A trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 18, with Mr. Say facing up to 18 months in prison if convicted.

Another Twitter post, this one written by Mr. Say, joked about a muezzin’s rapid delivery of the call to prayer, asking if he wanted to get away quickly for a drink. The messages are no longer available online. The pianist, who has frequently criticized the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party government over its cultural and social policies, publicly defines himself as an atheist — a controversial admission in Turkey, which is overwhelmingly Muslim.

In his text message from Slovenia, Mr. Say said he was only one of 165 people who shared the Twitter post on the vision of Islamic paradise.

“I just thought it was a funny allegory and retweeted the message,” he said. “It is unbelievable that it was made into a court case.”

He continued, “This case, which goes against universal human rights and laws, is saddening not only when judged on its own merit but also for Turkey’s image.”

Many intellectuals and writers have faced similar charges in recent years, including Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate, who last year was fined $3,700 for saying in a Swiss newspaper that Turks “have killed 30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians.”

The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, and other international organizations have criticized such actions as violations of free speech.

Mr. Say, who has served as a European Union culture ambassador, has a busy international career, with frequent engagements in Europe and to a lesser extent in Asia and the United States. He has performed with major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra.

mohandasgandhi:

Soldiers put the final touches on a giant “No More Weapons” billboard composed of crushed firearms, placed near the U.S. border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on February 17, 2012. President Felipe Calderon unveiled the billboard Thursday and urged the United States to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico. AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz) #

Mexico’s Drug War: Over 50,000 Dead in 6 Years

Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón began an all-out assault on drug cartels in 2006, more than 50,000 people have lost their lives across the country in a nearly-continuous string of shootouts, bombings, and ever-bloodier murders. Just last weekend, 49 decapitated bodies were reportedly discovered on a highway in northern Mexico. The New York Times reports on an increasing numbness and apathy among Mexicans after years of worsening carnage, about which they’ve been able to do virtually nothing. Gathered here is a collection of recent photographs from Mexico’s drug war and the people so horribly affected by it. [44 photos]

Warning: All images in this entry are shown in full. There are many dead bodies; the photographs are graphic and stark. This is the reality of the situation in Mexico right now.

thepoliticalnotebook:

Outspoken Russian journalist Khadzhimurad Kamalov was gunned down “in a hail of bullets” late Thursday night outside his office in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The 46 year old was a prominent journalist and newsman and was the founder of Dagestan’s weekly newspaper Chernovik, known for its willingness to criticize officials and its work to uncover police abuse in the counterterrorism efforts in nearby Chechnya. Kamalov was known for his criticisms of and investigations into Dagestan’s Interior Ministry. In 2009, his name was on a circulated “assassination list.”  His death is a huge blow to freedom of speech and the press, and the willingness of activists and journalists to speak out in Russia.

Chernovik’s editor, Biyakai Magomedov, who witnessed the murder, said “They deliberately killed him in front of the newspaper’s office to scare the staff.”

Author Yulia Latynina told Ekho Moskvy radio “Just as Politkovskaya’s death meant the loss of information about Chechnya, Kamalov’s death will mean that to a large extent we will stop to understand what’s going on in Dagestan. People will simply be scared to write anything.”

Read the stories at the AFP, Boston Globe and the Guardian.

[Photo: Sergei Rasulov/AP File]

Libya Counts More Martyrs Than Bodies

On Friday, anti-Qaddafi fighters attacked the two remaining strongholds of the loyalist forces, in the seaside city of Surt and the desert town of Bani Walid. Although both assaults were repulsed by determined resistance from the pro-Qaddafi forces, there can be little doubt that the war is in its final phases. And as it winds down, the question of how many died is taking on greater significance.

The death toll from the Libyan uprising is unarguably horrendous, even if it does not fit neatly into the former rebels’ narrative of a David-and-Goliath struggle against a bloodthirsty regime that slaughtered tens of thousands of the helpless and the innocent. It has also become a politically delicate issue, with some new government officials refusing to release hard statistics on casualties and human rights groups cautious about taking a definitive position.

The new authorities say the confirmed death toll will rise with the discovery of mass graves where the Qaddafi government hid its victims, both during its final months and as it collapsed and fled Tripoli and other population centers.

Mass graves of recent vintage have indeed been found — 13 of them confirmed by the Red Cross, or “about 20” found by the government, according to the Transitional National Council’s humanitarian coordinator, Muattez Aneizi. More are being found “nearly every day,” Mr. Aneizi said.

“Mass” is slightly misleading, however, because the largest actual grave site found so far, in the Nafusah Mountains of western Libya, had 34 bodies. In many of the others, the victims numbered only in the single digits. Many are not even graves, but rather containers or buildings where people were executed and their bodies left to rot.

charquaouia:

Gulnara Karimova, Uzbekistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations and ambassador to Spain, was slated to present her clothing line, “Guli,” on September 15.© 2011 Getty Images via

Fashion Week Cancels Show of Uzbek Dictator’s Daughter

The daughter of Uzbekistan’s dictator planned to unveil her spring fashion line at New York City’s prestigious Fashion Week. But her show was canceled after Human Rights Watch and a coalition of like-minded organizations spotlighted her connection to her father’s tyrannical government.

Gulnara Karimova isn’t just the eldest daughter of Islam Karimov – Uzbekistan’s autocratic leader since the Soviet era – she also serves as the government’s ambassador to Spain and the United Nations, a high-level position in a regime known for imprisoning and torturing political opponents and rights activists. Her father’s government forces up to two million Uzbek children to leave school for two months each year to pick cotton – a fabric woven throughout Karimova’s designs.

Karimova maintains a jet-setter lifestyle, which includes making a pop video with Julio Iglesias and launching her fashion line “Guli.” But according to a cable released by Wikileaks, US diplomats said most Uzbeks view her as “a greedy, power-hungry individual who uses her father to crush business people or anyone else who stands in her way.”

Read more at Human Rights Watch

(via charquaouia-deactivated20120116)

seaofgreen:

Iranian actress Pegah Ahangarani has been arrested in Tehran en route to the women’s World Cup in Germany.
From the Guardian:

Ahangarani fell foul of the Islamic regime when she publicly campaigned for opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran’s 2009 presidential elections, but escaped arrest until recently because of her widespread popularity. 

She is the second woman to have been arrested in recent weeks in connection with the women’s World Cup in Germany. Maryam Majd, a prominent Iranian photographer and activist who had campaigned for women to be allowed to enter stadiums to watch football matches in Iran, was arrested in late June before going to Germany, where she wanted to work on a book about women and sport. […]

At least four other women rights activists have been arrested in recent weeks, including Mahnaz Mohammadi, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker, Zahra Yazdani, a journalist, and campaigners Maryam Bahrman and Mansoureh Behkish. […]

Ahangarani has contacted her family once since her arrest, when she told them she was unaware of her whereabouts or the charges against her. No information was available on where she was being held or whether she had access to legal representation.