weather - especially in those depressing-weather days =) The best candidate would be then Spain but well, I really like it here.

So, I can totally understand why the parents would want to move to Turkey for their retirement. And to be fair, there are many English and German retired couples who move to Turkey just as they do to Spain or France.

> The only time speech should be regulated is when it incites violence [...]

Speech should not be regulated in any ways, or we will have millions of who decides questions. A picture of Mohammad is annoying to each and every muslim, because the religion expressly forbids the likeness of the holy figures. Freedom of speech does not mean irresponsible and banale flow of whatever one thinks. This does not in any way justify the violence, but does not help either. Have you seen the latest cover of Hebdo, Papa où t'es? That's within freedom of speech too, but freedom of speech must not mean that one can be reckless, inconsiderate and demeaning. It is possible to criticise, or even attack in a civil, graceful way. In the end, though, this should be left to the authors will, to decide whether or not it is moral to say what he says. Because when state is involved the slightest, it can be involved more. Who decides what incites violence?

Do you think the media needs to be a little more accountable or the hysteria is good?

I just said he would prosper more by accepting the diversity that exists in his region and the world. You're not even reading my comment, you're just repeating the same thing you said before.

The current situation is just Erdogan having his revenge on Europe for dropping Turkey.

Not to mention the PKK would obviously help end ISIS.

And free speech is not very useful unless you have access to ways to practice it. In a country where mass media practice active censorship voluntarily (against "wardrobe malfunctions" and swear words) in order to avoid state sanctions, that absolutist view gets a bit problematic.

For most Turks, you couldn't tell the difference between them and Iranians, IMO. Nonetheless, you can definitely tell them apart from a Western white European, a Eastern Slavic-Rus European, and a Mediterranean European.

"Südländer" ("people from Southern countries") are effectively treated as an ethnic group, although this includes Italians and Spaniards alongside Turks (but in some cases also Arabs and other non-"whites"). There's also the racist slur "Ölauge" ("oil-eye"), which while ostensibly about eye colour is typically used to refer to "Südländer"s.

There are also "Osteuropäer" ("Eastern Europeans"), which effectively refers to Slavs but also "Deutschrussen" (i.e. descendants of German settlers in Eastern Europe who migrated back to Germany recently but are culturally distinct from "native" Germans).

I do agree however that "racism" in Germany tends to be less about specific "foreign" ethnicities (as in the US) but more about nationality (or nationality of the parents/ancestors) -- there's no denying that well-adjusted black Germans face discrimination in Germany but so do less well-adjusted Italians. It's more of a blanket ethno-nationalism than the typical racism you hear about on the anglophone interwebs.

It's not really surprising if you think about the historical roots: while Germany has a colonial history and thus isn't a stranger to mistreating brown people, our history is overshadowed by the Third Reich and its ideals about nationalism and racial purity (blonde, blue-eyed "Aryans" being distinct from mere "whites"). The US OTOH had an entire civil war about slave ownership and even then carried on a long tradition of racial apartheid.

Which of course fueled Erdogan support ...

The only way to counter all of it are cold hard scientific truths, not sentiments out of existential scares due to too many "others" being around.

I've always wondered how the Brits managed to integrate people of African heritage so well. Maybe it's just that they're for the most part Christians. But that would be too simple an explanation me thinks.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam : 834.119 inhabitants

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotterdam : 630.383 inhabitants

Maybe you are confused with The Hague, which is smaller than both, but the seat of the parliament and government? (Or perhaps you are looking at the surface area, which is not really interesting in this context.)

Don't put words in my mouth, I said no such thing. You offered no rebuttal to what I said, only slander. Explain to me why Moroccan immigrants have not assimilated and why they are so grossly overrepresented when it comes to crime. To say this is all the result of the natives being racist towards Moroccans in particular, that they are forced into this bad behaviour by us, is absolutely ridiculous. They are problematic in France, Belgium and other countries as well. Any negative views towards them are the result of their own actions rather than some grand conspiracy to keep them down.

Yes you CAN. Nobody has a right not to be offended. You don't have to be mindful of what you say. That's not freedom of speech.

Their purpose is not to win arguments with logic. They try to win the spectators over using emotion. They use "racist" to smear their opponents, for allegedly being discriminatory, but they're just the same themselves - they just target other underprivileged groups (e.g. nerds, poor conservatives, ...).

This is elaborated in this post: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...

No, from your previous comment:

> in contrast to some other groups. 40% (!) of Moroccan youths has a criminal record.

This is also interesting:

> To me it seems obvious that the problem is their culture (islam included).

So you actually think Moroccan/Islamic culture directs people towards crime? Incredible. I really don't like religions but this is... I actually don't know what this is.

> I don't see the problem with making the statement that most of the terrorists in Turkey are Kurds, when that is the case. It's not an irrelevant statistic, it's indicative of some problem somewhere.

Yes, in this particular case it indicates that a significant part of the population is being suppressed into assimilation and they rightfully want to keep their identities.

> In my opinion the responsibility to adapt lies with the immigrant, not the host.

"Hey guys, being such angels, we allowed you, all potential criminals because of your culture and Islam into our great country which has only the right values! Now, please be perfect citizens and speak our language because we have so many things to share. Thank you." With this elitist attitude, you expect them to "integrate"? And why should only they integrate? Why not present it as a "meet in the middle for mutual benefit" kind of thing?

Thanks, I see that now. Some of @gkya's words sounded like they take the opposite viewpoint, such as,

>> Speech should not be regulated in any ways

>> Freedom of speech does not mean irresponsible and banale flow of whatever one thinks.

>> freedom of speech must not mean that one can be reckless, inconsiderate and demeaning.

It reads like it was unedited and is very hard to follow

> When one looks at his actions in the light of those motives his actions make a lot of sense. Without those motives his actions appear stupid.

I disagree, see my comments about astute businessmen not using yes-men above. No worries if we don't agree here. Countries are most certainly businesses. They're in the business of acquiring people who generate money.

No one - least of all @gkya - is saying he is bright. They are saying his actions aren't stupid.

Former dictators who censored speech don't generally have happy post-political careers.

Plenty have died in office while still holding power, too. Most of Turkey's immediate neighbors have had dictators who died while in power.

That's a form of personal attack which is inevitably provocative of a much worse thread. Please edit such rudeness out of your posts here. Your question would have been fine, and less self-undermining, had you done so.

Chomsky: They’re killing Yazidis. So what do you do? You support the people who are saving the Yazidis. Who happen to be on the US terrorist list.

Hasan: The PKK.

Chomsky: Yes. They are the ones who are primarily responsible for saving the Yazidis.

Hasan: If the Americans say, "We will drop bombs, and they have been working with various Kurdish groups." Do you support that? I’m just wondering. You, as a critic, do you support that?

Chomsky: Support working with the Kurds? Yeah.

[...]

Chomsky: To the extent that they are supporting the Kurds in Rojava, as they call it, so the Kurdish area of Syria, have defended their territory, seem to be developing, as well as you can under these conditions, a fairly decent society, very different from anything else in Syria, they certainly merit support.