samarkeolog: human rights, cultural heritage and community

blog, archived

2011-08-27T11:05:00.000+01:00

I decided to officially archive this blog on the day my DPhil was confirmed. But I have waited for the electronic publication of my thesis, Interrogating Archaeological Ethics in Conflict Zones: Cultural Heritage Work in Cyprus, to announce the archiving. From now on, I will blog at Conflict Antiquities.

On Conflict Antiquities, I will concentrate on illicit antiquities trading, organised crime and political violence in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. As I explain in an introduction to Conflict Antiquities,

I want to study the history of the trade in conflict antiquities; and to explore the relationship between the trade in conflict antiquities and the funding of conflict and violence.

bones, screams, and theses

2010-08-01T07:00:00.000+01:00

I agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'sometimes a scream is better than a thesis'; but I can't submit a scream. And as Ogden Nash observed, 'progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long'; I just want it to be over and done with.

Blogging had been interesting and enjoyable, and helpful in my work (even if I'd never done it very regularly); but I don't have either the time or the attention span to do it (at all) at the moment. I've got to submit my thesis by the end of September.

J. Frank Dobie said that 'the average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another'. I was just about to finish creating a beautiful ceremonial cemetery; now I'm hurriedly disinterring the remains and dumping the disarticulated bones in a shallow grave.

[Also posted over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict.]

homophobes crossed-out gay graffiti in Davlos/Kaplıca?

2010-07-08T20:40:00.005+01:00

There are romantic pink graffiti on the walls of the Chapel of Agios Sozomenos, outside Davlos/Kaplıca. I think they may be gay graffiti, crossed-out by homophobes; I explain over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict.

summary: September Events, 1955, 2005

2010-06-02T06:00:00.016+01:00

Over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I've blogged two things I couldn't fit into my thesis: a summary of the Events of September 1955 in Greece and Turkey (also known as ta Septemvriana (τα Σεπτεμβριανά), or Eylül Olayları); and a note on the Events of September 2005, Istanbul.

Molotov bombing of Thessaloniki Jewish Cemetery (επίθεση με Μολότοφ στο Εβραϊκό Νεκροταφείο Θεσσαλονίκης)

2010-05-15T10:15:00.008+01:00

On his excellent (if often inevitably depressing) dual-language blog on Jewish life in Greece, Abravanel has detailed an Incendiary Attack Against the Jewish Cemetery of Salonica [Επίθεση με Μολότοφ στο Εβραϊκό Νεκροταφείο Θεσσαλονίκης], a Molotov bombing:

At dawn on Friday the 14th of May 2010, people who belong to nationalist/neo-Nazi space (1), attacked the new Jewish Cemetery of Thessaloniki in the Stavropoli area (2).

Apart from the spraying of graffiti with stock antisemitic slogans like Juden Raus, Burn the Jews, Sieg Heil, Hitler and the depiction of the nazi swastika and the number 88 which is linked to the Es Es [H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, thus 88 is HH, which stands for "Heil Hitler"], they attempted to destroy the Jewish tombs using molotov cocktails as incendiary devices.

[Τα ξημερώματα της Παρασκευής 14ης Μαϊου 2010 άτομα που ανήκουν στον εθνικιστικό/νεοναζιστικό χώρο, επιτέθηκαν στο νέο Εβραϊκό Νεκροταφείο της Θεσσαλονίκης στην περιοχή της Σταυρούπολης.

Πέρα από την αναγραφή γκραφίτι με κλασικά αντισημιτικά συνθήματα όπως Juden Raus, Φωτιά στους Εβραίους, Sieg Heil, Hitler και των συμβόλων της ναζιστικής σβάστικας και του αριθμού 88 που συνδέονται με τα Ες Ες [H είναι το όγδοο γράμμα της αλφαβήτας, άρα 88 είναι HH, που αντικαθιστεί "Heil Hitler"], επιτέθηκαν με βόμβες μολότωφ στους εβραϊκούς τάφους.]

(I have tweaked some of Abravanel's translation to make it read more easily; but I have honoured Abravanel's choices of words, such as his translation of "classic antisemitic slogans" as 'stock antisemitic slogans'.)

That sentence still doesn't read fluidly; but the original idea of someone "belonging to the nationalist/neo-Nazi space" (a geographical image of a political community) doesn't translate really.
I've left that phrase as it is (rather than translating it as "the new Jewish Cemetery in the Stavropoli area of Thessaloniki"), because the site's name is the Jewish Cemetery of Thessaloniki. It also serves to remind that the old Jewish Cemetery of Thessaloniki is destroyed and invisible underneath the campus of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Ata Atun: academic's lies / akademisyenin yalanları

2010-04-23T18:00:00.001+01:00

Following my corrections to Kufi Seydali's comments, over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I've corrected Ata Atun's article on İngiliz Akademisyenin Yalanları [an English Academic's Lies].

TRNC Representative Kufi Seydali: a 'masterpiece in political propaganda'?

2010-04-18T10:45:00.002+01:00

Recently, I gave a talk about Cypriot Antiquities Rescue from the Turkish Deep State: the Rescue of Forgeries, and the Death of Stephanos Stephanou, at the International Conference on Archaeology in Conflict.

Afterwards, (at least previously) TRNC Honorary Representative Kufi Seydali protested, and someone accused me of a 'masterpiece in political propaganda'; that's now in Turkish-language newspapers across Europe.

My first attempt to defend myself and my work is over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict.

Archaeology, conflict, antiquities rescue

2010-04-16T15:30:00.001+01:00

The subject has developed from one blog post to another, to a conference paper, and now to a millstone around my neck.

I'm still working on answering Kufi Seydali's and Ata Atun's misrepresentations of my work; but to help to disprove their claims, I've posted the final draft of my talk about Cypriot Antiquities Rescue from the Turkish Deep State: the Rescue of Forgeries, and the Death of Stephanos Stephanou over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict.

Hardy, S A. 2010: "Cypriot antiquities rescue from the Turkish deep state: the rescue of forgeries, and the death of Stephanos Stephanou". Paper presented at the International Conference on Archaeology in Conflict, Vienna, Austria, 6th-10th April. Available at: http://human-rights-archaeology.blogspot.com/2010/04/archaeology-conflict-antiquities-rescue.html

Abstract

Looting of Cypriot cultural heritage has been a problem since the Nineteenth Century, but a paramilitary-controlled illicit antiquities trade exploded during the intercommunal conflict of 1963-1974; and after the Greek-backed coup and the Turkish invasion of 1974, the worst extremes continued in northern Cyprus.

Looted antiquities' "rescue" has long been one "solution", which has included not only a secret agreement between Greek Cypriot archaeologists and Greek Cypriot private collectors, but also apparently illegal Greek Cypriot undercover antiquities police purchasing from Turkish Cypriot and Turkish nationalist terrorist groups.

Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot administrations' mutual non-cooperation has not only had tragic consequences for Cypriot cultural heritage. Here, I wish to explore Greek Cypriot undercover antiquities police agent Stephanos Stephanou's arrest by Turkish Cypriot antiquities police, and his death in Turkish Cypriot custody.

Kophinou village destruction, Kofinou mosque arson

2010-03-02T10:00:00.001Z

Over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I've summarised previous destruction in the formerly Turkish Cypriot village of Kophinou; and I've relayed the Cyprus Mail's defiance of police censorship to report arson at Kofinou Mosque.

Istanbul riots, September 1955: Albanian protection of Greek Orthodox church

2010-02-12T16:15:00.002Z

Researching the destruction of cultural heritage during the Turkish deep state-directed Istanbul riots(1) of 6th-7th September 1955, I found a Greek report that noted Albanian protection of a Greek Orthodox church.

It's not sufficiently relevant for me to mention it in my thesis, but I think it's a significant footnote in the history of the city and in Greek-Albanian community relations, which could play a(n albeit very) small part in improving the relationship between Greeks and Albanians.

On 14th September 1955, Greek newspaper Makedonia (Μακεδονία) reported that the Church of the Twelve Apostles(2) had been about to burn down, but 'the Turkish Albanians saved it [τόν έσωσαν οι Τουρκαλβανοί]' (cited in Kaloumenos, 1966: 25).

Also known as: ta Septemvriana (τα Σεπτεμβριανά); or Eylül Olayları.
O Naos ton Dodeka Apostolon (ο Ναός τών Δώδεκα Αποστόλων).

Kaloumenos, D. 1966: I stavrosis tou Christianismou: I istoriki alitheia ton gegonoton tis 6-7 Septemvriou 1955 eis tin Konstantinoupolin [the crucifixion of Christianity: The historical truth of the events of 6th-7th September 1955 in Constantinople]. Athina: Χωρίς όνομα [without name - i.e. publisher unknown]. [Καλούμενος, Δ. 1966: Η σταύρωσις του Χριστιανισμού: Η ιστορική αλήθεια των γεγονότων της 6-7 Σεπτεμβρίου 1955 εις την Κωνσταντινούπολιν. Αθήναι: Χωρίς όνομα (χ.ό.).]

Greek Cypriot antiquities smuggling, Limassol antiquities smuggler arrest update

2010-01-30T14:35:00.001Z

A '30-year-old from Limassol' - so, presumably Greek Cypriot - has been arrested for 'conspiracy in a felony, illegal possession and smuggling of antiquities and illegal possession of a gun'. The arrest is part of the latest, greatest case of Cypriot antiquities smuggling and (potentially) illegal undercover antiquities police work.

Cyprus Mail. 2010: "New arrest in antiquities smuggling case". The Cyprus Mail, 30th January. Available at: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/new-arrest-antiquities-smuggling-case/20100130

[Also posted on Cultural Heritage in Conflict.]

Greek Cypriot antiquities looting, smuggling, dealing update

2010-01-26T13:00:00.001Z

I have updated the information in my previous post on Greek Cypriot antiquities smuggling; illegal undercover antiquities police; it includes confirmation that one of the smugglers was a a retired Greek Cypriot police officer, and that the ring's middleman was a Greek antiquities dealer.

[Also posted on cultural heritage in conflict.]

Salonica: Holocaust / Shoah photographs; Abravanel's blog

2009-12-24T06:00:00.002Z

As Abravanel commented on my previous post about his blog post on the Holocaust / Shoah in Ioannina (in which I should have said that I recommended that blog, not just that post), he has also published 'Photos from the Shoah in Salonica [Φωτογραφίες από το Ολοκαύτωμα στη Θεσσαλονίκη]'.

I think I first found Abravanel's blog when I was looking for cultural heritage in Ioannina (where I'm studying at the moment), and heard about the 'Jewish Cemetery Ioannina (again) vandalized [Εβραϊκό Νεκροταφείο Ιωαννίνων βανδαλίζεται (ξανά)]'.

I don't know what I'll be doing this summer (or, indeed, after), but I would like to tour Greece, visiting lots of cultural heritage sites (ancient and modern, positive and negative), as well as finally forcing my brain to develop some proficiency in the language. If I do go on a cultural heritage tour, I expect Abravanel's blog will be my first inspiration for Jewish Greek historic sites.

Ioannina: Holocaust / Shoah photographs

2009-12-22T21:00:00.004Z

On a blog on Jewish life and not only in Greece / Εβραϊκή ζωή και όχι μόνο στην Ελλάδα, Abravanel has published 'Photos from the Holocaust-Shoah in Ioannina [Φωτογραφίες από το Ολοκαύτωμα στα Ιωάννινα]' (introduced in English as well as Greek).

Looting for politics or profit: nationalists or Romanians looted Papadopoulos's grave

2009-12-13T04:00:00.000Z

Over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I very briefly query Greek Cypriot police's presumption that a foreign nationalist organisation, or Romanian gang, stole Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos's body.

The police may have good reason to believe those things; and they may have good reason to deny public access to the evidence; but still, they have not presented any evidence.

Cypriot conspiracy theories: Tassos Papadopoulos's grave robbers

2009-12-12T05:00:00.000Z

Over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I've spent a little more time exploring the current Cypriot conspiracy theories on Tassos Papadopoulos's grave robbers. (I also, albeit briefly, address the shameless political spin on the shameless political violence.)

President Tassos Papadopoulos: grave robbed

2009-12-11T16:00:00.002Z

Over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I review the breaking news that someone has robbed Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos's grave.

Wikileaks published Freeman, MacDonald and Renfrew's report on Schøyen's Iraqi incantation bowls

2009-11-12T16:05:00.013Z

An Inquiry into the provenance of 654 Aramaic incantation bowls delivered into the possession of UCL by, or on the instruction of, Mr Martin Schøyen, until now suppressed, has just been published on Wikileaks (under the title, "UK possession of art works looted from Iraq: Schoyen UCL Inquiry report, 2009 [2006]").

More later...

British Library Newspaper Archive: Hellenist propaganda sources checked

2009-09-28T17:00:00.000+01:00

Over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I've checked some of my sources' (supposed) sources in the British Library's newspaper archive.

In this post, I've checked John Fielding's writing about Jacques Dalibard's suppressed UNESCO report, and thus Michael Jansen's use of John Fielding's study of the Rape of Northern Cyprus

As always, it's a good example of clever Hellenist propaganda.

I'm behind on other work, and I'm going away without most of my research materials, so it may be a long time before I get to go through the rest of the documents.

Kios / Istinjo / Tabanlı, Cyprus: evacuated village, destroyed

2009-09-24T12:00:00.001+01:00

Over on Cultural Heritage in Conflict, I've introduced my site photo blog on the Turkish Cypriot village of Kios/Istinjo/Tabanlı, by reviewing the evidence that the abandoned or evacuated village has been destroyed.

distortion of history: Coufoudakis' and Republic of Cyprus' opinion on destruction of Cypriot cultural heritage

2009-09-13T16:00:00.000+01:00

Prof. Van Coufoudakis wrote about the Destruction of Cultural Heritage in a Greek Cypriot government booklet, Human Rights Violations in Cyprus by Turkey.

Over on human rights archaeology, I used the booklet and public discussion of Coufoudakis's work to study the opinion of the "progressive" government of the Republic of Cyprus.

The "new" position is the old one, a distortion of history: "Cypriot" cultural heritage is Greek Cypriot cultural heritage; Turkey was the only human rights violator; and Greek Cypriots were the only victims.

Given their progressive public stance, the official booklet's Hellenist nationalist distortion is contradictory and depressing.

debunking mistakes and misrepresentations of Hellenist witnesses for U.S. Helsinki Commission

2009-09-10T12:45:00.002+01:00

I finally posted a review debunking the U.S. Helsinki Commission's Hellenist witnesses, over on human rights archaeology.

Warning: it is a super-loser-length blog post; the soundtrack is the final sigh of my patience, and I think it has more value as a debunking than as a light read, unless you enjoy observing me entering a world of pain.

Equality Trust's Kate Pickett: 'we need equality as a substitute for growth'

2009-09-07T07:00:00.000+01:00

Philobiblon has a post on a speech by the Equality Trust's Kate Pickett, in which she quickly demonstrated how 'growth has been used as a substitute for equality', and why it ought not to be.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett were the authors of the Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better: here is their evidence; and here are a report and a review of the book.

Lobby for Cyprus events: specialised, or misleading, historical understanding?

2009-09-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

Over on human rights archaeology, I have discussed two Lobby for Cyprus events that concerned me. I feared that the genuine academic's historical understanding was so specialised as to be misleading.

false accusations, polluted search results

2009-09-02T08:15:00.001+01:00

Over on human rights archaeology, I've shown how, after a singularly undignifying discussion, some listserv discussants' false accusations against me polluted search results (though I still need to test some more searches to see how general the effect is).

I've also presented hits to my research blog that reveal how ~~desperate~~ ~~serious~~ desperate certain unknown persons were in their attempts to discredit me.

Clapton security measures

2009-07-29T08:30:00.002+01:00

I was starting to think I lived in such a hole it was unappealing to invaders and looters, but finally I've found one (or more), so I've had to fashion some makeshift security measures for my flat in Clapton...

Martin Rundkvist has his wasp nest; I have my mouse. (It's my first guest. )

This is my second attempt (after the first epic fail). There's a Sainsbury's Value Wrapping (no, it doesn't Cling) Film barrier, held in place by two cola bottles, the tops of which fill the mouse's easiest points of entry.

The mouse quickly grew dismissive of my claps, so now when I hear it gnawing its way through my pathetic defences, I tap the brush against the clingfilm barrier to scare it away for a while.

U.S. Helsinki Commission: Cyprus' cultural heritage in peril

2009-07-24T19:30:00.000+01:00

Just now, over on Human Rights Archaeology, I've looked at the public sources of information on the U.S. Helsinki Commission's report on Destruction of Cultural Property in the Northern Part of Cyprus and Violations of International Law. The Helsinki Commission apparently feared that cultural heritage in northern Cyprus was in 'great peril'; I fear that the commission's report has been written by, or at its evidence hearing, was given witness testimony by, propagandists.

Huguenot Corsair: history of crime

2009-07-12T17:30:00.002+01:00

Serendipitously, I struck upon the Huguenot Corsair and its links to articles on the history of crime, and its economics and politics.

Now I can distract myself with Britain's smuggling history, as well as with discussions of how Anglo-French colonial rivalry fuelled smuggling in West Africa and how (Spanish and) British colonial history influenced Jamaican drug smuggling.

I can keep up-to-date with Russian mafia money-laundering and/through gambling in Montenegro and Serbia and Croatia, and Kosovo Albanian KLA/mafia business in London (though I would dispute its alleged control of the European heroin trade, and am particularly wary of analysts who say Kosovo's problems mean it should be denied statehood, especially when they say it with the 'sweetest [passion]' of 'revenge').

There was even a link to something on Greek police/intelligence's war with organised crime and terrorism. At least there was one thing closely related to my work, on an apparent decline in Turkish narcotics smuggling...

UN poisoned, crippled and killed Kosovo Roma

2009-06-21T09:00:00.001+01:00

I am absolutely appalled that this has continued. The Guardian has just reported a forthcoming Human Rights Watch report that will document Kosovo Roma crippled in the UN refugee camp in Mitrovica. Yet it is even worse than that: the BBC reported that, already in 2005, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had concluded that 'at least one child ha[d] died from lead poisoning', and the Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation (KRRF) believed 27 had been killed.

In 2005, I had detailed the horrific story so far in a post on the Roma Mahalla/Fabricka Mahalla - the refugees' home neighbourhood, which Kosovo Albanian nationalist extremists burned in 1999 - on the Mitrovicë/Mitrovica: cultural heritage and community photo blog.

In case saying the UN poisoned, crippled and killed the Kosovo Roma refugees of Roma Mahalla sounds unfair, what follows is a repost from the 2005 Mitrovicë blog post, the development of the situation:

for a long time, lead pollution had been an open secret;
in 1997, there was a public report of lead poisoning;
(therefore) in 1999, when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) chose the site, it knew it was contaminated;
(in fact) also in 1999, the United Nations itself, in the form of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS), noted that Kosovo's mining industry had caused "serious environmental degradation and impacts on the health of the local population";
the UNHCR insisted on placing the camp there despite protests by its own Romani affairs advisor;
in 2000, the United Nations Interim Administration Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK) found "blood lead concentrations exceeding the permissive limits" and recommended relocation;
also in 2000, the then UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) Bernard Kouchner stated that, "the people of Mitrovica are at risk because of this [Zvecan] smelter" and that, "as a doctor, as well as chief administrator of Kosovo, I would be derelict if I let this threat to the health of children and pregnant women continue for one more day"; and
in 2004, the World Health Organisation insisted the situation was "urgent";
and in 2005, the BBC reported that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had concluded that 'at least one child ha[d] died from lead poisoning', while the Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation (KRRF) believed 27 had been killed.

The Albanian nationalist extremists' collective punishment of the Mitrovicë Roma community was criminal, but grimly predictable. But whether direct, active verbs, or more polite, indirect, passive ones, are used to describe what has happened since, it was criminal.

The UN was responsible for the ravaged and vulnerable community's protection and rehabilitation; but instead, it has poisoned, crippled and killed them.
[This note was also posted over on Human Rights Archaeology.]

Scam e-mail: "employment offer"

2009-06-18T07:30:00.002+01:00

Just when I thought I had landed a cushy job helping tax-dodgers and money-launderers register their companies in Cyprus, it turns out to be a scam. I'm not an "honest, trustworthy and intelligent individual" after all. Tragic.

Still, it was very kind of the second one to be so very insistent that I didn't need to be professional or qualified. And I look forward to spam bots ripping their e-mail addresses off this page and spamming them on my behalf.

First, from "Sozos Papakyriacou" (sozospapakyriacou@gmail.com):

Hello

Here is a special provision of an employment offer in order to increase
employment rate in UK and USA
irrespective of the age and gender and does not require any professional
qualifications.

This Organization is founded to increase employment among the honest,
trustworthy and intelligent
individuals living in UK and USA to handle some elementary paper work and
payroll administration to our clients in UK and
USA. Your Obligation is to work for 2hours a day and also listen attentively to
given instructions.

Your Job is to take care of all applications with regards to new clients that
are willing to register company in Cyprus.
yours is to be filling all documentations from these individual companies which
will be sent to you under the companies name.

Salary Terms: 100 pounds/ $150 for each transaction, Get back to us asap via
email address below if you are interested in the
employment offer.
(sozospapakyriacou@gmail.com)
Get back to us if you are interested in the employment offer

Regards,

Sozos Papakyriacou
(FCCA CMC)
Tel-+447035986488

Then from "Anderson Denny" - surely "Denny Anderson"? - (brende1946@aol.com, but for replies, tresalas2@gmail.com):

We are offering a temporary job which really do not require any professional skills.

You really don't have to have any professional skills for this.

All we are looking for right now is UK based individual to handle paper work,file documents and handle payroll administration to our clients in UK.

What will be required from you is few hours a day and also to pay very close attention to all instructions given to you.

Your Job will be; Handling all applications with regards to new clients that will like to register a company in UK and what you will be doing is Filing all papers from these individual companies which will be sent over to you under that companies name.

Salary terms; 120 Pounds per job Get back to us through the email address.

tresalas2@gmail.com

Regard,

ANDERSON DENNY

Then a follow-up from "Anderson Denny" (this time, jeff_hoskins008@yahoo.com, but for replies still tresalas2@gmail.com):

You really don't have to have any professional skills for this.

All we are looking for right now is UK based individual to handle paper
work,file documents and handle payroll administration to our clients in UK.

What will be required from you is few hours a day and also to pay very close
attention to all instructions given to you.

Your Job will be; Handling all applications with regards to new clients that
will like to register a company in UK and what you will be doing is Filing all
papers from these individual companies which will be sent over to you under
that companies name.

Salary terms; 120 Pounds per job Get back to us through the email address.
A
tresalas2@gmail.com

Regard,

Anderson Denny

Then a follow-up to "Sozos Papakyriacou"'s (sozosoffshorecompany@gmail.com) first:

Hello

Here is a special provision of an employment offer in order to increase
employment rate in UK and USA
irrespective of the age and gender and does not require any professional
qualifications.

This Organization is founded to increase employment among the honest,
trustworthy and intelligent
individuals living in UK and USA to handle some elementary paper work and
payroll administration to our clients in UK and
USA. Your Obligation is to work for 2hours a day and also listen attentively to
given instructions.

Your Job is to take care of all applications with regards to new clients that
are willing to register company in Cyprus.
yours is to be filling all documentations from these individual companies which
will be sent to you under the companies name.

Salary Terms: 100 pounds/ $150 for each transaction, Get back to us asap via
email address below if you are interested in the
employment offer.
(sozosoffshorecompany@gmail.com)
Get back to us if you are interested in the employment offer

Regards,

Sozos Papakyriacou
(FCCA CMC)
Tel-+447035986488

Goshi: abandoned village, destroyed

2009-06-14T08:00:00.000+01:00

Over on Human Rights Archaeology, I've done an introductory post on Goshi: an abandoned village, destroyed, for my new photo blog on Goshi: cultural heritage and community.

Rizokarpaso/Dipkarpaz: cultural heritage and community

2009-05-23T22:10:00.002+01:00

I've just posted photos of destroyed Greek Cypriot homes on Rizokarpaso: cultural heritage and community.

The ruins were not propaganda. UNFICYP 'confirmed... and protested' against the demolition (UNSG, 2007: 6 – Para. 28), and the New Cyprus Party defined it as a 'destruction policy' (Kanatlı, 2007). I cannot explain better than Turkish Cypriot Afrika journalist Murat Kanatlı (2007):

If the Maronites and Greek Cypriots did not return to their homes after a certain period (this was 6 months) their houses would be taken over. This is a big violation of human rights and this procedure is still continuing....

Under the pretext of renovation and cleaning up in the village, with the help of the military, some Greek Cypriot houses which have historical and cultural value are being destroyed or damaged severely. Permission was not given to 8 families who wanted to return....

[T]he aim is for Greek Cypriots from Rizokarpaso to be chased away from Rizokarpaso completely and their marks to be wiped out completely.

Recording Greek Cypriot 'marks', and the attempt to destroy them and the memory of them, is all I can do to help to preserve Cypriot memory and community.

Kanatlı, M. 2007: "YKP: 'We are worried about developments in Rizokarpaso (Dipkarpaz)'". Yeni Kıbrıs Partisi, 20th May. Available at: http://www.ykp.org.cy/index_eng.php?subaction=showfull&id=1179675986&archive=&start_from=&ucat=6&

UNSG (United Nations Secretary-General). 2007: Report of the Secretary-General on the peacekeeping operation in Cyprus [S/2007/328, 4th June 2007]. New York: United Nations Security Council. Available at: http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/Cyprus%20S2007%20328.pdf

[This note was also posted over on Human Rights Archaeology.]

UK complicity in torture; UK market for torture

2009-04-29T07:30:00.000+01:00

I missed Craig Murray's press release about his testimony to the Formal Evidence Session on UK complicity in Torture, which reminded that:

The British Government was complicit in the most vicious forms of torture
He had been the victim of a lurid smear campaign initiated by New Labour
The government was lying about all this
.... As the Scotland Yard investigation proceeds into MI5 and MI6 collusion in 16 cases of torture, Craig Murray will argue that it is not the security service operatives, but the Ministers who set the policy - and specifically Jack Straw – who should be facing criminal charges.

Hopefully, there'll be a transcript or other permanent record at a permanent address (as the parliamentary video is only available for a year and others' Youtube/Google videos might get removed for breaking copyright).

Here's his earlier formal statement on UK complicity in torture to the British Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. And here's the BBC's report of his later testimony about how the "UK 'creates [a] market for torture'".

[This was also posted over on Human Rights Archaeology.]

Police assaulted peaceful protesters: letter to my MP

2009-04-15T00:20:00.003+01:00

... or, "Police: dumb and stupid".

[Update: better-quality video of the critical moments, and news that the worst offender has been suspended, over at the Guardian.]

The police seem determined to commit crimes on camera. Protesters videoed the police battering innocent bystander Ian Tomlinson on the 1st of April 2009; then on the 2nd, when the public protested against that police brutality, the police beat them too, and witnesses/citizen journalists videoed police assaulting the peaceful protesters.

There are several stages to this incident, beginning about 3 minutes and 30 seconds into the video:

first, a protester tries to leave the kettled crowd, but two police officers repeatedly push him back;
second, a protester outside the cordoned zone objects to the police's actions, whereupon another police officer repeatedly pushes her;
third, that police officer smacks that protester in the face with the back of his riot-gear-armoured hand; then,
fourth, when she objects to that, he calmly takes his baton out and cracks her in the leg with it, leaving her prone on the ground.

As was observed during Ian Tomlinson's battery, again other police officers witnessed the various illegal acts committed against peaceful protesters, and not only did they not help the victims, but also they did not restrain, let alone arrest, those who committed the crimes.

I had just been taking a break when I found this, reading an article about the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) backtracking on its idiotic initial claims about the police's battery of Ian Tomlinson.

[IPCC Chair Nick] Hardwick said on Thursday there was no CCTV evidence of alleged police assaults on [Ian] Tomlinson. "We don't have CCTV footage of the incident," he told Channel 4 news. "There is no CCTV footage – there were no cameras in the locations where he was assaulted."

This morning the IPCC initially stood by Hardwick's claims. "Mr Hardwick said there was no available CCTV footage of the incident and we stand by that. Any footage that is available, whether taken by police or by the public, will be fully investigated as and when it becomes available," it said.

However, at 10.30am, after pictures were published showing cameras in the area, the IPCC changed its stance. "At this point, Mr Hardwick believed that he was correct in this assertion – we now know this may not be accurate," the IPCC said in a statement. "There are cameras in the surrounding area."

It would have been unintentionally amusing, but even the unintentional humour was lost because, despite public documentation of the police's and the IPCC's acts of obstruction of justice (and potentially, attempting to pervert the course of justice), apparently, no-one's getting prosecuted, or even questioned, about them.

(This wasn't the exact wording of the letter to my MP...)

[This was also posted over on Human Rights Archaeology, but I removed it because it was not related to my research.]

Police, IPCC obstruction, perverting justice: letter to my MP

2009-04-09T17:35:00.002+01:00

I just sent an additional letter to my MP, about the documented cases of police's, and, even more appallingly, the Independent Police Complaints Commission's, obstruction of justice and perverting the course of justice.

Again, I am sure you are already aware of these issues, but nevertheless, in addition to the concerns I expressed yesterday, we now learn that 'fresh pictures suggested he [the battering officer] had removed his shoulder number and covered his face with a balaclava before hitting Tomlinson'. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/09/g20-ian-tomlinson-police) Of course, this implicates not only that officer, but also the colleagues and force who allowed him to operate unidentifiably.

(Obviously, this is nothing to do with potentially crucial undercover work per se, but an official, uniformed anonymity he had clearly hoped would shield him from identification, criticism and prosecution for the kinds of acts he has been videoed committing (and which, were it not for his finally handing himself in, would have tarnished the reputation of the entire service).)

There is also talk of yet other, as yet unproved, assaults on this individual (and in the circumstances, it is inconceivable that there were not others on other individuals). Alongside that, the violent dispersal of the peaceful camp under cover of dark and lack of media presence suggests suspect, if not entirely illegal, action.

Disturbingly, 'from the moment of Mr Tomlinson's death, the police misled the news media, and in some cases lied, about what happened.... Statements were issued on and off the record about the Tomlinson incident, omitting details that must have been known to the police and including false claims. Police representatives subsequently tried to stop reporters doing their jobs, misrepresenting the views of the Tomlinson family. The IPCC misled the media about the case too. And what kind of independent body is it whose first reaction to the Guardian's evidence on Tuesday night was to call at our offices (accompanied by a City of London policeman) and ask for it to be taken off the website?' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/09/ian-tomlinson-g20-police-assault)

Furthermore, it is now apparent that the IPCC asked at least one witness, Alan Edwards, leading questions. Edwards stated: "When I spoke to the lady at the IPCC she asked what happened when [Tomlinson] fell over. I said: 'He didn't fall, he was pushed.'" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/09/g20-police-assault-ian-tomlinson-g201) These serious, documented allegations implicate not only the officer and his immediate colleagues, but also the entire force, and even the independent watchdog, in obstructing and perverting the course of justice (in what may be a case of manslaughter). Previously I drew an analogy with Greece; but perhaps I ought to have drawn one with Turkey.

See my letter about police battery of Ian Tomlinson for definitions/descriptions of those crimes. I would repeat that these are only my unprofessional perception of the acts.

[This was also posted over on Human Rights Archaeology, but I removed it because it was not related to my research.]

Police battery of Ian Tomlinson: letter to my MP

2009-04-08T18:45:00.006+01:00

I just sent a letter to my MP about the police battery of Ian Tomlinson. I should include an immediate caveat that I'm not a lawyer or legally trained, and my perceptions of criminal acts are just that, perceptions, informed by readings of the relevant laws. (I've inserted footnotes of the relevant definitions and descriptions, and links for other references.)

I'm sure you are aware of the Guardian video [and ITN video] and Today interview, but I would just like to register how appalled I am by the police officer's battery(1), his colleagues' tolerance and the force's deception.

As the BBC reported,
Peter Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said some physical confrontation was inevitable during a large protest.

He told Radio 4's Today programme: "On a day like that, where there are some protesters who are quite clearly hell-bent on causing as much trouble as they can, there is inevitably going to be some physical confrontation.

"Sometimes it isn't clear, as a police officer, who is a protester and who is not.

"I know it's a generalisation but anybody in that part of the town at that time, the assumption would be that they are part of the protest.

"I accept that's perhaps not a clever assumption but it's a natural one."
Aside from what he said, it's worrying that Smyth felt confident and comfortable saying it. Knowing that Tomlinson had been battered (and surely aware of the eggshell skull rule(2)), he was not just unrepentant and uncritical; he implicitly excused it by suggesting that the police didn't know Tomlinson wasn't a protester, as if, had he been a (perfectly legal) protester, an unprovoked surprise attack would have been acceptable and justifiable. Particularly in light of previous incidents, it's difficult to discuss this without drawing parallels with the culture of police in, for example, Greece.

Apart from the individual officer's battery of a bystander, there are also the matters of the officer's colleagues' inaction and the force's deception. The colleagues witnessed a clearly criminal act and did not even reprimand the person who committed it, let alone arrest them, which would appear to be a dereliction of duty; it could even be construed to make the colleagues accessories(3), because they did not "report" the crime or otherwise act (and, obviously, them being police themselves makes that all the more serious and inexcusable). By actively lying, or lying by omission, afterwards, the colleagues would also appear to be liable for prosecution for obstruction of justice(4), or even perverting the course of justice(5).

The force must have known what had happened; even if every single lower officer lied to every senior one about every single detail of the case, it is inconceivable that there was no official photographic or video evidence of the events. As others have commented, the police have not learned the lessons of the de Menezes case; but it is not good enough to expect them to learn lessons like this. (It is also unrealistic to expect them to learn like that, because they have no incentive. They go wholly unpunished, or are only punished with internal disciplinary procedures far more lenient than the punishments that would be meted out to citizens who committed similar crimes but were not police.) The force's deliberate deception, too, would appear to amount to obstructing or perverting the course of justice.

As someone who studies criminal matters like the illicit antiquities trade and the destruction of cultural heritage, and who would like to work to combat them, I am forced to consider my options, because I don't know if I could bear to work in such an environment.

See the Guardian for others' outrage online; and see Next Left for an interesting study of the kettling that Tomlinson was caught up in.

According to the British Crown Prosecution Service, 'battery is committed when a person intentionally and recklessly applies unlawful force to another; but it may have been actual bodily harm, 'any hurt calculated to interfere with the health or comfort of the victim'.
British Lord Justice Longmore noted the 'eggshell skull principle' that 'the tortfeasor [the committer of a civil wrong, like battery] takes his[/her] victim as he finds [him/]her'; that is to say, even if the police officer was unaware of Ian Tomlinson's vulnerability, he is still responsible for the consequences of his actions (even if, had he battered someone who was not vulnerable, he would have caused less harm).
The Criminal Law Lawyers' Source identified an accessory after the fact as 'an individual who knowingly shelters or aids a criminal after they commit a crime. The accessory does so in order to help the felon evade arrest or criminal prosecution'.
The U.S. Congressional Research Service noted Black's definition of obstruction of justice as 'any "interference with the orderly
administration of law and justice"', and the CRS itself described obstruction as 'the frustration of governmental purposes by violence, corruption, destruction of evidence, or deceit....; destruction or concealment of evidence or attempts to do so'; and, crucially, it included '(A) knowingly making a false statement; (B) intentionally omitting information from a statement and thereby causing a portion of such statement to be misleading, or intentionally concealing a material fact, and thereby creating a false impression by such statement; (C) with intent to mislead, knowingly submitting or inviting reliance on a writing or recording that is false, forged, altered, or otherwise lacking in authenticity; (D) with intent to mislead, knowingly submitting or inviting reliance on a sample, specimen, map, photograph, boundary mark, or other object that is misleading in a material respect; or (E) knowingly using a trick, scheme, or device with intent to mislead'.
Professor of Law and Social Theory, Susan Edwards described perverting the course of justice as working to 'undermine' or otherwise 'thwart due process of prosecution and conviction'.

[This was also posted over on Human Rights Archaeology, but I removed it because it was not related to my research.]

G20 police assaulted Ian Tomlinson; he died, they lied

2009-04-08T01:00:00.003+01:00

The Guardian's just reported the 'G20 police assault revealed in video: Footage shows Ian Tomlinson, the man who died during G20 protests in London, being attacked from behind'. Police assaulted him, a completely unaware, innocent bystander. He died minutes later; then they lied. Here's ITN's (8th April 2009) footage of the police officer attacking with force.

[Update, 20/04/09]

BristleKRS has been doing great work on this (which I only just found), including identifying police witnesses to the assault and battery, and putting together potential evidence of command control of some of the events. Still, as he cautioned when he identified one police officer:

This is, I note again, only speculation. Perhaps there were a number of left-handed baton-wielding riot cops with no epaulettes, high cut hi-vis jackets, balaclavas, trousers tucked into their boots, Nato helmets and no shields running around the Royal Exchange area of London between 7:16 and 7:20pm on the 1st of April. Hopefully they will all be making formal statements to account for their own actions and to bear witness to what they saw.

He also credited Colin McQuillen/TwoThumbsFresh (some of whose photographic work is in the link), and FIT Watch, a group monitoring the activities of the Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) Police (one of whose relevant blog posts is in the link).

[This was also posted over on Human Rights Archaeology, but I removed it because it was not related to my research.]

Someone didn't sleep enough this March.

2009-04-07T15:05:00.001+01:00

http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2009/04/looting-matters-on-buses.html?showComment=1238599320000#c6619681459864788633

Cyprus: international worker, "treated as [a] real slave"; documents

2009-04-02T09:00:00.000+01:00

I had suspended a post about an "EU citizen, international worker, 'treated as [a] real slave [in Cyprus]'", because the worker, Zoltan, hadn't provided any evidence; but now he has.

In a comment upon another post on "sex, labour, exploitation, slavery [in Cyprus]", Zoltan originally warned that,

we are EU citizens,and we experienced this summer, forced work, inhuman treat[m]ent from so called employer....

We retu[r]ned as refug[e]es home with the help of our family. Humil[i]ated, misleaded [sic - misled], and sick by the heat. So everyone who wish to stay in Cyprus as worker, sended [sic - sent] by agencies, be sure over there exist no rights for you, you are wit[h]out legal protection if you got in touble [sic - trouble]. Do not go over there for job, you would be treated as real slave, and you could return from where you started if you got a family, sick or dead....

Is wery gainfull [sic - very gainful] for cypriots,and a real life danger for Europians [sic - Europeans], or third country people. If you are in[t]erested in details and facts documents you could contact me.

[Contact details deleted.]

my employer dosent even learnd [sic - didn't even learn] my name, called me "Petro"[,] i was afraid at last I will have just a number as in concentration camps.

I had to delete his comment, because it could have been libellous. But now I can publish his complaints, with his employer's contract and his doctor's note. I still cannot publish the possibly libellous claims.

In an e-mail, Zoltan apologised for providing evidence late, but explained that 'I was sick, i bring it home from Cyprus Hyperotherosis [sic - hyperthyrosis, hyperthyreosis, or hyperthyroidism, an overactive thyroid gland], occurred from stress of uncertainty, less of clear water, and heat'.

In that e-mail, Zoltan sent me his employment contract and his medical analysis. He told me that the second page of his contract was fake; it had promised a basic salary (albeit three euros an hour, for fifty-four hours a week), social insurance, paid holidays, sick leave. He also said that the named employer, 'Pampos', did not exist. Zoltan explained that:

The [Cypriot company] is the organiser, the employers pay them [the employment agency] in euro to find, hopless [sic - hopeless] or redy to go people, from poor countrys like: Hungary, Romania, Latvia.

The so called contracts are build tahat way that is contradictory to Cypriot labour law, impossible to use, wery easy to the employer to say that dosent recognise the "contract"[,] ang you can go away, in 45 Celsius with less money, you accept anithing[.] There would be no insurance, no legality, they can do anythying they want to.

Unfortunately, Zoltan still did not have any evidence of official Greek Cypriot actions, so I cannot say whether they helped or mistreated him. (But obviously, if individuals within the government or the police did mistreat people, they would try to avoid leaving evidence of that mistreatment.) Again unfortunately, the file of the original Hungarian-language work contract got corrupted or somehow broke, so I don't have that, either. But I have the English-language version of the contract and a medical analysis since his return to Hungary.

His and his employer's information are in his contract, and his and his doctor's information are in his analysis, but I edited the documents to protect the people involved.

Here's the English-language copy of his contract:

And here's the medical analysis from a state polyclinic in Hungary:

It seems appropriate that I publish this in London, on the day of the G20 meeting; but I can only apologise that I didn't post this information sooner.

Death and denial: Stephanos Stephanou and the Syriac Bible

2009-03-17T08:00:00.002Z

Arrested during a raid on antiquities smugglers, Stephanos Stephanou died in police custody. This tragic case seems to involve: theft, illicit trading and smuggling of antiquities; illegal undercover antiquities police work; deep state criminal activity; possible police brutality; and a cover-up by Church and State. I explore the story of Stephanos Stephanou and the Syriac Bible over on Human Rights Archaeology.

Histories of archaeology, and the liberation of censorship

2009-03-16T06:30:00.000Z

At the Histories of Archaeology Research Network (HARN) meeting a couple of days ago, I presented representations of a suppressed UNESCO report in histories of cultural heritage destruction. I've posted the paper, about how propagandists abused both a UNESCO report and its censorship, over on Human Rights Archaeology. Later, I'll try to demonstrate precisely how propaganda successfully misdirected histories of Cyprus and of censorship itself.

Illicit antiquities trade through Bulgaria

2009-02-24T07:00:00.000Z

I read David Gill's post on the return of antiquities from Germany to Iraq, then followed his link to Barbara Weber's (2009) article for background information. It had some information on the illicit antiquities trade through Bulgaria (der illegale Handel mit Antiquitäten durch Bulgarien).

Lots of the Turkish deep state's drugs-and-antiquities trade and drugs-and-arms trade go through Bulgaria, so it helps to have some basic information about the system in Bulgaria. I translate a few of the details of the system of the illicit antiquities trade through Bulgaria over on human rights archaeology.

Turkey: PKK, Greece, Armenia, Iran arms report censored?

2009-02-24T06:45:00.000Z

A friend e-mailed me the link to Göksel Bozkurt's article in Hürriyet. It said that the Turkish parliament censored an arms report.

I reproduce much of the article and ask whether it's genuine information or propaganda over on human rights archaeology.

Dalibard, Jansen: suppressed UNESCO cultural heritage report

2009-02-20T19:40:00.001Z

I still haven't seen the complete but 'suppressed' version that journalist Michael Jansen (2005: 27) apparently has, but this is the public version of UNESCO Councillor for Cultural Heritage Jacque Dalibard's (1976) report, Cyprus: Status of the Conservation of Cultural Property. (UNESCO reversed the title and subtitle in their library catalogue record.)

I briefly examine its suppression, and the representation of its suppression, over on human rights archaeology.

Ergenekon websites: post extended

2009-02-16T14:10:00.002Z

I just extended the human rights archaeology post on Ergenekon websites' information warfare on Cyprus. It's a little note on the repetition of material across "deep state" and "community" websites (for example, the 7 Questions and 7 Answers).

Craig Murray's blog

2009-02-14T22:20:00.000Z

Even without his spectacular dismissal from the ambassadorship to Uzbekistan, I would have added Craig Murray to the blogroll for posting a list of People Who Really Don't Like Me.

Turkish museum director: antiquities theft, trade; imprisonment

2009-02-14T18:10:00.000Z

I just learned from David Gill that of the ten charged for the theft, smuggling and embezzlement of part of the Lydian Hoard/Croesus Treasure(1), all ten were convicted. I discuss some of the intriguing details over on human rights archaeology.

Turkish union leaders in deep state coup plot

2009-02-09T09:30:00.000Z

A little late, I just found Alexia Saoulli's (Cyprus) Sunday Mail article on the Turkish trade union leader and three deputies involved in the Turkish deep state plot for a coup. I run through union leader Mustafa Özbek's power over on human rights archaeology.

Antiquities trade, Turkey-Cyprus: Syriac Bible

2009-02-06T14:40:00.002Z

Derek Fincham noted Simon Bahceli's article about the trade in antiquities (here, a Syriac Bible) from Turkey to/through Cyprus. Turkish Cypriot police arrested nine local looter-smugglers at Famagusta Bus Terminal, but the antiquities trafficker and one other suspect escaped. I explore the context and the conflicts of this antiquities trade over on human rights archaeology.

Ergenekon websites: information warfare on Cyprus

2009-02-06T05:00:00.000Z

Today's Zaman reported that a "probe reveal[ed] Ergenekon's information warfare sites"(1); however, it didn't report that the nationalist extremist propaganda included a campaign of psychological warfare on Cyprus (and Turkish opinion on Cyprus), too. I fill in the gaps over on human rights archaeology.

U.S.-Iran secret proxy war supply lines through Cyprus

2009-02-06T04:55:00.001Z

In Fikret Ertan's article on Obama, Iran and covert operations, there was evidence that the supply lines for a secret proxy war between the U.S. and Iran run through Cyprus. Is there a secret proxy war, and do its financial and material supply lines run through Cyprus? I try to answer these questions over on human rights archaeology.

Eliophotes: abandoned village, destroyed

2009-01-30T06:00:00.004Z

Eliophotes/Alifodez was a Turkish Cypriot village. Jack Goodwin (1978: 283) judged that '[m]ost residents had left for economic reasons prior to the 1963-4 intercommunal disturbances [and] the rest left at that time. Their houses, already in sad state, were made available to G [Greek Cypriot] refugees in Nov[ember] 1975, but in Aug[ust] 1976 it appeared that there had been no takers. In Apr[il] 1977 some of the old bldgs [buildings] were being demolished as road improvement was undertaken'.

It is clear that "road improvement" was not all that happened. There is only one building left in the village - the Church of Ayioi Eliophotes - and the fountain. The mosque has been destroyed. Every single Turkish Cypriot home has been destroyed. (I don't know who did this, or whether this happened during the "improvement of the road" or later, but these are basically all of the visible remains of the village.)

Goodwin, J C. 1978: An historical toponymy of Cyprus. Nicosia: Jack C. Goodwin.

(Also posted on human rights archaeology.)

Palimpsests, accessible art

2009-01-28T21:00:00.001Z

Ages ago, I stopped doing anything with my photo blogs of accessible art and palimpsests; then I hid them from Google; but now I've merged them into samarkeolog, so I can make occasional posts in those "series" without feeling I have to maintain an entire, active blog about them. I've edited them all to include the key words, so they can be found and shown as a series by searching the blog for "palimpsest" or "accessible art". They're not exciting; but they're still here.

Arediou: abandoned neighbourhood, destroyed

2009-01-28T07:45:00.003Z

I've just published photographs on a new site blog, Arediou: cultural heritage and community. Arediou/Aredyu's Turkish Cypriot neighbourhood was evacuated in 1958, later repopulated, then permanently evacuated between the 1st and the 31st of January 1964 (Patrick, 1976: 77 - fig. 3.10; 98n65). After the Turkish Cypriots fled, unknown Greek Cypriots - either nationalist locals or Akritas paramilitaries - completely erased their mosque and many of their homes, and destroyed many of the others.

This episode came out during part of one of the conversations I had during my site visit:

'Hello. Sorry, perhaps you will know. Is there a mosque near here?'
'There wasn't [ever] a mosque here... Are you a Turk[ish Cypriot]?'
'No, I'm not. I'm English.'
'Ah. The mosque was there', the local Greek Cypriot said, indicating an area of wasteland used as a football pitch and car park.

'What happened?'
'It fell down. Here was the mosque' she said, pointing to the wasteland again.
'Here', waving her hand at the rest of the wasteland, with some standing mudbrick homes the far side of it, some stone-and-mudbrick buildings in various states of decay the near side of it and the plans of former buildings visible only in crop marks in its centre, she explained that 'there were all the Turks [the Turkish Cypriots' houses]... but they fell down.'
'How did they fall down? They didn't just, simply, fall. Does that mean, did you mean that they were destroyed?'
'Yes, they were destroyed.'

Patrick, R A. 1976: Political geography and the Cyprus Conflict, 1963-1971. Waterloo: University of Waterloo Department of Geography.

(Also posted on samarkeolog.)

Dirty War in Ireland: British state complicity, collusion, murder

2009-01-13T09:00:00.002Z

Sinn Fein Publicity Director Danny Morrison has told one of many stories exposing the sometimes incompetent, often uncoordinated, frequently unprincipled fight between the British state/police and the British/Northern Irish Unionist movement, and the Irish/Northern Irish Republican movement.

It was a dirty war. It is a Republican story, and there are other damning stories about the Republican movement's tactics, but this is a true story and needs to be known. All of the violent groups in this struggle for power committed immoral and criminal acts, and "all" includes the British state itself.

Morrison reveals how the British and the Unionists used entrapment, made false charges, committed perjury, used intimidation, conducted kidnappings and cover-ups of attempted murders, conducted cover-ups of murders, even committed murder. Subsequently, they 'block[ed] evidence from trials and inquests in order to cover up state terrorism'.

The British and the Unionists knew that the Republican wanted to meet the informer to arrange a press conference (to expose British state police's shoot-to-kill policy), but they accused the Republican of wanting to assassinate the informer. The "informer" was actually a British agent, who testified in court that 'he agreed to do a Sinn Fein press conference but really believed that he was to be killed'.(1)

In terms of incompetent and uncoordinated action, once, '[t]wo undercover police units,... neither aware of the other's covert presence, had opened fire on each other and killed a colleague.'

As for cold-blooded, shameless complicity in murder, instead of withdrawing a vulnerable agent, 'British intelligence officers... redirected the assassins [away from their agent] to another target, an innocent 66-year-old west Belfast Catholic, Francesco Notarantonio, who was shot dead.' (And in an out-of-control system that increased hatred and prolonged the conflict, the state police in Northern Ireland, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), colluded with Unionist/Loyalist extremists in murder - even of human rights lawyers - and its cover-up.)

As for murder itself, the chief Irish Republican Army (IRA) interrogator was actually British state informer "Stakeknife", '[Freddie] Scappaticci... who was allowed by his British military intelligence handlers to capture and kill suspected informers (usually those whose usefulness to the state had expired) in order to maintain his cover within the IRA.'

It's not clear how much control Peter Lynch had at this point. It's possible that his British state bosses were using him rather than employing him. 'Scap[paticci] had offered Lynch the opportunity of appearing at a Sinn Fein press conference and then sent for [Sinn Fein].' But he was the one who kidnapped and attempted to murder Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) fighter Peter Duggan. He was no naive innocent.

Cyprus: international worker post suspended

2008-11-22T03:05:00.003Z

I've just suspended the previous post. It was a comment on another post by an international worker in Cyprus, which made allegations that the worker/commentator didn't provide evidence for. I captured an image of the comment, then deleted it and reproduced an edited version of it as a post. Even that made some allegations, but the worker-commentator had promised evidence.

Without any evidence, I've had to withdraw it - until he/she provides evidence, when I will repost it altogether (all together) - but the widely-documented aspects of the worker's allegations were that: 'we are EU citizens, and we experienced this summer, forced work, inhuman treatement from so called employer.... my employer dosent even learnd my name, called me "Petro"[.] i was afraid at last I will have just a number as in concentration camps.'

United States, United Kingdom: hypocritical rhetoric

2008-09-05T06:00:00.000+01:00

This is just a short note objecting to the United States' and United Kingdom's hypocritical rhetoric about this hot flash in the Second Cold War.

The United States is at Georgia's side, [U.S. Vice President Dick] Cheney said, "as you work to overcome an invasion of your sovereign territory and an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change your country's borders by force, that has been universally condemned by the free world".

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned Russia's 'unilateral attempt to redraw the map', and although he was referring to the territorial changes at the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was at least ironic that he had to specify that 'Russia is not yet reconciled to the new map', when his state had not been reconciled to the old map.

Presumably the United States is at Georgia's side in the same way that it was at Serbia's side as it worked to overcome an attempt to change its borders by force by... the United States (and the United Kingdom and, since the post-invasion peace-keeping began, Georgia and Ukraine), and in the same way that it was at Iraq's side as it worked to overcome an invasion of its sovereign territory (and if some observers are correct, also an attempt to change its borders by force) by... the United States (and the United Kingdom and, since the post-invasion occupation began, Georgia and Ukraine).

I'm not saying that I object to Georgian territorial integrity, although I do not see how South Ossetia or Abkhazia can be expected to live under Georgian control when its "administration" is "attack", but I do find it absurd that the the United Kingdom and the United States can even dare to employ, or that others can bear to entertain, their rhetoric about Russia's invasion of Georgia after the U.K. and the U.S. have invaded Serbia and changed its borders - when there is still United Nations legislation guaranteeing its territorial integrity - and when the U.K. and the U.S. have invaded Iraq - and privatised and annexed its oil - and continue to occupy it (and might, in the future, support a declaration of independence by the Kurdistan Regional Government).

"Vandals deface the statue of Makarios"

2008-09-03T08:00:00.000+01:00

Or, "down with idols".

The first title - fully, 'the ultimate indignity: vandals deface the statue of Makarios' - was the Cyprus Mail's, the second, that of the 'vandals' - fully, 'for sale: down with idols' (Leonidou, 2008: 1). The ten-metre-high bronze sculpture was going to be moved to Kykkos Monastery and replaced with a merely life-size marble statue, but the move had been delayed and the bronze sculpture was still in place when it was painted, before dawn on the morning of the 2nd of September 2008.

Ethnarch of the Greek Cypriot community and its struggle for enosis (union with Greece), Archbishop Makarios III ruled as president of the Republic of Cyprus during the first three, bicommunal years of the republic (1960-1963), the following eleven years of intercommunal conflict, in which Greek Cypriot General Georgios Grivas's Greek-supported paramilitaries fought Turkish Cypriot Communal Chamber President Rauf Denktaş's Turkish-supported paramilitaries, and drove much of the Turkish Cypriot community into enclaves, ghettoes, dependent upon aid for survival (1963-1974), and, after being overthrown by the Greek Junta, because he didn't want union with Greece under military rule, then restored after the Greek Junta's collapse, for the final three years of his life (1974-1977).

Leo Leonidou (2008: 1) explained that '[t]he vandals threw plastic bags and balloons filled with red and yellow paint at close range' and 'scrawled graffiti reading, "For Sale: Down with Idols", on the wall at the base of the perimeter fence'. '[T]he best response to crazy people is not to respond', responded Archbishop Chrysostomos II, further responding that they were 'irresponsible and brainless' and that 'God will judge them' (Leonidou, 2008: 1).

It is a 500%-scale statue of the man in his lifetime 'revere[d]' by Greek Cypriots 'as a guileless saint' (but feared as a 'bloody-handed monster' by Turkish Cypriots 'terrified of racial extinction') (Time, 1964), and, while Makarios is commonly absolved of any blame and Georgios Grivas denounced as 'the "destroyer of Cyprus"', it was Makarios who founded the extremist organisation that Grivas ran as the terrorist group EOKA(1) and Makarios who induced the inter-communal violence that Grivas led, and Makarios supported Grivas until the Greek army took over the Greek state, when Makarios turned against the Greek Junta, but Grivas stayed loyal to the Junta and turned EOKA-B against Makarios instead. Makarios may not have been the destroyer of Cyprus, but he was certainly not its saviour, either.

So, although one might criticise damage to cultural heritage, there is a lot of logic in the "vandals"' iconoclasm, particularly given it was not merely an idol, but an idol of the publicly unimpeachable ethnarch. And, there is a lot of illogic in Archbishop Chrysostomos II's protestations, which warned the "vandals" that 'God will judge them', when they were challenging his and others' unchristian idolatry (although, obviously, they were challenging it on political grounds, as (possibly atheist) anarchists, socialists, anti-nationalists and/or anti-capitalists, hence their ironic offer for sale of the icon, of whom all political groups, including his former 'junta-worshipping' opponents, make use).

(Indeed, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece Christodoulos laid wreaths at the graves of both Archbishop Makarios and General Grivas, which ideologically-flexible Communist party AKEL(2) then criticised as polluting the memory of Makarios, despite their former opposition to both Makarios and Grivas (which became support of Makarios even before he and Grivas became enemies (Stylianou, 2008)).)

P.S. On an unrelated note, the Order of the Orthodox Hospitallers was founded by President Archbishop Makarios in 1972 and, while the (religious) Grandmastership of the Order is held by the Archbishop of the island, the (political) Temporal Protectorate is held by the President, so, if ever there were a solution to the Cyprus Problem, and (dependent upon the electoral system selected), if ever, on that reunited island, a Turkish Cypriot were elected president, the Order would probably then have a (secular) Muslim as its protector, a true "defender of the faiths", as the "defender of the (Protestant) faith" in Britain wished to be.

Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κυπρίων Αγωνιστών) [National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters]
Anorthotiko Komma Ergazomenou Laou (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού) [Progressive Party of Working People]

Leonidou, L. 2008: "The ultimate indignity: Vandals deface the statue of Makarios". Cyprus Mail, 2nd September, 1-2. Available at: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=41154&archive=1
Patroclos. 2007: "Not a dry eye in the house". [Cyprus] Sunday Mail, 6th May. Available at: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=32203&archive=1
Stylianou, P. 2008: "AKEL's long road to power". The Cyprus Weekly, 29th February-6th March. Available at: http://www.cyprusweekly.com.cy/default.aspx?LocalNewsID=467
Time. 1964: "Makarios of Cyprus". Time, 28th February. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,873818,00.html

Feedshow content

2008-05-26T20:20:00.000+01:00

Feedshow is evidently publishing - reproducing - all of my human rights archaeology content, without comment or condensation; it doesn't advertise on that feed and it does credit me as the author and link to the original post, but I don't get any hits from site visits (and wouldn't, because it has all of my content) and its readers don't see my link list, so they don't know what other content there is available... I would even have to register with Feedshow to be allowed to comment on this on their site.

Antiquities: source, transit, market, mafia

2008-05-20T05:32:00.002+01:00

In the first of two posts, I've described the process of the illicit antiquities trade from source through transit to market; in the second, I'll go on to examine the Turkish and Cypriot situation(s) in detail.

Cyprus: economy; income; conspicuous consumption

2008-03-22T21:12:00.003Z

In one recent article on Cyprus, the Guardian commented that:

No barricade so conjures the island's division, or decades of failed reunification attempts, as much as Ledra, where bullet-pocked buildings remain frozen in time. Behind the barricades, Turkish Cypriots have lived in a world reminiscent of the 1970s while their Greek compatriots, buttressed by international recognition and more recently EU membership, enjoyed a vibrant cafe society, luxury cars and other tokens of one of Europe's most successful economies.

Leaving aside the possibility of the opening of Ledra Street, I want to query instead the perception of Cyprus's economy; I suspect that, despite its different circumstances, Cyprus resembles the US insofar as 'a lot of the growth in GDP per person -- that is, productivity -- has gone to profits, not wages'.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) categorised the 1999 Republic of Cyprus as a country with a low middle income, in the third out of four groups ranked from high, to high middle, to low middle, to low income.

The United Nations' Human Development Report's Human Development Index gave the 2005 Republic of Cyprus 'a rank of 28th out of 177 countries with data' and, while I don't doubt that Cyprus 'enjoy[s] a vibrant cafe society, luxury cars and other tokens', I would question (based upon a lot of anecdotal evidence) whether it is 'one of Europe's most successful economies', or whether the conspicuous consumption of luxury goods is dangerously disconnected from real wages and economic security.

Southern Cyprus does have low unemployment and southern Cypriots may be 'among the most prosperous people in the Mediterranean region'; however, while they may enjoy coffee and cars, as Elias Hazou reported, 'Cypriots pay a lot for staple goods' - more than 25% more than Britons for 500g of spaghetti, more than 75% more for a litre of milk and more than 100% more for six eggs. Moreover, they have the 17th strongest purchasing power of 40 European countries' citizens and, in 2007, Cyprus's average income was only €12,344.

WAC6 Cypriot cultural heritage ethics abstract

2008-03-19T02:10:00.000Z

"Cultural heritage ethics in a divided Cyprus", the paper I submitted for the 6th World Archaeological Congress (WAC6), has been provisionally accepted; I've posted the provisional abstract on human rights archaeology.

Nicosia: racist youths; foreign student, immigrant worker victims

2008-03-12T18:23:00.006Z

Walking back to the archaeological institute from the old town of Nicosia, I found racist Greek Cypriot youths threatening some internationals, although I don't know whether they were foreign students or immigrant workers, with one (or maybe two) leftist Greek Cypriot(s) between them; I don't know exactly what the excuse was, but there was talk of a bicycle.

At first, there seemed to be more racist Greek Cypriot youths and several of those had makeshift weapons, like mop handles and metal bars. When the racists' ringleader's primary target tried to talk with him and to explain that he had done nothing wrong, he sneered back, 'eisai mangas?' It's difficult to translate, but he basically meant, "you think you're tough?" (or, "you think you're a big man/spiv/wide boy/wise guy?").

If I remember rightly, the ringleader of the racist Greek Cypriots then hit his primary target with the long mop handle and, during the wrangling that followed, one of the other victims caught the long mop handle and bent it; when it snapped, there were armed members on both sides and the tension increased.

(This is what remained of the mop handle afterwards. It was left on the ground by the victims after they had reached the safety of their flats; the racists kept and took the other, longer end.)

As this continued, more of the victims' friends arrived, with more makeshift weapons and the racists became a little easier to manage, backing away to the other side of the road, telling the victims to wait for two minutes while they got their friends and more weapons for themselves.

The victims became more aggressive as they tried to drive the racists away and the leftist Greek Cypriot and I turned to calm them down, trying to convince them that it would be better for them to walk away. One of the victims found a massive wooden plank and, after bringing it with him whole, broke it into smaller pieces to give his friends something to defend themselves with, too.

(This is one piece of a plank that must have been three metres long; again, the victims left it on the ground once they were safe.)

Then the racists' friends arrived and they got "brave" again. As the racists approached, the victims retreated into the courtyard by their residences. I couldn't see what was going on, so I tried to get a local to ring the police; he would only tell me the number for me to ring them myself, so I retreated out of sight line and hearing range of the racists and called them.

Once the police finally answered the phone, I had to explain in Greek, then English, then Greek again to one policemen, who forwarded me to another in a completely different suburb, who I explained the situation to three more times, before he told me to speak to a third; I asked him to explain it to the third himself to save time and insisted they just get someone out soon. They sent a car out, which did laps around the block, as the racists dispersed into ones and twos and tried to look nonchalant.

When they saw me taking photogaphs of the weapons, the victims called down to me from the top floor of the building they were hiding in. (It seemed to be part of an educational institution, or flats above that institution, so I don't know whether they were living above or studying there, or whether people who were studying there gave them sanctuary.) 'My friend, where are you from? Are you Greek?' I explained that I was English, checked that they were okay - as okay as they could be - then left.

The racist Greek Cypriot youths are still waiting, outside the victims' residences, on the streets, in the open businesses over the road and spread all around the block.

(The blurry figure to the left of the red car in the centre was the ringleader, who upgraded his armoury to a heavy bicycle chain lock after his friend took his bicycle from the railings opposite the victims' residences.)

Cyprus: 1978 el-Sebai assassination

2008-02-28T00:12:00.007Z

I was so intrigued I had to check the story after I read "what the [Cyprus] Mail said"(1) on the 27th February 1978:

The preliminary inquiry opened in the Nicosia District Court yesterday into charges against two young Arabs accused of the premeditated killing of Egyptian [friend of President Anwar Sadat, al-Ahram editor] Yussef el Sebai in the Cyprus Hilton nine days ago. It was the killing of Mr Sebai that led to Egypt sending commandos to Larnaca to try to free 11 hostages held on board a Cyprus Airways plane by two gunmen. Fifteen commandos lost their lives in a clash with Cyprus security forces.

(photo credit (2))
The Egyptian State Information Service concluded its hagiography, '[Youssef] El-Sebai stressed in his writings... the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood. However, he was assassinated [on] February 18, 1978 by an extremist Palestinian group in Nicosia, Cyprus, where he was attending a conference dedicated to peace and security for the nations of the world.'

The BBC reported that, after the assassination, '[n]egotiators then agreed to allow the killers to leave Cyprus with 11 hostages including Egyptians, in a Cypriot Airlines DC8. However, the plane was forced to return to the island after other states refused to allow it to land.' The BBC explained that the Cypriot government felt that they couldn't let Egypt intervene, because '[t]hey risked inflaming Middle East opinion, where Egypt had been virtually ostracised after making peace overtures with Israel'.

Time gave yet more details. Egyptian President Sadat had 'begged President Kyprianou to rescue the hostages, one of whom was Egyptian, and to send the Palestinian killers to Cairo for trial', whereupon Greek Cypriot President Spyros Kyprianou promised Sadat that 'I personally will handle the matter', but Sadat 'knew that Cyprus had long been a haven for Palestinian terrorists. Fearing that the killers might be freed', Sadat sent Egyptian army commandos to Larnaca and told Kyprianou that 'we have people on the way to help rescue the hostages'.(3)

Sadat was right to distrust Kyprianou, for, when no other state had accepted the hijackers, he had promised them 'Cypriot passports and safe conduct to Athens in exchange for the hostages'. In the meantime, however, because two of the hostages were Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) members, Kyprianou had also agreed to let then PLO Chair Yasser Arafat's gunmen try to assassinate the hijackers if the need and opportunity arose, even sending a Cypriot plane over to collect them.

Kyprianou insisted on negotiations and blocked Egyptian commando intervention, whereupon '[General] Shukry correctly decided that the Cypriots were preparing to release the two assassins.... [and] sent his men into action - and disaster'.

The tail of the Egyptian transport dropped, and a Jeep with four men aboard charged down the ramp. Firing nearly all the way, the men in the Jeep sped toward the DC-8 800 yds. down the dark tarmac. The remaining commandos moved out on foot at an almost leisurely pace. It proved fatal....

[A]stonished Cypriot officials immediately ordered their national guardsmen to shoot the commandos.(4) The Egyptians were caught in a deadly fusillade; the Jeep was hit by grenades, its occupants killed. Most of the outgunned Egyptians took shelter in a nearby plane. Finally they surrendered. Then the hijackers meekly turned over their weapons and gave themselves up.

Cyprus Mail. 2008: "What the Mail said". Cyprus Mail, 27th February, 6.
"Lieutenant Frank Drebin" scanned this photograph from a book and uploaded it to militaryphotos.net; I don't know which book this is from or whom holds the copyright.
Time commented that, '[c]learly, Sadat was preparing for an Entebbe-like raid'. The BBC relayed that, in Operation Thunderbolt, on the 4th of July 1976, Israeli commandos had stormed Entebbe Airport in Uganda and 'rescued 100 hostages, mostly Israelis or Jews' from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Red Army Faction (RAF)/Baader-Meinhof gang hijackers.
Time noted that 'there were reports that Arafat's men participated in the shooting of the Egyptian commandos, but Cyprus officials insisted that the P.L.O. squad never fired a shot'.

(I haven't put this on human rights archaeology because it's interesting, but as far as I can tell now, not relevant enough to my work to make it worth including.)

Tesco's employees' tax payments

2008-02-27T10:41:00.002Z

The Guardian just reported on "Tesco's £1bn tax avoiding plan - move to the Cayman Islands", but it relayed without comment Tesco's corporate and legal affairs executive director Lucy Neville-Rolfe's claim that,

"Tesco is one of the UK's largest taxpayers. For the year to February 2007 we paid over £1bn in the UK in corporation tax, business rates, employer's national insurance contributions and other taxes. Combined with the approximately £750m of PAYE tax, employee's NIC and net VAT that we collected in that financial year, this means we are in the top 10 taxpayers in the UK."

Of course, as their name implies, PAYE (pay as you earn) tax and employees' NIC (national insurance contributions) are the employees' and VAT (value-added tax) the customers' tax payments, not Tesco's.

In another article, about regulator Ofcom's rejection of Tesco's complaint against a Channel 4 News piece on Tesco's Bangladeshi suppliers' use of child labour, where the legal minimum working age is only 14 anyway, 'Tesco had claimed the boy who was described as looking "no more than eight" was in fact 12'. That was their defence!?

Turkey: Islamic texts' revision

2008-02-26T19:53:00.002Z

The BBC has just reported that Ankara University School of Theology has developed a 'reinterpretation of Islam' for the Turkish government's Department of Religious Affairs, a 'radical revision' of the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (which are 'the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia'). It will cut out hadiths that were invented later and attributed to Muhammad and put "simple" hadiths into the context of other confirmed statements by Muhammad, to rescue the "true" Islam that has been 'hijacked by various - often conservative - cultures, seeking to use the religion for various forms of social control'.

I don't know how it will turn out in practice, but I'm not comfortable with Chatham House's Fadi Hakura opining that, 'Turkey is... changing it [Islam] from a religion whose rules must be obeyed, to one designed to serve the needs of people in a modern secular democracy', when the point is, presumably, hopefully, to ensure that the rules are correctly identified and properly interpreted and that, once that is done, people may choose to obey its rules and live in a modern secular democracy. (That is to say, the point is not to stop people obeying the rules of Islam, but to enable them to obey its rules, rather than those that have been incidentally misinterpreted or maliciously misused.)

Kosova/Kosovo: deep state; proxy war

2008-02-21T19:02:00.002Z

Yesterday, I posted something on human rights archaeology briefly presenting the clash between the axes of Russia, Serbia and Greece and the United States, Albania and Turkey and the KLA-PKK proxy war and Kosovan 'not-so-deep state' produced.

Bush: guilty defendants' fair trial

2008-02-15T15:57:00.003Z

'He [U.S. President George W. Bush] said: "There's some people there that need to be tried. And there will be a trial. And they'll have their day in court. Unlike what they did to other people.' So, not everybody interned needs to be tried. The people who need to be tried, will be. The people who will be tried are the guilty ones (those who 'did [things] to other people'), but they don't need to be tried, because we already know they're guilty. And the people who aren't guilty don't need to be tried, but they will remain interned. All clear now? (I'm afraid I can't help anyone parse "fair trial" from "show trial".)

As for the evidence to be used to prove the defendants' guilt, it will be the kind derived from techniques that are not torturous, but inhuman. We know US interrogation techniques involve cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that is like torture(1), because, as Private Eye (No. 1203, 7) observed,

hooding and [stress-positioned] wall-standing [and noise, sleep deprivation and food and drink deprivation causing 'intense physical and mental suffering' and 'acute psychiatric disturbances'] were banned [in the UK] 30 years ago after use by the [British] army in the early 1970s [also against suspected terrorists]. The techniques were declared to be "cruel and inhumane treatment" by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in the Ireland v UK (1978) case.

Furthermore, U.S. interrogation involves "waterboarding" - forced partial drowning - and 'Stephen Bradbury, head of the [U.S.] justice department's office of legal counsel... said: "Let me be clear, though: There has been no determination by the justice department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law."'

The final word is Private Eye's:

And just where did the Americans get the idea for these techniques they say are "not torture"? According to the legal advice given in the infamous "torture memo" on standards of conduct for interrogation, dated 1 August 2002, from assistant US attorney-general Jay S. Bybee [actually, John Yoo] to attorney-general Alberto Gonzales and agreed by President George Bush, it was... from the ECHR decision in Ireland v UK!

Saying it is "like torture" is an important and intriguing caveat, because the 1984 United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines torture as
any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
It is difficult to differentiate between torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, but, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the ECHR parsed the acts thus:
(i) Torture: deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering;
(ii) Inhuman treatment: treatment that causes intense physical and mental suffering;
(iii) Degrading treatment: treatment that arouses in the victim a feeling of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating and debasing the victim and possibly breaking their physical or moral resistance.
So, because the interrogation techniques "only" cause "intense suffering", rather than "very serious suffering", they do not constitute torture.

Sourp Magar, Armenian Monastery: Armenian graffiti

2008-02-04T04:00:00.005Z

I have quite a few photographs from the ruined Armenian Monastery of Saint Makarios (Sourp Magar)*, most of which are general character shots, to give a feel of the place now. Quite a few of the other photographs show graffiti, too, but the two below show some that was unique in the complex (as far as I could tell as I explored, though I didn't examine every wall).

As far as I can tell it's the same word and I think it's Armenian, but, not knowing Armenian, I'm not sure if it is (some of the letters resemble Russian's "r", "sh'ch" and "ch" [that would make sense, as both the Armenian alphabet and the Russian Cyrillic were in part derived from the Greek]) and I don't know what it means. I don't know whether it's a "secular" tag, a devotional writing (for the author or for another for whom they were praying) or something completely different.

If anybody knows, I'd be most grateful to hear.

[Updated on the 4th of February 2008.]

Danielbeast commented that:

The first one appears to say Ara...g. Not sure what fourth letter (or combination or two) is.
The first letter is definitely a capital A. The second one appears to be an r with a flourish on the end, not used to that so not sure if it's supposed to mean anything else or not. The third letter should be a lower case a. Fourth letter looks like an e to me, however once again there's a flourish on the end so not sure if that's meant to be something else beyond it or not. Two vowels in a row are very rare if not unheard of in Armenian so that confuses me. The last letter should be a g. I am not sure if the ayp-ee-g combination is supposed to make a different sound but "Ara-eeg" would not be an Armenian word so I don't know what's wrong. You can compare the letters to the alphabet here, but I'm pretty sure I read the letters correctly. So then what is the problem with the word...

[Updated on the 25th of January 2011]

In comments below, Sumitra Keghouie Spencer was been kind enough to tell how,

My great grandfather Hagop Guzelian, he was the caretaker of the monastery from the 1930's until around 1960.
My Great grandfather lived in monastery with his wife Martha and their 6 childern, One if which was my grandmother Hegenay.

Sumitra, if you ever do visit this page again, I am still interested in the monastery, and would be very happy to add any information or stories you want. I hope you do visit again, because someone who must be a relative just posted this:

Hi sumitra my grandmother was Martha Guzelian and grandfather Hagop Guzelian. My mother Mariam Guzelian (mary) was one of her daughters, my mother has now passed. I was told that they lived at this monastery as caretakers from 1927 - ?

* Also known as Ayios Makarios, Armenomonastero, Armenomonastiro, Armenomonastiron, the Blue Convent, Ermeni Manastırı, Magaravank; Makaravank; Prophitis Elias, St. Machaire, St. Macarius, St. Makarios and Sourp Makar; it is in the Kyrenia Mountains, near Kythrea.

BBC Radio 4 online archives: history, philosophy, literature, thinking

2008-01-19T00:56:00.000Z

Sadly, I haven't seen or listened to much of this, but with the archives online, I intend to work my way through more of the Open University and BBC Radio 4's collaborative history programme, the Things we Forgot to Remember, with studies of the French Revolution and the Suffragettes and BBC Radio 4's own in Our Time and Thinking Allowed (as well as keeping up with Today).

In Our Time has discussed philosophy from Anarchism to Stoicism (in so doing, surely making me far more sympathetic to Anarchism than most Anarchists I've ever met), literature like that of Albert Camus and ancient history, like that of Babylon and of the Sassanian Empire.

It has studied the medieval history of the Peasants' Revolt and Muslim Spain, imperial histories of tea (saving me from reading any one of the many books on particular imperial addictions), slavery and empire and archaeology and imperialism; it even investigated "the aristocracy - how the ruling class survives" (though I haven't listened to it yet, so I'm not sure if it's a manual for their survival or their destruction).

In Our Time also has a resource - in wonderfully plain English - on philosophers, from Thomas Hobbes, through Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger to Jean-Paul Sartre, et al (although, sadly, no direct links to anything on Simone de Beauvoir).

That resource includes links to academic online sources, like the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (although neither of those had pages on Simone Weil, whose writings on the Need for Roots captivated me in the cafes of Istanbul).

Vietnam War: faked Tonkin Gulf incident; Strait of Hormuz

2008-01-13T01:44:00.000Z

A few days ago, I learned that the 'North Vietnamese [military] made hoax calls to get the U.S. military to bomb its own units during the Vietnam War, according to declassified information that also confirmed US officials faked an incident [the Tonkin Gulf incident] to escalate the war'(1)(2).

[Much extended later on the 13th of January 2008; expanded on the 17th and 18th of January; material on Cyprus: colonial terrorism; false flag operations posted separately (on human rights archaeology) on the 19th of January.]

U.S. National Security Archive (NSA) researcher John Prados commented that '[t]he parallels between the faulty intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq War make it all the more worthwhile to re-examine the events of August 1964 in light of new evidence'; yet there are even more pressing events that demand analysis.(3)

Of a recent incident in which US Navy and Iranian Republican Guard met in the Strait of Hormuz that leads to the Persian Gulf ('a crucial international oil shipping route'), the BBC reported that:

An alleged threat to blow up US warships ['I am coming at you, and you will explode in a few minutes'] "may not have come" from Iranian speedboats involved in a recent stand-off, the BBC has learned. The voice on a Pentagon tape could instead have come from another ship in the area or a transmitter on land, senior US Navy sources told the BBC....

The New York Times noted on Wednesday that the US-released audio includes no ambient noise of the kind that might be expected if the broadcast had come from on one of the speedboats.

Indeed, a former US Navy officer observed that, 'in that section of the Gulf, slurs/threats/chatter/etc. [on the radio] is commonplace. So my first thought was that the "explode" comment might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility' and the Navy Times stated that '[t]he threatening radio transmission... may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the "Filipino Monkey"'.

Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar stated that, '[t]he identification of vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian Navy units is a natural occurrence' (as it would be for British Navy units if Iranian military vessels passed through the Channel).

U.S. President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley all called it a provocative act. '"We have made it very clear, and they know our position, and that is: There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships," Bush said on Wednesday. "My advice to them is: Don't do it."' What happens if, like the Vietnamese in 1964, they don't do it?

The Guardian relayed that,

Yesterday the Iranians put out their own four-minute video that showed an Iranian patrol officer in a small boat communicating with one of the US ships. "Coalition warship number 73, this is an Iranian navy patrol boat," the Iranian said. An American naval officer replied: "This is coalition warship number 73 operating in international waters."

The voice of the Iranian sailor in Tehran's footage was different to the deeper and more menacing voice, threatening to blow up the warships in the US version. Nor was there any sign of aggressive behaviour by the Iranian patrol boats....

The Pentagon has said that it recorded the film and the sound separately, and then stitched them together - a dubious piece of editing even before it became known that the source of the voice could not, with certainty, be linked to the Iranian patrol boats.

Neither side have provided anywhere near complete footage of the crucial 20 (or even 30) minutes: the U.S. released a four-minute, 20-second video and Iran released a four-minute clip.

Note that:

the American military/intelligence must have known, as its Navy did, that the voice lacked the background noise that would have been heard in Iranian Republican Guards' communicae from speedboats and so,
the American military/intelligence must have known that the voice did not come from the speedboats when it dubbed it over the speedboats video;
the American government decried the 'provocative act' even after their own retired officers had asked publicly if it were not merely the work of a 'loser' (which must have been asked privately before); and
the American government lodged a 'formal... complaint' even while their own serving officers were asking publicly if it were not just a 'heckler' (which, again, must have been asked privately before); furthermore,
(via Glenn Greenwald via Bill Weinberg) Iranian Hooman Majd observed that 'the person speaking doesn't have an Iranian accent' and others concurred that it was 'not Persian', 'wrong'.

I've also learned more and more about the Sibel Edmonds case, which 'shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets' (where they were then able 'to block important translations, steal incriminating documents' about those and other illegal activities).

It reveals 'how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology' (via the Sunday Times, though Lukery (Luke Ryland) corrected that it was a matter of 'criminal infiltration, not state-based espionage', with even more detail provided by Mizgîn, Luke Ryland, Scott Horton and Joseph Cannon).

Regarding the threats that triggered the American-Iranian naval confrontation, these facts together suggest that:

it might have been an uninterested Arab heckler;
it was probably not an Iranian hoax calling to get the U.S. military to fire on the Iranian military, because an Iranian would have had an Iranian accent;
it might have been an American false flag operation - an incident faked to escalate the war; or,
it might have been an interfering third-party - one listener said the voice sounded 'Arab', though that says nothing in and of itself - manipulating known weaknesses in American intelligence and military to escalate the confrontation.

If the U.S. is seeking an excuse to attack Iran, could there be a "Strait of Hormuz incident" similar to that in the Gulf of Tonkin? (This has been considered by a lot of people now, but one particularly sharp reading was by retired U.S. Navy Commander Jeff Huber (who also commented upon Iranian Republican Guards' capture of British Royal Marines last year).)

The Agence France-Presse (AFP) explained that the Tonkin Gulf incident 'was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to president Lyndon Johnson's sharp escalation of American forces in Vietnam.
Found via Robert K. C. Johnson's note on information about the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident presented by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). Stuart McGeady noted that some information was already available in the National Security Archive (NSA), which found 'Tonkin Gulf intelligence "skewed" according to official history and intercepts'. In reply, Robert K. C. Johnson pointed to even earlier documentation, then observed that the FAS documents were the only complete collection and also documented other incidents related to the Vietnam War.
That was a poorly-phrased segue: it is only because of the study of these historical events that we are able to analyse these contemporary ones so acutely; these provide precedents of individuals', groups' and institutions' behaviour and analogies for situations.

Facebook applications' use, abuse

2008-01-11T12:45:00.000Z

As two friends noted in one day, I do have a lot of shit on my Facebook page; more and more has accumulated as applications have begun to force you to bother twenty friends (by inviting them) in order to use them (and for them, potentially, to abuse you).

In order to know that I had to invite twenty friends in order to use the application, however, I had first to agree to the Facebook platform terms and conditions, where I '[a]llow this application to... [k]now who I am and access my information[; p]ut a box in my profile[; p]lace a link in my left-hand navigation[; p]ublish stories in my Newsfeed and Mini-Feed[; and p]lace a link below the profile picture on any profile'.

In addition, in some, but not all of the applications, you have to agree to their developers' own terms and conditions, again in advance: "what dictator are you?" did not have any of its own, but "who were you in a past life?" did.

"Who were you in a past life?", however, provided a dead link to those unknown terms and conditions, concluding that, '[t]he page you were looking for doesn't exist. You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved.'

In fact, Google searches for "quizzes hungrysanchez" produced no results. (I did a few searches, set apart in time, just in case there was a problem at some point, but there wasn't, except for the site's non-existence.)

That now galls me almost as much as my original objection, which was the advertising that Facebook presented (but with Facebook - like a parent chastising their child - I'm not angry, I'm disappointed).

In fact, both of the applications that I added, then promptly deleted today carried the same advert: "You are the 999,999th visitor: Congratulations you WON! Your claim #893443 CLICK HERE TO CLAIM."

Now, for a variety of reasons, I would never click on these things anyway, but really, the 999,999th claim has the 893,443rd claim number... twice, on different pages, opened at different times? How shit can you get?

Is Facebook choosing these adverts, or is it running these ads automatically, like Google AdWords runs on blogs? Either way, who are they (directly or indirectly) employing to accept or reject these adverts and how are they choosing which they accept and which they reject? (At some point down the line, someone does choose to accept or reject these.)

I'm still unwilling to follow the link to find out what it goes to and I don't want to criticise its provider unfairly, but it gives every impression of being a scam that should be shut down.

Merry Christmas? Kurdish "terrorists", villagers, sheep "neutralised"

2007-12-25T11:04:00.000Z

Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings... Kutlu Bayramlar, Kurban Bayramı, Selam, Selam...

I've posted something on human rights archaeology reviewing the recent "pinpoint operations" of the Turkish military, in which the Turkish Armed Forces (Türk Silahlı Küvvetleri) "neutralised" Kurdish "terrorists", Kurdish civilians and Kurdish sheep.

Blackadder: war; peace

2007-12-22T03:07:00.000Z

I have just (once more) seen "Goodbyeee", the last episode in the First World War series of Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth. It's a powerful episode and one of the best conversations - stitching together excerpts of the transcript reproduced on blackadder.powertie.org, Suslik and Wikiquote - is:

Baldrick: Permission to ask a question, sir.
Blackadder: Permission granted Baldrick, as long as it isn't the one about where babies come from.
Baldrick: No. The thing is - the way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? And ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So there must have been a moment where there not being a war on went away, right, and there being a war on came along, right? So, what I really want to know is how we went from one case of affairs to the other case of affairs.
Blackadder: You mean, how did the war start?
Baldrick: Yes, sir.
George: The war started because of the vile hun and his villainous empire-building.
Blackadder: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think we can be entirely absolved from blame on the imperialistic front.
George: [Loudly] Oh, no sir! Absolutely not! [Quietly, to Baldrick] Mad as a bicycle.
Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.
Blackadder: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.
Baldrick: No, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.
Blackadder: Well possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing is that it would be too much effort not to have a war...
George: By Gum, this is interesting; I always loved history - the Battle of Hastings, Henry VIII and his six knives, all that.
Blackadder: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent a war in Europe, two super blocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast, opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way, there could never be a war.
Baldrick: Except, well, this is sort of a war, isn't it?
Blackadder: That's right, there was one tiny flaw in the plan.
George: Oh, what was that?
Blackadder: It was bollocks.
Baldrick: So, the poor old ostrich died for nothing...

samarkeolog, human rights archaeology blogsearch, blogroll

2007-12-10T07:15:00.000Z

I've revised my samarkeolog, human rights archaeology and cultural heritage research blogs' layout, changing the search box and the blogroll (although the blogroll doesn't look very different on samarkeolog, because that's where I gather the links until I find the time to update all of the other pages together).

The note's on human rights archaeology.

Cyprus: Donkey? True Cypriot!

2007-12-06T08:05:00.000Z

(As if Cyprus didn't have enough trouble as it was, in 2003 its donkeys made their own unilateral declaration of independence. Their state, too, is internationally unrecognised.)

On human rights archaeology, I've just posted the story of one protest against the Turkish-backed regime in northern Cyprus, in which a donkey was arrested and a wonderful headline born. (This story is available from other sources in English, Greek and Turkish.)

Turkey-Kurdistan war politics

2007-11-30T23:22:00.000Z

I've finally got one of the biggest posts I've been working on, about war and politics in and between Turkey and Kurdistan, up at human rights archaeology, 'presenting an interesting discussion I was part of, about Turkey's present and future action in south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq (northern and southern Kurdistan, respectively)', with a lot of digging around to work out who's doing what to whom, with or through whom and why.

One of the asides to that was 'a basic account of two days of nationalist rallies in northern Cyprus, including nationalists' redirection of popular feeling against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK)) against the pro-democracy voice of Afrika newspaper'.

democracy, coup, invasion

2007-11-26T07:50:00.000Z

Human rights archaeology now has a post, 'democracy, coup, invasion', about 'the Greek coup against and Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974'; it has a paired post about the related history of the Athens Polytechnic Uprising, which concentrates on popular struggles for democracy in the face of the Great Powers and their games.

17th November 1973, 2007

2007-11-26T04:35:00.000Z

I've posted an account of the Athens Polytechnic Uprising of the 17th of November 1973 (along with a very brief history of the Greek junta of 1967-1974) on human rights archaeology.

As I noted at the end of it, '[t]he Athens Polytechnic Uprising was one point in a massive struggle between people and the Great Powers and between the Great Powers themselves, a struggle that also produced the Greek coup against and Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974'.

(There is now a paired post on 'democracy, coup, invasion', discussing the Greek coup against and Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.)

Greece: illegal migrants, legal pay

2007-11-21T22:44:00.000Z

... or, "why I love the Supreme Court of Greece".

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has ruled that illegal migrant workers who are not paid minimum wage or fairly compensated for overtime may sue employers under Greek labour laws in spite of immigration law prohibiting employers from hiring foreigners who do not hold a valid residence permit.

If this is not already law elsewhere in the European Union (EU) - for example, in Britain - I hope that this sets an example. It's a shame that it cannot act as a legal precedent for the rest of the EU, but it can and should act as a moral principle.

In the UK, 'the big grocers make unfair demands on suppliers.... pass "excessive" costs and risks to their suppliers', so 'farmers [have] suffered in the supermarkets['] pursuit for cheap produce'. The suppliers, in turn, pass on those costs to their workers. 'As one labour official in China explain[ed the process, to the Washington Post, cited in an Action Aid report], "Wal-Mart pressures the factory to cut its price, and the factory responds with longer hours or lower pay, and the workers have no options."'

In the UK, 'Bulgarians said they were forced to "live like pigs on scraps", scavenging vegetables from the fields when their Latvian gangmaster withheld their pay for 34 days'. 'Investigators found workers hungry and fearful. Some of them had been forced to work a day without access to food or water. Some had been threatened with eviction from the caravans if they refused to work.'

In many places, as 'in South Africa, laws have been put in place that should protect these workers, but the reality belies the legislation. Supermarkets have to take some of the responsibility for this. [President of the South African union Sikhula Sonke, Wendy Pekeur observed that] ".... They have the power to provide minimum wages and proper housing and pay benefits and pensions."'

The same principles apply in this case, both for local Greek supermarkets and for international supermarkets sourcing their produce from Greek suppliers. If the law protects the labour, then the costs have to be accepted by those who make the profits (or by the consumers who demand the labour), which is the only acceptable and sustainable way forward.

At the end of Kathy Tzilivakis's article, there was a tick-list of significant, successful migrant labour rights battles, titled "immigrants wage-ing war":

In 1998, about 200 immigrant farm hands, mainly Albanians and Romanians, in the village of Agios Georgios, northern Attica, went on strike. They demanded an eight-hour workday and wage increases. Their demands were met six days later. It was the first ever strike staged by immigrant farm workers in Greece.
In 1999, over 100 Albanian workers in the village of Loutra on the holiday island of Lasvos went on strike, demanding wages equal to Greek workers. Their demands were met.
In June 2002, several thousand migrant vegetable-pickers in Marathon, eastern Attica, went on a two-day strike demanding overtime and 25-30 euros a day. The mass walkout came as a major blow to the 500 landowners, who were not able to supply markets in Athens. They promised to increase the wages by a few euros.
In May 2005, hundreds of legal immigrant farm workers in the central Greek village of Tirnavo demanded improved wages, risking deportation. Locals made it clear they might have their residence and work permits revoked. But under mounting pressure to maintain production levels, employers agreed to pay a few euros more in daily wages.

(It was originally presented in reverse-historical order; I turned it about to highlight the progress achieved, or lack of it.)

Tzilivakis continued:

The decision grew out of a suit filed by Albanian farm workers in 2003. They claimed they had been paid below minimum wage and systematically denied overtime pay by their employer between the years 1998 and 2003 [when they quit, for this reason]. Siding with the Albanian workers, Greece's highest court awarded them five years' worth of lost wages even though they were illegally living in the country for the first three years (1998-2001).

Had the court ruled otherwise it would have reduced unscrupulous employers' potential liability, making it more attractive for them to hire undocumented migrant workers....

[A] landmark Supreme Court ruling extended workers' rights to the undocumented....

"The Supreme Court's decision is very important because it recognises their [the workers'] rights since 1998 [despite their illegal residence status] because they were with the same employer," said [the Albanian workers' attorney Stavroula] Daniil-Karpathaki, adding that the ruling will have broad implications for all immigrant workers' labour rights.

Is Daniil-Karpathaki's caveat that "it recognises their rights since 1998 [rather than 2001] because they were with the same employer [after their residence was legalised in 2001 as they were before]", poor phrasing, or poor translation, or does it mean,

either, that only those immigrant workers whose residence is subsequently legalised have had their rights recognised, which seems an overly optimistic interpretation of that caveat,
or, that only those immigrant workers whose residence is subsequently legalised and who have remained with the same employer have had their rights recognised, which seems an overly pessimistic interpretation of the principle of the case,
(or, is it merely a statement regarding the technical judgement in this case, rather than the general precedent set by the case)?

It is an important caveat to dwell on, as it could provide a loophole for employers whose workers have never been legally resident to avoid their obligations towards them. (It carries the implication that the employer bore an obligation because of the continuous employment of those workers, so that if the workers were either never legally employed, or were never legally employed by that employer, it would have no obligation to them.)

Still, the reporting of the case, grounded in the court's judgement and subsequent legal commentary, takes a very optimistic view of the precedent, if not of migrant workers' opportunities to put it into practice:

Chances of undocumented migrants taking their employer to court over lost wages, however, are slim to none because they would risk arrest and deportation for violating immigration law. Those who have legalised their status in Greece are fully protected under the law, even if they worked illegally in the past.

So, workers who had never been legally employed could access the rights they ought to have had while they were being employed, but would then be deported? That seems to contradict Daniil-Karpathaki's caveat, but coincide with the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

Based on the court's ruling, all workers in agriculture, fishing and livestock farming - including immigrants who have not entered into a written work contract because of their unauthorised residence status - should be protected by the country's General Collective Bargaining Agreement under which they are entitled to the monthly minimum salary of 657 euros and the right to overtime pay - "time and a half" - for each hour worked beyond the 40 worked in a week. These three sectors (agriculture, fishing and livestock farming) have no collective bargaining agreement of their own.

Agriculture is most heavily reliant on immigrant labour. Immigrants account for 90 percent of all hired hands on Greek farms, according to research conducted by Haralambos Kasimis, professor of rural sociology at the Agricultural University of Athens.

It is farming and other undesirable 3D sectors - the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs shunned by middle-class Greeks - like construction and domestic work that absorb large numbers of migrant workers.

According to Alexis Mitropoulos, one of Greece's leading labour law experts, the Supreme Court ruling is "very important".

"It recognises that all workers in our country, immigrants employed in agriculture in this case, should be remunerated like Greeks employed in the same sector without any discrimination," he told the Athens News.

Mitropoulos also said immigrant workers in Greece can refer to this decision and demand legal wages based on the country's general collective bargaining agreement. "This ruling obliges employers in our country to completely adhere [to rules regulating legal wages], which means that those who do not pay economic migrants the national minimum legal wage will be breaking the law," he said.

There is an economic benefit for local workers, too, as, they can compete for the minimum-wage jobs and it was pleasing to see the local workers' solidarity:

"We applaud the Supreme Court ruling," George Alevizakis, secretary for immigration issues at the Confederation of Workers in Greece (GSEE), told the Athens News. "It is a very positive outcome and sends a strong message that we hope will encourage all migrant workers to seek redress from employers."

.... [Labour and employment] checks are rare, allowing employers to openly flaunt the law by hiring illegal immigrants with impunity.... Immigrants make up roughly 10 percent of Greece's 10.9 million population. According to the GSEE, the country's biggest trade union, the country is home to as many as 300,000 migrant workers who do not hold a valid residence permit.

Yet,

some still feel unprotected. They are the live-in domestic workers, who are virtually unheard and unseen as they toil in Greek homes as nannies and housekeepers. They have no collective bargaining agreement of their own....

They also have little opportunity to organise (because they work individually - and frequently for so long that they simply do not have time, or coinciding times for group activities, etc.) and little opportunity to reach a collective bargaining agreement, as the nature of their employment (individual employers and employees in innumerable, isolated relationships) makes the formation of a union and/or the implementation of collective action difficult.

[M]any suffer from exploitative low wages and are threatened with deportation if they complain of overwork....

[Unity of Filipino Migrant Workers in Greece (KASAPI-Hellas) President Joe Valencia said that] "the work never stops for domestic workers who live in [their employers' homes]... There is [also] no minimum wage. It all depends on the employer. Some receive as little as 400 euros [a month]."

Not only are many live-in immigrant domestic workers (both legal and illegal) not paid overtime, they are almost always underpaid for the long hours they are required to work. Few enjoy employment benefits such as paid maternity leave. They also rarely enjoy a high level of job security and may be dismissed at a moment's notice.

The GSEE is currently hammering out a proposal aimed at securing the labour rights of domestic workers, according to Alevizakis. In turn, Daniil-Karpathaki said she has decided to mobilise labour law experts to find out how to establish special collective bargaining agreements to cover the agriculture, livestock farming, fishing and domestic work sectors.

Kathy Tzilivakis, Athens News, 16th November 2007, 1 and 15: "Illegal migrants can sue for pay". [Not available online as of 22nd November.] [Now available at Spero News as of 23rd November.]

Roma Mahalla return, Mitrovice, Kosovo

2007-10-25T01:41:00.000+01:00

This is just a short note to the effect that I have posted (identical) updates to posts on Mitrovice/Mitrovica and samarkeolog, about the return of the Roma community driven out of their Kosova/Kosovo neighbourhood by nationalist extremists.

The updates are more detailed, but, basically, I was delighted to read that '[t]he UN refugee agency [UNHCR] has helped 92 members of Kosovo's minority Roma, Ashkalia and Egyptian (RAE) communities to return to their home district in the divided city of Mitrovica', yet, 'while 57 families had moved into the new flats and houses, only 13 of those families had been living in the IDP camps in Northern Mitrovica.... ownership of the new houses was not being passed to the occupants.... [and] the houses... were of very poor quality....'

(Belatedly reposted on human rights archaeology.)

Fieldwork notes: change

2007-09-01T08:46:00.000+01:00

Recently, a lot of my "fieldwork notes" have been posted on here, rather than my research blog, human rights archaeology, but, as I noted there on this change:

Good news for me and anyone reading this blog: the format and style of my fieldwork notes and their extracts are going to change, or, rather, they have changed. No longer languishing without a viable research subject, I'm not making the banal "diary" entries or the random observations that I felt I had to write down, just in case.

Now, the "fieldwork notes" will range from notifications... to presentations of my site visits... to reviews of aspects of the human rights situations in the places my work is concerned with... and will even double back to "traditional" fieldwork notes when something happens that warrants mention....

So, when I'm posting stuff like cultural heritage site documentation, thesis chapter and sub-chapter drafts, etc., I'll post them there and a note here.

Turkish security, Kurdish insecurity

2007-08-24T03:46:00.000+01:00

Demonstrating the insecurity imposed upon the Kurdish community by the Turkish army, allegedly for 'security reasons', Tolga Korkut reported on Kavaklı's "returning villagers sent back" to where they didn't come from (on the BIA News Centre on the 20th of August, which I found through Mizgin's post on coordinated Turkish and Iranian attacks upon southern Kurdistan/northern Iraq):

They had to leave their village, Kavakli, in the Cukurca district of Hakkari province, eastern Turkey, in 1995.

I thought I recognised the name: Kavaklı is another warred village; as Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated in their 2002 report, 'Kavaklı village... was forcibly evacuated in 1993', 'Kavaklı köyü 1993’te zorla boşaltılmıştı'.

I don't know whether one of BIA or HRW got the date of the expulsion wrong, or whether the village was forcibly evacuated in 1993, then resettled, then once more forcibly evacuated in 1995.

After that, however, the village remained empty, except for occasional visits from those displaced villagers who were allowed to tend their crops; that, however, was a very dangerous thing for them to do.

As Human Rights Watch narrated in its 2002 report,

In October 2000 three villagers who had gone back, with permission from Hakkari Provincial Gendarmerie Headquarters, to collect walnuts from their lands were found shot dead with their hands tied behind their backs.

Ekim 2000’de Hakkari İl Jandarma Komutanlığı’nın topraklarından ceviz toplamak üzere izin verdiği üç köylü ölü bulunmuştur. Bu insanlar elleri arkadan bağlanarak kurşunlanmıştır.

From an article originally published in Özgür Gündem, on the 17th of August 2005, Info-Türk relayed the accusation of the extra-judicial execution of Yusuf Yaşar in Kavaklı on the 12th of August 2005:

Yusuf Yasar, who was killed on 12 August in Çeltik quarter in Kavakli village of Hakkari, was allegedly killed from close distance after having been detained.... Naif Kayacan, SHP member of Province Assembly, said: ".... The way to his house is very dark. He must have been taken and then brought [to] the place where he was killed."....

According to the autopsy report there were 20 bullets on the head and chest, there were traces of grazes on forehead, there were traces gunpowder on the body indicating he was shot from close distance. According to the crime scene report there were shovel and pickaxe nearby the body and a little bit C+ was found and Yasar was in civilian dress.

Tolga Korkut continued:

The villagers finally returned 12 years later, having received permission from the governor's and district offices to work their fields.

However, according to the Yüksekova News [article below, in Turkish], now the six villagers have been told that they cannot enter their villages and they have been unable to harvest. The villagers themselves recounted the following:

"In 1995, there were 150 households in our village. We did not need help from the government because we had animals and fields. But when the events started (the clashes between the PKK and the army), our village was emptied for security reasons. In the spring of 2007, the governor and the district authorities gave us permission to work our fields. We six families returned to the village and sowed wheat, barley and planted vegetables.

Had we been allowed to harvest, we would have had enough to eat for the winter and we would not have been dependent on the state. But because of an increase in clashes we have been evicted from our village and cannot harvest. We have been told that security is the reason. All our efforts have been wasted."

Although villagers are trapped in-between the TSK and the PKK (the Turkish army and the Kurdish guerillas, respectively), these villagers' testimonies sounded suspiciously like the standard government line.

Given the forcible evaucation of the village in 1993 and/or 1995 and the execution of villagers and intimidation of their relatives and neighbours in 2000 and 2005, it seems reasonable to assume that these villagers were too frightened to tell the truth.

In the case of the three executed villagers, the 2002 Human Rights Watch report noted that,

The official account, that the three had been killed by the PKK, was partly based on inconsistent accounts by a fourth villager who survived. In his first statement to the prosecutor, he said that the group was accosted by unknown persons in the dark, who fired shots. He was wounded but escaped.

In a second statement contained in the gendarmerie's report, the villager said that the group had been captured by PKK militants who tied their hands and then shot them. It appears that the fourth villager may have been pressured to give an account that exculpated the gendarmerie. Relatives who returned to the area to recover the bodies reported that as they entered Kavaklı gendarmes guarding a nearby bridge fired on them.

Resmi açıklamaya göre, bu kişiler PKK tarafından öldürülmüştü. Bu açıklama, hayatta kalan dördüncü köylünün tutarsız ifadesine dayanmaktadır. Savcılığa verdiği ilk ifadede, söz konusu kişi karanlıkta bilinmeyen kişilerin kendilerine yaklaştığını ve ateş ettiğini belirtmişti. Kendisi yaralanmış ve kaçmıştı.

Jandarma raporunda yer alan ikinci ifadesinde ise, bu kişi grubun PKK militanlarınca yakalandığını ve ellerinin bağlanıp kurşunlandığını belirtmektedir. Bu dördüncü şahsın jandarmayı aklamak için zorlanmış olduğu izlenimi vardır. Ölüleri almak için bölgeye giden akrabalar, Kavaklı’ya girdiklerinde, komşu köyü koruyan jandarmanın kendilerine ateş ettiğini ifade etmişlerdir.

Similarly, in the case reported by Özgür Gündem and Info-Türk,

According to the official announcement he was one of the PKK militants who were trying to plant mines and did not obey stop warning. His brother Kamil Yasar said followings: "My brother previously told me that police officers were talking bout him each other. We were in the village 3 days ago. How can someone be a guerrilla in a day? He was seen walking in bazaar at about 8pm. And then he somehow went 60 km to plant mines. After he was killed villagers went to take the body. But they were threatened by pointing a gun against the head of the driver. Afterwards the Governor announced that a militant was killed. They did not allow us during the autopsy and they wrote an arbitrary report."

Naif Kayacan, SHP member of Province Assembly, said: "We were together at about 5 pm. His uncle Isa Sakar was also with us and we spent some 2 hours. At about 7pm he went home to fix something. Few hours later I heard he was killed. Possibly the official announcement does not reflect the truth. The way to his house is very dark. He must have been taken and then brought [to] the place where he was killed." IHD Hakkari branch Chair Necibe Günes announced: "If he had been a militant his ID could not have been identified at least for 3 days."

What I believe was Yüksekova Haber's original article from the 16th of August was titled, "Ektiklerini biçemediler [they couldn't harvest their crops]", with the photo caption, "köyler boşaltıldı, ekinler tarlada kaldı [the villages evacuated, the crops stayed in the fields]":

Hakkari'de güvenlik gerekçesiyle boşaltılan köy sakinlerinin mağduriyeti devam ediyor. Valilik ve kaymakamlık izniyle ektikleri tarlaları şimdi yine olaylar yüzünden biçemiyorlar.... Güvenlik gerekçesiyle 1995 yılında boşaltılan Çukurca'nın Kavaklı köyü sakinleri, 2007 yılı baharında valilik ve kaymakamlık izni ile geri dönüş yaparak tarım arazilerini ekti.

Köylerine 12 yıl sonra tekrar dönen vatandaşlar, ekinleri toplamadan bölgede olaylar yüzünden tekrar köylerini boşaltmak zorunda kaldı.

Kavaklı köyü sakinlerinden Ubeydullah, Ali Turan, Ali ve Süleyman Tekin, Mehmet Yalçın ile Hasan Sevi, geri dönüş yaptıkları köylerinde ektikleri ekinleri biçemediklerini söyledi.

Son zamanlarda bölgede başlayan olaylardan dolayı güvenlik gerekçesi ile köylerine gidemediklerini belirten vatandaşlar, ekinlerini toplamadan köyden çıkarılmalarına tepki gösterdi.

Köylüler, "1995 yılından önce köyümüz 150 hane idi. Tarım ve hayvancılıkla uğraştığımız için devletin yardımına ihtiyacımız yoktu. Ancak olayların başlamasıyla birlikte güvenlik gerekçesi ile köyümüz boşaltıldı. 2007 yılının bahar ayında valilik ve kaymakamlık tarafından köyümüzde tarlalarımızı ekmemize müsaade edildi. Köye geri dönen 6 aile olarak arazilerimizde buğday, arpa ve sebze ektik.

Ektiğimiz ürünleri toplayabilseydik kış boyunca bize yeterdi ve devletin kapısında gözümüz olmazdı. Ancak son zamanlarda artan olaylar yüzünden tekrar köyümüzden çıkarıldık ve ekinlerimizi toplamaya gidemiyoruz. Güvenlik gerekçesi ile köylerimize bir daha giremeyeceğimiz söylendi. Köye gidemediğimiz için tüm emeklerimiz boşa gitti" dedi.

This perverse plan of establishing Turkish security through Kurdish insecurity does not work; it creates insecurity for both Kurds and Turks and, it can only be assumed, that is its true aim.

Turkey: Siirt JITEM questioning

2007-07-22T18:35:00.001+01:00

This set of fieldwork notes extracts were written about my visit to Siirt in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey from the 12th to the 16th of June 2007, where I was subjected to prolonged and repeated surveillance, public detention, informal questioning and searching by JİTEM. I want, immediately, to say thank you to all of those who gave me their trust, their hospitality and their help.

(JİTEM is the İstihbarat Grup Komutanlığı (Intelligence Group Commandership) or Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele (Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror), which is the intelligence and counter-terrorism unit of the paramilitary state gendarmerie.)

It should be borne in mind at all times that this is only what visiting Westerners are subjected to; the plight of those who live there is immeasurably worse. Unfortunately, there are a range of sources that simplify the situation to the point that they hinder the struggle for human rights and democracy of all of the communities in Turkey, but particularly the Kurds.

Apart from the general talk about Turkey, that frequently treats it as a normal democratic country with a terrorism problem and a powerful army:

there is good mainstream media that still talks of 'Abdullah Ocalan, captured in 1999 after the Kurdish separatist war he started had killed an estimated 35,000 people', observing 'the semi-fascistic "Grey Wolves" of the bloody civil conflict of the 1970s', without noting that the primary targets of the PKK in its early years were those exploitative and oppressive 'agha[s] and neo-fascists' (McDowall, 2004: 421) or that, as the thousands of burned villages alone demonstrate, the PKK's partner in this bloody tango is the Turkish army; and
there is also well-meaning public commentary, which makes claims such as, '[t]he indigenous peoples [of Kurdistan] have long since fled to mountainous areas in an attempt to protect themselves and their descendants from being wiped out' - which, incidentally, echoes the language used to imply that people have joined the PKK, rather than fled the violence - when most of the millions of Kurds who have fled from the burned villages, have fled to the towns and cities within south-eastern Turkey, or in north-western Turkey, or indeed throughout the world, although Turkish Kurds more frequently went to Germany, Britain and Sweden (McDowall, 2004: 457-458).

For information and anlysis of their plight just during this election period, when there is more international attention upon Turkey than normal, see Mizgin for the measures imposed upon the elections to castrate Turkish democracy (and her other posts for more general information on the situation).

It's definitely worth looking at some of the material she draws on, like the Kurdish Human Rights Project report on the elections (and Kurdish Info for a summary of some of the "security" measures taken) or the Human Rights Watch report that details military influence, harassment of minority communities and other human rights violations undermining the very idea of democracy.

This is an inordinately long post, for which I can only apologise; I'll try to make a summary of it, but I felt it was important to have as full an account as possible, to help other researchers and people concerned with northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey understand the realities of the situation there (and to show the people there that some foreigners are trying to help).

These notes were largely written during those days and those immediately afterwards, but because of the conditions during the visit and the lack of time and the continuing search for information afterwards, some of them were written more recently.

I ought to make clear, now, that they are summaries of prolonged, stressful encounters, the conversations held almost exclusively in Turkish: some of the conversations were hours-long; sometimes, afterwards, I was still under surveillance, or the threat of it, so I couldn't make notes; my fieldwork diary was repeatedly read by the intelligence services, so I didn't want to make notes.

The conversations presented were written down, albeit sometimes a long time afterwards; they are summaries of the conversations, but the sentences and exchanges included are accurate translations, give or take the difficulty of translating Turkish to English semantically.

(As an example, Turkish uses double negatives ("I didn't do nothing") and English has both a present perfect and a past simple tense (having both, "I have done" and "I did"), where Turkish does not have a perfect past tense (does not have, "I have done"), so the English, "I haven't done anything", would have been said in Turkish, "I didn't do nothing".)

Maalasef (unfortunately), the wine's not working (or good). I got the overnight bus from Van to Diyarbakır, which was a nice idea, shame about the person snoring in front of me and the other being sick behind me; I knew they were going to get travel sick when they got on, then, when it started, I ended up curled up in my seat awake, trying not to hear and fearing being hit. It was a very long seven hours.

Arriving in Diyarbakır, I got a room at the Hotel Murat, slept for a couple of hours, then checked my e-mail and visited the Diyarbakır Branch of the İnsan Hakları Derneği (İHD (Human Rights Association)), who must have been very busy – I wasn't forced to drink even one cup of tea! – but who were kind enough to provide me with a list of more than two thousand (2,000) damaged or destroyed villages and another report and photocopies of a few relevant newspaper articles.

I went to an internet café and spent the evening uploading pages on Xanagale: cultural heritage and community. Having worked until late last night/early this morning, I woke up and dragged myself onto the buses to Batman and from there to Siirt.

The bus dropped me off on the main road through town, which, it turns out, the Hotel Erdef is on; finding out it had wireless, I finished off the posts to Mehme: cultural heritage and community, then popped out.

As usual, I asked how to get to one place and the person I asked refused to tell me and walked me to somewhere else, where I got a kebap, which I ate in my room; afterwards, I popped out and got a bottle of (what, much later, turned out to be bad) local wine.

I can only say here what I said to secret policemen whose relevance will become apparent, but I started talking to a few people in the street and they were kind enough to talk with me and provide me with some information on sites I was considering visiting. As the already-cryptic nature of this note would imply, they must remain anonymous, so I can't acknowledge them properly, but I am very grateful for their assistance.

From the 'Siirt (Sért)/Eruh (Dıhé)' section of the İHD (1996: 36-37) list of 'yakılan ve boşaltılan köyler - the burned and discharged [evacuated or emptied] villages', (on page 36) they identified,
946. Argo (Yarımca)
947. Awal (Tünekpınar)....
951. Basıxré (Yelkesen)....
954. Bereşe....
960. Çemé Gevir
961. Daran
962. Derawut (Payamlı)....
964. Drişka (Demirkapı)....
969. Evila....
971. Fındıklı
972. Garisan....
979. Gırdava (Ormanardı)
980. Ginyanis (Demiremek).... [and]
986. Hésinka (Özlüpelit)
as dangerous (tehlikeli) villages, potentially sown with landmines (though, whether those mines would have been laid by the Turkish military or by the PKK, they didn't know or say). They identified some of the villages in the 'Siirt (Sért)/Kurtalan (Mısırcé)' section as places the state will submerge under the Ilısu Dam (on page 36):
1055. Ganinere
1056. Gozık
1057. Gozıké
1058. Hestan
1059. Hüseyni
1060. Kal
1061. Kasirke
1062. Kendala
1063. Keriva
1064. Kriva [and]
1065. Kuğuüstü.
(They categorised the villages as ones that would fall to the Botan Dam, but I'm not sure whether they meant beneath the Botan Dam or beneath the Botan Reservoir of the Ilısu Dam.)

The people I met in the street helped me once more, identifying the safe (güvenli) villages in the central ('Merkez/Navend') area of Siirt/Sért (on page 37) and grouping them as those that would not fall to the Ilısu Dam,
1137. Bıloris
1138. Bızenka [with 1139 missing]
1140. Dodayis
1141. Geravis....
1143. Hathat (Çınarlı) [and]
1144. Kalender
and those that would fall to it:
1142. Gevat (Meşelidere)....
1145. Kesrık
1146. Kıtmes (Yerlibahçe)
1147. Mehine (Kayıklı)
1148. Niwela (Keleki)
1149. Reşa (Yuva)
1150. Şemse (Güneşli) [and]
1151. Tatlik
I thanked them and went up the road to get some sugar, caffeine and water to fuel the night's work; regrettably, I didn't think to stash the list in my room before the two-minute round trip. (It was 8.30 or maybe 9pm by that point.)

In the shop, the usual conversation, albeit in unusually good humour – 'become a Muslim', 'become a humanist', 'get circumcised', 'get circumcised again' – came and went, along with, 'find me an English wife', 'no'; later, it turned to work.

I gave them a very basic outline, which I later based "the script" on, but people kept coming and going and/or chatting outside – me falling silent every time – so we gave up on talking and I left. On the pavement outside, four men were sat drinking tea; you could tell from the mixture of moustaches and body-building they were something (apparently, JİTEM).

The JİTEM agent I later came to think of as the "bad cop" addressed me and the four invited me to join them; my shoulders sank and I sat down. The two quiet agents who sat near on my left and far on my right didn't do much and I don't really recall their faces or personalities. The "bad cop" sat across the little table from me on the left; the "good cop" sat by my right side.

They asked me for my passport, but, having forgotten that I'd thought ahead and asked for it back from the hotel, I told them it was there; they asked me which hotel I was at and I told them.
The "bad cop" asked, 'what are you doing here?'
I replied, 'looking around'.
He followed up, '[looking] at what?'
In my turn, I asked him, 'why?'
'At what?'
'Why?'
'At what!?'
'Why!?'
The two unimportant JİTEM agents tried to explain to me that he wanted to know what I was looking at, but I explained to them that I knew and that I wanted to know why he wanted to know.
He snapped, 'because I want to, because I can ask; that's how it is here'.
I began, 'I'm working in Cyprus', but he interrupted, 'tell me'.
After I appealed, 'I am telling [you]' and began again, he interrupted again, 'tell me!'
I said firmly, 'wait! I am telling [you]', answering evenly, 'I'm looking at Cyprus's abandoned villages; now I'm here, I want to look at this place's villages'. I saw them see the list in my hand and my heart sank further.
Trying to regain an air of friendly curiosity, the "bad cop" asked, 'what's that?' and – with the "good cop"'s hand already hovering over it, when I replied, 'a list of villages' – 'can we look at it?'
I sighed and handed it over; my head sank. The "good cop" skimmed through the list then went on to read the human rights reports and newspaper articles that it was together with, tutting all the while. He started telling me that the reports and articles were incorrect; whereupon I assuaged him that I didn't know, (as) I only wanted the list of villages.
Huffing and puffing, he handed it over to the "bad cop".
The "bad cop" started reading it, then demanded to know, 'where did you find this?'
I directed him to 'look at the first page', instantly regretting it as I worried about getting the İnsan Hakları Derneği (Human Rights Association ((İHD)) into trouble.
He asked again, 'where did you find this?'
Seeing that he hadn't listened to me or thought to look at the front page himself, I shrugged, 'on the internet'.
'Where? Which site?'
'I don't know. I Googled, I searched for "evacuated villages".' Then he saw the front page.
'Did you get it from them?'
'Yes, I got it from the İHD.'
The others interjected, 'whom, whom?'
'İHD, from İHD, from the Human Rights Association [İnsan Hakları Derneği].'
The "bad cop" thought he could unnerve me and make me confess, but he just sounded smug and transparent when he tried: 'Which is it? First you say you found it on the internet, now you say you took it from the İHD. We're friends, just talking, but how can we trust you, when you're changing what you're saying?'
I countered: 'I'm not changing what I'm saying: first, I found it on the internet, I heard about it from the internet; then, I got it from İHD, I took it from İHD.'
'When did you come here?'
'Today.'
'You came today?'
'Yes, I came today.'
'Where did you come from?'
'Diyarbakır.'
'You came from Diyarbakır?'
'Yes, I came from Diyarbakır – from Diyarbakır to Batman, from Batman to Siirt.'
'When did you get this [report from İHD]?'
'A couple of days ago.'
'From Siirt İHD?'
'No, I wasn't in Siirt, I was in Diyarbakır; I got it from Diyarbakır İHD.'
'Why are you looking at these?'
'It's difficult – may I say in English?'
'We're in Turkey – say in Turkish.'
'In Cyprus', I began, but he interrupted, 'why are you looking at these?'
I told him, 'wait, I'm saying'. I began again, 'in Cyprus', him again interrupting, 'why are you looking at these?'
'Wait!' I appealed, 'I'm saying, but it's difficult to explain, it's a long thing to say.' I continued with what became "the script" (which was a stereotypical, Turkish nationalist defence):
in Cyprus, the Greek Cypriots destroyed the Turkish Cypriots' houses, their villages, but now they're telling lies, they're saying, "it became like that naturally". I want to tell the truth, but it's difficult. There are no [verifiable] facts in Cyprus. Here, there are [verifiable] facts. The state says (recounting it matter-of-factly): "There were terrorists; they were using the villages, taking food from the villages, falan falan falan. We had to empty the villages to stop them." Then, sometimes, "to stop the terrorists coming back to, hiding in the villages, we had to demolish them".
I saw the way they were looking at me and added:
I mean, we have terrorists too, I understand – and they kill us too, the PKK kill English too; they're not my friends, I don't like them. So, we know. If I can go around these villages, see them, take photographs of them, I can return to Cyprus and say: "Look, this village [in Cyprus] is the same as this village [in Turkey]; it didn't 'become like that naturally', it was demolished."
The "bad cop" held my documents in one hand and slapped them with the other, insisting, 'these are lies! Why are you reading them? If you want to know the truth, ask us. Go to the Gazi ve Şehit Aileleri Dernekler Federasyonu [the Federation of Associations of Families of Veterans and Martyrs], they'll tell you the truth. Our friend works there, he'll tell you what happened.'
We went round in circles for a little while, then the "bad cop" got up and started off down the street (that we, the hotel and the military installation – I think the Jandarma Genel Komutanlığı (Gendarmerie General Commandership) – were on) on his own; the others stayed seated, presumably expecting me to do so as well, but I got up and went after the "bad cop".
I called, 'where are you going? That's mine!'
He dismissed me, 'I'm going to look at this. I'll give it back to you later.'
I slumped back onto the tea table stool and one of the two quiet agents asked me, 'are you tired?'
'No, I'm hungry, I haven't eaten since breakfast', I explained.
'Come', he said, leading me away up the street, when the others asked, telling them over his shoulder that I was hungry and that we were going to a restaurant.
In the restaurant of his choice on the main pedestrian boulevard, a few minutes from the hotel, I ordered a şiş kebab of some sort and we sat at a table outside, waiting while the quiet one told the staff and other customers that, 'he's our friend, our guest'.
I interjected, 'they're minding me'.
'It's for your security', he soothed; one of the staff seconded him, 'it's for your security'.
'It's not', I snapped back, repeating to the others that, 'they're minding me', then questioning the quiet one: 'What, for my security you searched my bag? For my security you read my notes? For my security you took my list?'
'He [the "bad cop"] will give it back to you', he appeased.
The staff and customers enquired, 'what list?'
'My list of villages', I explained, 'in Cyprus, my work's about the evacuated villages; I want to look at this place's evacuated villages. I'm not working here – I can't work here, I don't have a permit – but my looking at this place's evacuated villages will help my understanding of Cyprus's.'

My kebab came, but my appetite had gone; I was at once indignant and intimidated. On paying, I found my passport in my pocket and gave it to the quiet one as we left; then, we met with the others once again. The "bad cop" returned my list of villages, took my passport and left with the "good cop", while the two quiet agents escorted me back to the hotel and stayed with me in the entrance.
We sat in the lobby, with one of the quiet agents still telling me they were trying to protect me. As we sat there, a guest who'd overheard us as he passed stayed and started quizzing me himself, so I was explaining myself to one of the quiet agents and this stranger again and again.
After a while, my passport was returned and the agents left me for the night. It was after 1.30am; the agents had been "publicly detaining" and "informally questioning" me for four or five hours.

I began talking to a member of staff who'd been working in the lobby, who'd seen the agents questioning me and had overheard this last part of the joint discussion with the quiet agent and the stranger. The stranger was still there, still asking me to explain myself yet again and getting angry with me.
I told him that, 'I can't remember how many times I've explained [myself] to you; I'm not going to do it again, but I haven't explained to him before, so you can listen to me explaining to him if you'd like'; he stormed off shouting something incomprehensible down the stairs and I recited the script to the staff, before I went to my room.
There, I threw away the uneaten kebab, opened what turned out to be a poor bottle of red wine and tried to write up notes for the evening, but I was angry and exhausted and, unable to write, slumped on the bed and fell deep asleep.

I woke up late (at 10am) and left later still, having searched unsuccessfully for my camera; I hadn't used it in Van, so I assumed I must've left it in my hotel room in Kars. (The niggling suspicion that something else had happened – that it had been confiscated by JİTEM agents – was not confirmed until very recently, when I was back in Cyprus. Continuing investigation of this matter was one of the things preventing me posting this material.)

Unable to get a quick haircut, I went to the Federasyonu and met the secret policemen’s friend. He invited me into the office and the first thing I saw him do after tea arrived was pull his gun out from inside his shirt and put it in his drawer, then, a couple of seconds later, take it back out and put it back in his shirt.
'I don't want to keep this with me, but I have to', he excused himself; then he explained, 'I'm police – all of us here are', showing me his identification (later, I confirmed this through the disdainful senior JİTEM agent); so, the secret policemen's friend was a none-too-secret policeman himself – and (at least this branch of) the Federasyonu a front organisation.
A conversation developed from the script and the none-too-secret policeman agreed to take me to 'our villages', though I don’t know if that meant a secure village or a village guard village, or, indeed, if all of the secure villages are village guard villages.
I don't know whether his plan for a (likewise-armed) group from the Federasyonu escorting me to those villages we could visit during daylight hours suggests that we were going to villages free of village guards, or whether even those villages are not entirely secure for Federasyonu staff, whose secret identity cannot be that secret to locals.

I pointed out to him that I didn't have my camera, so he took me to get another, like the secret police the night before, keen to tell anyone and everyone that I was 'a friend', but, since it needed twelve to twenty-four hours to charge, we agreed to make the tour the next day.
He walked me back to the hotel, where he asked to see some of my work. I told him that I didn't have anything written yet, but that I could show him some photographs from villages I'd visited in Cyprus. I panicked a little when I realised that one of my messenger programs' message read, 'I hate the secret police' – in Turkish – but I closed it as quickly as possible and just hoped he hadn't had a chance to read it.
I showed him a couple of photos from one of the Turkish Cypriot abandoned villages (but none of the Greek Cypriot villages destroyed by the Turkish military); he seemed satisfied and I managed to talk him round to leaving me alone so I could work. I didn't tell him that I was working up material from the Kurdish abandoned villages I'd visited elsewhere in south-eastern Turkey.

That evening, I went to a barber's and got my hair cut and my dinli (religious or devout) beard shaved. For the first time in months, I wanted to look as foreign as possible; it was a feeble attempt to distinguish myself from the secret police, to Other myself from any of the sides in this conflict, in case there was trouble during the tour. I didn't want to be confused with a Turk, or a Kurd, or even an Armenian, an Iranian or an Arab, as I had been by some locals.

I ate bean soup at a restaurant up the road, then retired to my room to work and sleep. I was surprised that I hadn't been visited by JİTEM that day, but then again, I had spent a lot of it with the secret police anyway; still, when the power cut out, I did have visions of them bursting through the door.

The next day, I returned to the Gazi ve Şehit Aileleri Dernekler Federasyonu, but the none-too-secret policeman wasn't there; his friends, however, were and, over fresh fruit and tea, began to "educate" me on the situation in the South-East.
'Look', one, who appeared disturbingly like Hilary Briss when he laughed in front of one of their many nationalist emblems, said as he pointed at old and new photographs on the wall behind me, 'you see those martyrs?'
'Yes', I confirmed.
'Do you know who killed them?'
I guessed, 'PKK?'
He corrected, 'Armenians!'
I was, I admit, a little taken aback, but bit my tongue and listened as they attributed the "martyrs"' deaths to "Armenian terrorists"; I quickly scanned the dates underneath the portraits and, if I remember correctly, they did span from the time of the Armenian Genocide to the present day.
I hadn't heard this narrative before, but then I hadn't spent much time with Kurds working for the Turkish security services before; still, it would make sense, as it would provide a common enemy for and a common narrative of victimhood to Turkish and Kurdish agents, all grounded in the last time the local Kurdish nationalist and Turkish nationalist communities last cooperated on a large scale...
Some more of their friends turned up and, apparently because the room was so crowded, they took me into the reception room; two of the people who turned up (and took our place in the director's office) were the anonymous senior JİTEM agent who would later overrule the governorship and the gendarmerie and confiscate my site visit permit and one of his underlings.
They reiterated their interpretation of the violence in the South-East, then, eventually, they told me, 'this isn't our job, we can't help you' and asked, 'why did you come here?'
I explained that 'I know now that it isn't your job, but the police told me to come here, said you could help me; I came yesterday and [the none-too-secret policeman] said that he could help, that he would take me to some of the villages destroyed by the PKK'.
They keenly observed that, '[the none-too-secret policeman] isn't here'.
I said that, 'that isn't a problem, I can go with a taxi, but I need to know which villages are safe'.
They asked me, 'which villages do you want to go to?'
I told them that, 'I don't know. I have a list; I can't go to all of them, I only want to go to a few secure villages', asking them, 'do you know which ones are secure?' When I presented them with the list, all together they began haranguing me, because a lot of villages were only listed by their Kurdish name and telling me that I needed a Turkish-language list.
I asked them if they had a bilingual list that they could give to me and they said they had a Turkish-language one – which I asked for without receiving – but I explained to them that I needed a bilingual list, because if I had a Kurdish-language list and they gave me a Turkish-language list, I wouldn't know which village were which, which Kurdish-language name were paired with which Turkish-language name.
They gave up, went through (all of) my list (not just the Siirt pages I presented them with) and, reviewing only the 'secure' 'Merkez (Navend)' district of 'Siirt/Sért' province, told me that, apart from (maybe (1138) Bızenka and) (1141) Geravis, all of the villages were 'full... unevacuated [dolu, boşalmadı]', writing a "D" beside each name for "dolu":
1137. Bıloris....
[1139. Absent from list.]
1140. Dodayis....
1142. Gevat (Meşelidere)
1143. Hathat (Çınarlı)
1144. Kalendar
1145. Kesrık
1146. Kıtmes (Yerlibahçe)
1147. Mehine (Kayıklı)
1148. Niwela (Keleki)
1149. Reşa (Yuva)
1150. Şemse (Güneşli) [and]
1151. Tatlik.
After that, I said my goodbyes and left, but it was already mid-late afternoon; asking the taxi drivers, none were willing to take me anywhere without a site visit permit that I hadn't had time to get before and was too late to have a chance of getting that day.

I retired to the hotel, where the "good cop" and the "bad cop" soon visited me and, after expressing surprise at my clean-shaven appearance, questioned me, finding out what I had – or had not – done. They replayed their, 'you can't do anything, leave', 'you're free to do whatever you like, stay' routine, but they gave up relatively quickly and I sat in my room reading.

On the morning of my third day (my second full day) in Siirt, I had breakfast and went to the Vâlilik (Governorship), where, after I was sent to the wrong people a couple of times and waited for a long meeting to finish, in which time I saw the JİTEM agent's underling in the corridor (but left before he saw me), I found someone who could issue me with a permit. I recited the script and, after discussion, they gave me the permit and sent me to the Jandarma Merkez Komutanlığı (Gendarmerie Central Command) to get their permission.
Arriving at the Jandarma, the gatekeeper sent me to a different station, despite me having explained the situation and shown them my documentation; so, I went to the incorrect station and, having explained myself to one of the senior officers, some of the junior officers continued to ask me basic questions, while the senior officer rang Central Command and told them to let me in.
Back at Jandarma Merkez Komutanlığı, I was ushered in and upstairs, my passport and mobile phone taken from me at the front desk. Some of us had tea, while junior and senior officers passed around my documents, reading the covering letter and looking at the Vâlilik permit, photocopying my student identity card as the Vâlilik had done, asking me questions that elicited answers almost exactly the same as the content of the covering letter; when they wanted me to expand, I reeled off the script and they read the covering letter again.
They talked amongst themselves, then stamped my permit: I had permission from the governorship and the gendarmerie and was free to visit the villages; however, less than a minute later, just as the Jandarma were about to return my documents to me and give me my permits, the door opened and he walked in – the man who I was to learn was a senior JİTEM agent – and my heart sank.

He didn't have any identification – beyond "the look" (short hair, light short-sleeved shirt and slacks, dark shoes and an insincere smile) – but clearly they all knew who he was as he snapped at them, talked down to them, then snatched my permit from one of the Jandarma's hands. The routine procedure began, him asking me the usual questions, talking with the Jandarma all the while.
When he read through the covering letter and permit, he told the Jandarma to make photocopies of them both and my passport and student identity card too; I had to tell him three times that the Jandarma had kept my passport at the entrance before he stopped asking for it from me and sent someone to 'get it'.
The Jandarma asked him if he wanted the back of my student identity card photocopied too, because the Vâlilik had; he scornfully asked why. I pointed out that the institutional address was printed on the back of the card, whereupon he quickly and quietly told the hapless Jandarma to, 'yes, photocopy the back too'.
Under my bag on the table by my tea, he saw my list of villages, as he picked it up asking with either surprise or his best attempt at innocent curiosity, 'what's this?'
'A list of villages', I said.
Taking it out of the Poly Pocket folder, he skim-read the top couple of pages – which were Siirt Province's villages – open-mouthed, then directed the Jandarma to, 'copy it, photocopy it, all of it'.
I tested, pointing out to him that, 'your friends already did that'.
His head swung round, 'what, who did that?'
I pushed further, 'the first night I was here, your friends – the secret police [gizli polis] – took my list and photocopied it'; he didn't bat an eyelid at the mention of the secret police.
I did smile, however, when I saw his shock and anger, as he looked around, asking of everyone in general and no-one in particular, 'why didn't anyone tell me?'
He left the room, then re-entered shortly afterwards with his underling and a couple of other unimportant agents whom I didn't recognise; then, they escorted me further upstairs, where 'it's cooler... and quieter'.

In the small room with a small fan, I sat in one corner, on one corner of a sofa. The junior JİTEM agent ("the underling") came over and shook my hand heartily – I wanted to ask him, 'do we still have to act friendly?' They asked me the same questions they'd asked me before, again and again and I gave them the same answers.
The senior JİTEM agent "asked" if he could search my bags and, on seeing them, read my fieldwork notes; I knew I could give any answer, as long as it was 'yes' (and hoped that my deliberately tiny handwriting and own shorthand would make my notes impossible for him to read).
There was nothing in my bag that he hadn't seen before, so he asked me a few stupid questions about the stuff he had, like what the Turkish Airlines refreshing towel was, or what the bus ticket from Van to Diyarbakır was.
Reading notes in an old pad taken from Sir Austen Henry Layard's (1853) discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert, he queried, 'Şemdinli? Have you been to Şemdinli?'
'No, I had plans, but they didn't happen. I was going to go there from here', I explained.
He reeled off a list of sites in my fieldwork notes in front of the junior agents, occasionally looking back at them disbelievingly: 'Eruh, Pervari, Beytüşşebab, Gerçüş, Çatak, Kurtalan… Uludere, Silopi... Dersim, Tünceli... How do you know these places? How did you hear about these?'
Breathing a sigh of relief that he couldn't read or didn't understand my shorthand for the "guilty" sources, I just told him that, 'they're from the list'.
'What did you do today?'
'I didn't do anything.'
He persisted, 'what did you do? Did you visit the villages?'
I insisted that, 'I didn't do anything. I couldn't do anything. Every day, all day, I sit with you. I'm not doing anything at all – I'm not working, I'm not going anywhere at all – I'm not doing anything at all.'
They left the room and spoke in hushed tones just outside the door. Every so often, they would go silent and one of the two unimportant agents would open the door and start to walk in, checking to make sure I was still sat on the sofa and not stood with my ear to the door; by the third or fourth time, I was waiting for it, smiling beatifically at him. I knew then that they were waiting me out, waiting on the sunset that would prevent me from visiting any villages or seeing any sites.
Returning, they asked the same questions yet again and I gave the same answers, then they started filing out once more; I was just shifting my weight on the sofa, but the senior JİTEM agent thought I was getting up to leave, pointed at me and ordered, 'sit, sit!' It was an instructive moment, when the flimsy façade of freedom fell away and exposed what we all knew, that I was not being received and helped, but detained and questioned.
They came back in and all sat down around me, the senior JİTEM agent asking me, 'what are you going to do now?'
'I don't know', I said, 'if I could get a permit, I would visit the villages, but if I couldn't, I'd leave.'
'You can't, it's impossible', he answered.
I asked, 'why?'
'Because it's dangerous.'
'It's not very dangerous – and I only want to go to safe villages – I don't want to go to dangerous villages.'
'We're taking care of your security', one of the unimportant agents offered.
'You're not', I responded, 'you're minding me – and if it is dangerous, this is my problem, not yours, this is my choice, not yours.'
'Okay, we didn't give permission. So what are you going to do?'
'I can't do anything. I'm gonna leave.'
'Where are you going to go?'
'I don't know, it doesn't matter, but I don't want to stay here now.'
'Where are you going to go? İstanbul?'
'In a few days, yeah; I'll go to İstanbul and from İstanbul to Cyprus.'
'How will you go to İstanbul?'
'By plane.'
'From where?'
'Mardin.'
'There are flights from Mardin to İstanbul?'
Knowing he must know about the flights, I decided to answer in the same surprised, enthusiastic manner that he'd adopted, 'yeah – and cheap, the cheapest I've found – that's why I'm taking it.'
'So you're going to Mardin?'
'Maybe.'
'Go!'
'Maybe I'll go there, maybe I'll go somewhere else.'
'Where?'
'I don't know! Maybe Mardin, maybe Midyat, maybe Kars, Ani, Khtskonk...'
'So go!'
'I will!'
'Go today!'
'I will go, I have to go, but I can't go today.'
'Why not?'
'Because my plane doesn't leave today; it leaves in a few days.'
Yet again, he asked, 'so, you'll go to Mardin?'
I sighed, 'I don't know. I don't know where my camera is.'
'Your camera?'
'Yes, my camera. I forgot it, lost it somewhere, maybe Diyarbakır, maybe Kars, maybe Beş Kilise [Khtskonk].'
'Where?'
'I don't know. That's why I don't know where I'm going. If I knew where my camera was, I'd know where I was going.'
'Are you waiting for the Prime Minister?'
'Am I waiting for the Prime Minister?'
'Yes, he's coming to Siirt tomorrow.'
'Oh, no. I only heard about his coming just now, from you.'
'Are you waiting to see him?'
'No.'
He queried, 'why not? He's our Prime Minister.'
I shrugged 'and? It doesn't matter for me.'
'You don't want to see him?'
'It makes no difference to me.'
He pulled a mock surprised grimace at his underlings.
Trying to find an end to the questioning so that I could go back to the hotel to wait to leave the next day, I tried, 'so I definitely can't get permission to visit any villages?'
When he said 'maybe', I was a little confused, but it soon became clear. 'We'll think about it and tell you.'
'When?'
'In a month.'
'I won't be here in a month. I'll be in Cyprus.' They knew what date I was leaving Turkey (the 21st of June) and what date my Turkish visa expired (the 25th of July); they knew they were giving me impossible dates.
'What's your Cypriot number?'
'I don't have one.' They already had my Turkish number; I wasn't going to give them my Cypriot number as well.
'What's your address?'
'I don't have one. I've been living here for nine months; I stopped renting a place there.' I didn't believe that they would give me permission, but I wanted to give them the opportunity to reject me formally, so I gave them an institutional address here; they haven't contacted me. Peculiarly, it was with the fading of the light that my hopes rose; I was correct and, soon after, they told me I could go and I left for the hotel.
Before I could leave the grounds, however, one of the senior Jandarma, who was talking to some of his troops, called me over and asked me who I was and what I was doing there; I recited the script.
Much to my surprise, he told me, 'you can speak in English'.
I reworked the script: 'I want to visit the villages and take photographs, so that I can prove how the Cypriot villages became how they are'.
'You can't go to the villages - it's dangerous.'
'It's not that dangerous - and I only want to go to the secure ones.'
He reassured me, 'we're taking care of your security.'
I looked over at his troops, then back at him, then switched to Turkish: 'you're not taking care of my security, you're taking care of me. For my security you took my passport?'
He interjected with the distinctly discomfiting, 'that's so that, if something happens, we know who you are'.
'For my security you took my telephone number?'
'That's so that, if something happens, we can contact you.'
'For my security you photocopied my list of villages?'
Ignoring both the ban on my visits to any of those sites and the needle-in-a-haystack difficulty of finding me in one of the more than two thousand villages on the list (should "something" "happen"), he reassured me, 'that's so that, if something happens, we can find you'.
'For my security you held me? For my security you questioned me? For my security you searched me? For my security you read my private notes? For my security you took my permit?'
It was very Little Red Riding Hood, with the Grey, Grey Wolf saying, 'all the better to see you with.... all the better to hear you with', (if not) 'all the better to grab you with.... all the better to eat you with!'

The following morning, I got up, packed and took my stuff downstairs. As I was still waiting for my contact to ring me and tell me whether he had found my camera or not, I stayed in the back corner of the reception area. The kid on the desk came over and got my passport, despite him already having written down all of my details and having been paid and me already having paid and checked out, the staff came over and took my passport; a few minutes later, the "good cop" and the "bad cop" appeared.
They questioned me again, this time including questions about where I was going to go to when I left, to which I answered, honestly, that I didn't know because I didn't know where I'd left my camera, one of them getting very aggressive when I told him that I couldn't remember how many times I'd answered the question he was asking at the time.
Once, when I casually referred to the "OHAL (olağanüstü hal (state of emergency))" (which, incidentally, no-one else I said it in front of in the town contradicted), the "bad cop" barked, 'there is no OHAL here now'.
I retorted, 'if there's no OHAL here now, I'm very glad I'm not here in a time of OHAL'.
The aggressive one was telling me I couldn't do anything and that I should go, the calm one that there wasn't a problem, that I could stay, etc. Anyway, their good cop-bad cop routine carried on for a little, then the "good cop" decided they should leave; on their way out, I heard them telling the hotel staff to tell them if I stayed another night.

An old man, who'd been sat in the corner the whole time watching the news coverage of the visit of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Siirt, twisted his hand in enquiry and asked me, 'what happened?'
When I told him that, 'they're watching me', he laughed and came over, pinched my cheek, which I dismissed as an old form of paternal affection, then returned to his seat and invited me over, ostensibly to watch the news. I declined the first few times as it was in Turkish, but as I still hadn't heard from my contact, I went over and tried to pick out enough words to make sense of the reports. He laughed and pinched my cheek again, which I again dismissed, then stroked my hair and neck, which I felt uncomfortable at, then held my hand.
It wasn't the normal kind of contact between men here, who are physically affectionate towards each other (giving each other double kisses hello and goodbye, walking arm-in-arm and so on); it reminded me of the elderly man who'd tried it on with me in my first few days in southern Cyprus. Then, he tried to touch me and to make me touch him, at which point I sharply pulled the hand he was taking away, knocking his and he nodded his head and murmured, 'okay'; after a brief pause, he left and I resolved to re-grow my beard.

Soon, a normal policeman visited, speaking English and asking me a few basic questions politely before leaving. I was getting a headache from the visits and decided just to leave.
Before I could get to the door, however, I found out that the senior JİTEM agent was sitting in the chairs at the front of the reception. He was still smiling at acting like we were friends and held his insincere smile as he insisted I 'leave, leave, leave, leave'.
I asked him for a copy of the permit that he'd taken, but he said it was impossible, then gave an explanation very quickly in Turkish that I couldn't understand that mentioned something about the Vâlilik.
I told him that, 'I'm leaving, but, I will say one thing – this is stupid'.
He snapped, 'who's stupid?'
Knowing what I meant, the others waved him down and, as tempting as it was, then, to say he was, I patiently explained that 'no-one is stupid, something is: I want to help the Turkish Cypriots, your siblings, but you don't want to help me, you won't even just leave me alone, so I can't help them'. (Still, I know that their alleged concern for their "brothers" is very superficial.) As I walked out, the "good cop" and the "bad cop", who were standing in the street, asked me if I was leaving, but I just ignored them and carried on my way.

I passed by the Vâlilik on the (wrong) way to the dolmuş otogar, but couldn't enter until after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had left, so I waited in a nearby tea garden until 3pm, constantly expecting JİTEM to turn up; it was a good excuse to play a computer game, so that, if they did turn up to see what threat I was posing at that precise moment, it would look truly ridiculous.
I didn't want to use the permit that the senior JİTEM agent had confiscated, but I did want a copy of it (with "invalid" or "unusable" or something written on it if necessary), to show that I had had it, or simply that I had been and tried to visit sites; still, it was impossible.

I cannot say any more, but, after an hour or so at the police station (by which time the buses out of Siirt had stopped running), they told me that, 'we can say, "he came to Siirt police station today", but we can't say "he came to Siirt, stayed and tried to get a permit", because we don't know that you've been here', because I hadn't been with them or on their records, but with the secret police on theirs.
So, I gave up and returned to the hotel once again, where I had a quiet night, apart from the brief interlude in which a shoot-out broke out in the streets; it sounded like it was quite nearby. I got up even earlier than the day before and left for Diyarbakır.
Again, I cannot say more, but before I left the town I met with a contact and confirmed that the people who had been watching, detaining, questioning and searching me for the previous four days were JİTEM.

Patience and perseverence paid off, even if there were no practical benefit from the news that reached me after my return to Cyprus:

Finally, effective confirmation of what I'd begun to think: JİTEM – possibly thinking it had inconvenient facts recorded on it, probably trying to prevent me recording any – confiscated my camera.
It had all of the as-yet-undownloaded photographs from visits to Eski Beyazit, Ani, Khtskonk (Beş Kilise) and elsewhere (and whatever emergency money I'd kept in its case); I'm only lucky I'd moved my other (British, Serbian, Greek and Cypriot) SIM cards from its case to my passport wallet a few days before.

Initially, I thought I'd plugged it in to recharge at a hotel, then forgotten about it (even though I'd always made a point of sitting the camera in my bag so I couldn't), but then I was sure I'd had it at my friend's flat in Van and they couldn't find it there.
I was confident that I hadn't left it anywhere for it to be able to be stolen, so these checks were merely precautionary, but I contacted the hotels in Doğubeyazit, Kars and Diyarbakır (a couple of times each) and all of the bus companies used in-between, as well as the Ani tour-operator-cum-fixer, who checked for himself and nothing turned up.
Just now, I rang the Ani fixer to give him my e-mail address (as I wasn't using my Turkish SIM card any longer), but he told me there and then that he'd checked again with the hotel (in case they thought that, when I'd asked, I'd meant video camera instead of photo camera), the tour bus driver and the local bus drivers and companies, but none had found a camera. Obviously, if someone had found a digital camera with money, it would have been very tempting and if they had stolen it, they wouldn't have said so; still, I don't think that happened.

That meant I had taken it to Siirt with me, where it could only have disappeared from my hotel room. The only time I'd been out of the hotel room long enough for someone to enter, search my bags, find the camera and take it was when I was being questioned by the security services.
During the questioning, at different times different agents had gone somewhere to do something and I had even been taken away from the street that the hotel was on and that the agents appeared to be working from, minded by one agent, whilst the others did something else. So, I believe that JİTEM confiscated my camera.

Manifestly, I can't do anything directly for the communities in Siirt or elsewhere in the emergency zones; I can only hope that my visit to Siirt and questioning by JİTEM can inform my work, perhaps in the discussion of in which circumstances archaeologists ought to refuse to work.

McDowall, D. 2004: A modern history of the Kurds. London: I. B. Tauris and Co. Ltd.

Europe train timetables

2007-07-21T17:23:00.000+01:00

I've just found a fantastic site for train timetables for all of Europe. Using the excellent seat61 to plan my rail travel across Europe (a "holiday" to draft my methodology chapter on, visiting family, friends and colleagues), despite its massive amounts of well-presented information, I was still spending hours going from page-to-page, to map, to page again and still hadn't been able to decide upon the best routes for me to take (just because of the random places I'm pitching up).

Then, on seat61's page for Europe, it gave a link to (the fantastic) Deutsche Bahn (German Railways), which lets you search for a connection for any internal or international journey in Europe. (The first link goes to the German-language query page, the second to the English-language one.)

Now it'll take me mere minutes to work out timetables for my trains from Istanbul (in Turkey) to le Ferme (in France) and back again, with stops in Ljubljiana (Slovenia), Guca (Serbia) and Mainz (Germany) - and anywhere else in Europe I can find people who feel obliged to host me - on the way.

gender violence

2007-07-20T00:09:00.000+01:00

It was only a couple of days ago, when I was writing the post on gender archaeology and feminist archaeology and was looking for this post to link to, to testify to the everyday gender violence that women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community are subject to in Turkey, that I realised I'd never put it up in the first place.

I already have posts documenting violence against women in Turkey and gross exploitation of immigrant communities in Cyprus, the most vulnerable and violated members of which are women, who are trafficked and trapped as sex workers or as domestic servants. I'm not claiming that these places are exceptionally unpleasant or dangerous for women; indeed, I fear that these are unexceptional. I'm still on my way round to explaining how gender archaeologies and feminist archaeologies contribute to ending this violence.

This is a fieldwork note, from which I've cut off the end, which is irrelevant here, but which will be included when I put it up as a fieldwork note extract on human rights archaeology; it begins with the main reason I hadn't put it up, but I think I may also have been concerned what impression it gave of me, as I just couldn't find any other words to express it with.

I originally tried to write about it immediately after the incident on the morning of the 2nd of June 2007:

The morning it happened I tried to write about it but couldn't; although I had been drinking and was tired, it was because I was simply too furious to write, even to talk to friends who contacted me while I was trying to write. I moved out of my flat later that day and have been on the train from Istanbul to Tatvan and the dolmuş from Tatvan to Van for the past two days, reading J. Douglas Porteous and Sandra E. Smith's (2001) domicide: the global destruction of home (London: McGill-Queen's University Press); I'm still infuriated.

I took the wine I had left in the flat, met a friend and went to a party on a rooftop in Tünel. It was a lovely evening with beautiful views over the city as we worked our way through bottles of Dikmen and Angora; towards the end, my friend had a little beer and I tried my cheap red [that I'd left until after the good stuff was finished]. Early in the morning, we decided to leave and began the walk to Taksim, the remains of the wine in my hand; I was on my friend's right and I assume that's why I saw it first.

On the left side of the street, near the turning for my flat - and the police station - I saw a man with his arm raised. When I looked at his fist, I realised one end of his belt was wrapped around it, the other swung back; following his arc, I saw someone on the ground, trying to shield their already-bloody face with their left arm as they leaned on their right. He was beating, whipping someone, with his belt.

I went over, now glad that I had the bottle on me, but great minds think alike and one of the victim's friends saw it, took it off me and smashed the end on the ground. At the same time, the victim found their pepper spray and managed to disable their assailant; although I and I think my friend were slightly affected by the pepper spray, I began to run to get the police, but just a few seconds up the road my friend rang me to tell me the police were (already) there.

I found my friend and walked her to a taxi, delivering an expletive-ridden, spittle-flecked rant on the way, then walked home. Just before I got home, however, I changed my mind and went round the corner to the police station.
I walked up to the desk inside the entrance and told them that 'someone attacked someone [else], someone wounded someone [else] on İstiklâl [Caddesi], but that the police, you didn't do anything'.
They told me that 'we weren't there'.
I accepted that 'you weren't there, but your friends were there, but they didn't do anything, anything at all'.
They said that 'they hadn't been able to do anything'. They asked me, 'how much did you drink?'
I replied, 'I drank a bottle of wine'.
They told me, 'you're drunk' and I told them, 'I'm not drunk, fuck you... You did nothing... Sorry, your friends did nothing.'
They were utterly unimpressed with my mastery of colloquial Turkish and the youngest of them tried to calm things down by taking me outside to talk to me alone, but I just made the Greek and Cypriot hand gesture for casting demons or shit [I'm still not sure which] at them and stormed off.

From our arrival to the assailant's disablement, it had been less than thirty seconds, maybe less than fifteen. While I cannot be absolutely certain - I didn't see the police behind us and was too caught up in the incident to have thought to look for them then - as far as I can see, even if the police were not "at" the scene of the crime, they must have been nearby, able to see and hear it; but they did not intervene (until after the incident).

I chose to refer to the victim in gender-neutral terms because they were either a transvestite or a transsexual and I did not and do not know which terms they would have preferred me to use. The (transgendered?) identity of the victim may have been one of the reasons the police did not intervene; indeed, when I was searching for definitions of gender violence and sexual violence (Google: "gender * violence" transvestite transsexual), the first hit was for a UN(?) report that referred to mistreatment of transvestites and transsexuals in Istanbul.

[It's been displaced in the search listings, but I was referring to Peter Gordon and Kate Crehan's (2005) paper for the United Nations Development Programme on "dying of sadness: gender, sexual violence and the HIV epidemic", which noted that 'the winner of a human rights award has sued police for assault drawing attention to the systematic harassment of Istanbul’s transvestite and transexual community'.]

Then again, the previous two incidents I recorded here were both of acts of violence against women, one of which the police failed to intervene in (until afterwards), one of which the police committed; perhaps from wherever they were, the police could not identify the victim as a transvestite or transsexual as opposed to a woman and their action, or inaction, was not a sign of their attitude towards the LGBT community specifically, but more generally towards both the LGBT community and the community of women.

What struck me most about this incident was not, sadly, police inaction; despite the impression my rant at my friend and the encounter at the police station might give, I expected that. It was that, had the transvestite/transsexual not taken my bottle from me, I would have used it.

I said before that, 'at the first moment I didn't know what to say or do, though I don't think I can defend my inaction on either and wouldn't try to'. When I saw the police hitting a woman, I just watched; when I saw a drunk kicking a woman, I didn't begin to act until after his foot had hit her face, whereupon he left. 'I only hope that, next week, when I see this happen again, I say or do something.'

I didn't know him/her at all. I wasn't angry or frustrated or in any way in the mood for a confrontation. I saw a violent act and was moved to one myself. I saw the belt-whipping and I wanted to bottle the attacker. (My action, had I been able to perform it, would have been justified to stop the attacker's violence and defend the victim, but it would still have been very violent.)

I was furious and disgusted. It wasn't a stupid, empty fight between drunks. He had assaulted and immobilised his victim and had had the presence of mind to unbuckle and undo his belt, to wrap one end round his hand, as all the while they bled prone on the ground, then to start whipping them with his belt. His actions were so cruel, vile and inhumane. I wanted to stop him; I wanted to hurt him.

In the moment between moving to act and having the bottle taken away from me (and many times over after the event), I saw in my mind what I expected to happen. I would walk over, turning the neck of the bottle in my hand so it was held like a club. I would give him a last chance, shouting at him to stop, but, if or when he ignored me, I would strike him over the head with the bottle, if needs be striking him again on the nose or the side of the knee, preventing him from continuing his attack, so that we could see what state his victim was in and help him/her get away to receive medical treatment.

As I said, I didn't know him/her at all. I cannot begin to imagine how I would have felt had I known him/her, if it had been a friend or relative. Nevertheless, that's precisely the situation that so many people are put in every day of their lives. They see their friends and families and community exploited, humiliated, abused, even raped and murdered; they may experience it themselves. I would still object to unjust counter-actions to these inhumane practices, however, I can understand where the deep well of anger that drives even unjust counter-actions springs from.

Open Access: research, communication, knowledge, participation

2007-07-19T16:05:00.001+01:00

I've begun drafting part of what will become my methodology chapter, which looks first at my sources and then at my research blog, which, through open access to fieldwork notes, photographic archives, etc., has made my work available to the participant communities and provided me with corrections and information. On the way, however, I'm finding a lot of - very interesting but basically irrelevant - stuff on electronic publishing more generally, which I thought I could collate here, in case others are interested or it becomes more relevant to my own work later.

Part of the reason I took that sidetrack was because I asked myself, as Eugene Garfield (2000) did, "is acknowledged self-archiving prior publication?" I was reassured to see that we had similar opinions: self-archiving is a completely different act to self-publication, complementary to eventual peer-reviewed publication: continual conversations about my work with the professional and public communities I live and work in and with improves that work and, therefore, the eventual publication and, thereby, the benefits to those communities.

There's:

the Alexandria Archive Institute and its blog, digging digitally;
Theodore C. Bergstrom's (2001) piece on "free labor for costly journals?";
the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI);
Sharmila Pixy Ferris's (2002) observations on how electronic writing is akin to oral communication;
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum's (1996) paper on the forms and functions of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD);
Ulises Ali Mejías's blog on information and communication technologies (ICT), networked sociality and knowledge, ideant (and in particular his post on open access easing scholarly communication and work);
Joseph M. Moxley's (2001) insistence that "universities should require electronic theses and dissertations"; and
Andrew Odlyzko's (2002) article on the role and value of ease of access and use of research in research; as well as, even more generally,
the Journal of Electronic Publishing; and
the Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology.

More directly related to my practice, there's:

arXiv, although it serves the sciences from physics to statistics, not arts, humanities or social sciences;
cogprints, which does serve archaeology and anthropology where they connect with cognitive sciences;
eprints, which supports self-archiving and institutional provision of public access;
Nature's precedings for pre-prints and other pre-publication research; and
Peter Suber's open access news.

Finding Peter Smith's new blog on publishing archaeology led me to Stevan Harnad's piece on "the self-archiving initiative", as well as Bergstrom's (2001) article on the economics of academic (economics) journals mentioned above.

Simultaneously, through an increasingly diffuse network of searches and links in academic and professional articles and weblogs, I found a range of articles discussing open access or other forms of public access to and participation in academic research.

These include: Steve Lawrence's (2001) article on the correlation between public access and impact; George Siemens' (2007) proposals for a 'democratic, social model of scholarship'; Peter Suber (2007) on the opportunities of open access (OA); Christian R. Weisser and Janice R. Walker (1997) on 'digitizing scholarship'.

Contributions from cultural heritage workers, librarians and archivists include: Laura Cohen's (2007) on that of social scholarship; Eric Kansa's (2007) consideration of the future of digital humanities; and Wessex Archaeology's (2007) commitment to open access for non-commercial use of their photographic archives.

Gender archaeology, feminist archaeology

2007-07-18T04:01:00.000+01:00

Following Alun Salt's post on Clioaudio undoing Paul Bahn's confusion of gender archaeology with feminist archaeology (which I will try to turn out a post on if I have the time), I found Natalie Bennett's blog, Philobiblon, which looks great and had two posts of immediate interest.

The first was an appeal for safety for sex workers, leading to a very good piece of hers on the pages of the Guardian's Comment is Free, calling for the decriminalisation of sex work.

Refreshingly, it was grounded in the testimony and appeals of those most affected - the sex workers themselves, like the English Coalition of Prostitutes - corroborated by social workers and nurses' opinions (as well as by probation officers' practical concerns about their own work).

The second was on the truly "brave, brave women", former prostitutes, running for election in Turkey on the 22nd of July; I would discuss it more, but I don't think I could add much.

I'm mentioning these together, partly because I found them together (one through the other), partly because it's past 6am, but also partly because of Bahn's misunderstanding of feminism and so of feminist and gender archaeologies (demonstrated in the elision of the two), which try to help achieve the equality and social justice that the women presented in Natalie Bennett's work are striving for.

Despite expressing a desire for an 'antidote to male chauvinism about the past', Bahn accused that, 'what is called "Gender Archaeology" is actually feminist archaeology', where 'a feminist kind [of archaeology]... is just the flip-side of the traditional coin' (so, presumably, female chauvinism).

Bahn collapsed gender archaeology with feminist archaeology and, ultimately, both with "female chauvinism" and got them backwards in the process, as well as completely failing to address queer archaeologies, which are an emerging set of archaeologies, clustering around the field of gender archaeology, some identifying as feminist and others not.

Bahn warned that:

despite assurances to the contrary it is clear that the major aim is not so much to reclaim women and men in non-sexist ways in prehistory, as to make women visible in the past.

Men's lives, experiences and histories are very well documented and discussed compared to women's; in order 'to reclaim women and men in non-sexist ways', it is necessary first 'to make women visible', so that there are women to reclaim.

If gender archaeology were feminist, it would be because male lives, experiences and histories are still, frequently, seen as the norm and female lives, experiences and histories either marginalised, unrecognised or dismissed.

As I've explained to a colleague who sighs that I 'always support the underdog', it's not that I support the underdog, but that I support those with justice on their side, who tend to be the underdogs.

So, as long as gender exists, gender (or gendered) archaeology will exist; as long as gender-based inequality persists, feminist archaeology will investigate it, as well as class, ethnic, age, status and other identity-based inequalities.

Depending upon your definition of feminism, you might argue that, if gender-based inequality were ended, feminism, too, would end, although its activists would continue to fight other inequalities and injustices, which they might choose to do through analogy with gender-based injustices in the past.

(So the archaeologists' identities, or others' categorisations of them, would have changed - to queer, anti-capitalist or human rights archaeologists, amongst others - but their fundamental philosophies and works would have remained the same.)

Even if gender-based inequality were ended, however, gender archaeology would continue, as, just like the established fields of economic, social and political history, it explores part of human experience and contributes to our understanding of past lives and, thereby, of ourselves.

A while ago now, I put up two MSc essays: one discussed representing individuals' and groups' identities and in doing so, touched upon feminist approaches and feminist archaeologies; the other more fully examined feminist and human rights methodologies. I've wanted to do something with them ever since I wrote them, but at the moment they're still in their original format; I'll see if I can do something with them now, ideally tying in with the struggles of present and past sex workers.

Bahn, P G and Tidy, B. 2000: Archaeology: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cypriot homes, Turkish domicide

2007-07-10T23:22:00.000+01:00

This is just a short post (for the moment at least) and will serve to explain if I'm away for a few days, hopefully investigating the Turkish army's domicide of Greek Cypriot homes. Early yesterday morning, I found an article on the destruction of Greek Cypriot houses in northern Cyprus by the Turkish army (unreferenced but from the 7th of July edition of the Cyprus Mail) on Topix (where the comments very rapidly deteriorated in both relevance and quality); so far, as far as I know, the news has only been reproduced without comment elsewhere.

AROUND 80 Greek Cypriot houses have been demolished in occupied Karpasia and another 27 are in danger of being bulldozed, the chairman of the Karpasia Coordinating Committee Nicos Falas said yesterday.

Karpasia (also spelled Karpas, Karpass and Karpaz) is the north-eastern peninsula on Cyprus, the "pan-handle" of the island. Without any more specific information, it may be difficult to find the Cypriot homes falling victim to the Turkish army's domicide, but hopefully my Greek and Turkish will prove good enough and the destruction notorious enough to allow me to find them.

Falas was speaking after a meeting with British High Commissioner Peter Millet, where he asked for the intervention of the international community to save the remaining houses.

He said there was also a danger that demolitions would begin in the village of Ayia Triada, also in the Karpasia area.

I may visit Ayia Triada and work backwards.

Falas said that Millet told him he had spoken to Rasit Pertev, a senior aide to Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat about the demolitions. "The High Commissioner was very positive and clear in his statements," said Falas. "He told us he had already informed the ambassadors of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and that he had made contact with Rasit Pertev."

Millet would also be meeting soon with Talat, Falas said. "We hope there will be some results that will put an end to this destruction," he said. However he said from what he understands, the demolitions were being carried out by the Turkish army and not the Turkish Cypriot administration.

"We do not believe this is the work of the Turkish Cypriot authorities," said Falas.

My colleagues and I cannot, however, think why the Turkish army is choosing to destroy these or any other Cypriot homes now. There's a vile logic to their domicide in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey, but there is no immediately visible tactical benefit here, now.

I would be curious to learn if this could be tied to the Turkish army's apparently revised practice of having Kurdish conscripts do their service in south-eastern Turkey (as opposed to northern Cyprus, where they were sent until recently), which would correlate with having the highly nationalistic Turkish conscripts who used to be sent to south-eastern Turkey being sent to northern Cyprus instead.

Cyprus Mail. 2007: "Greek Cypriot houses destroyed in Karpasia". Cyprus Mail, 7th July. Available at: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=33452&archive=1

Iraq: bombing, law, oil, war

2007-07-10T21:26:00.000+01:00

I'm going to go backwards, then forwards, just to pull together a couple of old things about the Coalition's active violation of international law to create an excuse for its war and its failure to fulfil its moral and legal role as protector of the Kurdish community in northern Iraq, by allowing the Turkish military's bombing of Kurdish villages, with the the role of oil or energy security in the choice to go to war, which is also old, but new in its public recognition by those who conducted and continue to conduct the war.

(I realise that I'm very late to this, particularly when I think how long ago it was that a friend paid both Robert Newman and I the dubious compliment of telling me that, 'you'd like it', but I briefly had sufficiently good internet access and thought it was appropriate to mention here, that "the history of oil" is very worth watching, for the history lesson if nothing else.)

On the 19th of June 2005, Michael Smith had reported that:

British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war "to put pressure on the regime" was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.

The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began "spikes of activity" designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.

Still, already in 2000, Thomas E. Ricks had reported in the Washington Post that:

'In early 1999, said Mike Horn, who flew F-15s in two tours of duty in Northern Watch, "sometimes we flew in such a way that we provoked them to shoot at us." Under the operation's rules of engagement, they could not bomb unless the Iraqis fired upon them first.'

Smith went on to say:

However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam's forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations....

They may have deterred attacks by Saddam's forces, however, they failed to deter attacks on Kurds and indeed facilitated them:

[Northern Watch F-15 pilot Mike] Horn said that on more than one occasion he and his comrades received a radio message that "there was a TSM inbound"--that is, a "Turkish Special Mission" heading into Iraq. Following standard orders, the Americans turned their planes around and flew back to Turkey.

"You'd see Turkish F-14s and F-16s inbound, loaded to the gills with munitions," he said. "Then they'd come out half an hour later with their munitions expended."

When the Americans flew back into Iraqi airspace, he recalled, they would see "burning villages, lots of smoke and fire."

Smith continued:

The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to "degrade" Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003.

On the 5th-6th of July 2007, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) relayed that:

"Energy security is extremely important to all nations throughout the world, and of course, in protecting and securing Australia's interests," he [Australian Minister for Defence Dr. Brendan Nelson] said.

The Australian Associated Press (AAP) noted that:

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said today oil was a factor in Australia's contribution to the unpopular war, as "energy security" and stability in the Middle East would be crucial to the nation's future....

"The entire (Middle East) region is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world... Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq?"

.... "For all of those reasons [to prevent sectarian Sunni-Shia violence, to provide security, to support the ally, the USA and to prevent terrorism in Australia], one of which is energy security, it's extremely important that Australia take the view that it's in our interests... to make sure we leave the Middle East and leave Iraq in particular in a position of sustainable security."

Sturcke neatly concluded his article in the Guardian:

Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Iran, according to the BP statistical review of world energy 2007. War opponents argued long before hostilities began in March 2003 that the US administration's main interest in toppling Saddam was to loosen the grip of Saudi Arabia and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) on global oil prices.

Now, the Coalition may be telling the truth, inasmuch as it didn't want to get the oil, so much as stop others - especially Russia and China - getting it, but these facts continue to reveal the Coalition governments' betrayal of their citizens and their democracies and their and the corporations' sacrifice of their own community's and other communities' - both military and civilian - lives, in the pursuit of profit and power.

AAP (Australian Associated Press). 2007: "Oil behind Iraq War: Nelson". Sydney Morning Herald, 5th July. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/oil-behind-iraq-war-nelson/2007/07/05/1183351331164.html

ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). 2007: "Govt splits on Iraq war oil link". ABC, 6th July. Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/05/1970982.htm

Smith, M. 2005: "British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office". The Times, 19th June. Available at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article535045.ece

Sturcke, J. 2007: "Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian defence minister". The Guardian, 5th July. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2119110,00.html

Cyprus: sex, labour, exploitation, slavery

2007-07-05T17:17:00.001+01:00

It was strange to experience and realise it, but it has been in Cyprus that I have been most frequently confronted by the continued exploitation-to-the-point-of-slavery of migrant workers for sex and manual labour.

This has been at the back of my mind for a long time now (since I very briefly and loosely sketched out 'some of the basic conflicts between Cypriot communities' human rights and human duties'), but I was once again reminded of it by Gary Younge's article in the Guardian on people 'working like slaves' in the UK, where there is still: intensive and extensive exploitation - 'modern-day slavery' - of debt bondage or the forced labour of migrant workers; sex slavery; trafficking of women and children for sex and labour in the UK, as well as its direct and indirect contributions to sex abuse and child labour throughout the world, without even beginning to consider the sometimes highly questionable practice of importing wives.

Through the Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the 26th of November 2003, Charlie Charalambous relayed Ombudsman Iliana Nicolaou concluded:

"The evidence of the investigation indicates that Cyprus over the past two decades is not only a country of destination but a transit point for women who are systematically channelled into prostitution"....

"The number of foreign women imported like perishable goods exceeds 1,000 every six months," said Nicolaou....

It is estimated that around 700,000 women and children are trafficked each year via international networks.

It is worth restating that point (in Charalambous's words, with my emphases): '[m]ore than 2,000 foreign women a year are exploited in Cyprus' flourishing sex trade industry before being quickly moved on to other European destinations'; so, even if they "work" for the duration of their visa and then leave Cyprus, it doesn't mean they're free and independent, or that they're choosing what work they do where, it means their Masters are transporting them to a new plantation.

Those numbers - more than 2,000 women a year (legally, publicly) 'imported like perishable goods', 'forced into prostitution by their employers and held against their will in many cases' - are "government" statistics, presumably just for southern Cyprus; according to the US Department of State's 2007 trafficking in persons report, about (another(?)) 1,000 "artiste" women are exploited in northern Cyprus, by people from throughout the island and, indeed, throughout the region (particularly with the complementary gambling opportunities).

The situation is even worse than the documented numbers suggest. On the 24th of March 2006 in the Cyprus Weekly, Demetra Molyva reported that:

It is estimated that about 5,000 foreign women come to the island every year on artistes visas or with permits to work as barmaids [who are also 'said to be involved in organised prostitution', which I can confirm from my experience of the "menu" offered to me in bars in both the North and the South].

There are also hundreds who work illegally as prostitutes after entering on tourist visas.

The US Department of State's 2007 trafficking in persons report found,

women trafficked from countries in Eastern and Central Europe, including Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Russia [and from the Philippines, the People's Republic of China, and Morocco], for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.... Traffickers continued to recruit victims under fraudulent terms for work as dancers in nightclubs with three-month "artiste" category employment permits and more limited numbers of foreign women for work in pubs under the "barmaid" employment category.... [S]ome Chinese women on student visas... may have been forced into prostitution.

The official island-wide population was about 802,000 people (although it is larger, as the population of northern Cyprus is disputed and some communities may have been excluded from the statistics); if we took each side's own estimate for its own population (640,000 in the South, 200,000 in the North), it would have been around 840,000 (in 1998).

In 2005, southern Cyprus's President Tassos Papadopoulos talked of an island-wide population of 'one million', including its historic minorities and recent settler communities. If we took that total, but assumed the lowest official number of around 2,000 legally imported "artistes", women trafficked for sex alone might constitute at least 0.2% of the total population, 1 in every 500 people on the island; if the North's 1,000 were in addition to (the South's) 2,000, that would make them 0.3% of the population, 1 in every 333 people; but Molyva's estimate of 5,000 makes them 0.5% of the population, 1 in every 200.

The European Network Against Racism relayed that:

The number of documented migrant workers reached 70,000 (10% of the population).... [but that t]he migration model of "temporary" employment linked to a specific employer has created conditions of dependency on employers, since it places migrants in a vulnerable position when faced with exploitation and renders them powerless in claiming their rights [and that, on top of that, t]he strict migration policies did not prevent the increase of 'illegal' [economic] migration....

Migrants in general are victims of institutional racism, stereotyping and stigmatisation and are used as scapegoats for many social and economic problems....

Domestic workers are particularly vulnerable, their employment contracts are frequently violated and they fall victim of abuse, sexual harassment, rape and violence. Even worse treatment is inflicted on female workers - victims of trafficking, and those involved in prostitution. Seasonal workers have no social insurance, live on farms in inhumane conditions and are often deported without getting paid. The system of migration forces many migrants to become "illegal", deprived of all basic rights.

In 2000, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance judged the 'vulnerable situation of immigrants in Cyprus' an issue of 'particular concern', 'merit[ing] particular and urgent attention', within which, 'a particularly vulnerable group appears to be constituted by domestic workers'.

Reports suggest that:

the terms of contract of these workers are often breached by employers, who may for instance force the women to work much longer hours or during their days off, assign them to duties not provided for by the contract, or dismiss them in an unjustified manner. There have also been reports of inhuman treatment and sexual harassment of these women.... [T]he remedies available have
so far not proved to be sufficiently effective....

In addition, domestic workers are reluctant to complain as this may result in deportation by the Immigration authorities, since their right to reside in the country is strictly connected with employment with a specific employer. ECRI urges the authorities to ensure that deportation is not carried out before thorough and fair proceedings in each case have taken place. It also urges the authorities to ensure that means of subsistence – including new employment -- are available for domestic workers whose contractual or other rights may have been violated by their employer....

ECRI also expresses serious concern at reports of use of excessive force by the police against aliens who enter or stay in Cyprus illegally.... notes that the people detained under immigration powers awaiting deportation do not even enjoy the legal safeguards applicable to detention generally

The US Department of State's 2005 human rights report still heard that '[l]egal and illegal migrant workers were subject to the nonpayment of wages, reduced payment of wages, beatings, and the threat of deportation'.

Even 'legal foreign workers in general were paid below the minimum wage.... worked irregular hours and at times reportedly were required by their employers to work up to 14 hours per day, 7 days a week'.

Furthermore,

workers who filed complaints did not receive satisfactory legal protection and could face dismissal.... did not have the legal right to remove themselves from situations that endangered health or safety without endangering their continued employment.

The US Department of State's 2007 trafficking in persons report found,

female domestic workers from India, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines forced to work excessively long hours and denied proper compensation and possibly subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude.... women who do not cooperate with authorities may be deported with no legal alternatives to removal to countries where they may face hardship or retribution.

I don't yet know how to respond to this situation, how to work in or with it, but I know I must be aware and wish to raise awareness of it, as, even when archaeologists do consider the ethics of working in certain places, they overwhelmingly attend to a very limited set of factors, normally dictatorship and occupation and, if Indigenous peoples' or perhaps other disadvantaged communities' cultural heritage is being studied, the participation of those communities in that particular project.

Fieldwork: comments; moderation

2007-06-28T11:30:00.000+01:00

Having done fieldwork in southern Cyprus and south-eastern Turkey/northern Kurdistan, I'm trying to do some fieldwork in northern Cyprus, so, if you would like to leave a comment, I may well not be able to moderate, publish or answer it for a while.

I moderate comments to prevent this site being used to incite hatred. I do reserve the right not to publish comments, although so far I have only deleted spam. I have published comments that I considered incorrect - historically and/or politically - and have tried to answer them in some small way, but I am all too aware that there are some comments that require more complete answers.

I welcome anything from corrections to observations to updates to (non-fictional) stories about the places.

Amnesty International (AI) Turkey funding blocked

2007-06-21T18:47:00.000+01:00

Via rasti via hevallo (who judged AI's human rights report on Turkey the real reason) via World Bulletin, I found Ayşegül Aybar's report on the 19th of June 2007 in Today's Zaman, "accounts of Amnesty International Turkey frozen":

The Interior Ministry has suspended all bank accounts registered to the Turkish office of Amnesty International (AI) on the grounds that the organization accepted donations without official permission, sources said on Monday.

Online donations to AI Turkey have also been suspended, blocking monthly payments made by its members.

Levent Korkut, the head of AI Turkey, commenting on the Interior Ministry’s decision said the problem was related to the freedom of organizing. He said the AI considered it unacceptable that such charity and donation activity is subject to permission. Korkut claimed that this was an attempt to block civil society organizations from raising funds. Korkut said they had applied to court, and they were ready to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights once all domestic judicial paths are exhausted. "This is a situation that seriously hurts the freedom of organizing," he said.

Kuru: warred village, resettled

2007-06-20T01:51:00.001+01:00

The personal page for the resettled, warred village of Kuru/Xirabebaba is now up at Kuru: cultural heritage and community. I had originally visited the village to inspect the destroyed mass grave of victims of the Armenian Genocide, but during my visit I was also able to view the ruins of some of the homes destroyed by the Turkish military, as well as the palimpsest of features that have developed in the landscape and given it its character (which, sadly, now include that destruction).

(After I remembered, reposted on human rights archaeology.)

Puneyn: warred village, resettled

2007-06-18T15:46:00.001+01:00

In my fieldwork notes, I recorded that,

Puneyn or Püneyn... was evacuated in 1993, but only destroyed five years later in 1998; it, too, has been resettled.

I've completed my personal page on the last of the resettled, warred villages I was able to visit in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey, Puneyn: cultural heritage and community, which comprises photographs, descriptions and some observations on the nature of the material and its implications for the study of Cypriot "abandoned villages" in my work.

(Also posted on human rights archaeology.)

Siirt OHAL, Kurdistan/Turkey

2007-06-15T22:01:00.000+01:00

The first one I heard, I wasn't listening to and assumed was a door slamming or tire bursting or something; but I've heard hundreds in the last few minutes, some of them deep and booming. There's a shoot-out in the city - and it's nearby; this is Siirt under OHAL, the temporary emergency security measures imposed upon three zones in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey (Siirt, Şırnak and Hakkari). As someone wryly observed to me earlier today when a police chopper went past, here, 'we live under helicopters'.

[Updated at 10.25pm on the 15th of June 2007.]

Thankfully, the fighting has moved further away and either stopped or moved out of earshot. I'm looking forward to seeing what news reports there are, if any.

[Updated on the 17th of June 2007.]

As far as I know, it hasn't been reported, so, presumably, at least no-one was injured or killed.

Mehme: warred village, resettled

2007-06-13T07:19:00.001+01:00

In my fieldwork notes, I jotted down that

Hasbeg, Mahama, Mahma, Meheme or Mehme... was evacuated and destroyed in 1993 (or 1994?) and subsequently rebuilt. Walking up the slope someone asked, 'you're looking for old things, isn't it?' I corrected them, 'no, just destroyed things'. I felt bad.

I've completed the personal page for Mehme: cultural heritage and community, comprising photos, descriptions and, like the other similar sites, a few comments on interpretation of material in the resettled, warred village.

(Belatedly posted on human rights archaeology; I forgot to repost it.)

Xanagale: warred village, resettled

2007-06-11T23:10:00.001+01:00

As I recorded in my fieldwork notes about Xanagale (also known as Cepür, Cupar and Xanegela),

[it] was evacuated and destroyed in 1993 or 1994, then later rebuilt and resettled. I understand that the village was 'destroyed, with machine, with fire, with all kinds of things', (something like, 'götürdü, makinesiyle, ateşli, her çeşitli şeyi').

I have a new personal page presenting photographs with mainly descriptive notes about them for the resettled warred village, Xanagale: cultural heritage and community.

I'm still toying with the colour suites I'm putting together to help distinguish between my personal and research pages, so (over and above the photographs themselves), it may be less than easy on the eye for a while.

(Also posted on Human Rights Archaeology.)

Hasankeyf: endangered monument

2007-06-07T01:39:00.000+01:00

This is an update about the endangered monument of Hasankeyf to a fieldwork note extract about my negative heritage tourism in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey, which I posted on Human Rights Archaeology yesterday, but it's important enough to reproduce here.

Good bad news (as reported in "World Monuments Fund unveils 2008 watch list" by James Murdock on the 6th of June 2007 on the Architectural Record): Hasankeyf has been listed on the World Monuments Fund 2008 World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites. It was listed, partially accurately, under 'Sites Threatened by Economic and Development Pressures', as it is, 'where a dam that will be used for half a century will flood a site that was already ancient when Alexander the Great conquered the known world'.

The walled city of Famagusta in northern Cyprus, however, was listed under 'Sites Threatened by Conflict', as it is 'now neglected as political deadlock over the island’s sovereignty continues'. Hsankeyf is not merely threatened by 'economic and development pressures', because the Ilisu Dam is not merely an economic or developmental tool: the dam is part of Turkey's persecution of the Kurdish community; Hasankeyf is 'threatened by conflict'.

Iraq/Kurdistan: Turkish forces shelling Kurdish villages

2007-05-30T14:49:00.000+01:00

As I was trying to work and/or prepare to leave Istanbul, I started hearing about Turkish forces fighting in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey and shelling Kurdish villages in northern Iraq/southern Kurdistan.

On Monday the 21st of May on Şahmaran, Kristiina Koivunen observed that,

There is already enough of soldiers in the Turkish side of the boarder [border] but 50 000 more of them were transported last week to Sirnak. Battles between PKK guerrillas and Turkish army continue in Cudi and Gabar mountains and in Bestler-Dereler area. The target of the army is clear: Iraq boarder [border] and Kandil.

Grossly mistaken information I received from local sources on the 22nd of May in south-eastern Kurdistan/northern Kurdistan alleged that 200,000 soldiers (of a force of two million) were on each side of the border and that the war - which they would, of course, win - would begin in the next month or two.

The numbers are unrealistic (in the Independent on the 21st of December 2006, Andrew Buncombe stated that Turkey had a total of 514,850 soldiers), the locations mistaken (the incursions into Iraqi territory have so far been by small forces, the vast majority of the troops remaining within Turkish territory) and the timing vague (although that does depend on quite how intolerable the Turkish army finds democracy); its value is in reflecting what I've felt to be a common Turkish nationalist perception of the Turkish military and the war to come.

Moreover, if the hubris were suppressed, the idea that about 20% of the military was being mobilised against (its own citizens and its neighbours) the Kurdish community, maintaining the occupation of northern Kurdistan and preparing for and initiating the invasion and occupation of southern Kurdistan, would be about right. To be clear how massive an operation this is, it helps to remember that 'Turkey has amassed more Mehmetçiks along the border that divides Kurdistan into north and south than the US has in all of Iraq'.

In Aswat al-Iraq (Voices of Iraq (VOI)), Rasheed Ahmed stated that "Turkish artillery shells border area in Iraq":

'At 2.30 p.m. Saturday afternoon [on the 19th of May], Turkish forces fired five 120-mm shells into the village of Marsis in Keli Besagha,' 25 km north of Zakho, Fahmi Soufi, deputy commander of military forces in Kurdistan told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
The shelling did not cause any damage, he added.
Last week, Turkish troops shelled two villages in the border area of Kani Masi, 90 km north of Dahuk.

(It's reliably available at Iraqi News.)

On the 23rd of May, Rasheed Ahmed reported that "Turkish troops shell Iraqi areas, cross borders":

Turkish troops shelled several areas on the Iraqi side of the common border with heavy artillery on Tuesday and some units crossed up 150 meters into Iraqi territory, witnesses said.
"At 2.45 p.m., the Turkish forces fired 16 heavy shells into the areas of Mulla Bagowa, Alanj, Binkhri and Waira about 25 km north of Zakho," Mohammed Saleh Hussein, 46, said adding he was in the area at the time of the shelling.
"It did not cause any damage," he told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
He said the Turkish forces attacked the same area last night with machinegun fire without causing any damage, adding that residents were terrified.
A Kurdish military source confirmed the attacks without elaborating.
Mohammed Khowasti, a shepherd, said Turkish soldiers penetrated up to 150 meters into Iraqi territory at Afa Kizi, 30 km north of Zakho, and were stationed at an area called Kani Farshak.
The intruding force comprised 100 soldiers, two tanks and cannons, he added.
Turkey shelled border areas in the past two days on the pretext there were Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) forces and camps, which local officials have repeatedly denied.

(Again, here's the Iraqi News copy.)

A couple of days ago at Rastî, Mizgîn noted that on Thursday the 24th of May:

Apparently, two American F-16 fighter aircraft based in Iraq broached Turkish airspace over Turkish-occupied Kurdistan for a period of four minutes.... While the US is claiming that the broach of airspace was "inadvertent", and the US claims that the matter is being looked into, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the broach was a deliberate reply to the Paşas' threats of invasion, including the Turkish breach of Iraqi (specifically, South Kurdistani) airspace. Coincidentally that event also took place last Thursday, along with Turkish artillery bombardment of Kurdish villages.

On Thursday the 24th of May, Rashid Ahmed wrote that "Turkish warplanes violate Iraq's northern airspace":

local residents from villages on the borders with Turkey told VOI [Voices of Iraq] "12 artillery shells were fired from the Turkish territories onto the villages of Nazador and Gali Bazagha with no reports of casualties."

(It's reliably available at Iraq News Monitor.)

Turkey has already destroyed more than four thousand (4,000) Kurdish villages in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey and [maybe] more than two thousand (2,000) in northern Iraq/southern Kurdistan [although that's an unreliable figure, as its the alleged total of more than 6,000 'burned villages' minus the approximately 4,000 of those Kurdish villages destroyed within Turkish territory] and it is now preparing to initiate a massive campaign against the Kurdish community. If you want to see what happens to a Kurdish village when the Turkish army conducts a supposedly military operation, I have a photoblog of a visit to Kılıdar/Kiledar/Kileder.