Stadiums, bushfires and a pandemic: how will Gladys Berejiklian be remembered as premier?

David Clune, University of SydneyGladys Berejiklian will be remembered as premier of NSW for her resilience, level-headedness, crisis management skills, and administrative competence — and, of course, the ICAC investigation that toppled her.

Decent, determined and hard-working, she was unflappable in adversity.

Berejiklian leaves a legacy of economic achievement and major infrastructure creation. She achieved a major milestone both personally and for women by being the first female NSW premier to win a general election.

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Read more:
Berejiklian’s downfall derailed a career built on accountability and control. Now, who will replace her?

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Energetic, effective and politically astute

Of Armenian descent, Berejiklian began her career in politics working for former Liberal leader Peter Collins. She was prominent in the Liberal moderates faction and was president of the Young Liberals. After a sojourn in banking, she was elected MP for Collins’ former seat of Willoughby in 2003. She proved to be an energetic, effective shadow transport minister.

Berejiklian impressed Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell, who became something of a mentor. When O’Farrell became premier in 2011, Berejiklian served in the important transport portfolio.

She was tipped as a possible future premier because of her strong performance. However, when O’Farrell resigned after misleading an ICAC inquiry in April 2014, Mike Baird had the numbers in the party room. Berejiklian, who was personally close to Baird, withdrew from the contest and was elected deputy leader. She was treasurer and industrial relations minister in the Baird government.

Berejiklian’s time came when Baird resigned in January 2017 — she was elected Premier unopposed in late January 2017.

Berejiklian’s policy direction was similar to that of her predecessor, with a strong focus on economics, infrastructure and public sector reform.

Also like Baird, Berejiklian was a small “l” liberal on social reform. She had a less outgoing personal style than Baird but succeeded in convincing the voters she was trustworthy, capable and sensitive to their needs.

The premier stabilised the government and showed it still had purpose and dynamism. She showed her political astuteness by quickly dumping the unpopular local government reforms that had been a factor in Baird’s downfall.

The premier survived two rounds of threatening by-elections in April 2017, a sign the anti-government feeling that marked the end of Baird’s term had diminished.

The serpentine politics of Sydney

The serpentine politics of Sydney sport and stadiums left Berejiklian wrong-footed at the end of 2017. She announced that both Allianz and Homebush stadiums in Sydney would be simultaneously demolished and rebuilt at an estimated cost of A$2.5 billion.

It was a major miscalculation that would haunt Berejiklian. Public reaction was overwhelmingly negative, a common theme being that it was a gross misuse of public funds to rebuild two stadiums, one only 17-years-old, instead of financing vital community facilities. The premier backtracked on the demolition of Homebush but much public resentment remained about Allianz.

In her campaign for the March 2019 election, Berejiklian ran largely on the government’s record.

The economy was performing well compared to other states, the public finances were in the best condition they had been in for a long time, and the infrastructure budget for the next four years was close to $90 billion. Labor leader Michael Daley made opposition to the demolishing and rebuilding of Allianz Stadium the spearhead of his campaign.

While not a flashy or magnetic campaigner, Berejiklian stayed “on message” and came across as sincere and conscientious. The result was a triumphant victory for her. The government’s two-party preferred vote was 52% and its primary vote 42% — 9% higher than Labor’s.

The premier had persuaded enough voters that the government had significant achievements to its credit and was better equipped to deliver more in the future.

Through bushfires and COVID

The last years of Berejiklian’s term were marked by skilful handling of major crises. Like other parts of Australia, in January 2020, NSW was ravaged by a devastating bushfire season, in which 25 lives were lost.

Unlike Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Berejiklian emerged from the bushfire crisis with enhanced prestige.

As political commentator Niki Savva, writing in The Australian, put it:

When the fires hit NSW, she made a point of being there, every day, standing next to the fire chief, Shane Fitzsimmons, supporting him and allowing him to do his job. She visited affected communities. Her embraces were accepted. No one refused to shake her hand.

No sooner had the bushfires ceased than the state was plunged into another crisis with the outbreak of coronavirus. Berejiklian responded in much the same way, this time with Chief Medical Officer, Kerry Chant, by her side.

The second NSW COVID outbreak proved to be more difficult and unpredictable to manage but by the time of her resignation the situation was coming under control.

Although she had been criticised by some for her handling of the crisis, Berejiklian’s calm, competent, communicative approach would seem to have resonated in the electorate.

ICAC’s Operation Keppel

ICAC’s Operation Keppel was inquiring into whether former Liberal MP for Wagga Daryl Maguire engaged in conduct that involved a breach of public trust.

Public hearings began in September 2020 and Berejiklian appeared as a witness in October.

In a disclosure that generated a widespread tsunami of shock, it was revealed the premier had been in a “close personal relationship” with Maguire from 2015 which had only recently ended.

Previously, the public persona of Berejiklian, who had never married, was that of a rather prim career woman wedded to her job.

Berejiklian said that she had no intention of quitting as she had done nothing wrong and most voters seemed to be sympathetic.

The general attitude was that she had made a miscalculation in her personal life, a not uncommon phenomenon, and did not deserve to be punished by losing her job.

As reporter Deborah Snow put it, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald,

there was relief inside the government that the crisis was playing out as a titillating love gone wrong scandal rather than a probity scandal.

The announcement of an ICAC inquiry into whether the premier had engaged in conduct that involved a “breach of public trust” as a result of her relationship with Maguire has precipitated her resignation.

She could have stepped aside pending the result of the inquiry, but instead has chosen to take the same course as O’Farrell, who decided to do the honourable thing and walk.

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Read more:
The long history of political corruption in NSW — and the downfall of MPs, ministers and premiers

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David Clune, Honorary Associate, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia: Cricket – Phillip Hughes Remembered

Iran: Christians summoned to the office of Ministry of Information

According to subpoenas issued by the intelligence office of the Kurdistan ministry of information, several new Christian believers have been summoned to attend a hearing at the headquarters of the ministry in order to answer questions that the ministry is interested to know about, reports FCNN.

Farsi Christian News Network (fcnn.com) reports that on August 23rd and 24th, intelligence officers contacted several new Christian believers and their families and requested that they attend a hearing at the Ministry of Information. It is important to mention that these individuals had previously been identified by the intelligence officers.

According to this report, these individuals, upon reporting to the offices of the Ministry of Information, were detained and interrogated all day long and subsequently released from custody.

The names of some of these individuals are as follows: Mr. Sadegh, Mr. Farzam, Mr. Nik-khah, Mr. Sarmad, and Mr. Ayyoob. The women were: Ms. Tahereh, Ms. Nahid, and Ms. Roshanak – all from the city of Sanandaj. There were others who were detained from other cities that have requested anonymity. Also 2 new believers from the city of Saghez, one from the town Gharaveh, and one other from the town of Kamyaran that were taken to their local Ministry of Information offices for questioning.

FCNN reports that the intelligence officers were using these interrogations to identify the command chain and responsibilities of each and every one of these believers within the home-church movement in Iran and also to learn more about the tactics used by the believers in evangelism along with more information about a specific home belonging to a Christian man named Mr. Ghanei.

It needs to be reminded that Mr. Ghanei was summoned to the ministry, detained and questioned for his faith and beliefs in Christ for one week in July 2009, while his family and relatives were completely unaware of his whereabouts. Finally, through the follow up and insistence of a lawyer and posting of a bail bond, he was released. Shortly after this incident, Mr. Ghanei was re-arrested on the charge that his bail bond was not invalid and this time he was forced to post a 60 million Tooman bond (Approximately $60,000 USD). Subsequent to this and as of now, there is no information regarding his whereabouts.

According to these new believers who were detained and questioned, the intelligence officers are attempting to identify and locate the whereabouts of Mr. Ghanei in order to summon him to the office of the Ministry of Information. It’s not clear why these officers are so eager to re-question Mr. Ghanei and what seems to be the urgency in this matter.

In connection with this, the intelligence officers and plain clothes interrogators have visited Mr. Ghanei’s house as well as the residence of his father in-law in Sanandaj and have searched the house and questioned the residents. Also and apparently the intelligence officers have targeted several new believers and the church members of the church in Kermanshah who may know of the whereabouts of Mr. Ghanei and placed them under surveillance and undue pressures.

Lastly, it must be remembered that in October 2006, Mr. Ghanei was arrested for the first time and after lengthy interrogation and being charged for converting from Islam to Christianity was released. This cycle of arrest, interrogation, and released from detention was repeated many times over the last few years.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

TURKEY: CHRISTIAN HELD HOSTAGE AT KNIFE POINT IN ISTANBUL

Young Muslim threatens to slit throat of convert; police arrest him after short standoff.

ISTANBUL, August 6 (Compass Direct News) – In a bizarre show of Turkish nationalism, a young Muslim here took a Christian Turk at knife point, draped his head with the national flag and threatened to slit the throat of the “missionary dog” in broad daylight earlier this week.

Yasin Karasu, 24, held Ýsmail Aydýn, 35, hostage for less than half an hour on Monday (Aug. 3) in a busy district on the Asian side of Istanbul in front of passersby and police who promptly came to the scene.

“This is Turkey, and you can’t hand out gospels,” he yelled, according to the daily newspaper Haberturk. “These godless ones without the true book are doing missionary work.”

About 99 percent of Turkey’s population is at least nominally Muslim, and in the popular mindset the religion is strongly connected with being Turkish.

Karasu threatened to slit Aydin’s throat if anyone came near him and commanded those watching to give him a Turkish flag. Within minutes, Aydin told Compass, bystanders produced two flags. Karasu, who has known Aydin for a year, wrapped the larger of the two flags around Aydin’s head, making it difficult for him to breathe in heat that reached the low 30s Celsius (90s F) this week.

“Do you see this missionary dog?” he yelled at the crowd. “He is handing out gospels and he is breaking up the country!”

Karasu placed the smaller flag in Aydin’s hand and commanded him to wave it.

“Both flags came at the same time,” Aydin told Compass. “The big one he put very tightly over my head, and in the heat I couldn’t breathe.”

The whole time Karasu held a large knife to Aydin’s throat.

“You missionary dogs, do you see this flag?” he said, commanding Aydin to wave the flag. “This is a holy flag washed in the blood of our fathers.”

Aydin said he told Karasu, “Yasin, in any case this flag is mine as well! I’m a Turk too, but I’m a Christian.”

Karasu insisted that Aydin was not a Turk because he had betrayed the Turkish flag and country by his evangelism, according to Aydin.

Aydin said he told Karasu, “No, Yasin, I’m a Turk and I’m waving this flag with love. This is my flag. I’m a Turk.” He said Karasu replied, “No, you can’t be – you are breaking up the country, and I won’t allow it.”

Police managed to convince Karasu to put down the knife and release Aydin, telling him that if he killed the convert Turkey would be ridiculed around the world, and that as a last resort they were authorized to shoot to kill him.

“If you love this country, leave the man,” they told him.

A member of the Turkish Protestant Alliance’s legal team said Karasu was evidently trying to get attention.

“He was the type of person who would commit a crime,” said Umut Sahin. “He had just gotten out of the army, he probably didn’t have a job … Anyway he achieved his goal of putting on a show.”

Sahin added that Karasu had previously gotten into trouble for selling pirated CDs.

Religious Conversations

Aydin, who escaped with a slight cut on his throat, said that he never would have believed that Karasu would do such a thing.

The two men have known each other for about a year. While in the army, Karasu showed interest in learning more about Christianity and would call Aydin, a convert from Islam, to ask questions and talk, saying he was interested in other religions.

“He would call me often, because while in the army he was really depressed and he would often call me to tell me,” said Aydin. “He wanted relief and to talk to someone, but at the same time he was researching about religions.”

After his release from compulsory army duty, Karasu called Aydin and the two planned to meet at a Protestant church in the district of Kadikoy. Karasu came with a friend identified as Baris, who preferred to stay outside while the two of them had tea alone in the church basement.

Aydin said they spoke for nearly 20 minutes about Karasu’s life in his hometown of Erzurum and his financial and family difficulties, as well as some spiritual matters, but since his friend was outside they made it short. Karasu was smiling, in good spirits and not at all the way Aydin remembered him from their meeting nearly a year earlier when he was depressed, he said.

“He looked so healthy, and he was smiling, he was dressed well, he was talking comfortably, he looked so cheerful,” recalled Aydin with disbelief. “He was not at all depressed! I was so surprised!”

Karasu thanked Aydin for the conversation, and the two got up from the table to go up the stairs. Aydin led the way, walking ahead of Karasu about a meter. Just as Aydin reached the stairway, he felt an arm grab him around the neck.

“At the first step he violently grabbed me, putting his arm around my neck, and gripped me tightly,” recalled Aydin. “I was surprised and thought someone had come up from behind me to tease me, but then I remembered it was just the two of us downstairs. ‘Yasin,’ I said, ‘Is that you? Are you playing a joke on me?’”

“What joke!” he said, pulling out a knife, according to Aydin. “You’re a missionary dog, and I’ve come to cut your throat.”

Karasu told Aydin that he planned to make an example of him in the eyes of the nation by killing him in public. Two members of the church tried and failed to stop Karasu. The two church members and Karasu’s friend followed them to a busy street down the road.

“He took me down to the busy street by the sea, threatening to kill me,” Aydin said. “The funny thing about it is that I had the impression that we were playing a part in a film. Not a single person on the way down tried to stop him or told him to stop. They just all looked on with consternation.”

Within one or two minutes, he said, police and a television crew arrived.

“Within a minute, both police and cameras showed up – how quick was that?” he said. “I was surprised.”

Suspicion of ‘Terrorism’

Although Aydin said he believes the act was an isolated incident, other Christian Turks as well as police suspect it may have been an act of propaganda to frighten Turkey’s small Protestant community, most of whom are converts from Islam.

“I don’t think it was planned,” said Aydin, “but it is possible that it was.”

The police section on terrorism combat is researching the possibility that the attack was planned by a wider group. Aydin has decided not to press charges, telling Turkish media that he forgave Karasu.

“I think it was an isolated case, but I have to see the police report,” said Sahin of the Turkish Protestant Alliance. “If this was a provocation he would have killed him. He just wanted to show off … with the Turkish flag.” He added with a chuckle, “As if we don’t like waving it.”

According to Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution, people of all faiths have the right to spread information about their faith.

Aydin, who was convinced he was going to lose his life, said he feels the experience instilled new life into him.

“On Aug. 3 I died and was reborn,” said Aydin. “That was my date of death and birth. I was sure I was going to die. It’s like a new opportunity, a new life. I really think the Lord gave me a second chance, because if you think of it, after other events, like Hrant Dink or the Malatya killings, those brothers weren’t so fortunate, right?”

Police found two knives on Karasu’s person, along with two cell phones and the two flags he got from his audience. He is still in police custody with his friend.

In February 2006 an Italian Catholic priest was killed in the Black Sea coastal town of Trabzon, and Armenian Christian editor Hrant Dink was shot in front of the weekly Agos three months before three Christians – two Turks and a German – were killed in Malatya in April 2007.

Last month a German businessman was also murdered for being a Christian on a busy Istanbul street (see  “Christian Murdered on Busy Street in Istanbul,” July 28).

All murders were committed by Turkish men in their 20s.

Report from Compass Direct News 

MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD AT 50

Controversial musician and dancer Michael Jackson is dead. Jackson has reportedly died of a heart attack at his Los Angeles rented apartment. His Neverland Ranch was located in California, in the United States.

Jackson will be remembered by his fans as one of the greatest musicians (if not the greatest) ever. He will also be remembered as ‘Wacko Jacko’ by others because of his eccentric and strange behaviour over many years, culminating in hanging his young baby over a hotel balcony and allegations of being a pedophile – an accusation not helped by his out-of-court financial settlements.

 

As to whether he was guilty of the pedophilia charges levelled at him I cannot say, but suspicion remains and if he wasn’t, he certainly behaved in a less than prudent manner with children. He is likely to be remembered more for this than his music. It is a sad legacy.

See also:

www.michaeljackson.com

NIGERIA: SIX PASTORS KILLED, 40 CHURCHES RAZED IN JOS VIOLENCE

As smoke clears, mayhem ignited by Muslim attacks leaves 25,000 people displaced.

JOS, Nigeria, December 11 (Compass Direct News) – The murderous rioting sparked by Muslim attacks on Christians and their property on Nov. 28-29 left six pastors dead, at least 500 other people killed and 40 churches destroyed, according to church leaders.

More than 25,000 persons have been displaced in the two days of violence, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

What began as outrage over suspected vote fraud in local elections quickly hit the religious fault line that quakes from time to time in this city located between the Islamic north and Christian south, as angry Muslims took aim at Christian sites rather than at political targets. Police and troops reportedly killed about 400 rampaging Muslims in an effort to quell the unrest, and Islamists shot, slashed or stabbed to death most of more than 100 Christians.

Among Christians killed was Joseph Yari of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), Angwan Clinic,Tudun-Wada in Jos. On Nov. 28, his wife Mary Yari told Compass, he had returned from his workplace along Ibrahim Taiwo Road saying he was going to a Baptist church that Muslims were setting on fire.

“Shortly after my husband left, I heard anguished cries, only to be told that my husband had been shot dead on the premises of the church,” Yari said.

Her grief notwithstanding, she said she had forgiven the killers, as “they were ignorant of the crime they have committed because they do not know Jesus Christ.”

The Rev. Emmanuel Kyari, pastor of Christ Baptist Church, Tudun-Wada, told Compass that Joseph Yari died helping other Christians who repelled Muslim fanatics bent on burning down his church building.

“Yari was standing beside my wife when he was shot by Muslims,” Rev. Kyari said. “In addition to Yari who was killed, there were also three other Christians who were shot, and two died instantly.”

Among the six slain pastors was the Rev. Ephraim Masok, pastor of the ECWA Church in the Rikkos area of Jos, who had moved his family out of harm’s way and was returning to the church premises when Muslim fanatics attacked and killed him. Rev. Masok was buried on Saturday (Dec. 6).

A Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) leader in the Chawlyap area identified only as Pastor James was killed in the rioting that left Jos skies covered in smoke, as was the Rev. Bulus Tsetu of an Assemblies of God church. Names of the other three slain clergymen from Roman Catholic, Baptist and Deeper Life Bible churches were not readily available, but their deaths were confirmed, according to church leaders.

Rev. Kyari and the Rev. Benjamin Nasara of ECWA Plateau Church provided the casualty figures to Compass.

Among the 40 destroyed churches in Jos, they said, was the ECWA Church, Rikkos; Kaunar Baptist Church, Rikkos; Christ Baptist Church, Tudun-Wada; Nasarawa Baptist Church; Adebayo Street First Baptist Church; Sarkin Mangu COCIN Church; ECWA Church Kunga; Victory Baptist Church, Gofang; Deeper Life Bible Church, Ungwar Rimi; and Emmanuel Baptist Church, also at Ungwar Rimi.

Other Christians killed by Muslims in the rioting, the church leaders said, were Nenfort Danbaba of the ECWA Plateau Church and Oluwaleke Olalekan Akande of the Anglican Church from Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria, who was on duty with the National Youth Service Program in Jos at the time of the crisis.

At the funeral service of Akande on Tuesday (Dec. 9), the Rev. Joseph Olatunde Alamu of the Cathedral Church of St. David, Kudeti, Ibadan, said young Christian men killed in the violence did not die in vain.

“Like the blood of Abel cried out for justice, they will not die in vain,” he said. “God will revenge.”

Akande’s parents also spoke at his funeral service.

“God knows why it happened that way,” Akande’s father, 84-year-old Pa J.A. Akande, said. “Oluwaleke, you will be remembered always for your love, steadfastness, courage, obedience and other attributes of your life with which you were endowed by your Maker. Sleep well in the bosom of your Maker.”

Akande’s mother, Madam Akande, told those attending the funeral that her 28-year-old son was too young to die.

“Little did I realize that your telephone call to me on Thursday, the 27th of November, 2008 would be our last conversation,” she said. “No leaf can fall from the tree without the authority, power and knowledge of God. And so I believe you shall rest peacefully in the bosom of our Lord Jesus.”

Akande was a graduate of physics/electronics at The Polytechnic, Ibadan, doing his one-year mandatory national service to Plateau State when he was murdered.

Rev. Nasara of ECWA Plateau Church told Compass that church history shows “the blood of the martyrs brings about the birth of the church. We see these ones who have gone ahead of us as the seeds that God is using to make the church in Jos North and Plateau state to germinate.”

 

Pre-Meditated Violence?

Rioting erupted in Jos in the wee hours of Nov. 28 while results of local council elections held the previous day were still being awaited. In the Nov. 27 elections, according to reports, Muslims in Jos North who suspected vote fraud – specifically, the late arrival of election materials to polling sites – raised a lament, and by 1 a.m. on Nov. 28 Muslim youth had begun burning tires, schools and churches.

The killing of non-Muslims followed in the early morning. Muslims began attacking Christians in areas such as Nasarawa Gwong, Congo-Russia, Rikkos, Ali Kazaure, Bauchi Road, Dutse Uku, Ungwar Rimi, and Tudun-Wada. Commands to defy authorities and join the “jihad” blared from a mosque loudspeaker in the Dilimi area, according to advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, including instructions to ignore a night-time curfew and attack anew.

Authorities’ efforts to halt the rampage, including a Muslim assault on a police barracks, accounted for the estimated 400 corpses reportedly deposited in a key mosque, according to CSW, citing security sources.

Christians tried to defend their lives and properties, and non-Muslim youths reportedly began retaliatory attacks on Muslims, mosques and Muslim houses in the early morning. The Nigerian military arrived before noon to try to rein in the mayhem, which continued into the night.

At the end of two days, hundreds of persons from both sides of the religious divide were killed, with others injured and hospitalized at Jos University Teaching Hospital, ECWA Evangel Hospital, OLA Hospital and Plateau State Specialist Hospital.

More than 25,000 displaced persons have taken refuge at Rukuba Military barracks, NDLEA (Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency) Barracks and Police Headquarters and Barracks, according to NEMA.

Rev. Nasara said the displacement of people who have lost their homes has had a severe affect on Jos churches.

“Right now I have two families and some Christian students from the university here, making up a total of 12 persons, who were displaced, and I have to take them in here in my house,” he said.

The Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, Roman Catholic archbishop of Jos Archdiocese and Plateau state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said in a statement that fanatical Muslims ignited the violence by attacking Christians.

“We were greatly taken aback by the turn of events in Jos – we thought it was a political issue, but from all indications it is not so,” he said. “We were surprised at the way some of our churches and properties were attacked and some of our faithful and clergy killed. The attacks were carefully planned and executed. The questions that bog our minds are: Why were churches and clergy attacked and killed? Why were politicians and political party offices not attacked, if it was a political conflict?”

Businesses and property of innocent civilians were destroyed, he added.

“We strongly feel that it was not political but a pre-meditated act under the guise of elections,” Kaigama said.

Plateau Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice Edward Pwajok said in a statement on Tuesday (Dec. 9) that 500 persons had been arrested in connection with the violence, and that they will appear for trial at the High Court of Justice and Magistrates Courts.

On Sept. 7, 2001, religious conflict in Jos resulted in more than four years of bloodshed, killing thousands of people and displacing thousands of others. In 2004 an estimated 700 people died in Yelwa, also in Plateau state, during Christian-Muslim clashes.  

Report from Compass Direct News

TURKEY: MALATYA MURDER CASE AIDS PROBE OF ‘DEEP STATE’ CRIMINALS

Video testimony, reenactment of crime scene hints at hearts of killers, martyrs.

ISTANBUL, November 25 (Compass Direct News) – Last week’s court hearing on the bloody murder of three Christians in Turkey’s southeastern city of Malatya paved the way for further investigations into the connection between the five defendants and shadowy elements of the Turkish state linked to criminal activities.

The 13th hearing at Malatya’s Third Criminal Court on Friday (Nov. 21) in the murders of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske presented little new evidence. No witnesses were called to testify.

The court prosecutor and plaintiff lawyers, however, are pursuing proof that there are links between the murderers and Ergenekon, an ultranationalist cabal of retired generals, politicians, journalists and mafia members under investigation for conspiracy in recent murders.

A separate criminal investigation has linked the cabal to high-profile attacks, murders and plans to engineer domestic chaos and ultimately overthrow the government. Evidence in the Malatya case indicates that a local journalist, Varol Bulent Aral, acted as a bridge between the five murder suspects and Ergenekon.

Plaintiff attorneys also believe that Aral incited the suspected ringleader of the attack, Emre Gunaydin, to murder by convincing him foreign missionaries were connected to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, a domestic outlawed terrorist organization.

According to a Nov. 14 statement, Gunaydin testified that Aral promised him state immunity for the planned attacks. In court last week, however, he refuted the claim and said he hadn’t met with Aral.

On April 18, 2007 the three Christians were tied up, stabbed and tortured for several hours before their throats were slit in what Turkish media have dubbed “the Malatya massacre” at the Zirve Publishing Co. office in Malatya.

Gunaydin along with Salih Gurler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker and Abuzer Yildirim, who have been in jail for the past 19 months, are accused of the murder. They are all between 19 and 21 years old.

Per their request, plaintiff attorneys have received the Ergenekon file from the 13th High Criminal Court of Istanbul and have reviewed it for connections with the Malatya murders. It is now under investigation by the court prosecutors and judges.

“We are talking about a room with five guys and three men,” said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, who leads the team of plaintiff lawyers. “There is no doubt this is first degree murder; a barbaric act. These things will increase their term of punishment to three counts of murder and three life imprisonment terms each, as well as other crimes such as preventing freedom, stealing and others. We don’t have a question about this.”

The question that remains, according to the plaintiff attorneys, is the identity of the real powers behind the bloody attack. Cengiz said he and the court now have no doubt there were greater forces behind the Malatya murders.

“I am 100 percent sure – it is the impression of the prosecutor and no one has doubts – there are sources behind these young men, but we can’t identify them,” Cengiz told Compass.

The plaintiff team hopes to bring up to 21 witnesses to the stand in subsequent hearings in order to make connections between Ergenekon and the Malatya murders clear.

“We believe all of them are somehow connected and have relevant information to this case,” he said.

If the list is accepted, he said the trial may go on for another year. “But if nothing comes out last minute, it may be over in three or four months,” he said.

 

Missionary Activities on Trial, Again

At Friday’s hearing, defense lawyers reiterated their position that the five young men acted in response to missionary efforts, suggesting that such activities were sufficiently nefarious to incite the violent murders.

The prosecution team rebutted the statement, saying that according to constitutional Articles 9 and 24, people have the right to share their faith, and no person or authority can follow and record those activities. They pointed out that the five defendants had been collecting data and planning the murders at least eight months before they carried them out.

Defense lawyers also requested that the prison where the defendants are held conduct a psychological exam of the defendants – especially Gurler – because they were all under stress due to suspected ringleader Gunaydin’s threats.

 

Revisiting Crime Scene

Those present in the courtroom on Friday viewed year-old video footage of defendants Ozdemir, Ceker and Gunaydin each walking through the crime scene shortly after their arrest, describing how they attacked, stabbed and sliced the throats of Aydin, Geske and finally Yuksel.

A sobering silence prevailed in the courtroom as judges, lawyers, local press, Turkish Protestant observers and others watched Ozdemir and later Ceker walk through the Zirve publishing house and re-enact the murders over the dried blood pools of the three martyrs. In their accounts, they implicated Gunaydin and Salih as the main aggressors, although all accuse the others of participating in the murders.

During the video presentation, judges and lawyers noticed suspect Gurler laughing at the witnesses’ testimonies at the crime scene. In the video, Ozdemir and Ceker testified that they had told Gurler and Gunaydin they couldn’t take the violence.

In the video testimony, Ozdemir said he told Gurler while he was stabbing Aydin, the first to be killed, “That’s enough, I can’t do this.” Ozdemir looked down during his video testimony, forlorn and unable to watch.

Gurler later told angry judges that he was laughing because all the witnesses’ statements in the video were false.

“They’re lying against me,” he said.

In his video account of the murder scene, Ceker described how the five young men and the three Zirve staff members talked “a lot” about religion before the suspects attacked Aydin, tying him and lying him on the floor face down.

Gunaydin confronted Aydin about his missionary activities and asked him why he was acting “against Turks” before Gurler sliced his throat, according to Ceker’s original statement.

In Gunaydin’s video testimony, profusely sweating, he described the repeated stabbings of the victims, re-enacting his arm movements and describing how Ozdemir held a gun at the victims, threatening them.

“I didn’t look,” Gunaydin said after describing one of the violent stabbing scenes. “I’m weak about these things … I can’t even cut chicken.”

He described how while Yildirim and Gurler were repeatedly stabbing Geske, the victim lifted his hands up in a gesture of prayer. Gunaydin also described how Yuksel, injured by the stabbing while tied and on the floor, cried out in Turkish, “Mesih, Mesih [Messiah],” between moans before they stuffed a towel in his mouth to silence him.

After the court showed his video testimony, Gunaydin stood up and told the court he had just gotten out of the hospital at that time, and that that account was not how he now remembered the events of April 18, 2007.

In their video testimony, the young men described how the phone and doorbell were ringing while they were torturing the Christians. Before coming out the door with their hands in the air, they showed police interviewing them in the video how they had disposed of their guns and bloodied knives in the Zirve office.

Gunaydin escaped through a window, fell and was severely injured. On Friday plaintiff lawyers requested from the court an investigation into who entered the crime scene while Gunaydin was in the hospital.

When the defendants were asked whether they knew of Aral’s alleged offer of state protection to Gunaydin or a monetary award for the murders, they claimed to have no information.

“I never saw a check in the course of these events, nor did I hear anything about it,” said Gurler. “I only knew that Emre had a bank statement.”

Yildirim also claimed ignorance: “I don’t remember anything about a check. If Emre had one, it would have stayed in his pocket; he wouldn’t have showed it to us.”

When asked about meetings between Gunaydin and Aral, the defendants said they hadn’t witnessed any between the two. They did admit to having spoken to Aral at a sports complex about a different matter, but they knew him as “Mehmet.”

 

Foreign Press, Organizations Negligent

Twelve of the nearly 20 private and human rights lawyers from around Turkey that compose the plaintiff team attended the court hearing last week. Cengiz said the primary purpose of the plaintiff lawyers, who are working pro bono, was to create a legal “common eye” that is watching all related cases such as Ergenekon and the murder of Hrant Dink, editor of Armenian newspaper Agos, who was murdered months before the three Christians in Malatya.

But the plaintiff lawyers pointed out that very few international bodies and foreign press members are actively monitoring the case, even though in their estimation the Malatya murders are directly linked to uncovering deep elements of Turkish corruption.

“This case has tremendous implications for democracy and deep-state elements in Turkey,” said Cengiz, who has received numerous threats since the beginning of the trial and lives under 24-hour protection.

“What we have here is a concrete act of the Ergenekon gang and it’s interesting.”  

Report from Compass Direct News

SCIENTISTS FIND ANCIENT BOWL THAT MAY CALL JESUS A MAGICIAN

The report below comes from the Christian Telegraph and describes the discovery of a bowl that ‘scientists’ so called are speculating all manner of theories on. It seems the discovery of any object can be used to push an agenda of any type – in this case an agenda that will stop at nothing to nullify the claims of Christ.

The footage below was found on YouTube regarding the discovery of this bowl:

The report from the Christian Telegraph now follows:

 

Scientists find ancient bowl that may call Jesus a magician

In what is certainly to be a controversial speculation too hard for many Evangelical Christians to swallow, scientists claim they have found an ancient bowl that refers to Jesus Christ as a magician, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.

A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found the bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world’s first known reference to Christ.

In an online article by Jennifer Viegas of the Discovery Channel posted to the MSNBC website, scientists say the engraving reads, “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted to mean either, “by Christ the magician” or, “the magician by Christ.”

The MSNBC article says that if the word “Christ” refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world.

“It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic,” said archaeologist Goddio, who is co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology.

In her article, Viegas says that Goddio and his colleagues found the object during an excavation of the underwater ruins of Alexandria’s ancient great harbor. The Egyptian site also includes the now submerged island of Antirhodos, where Cleopatra’s palace may have been located.

Viegas says that both Goddio and Egyptologist David Fabre, a member of the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology, think a “magus” could have practiced fortune telling rituals using the bowl. The Book of Matthew refers to “wisemen,” or Magi, believed to have been prevalent in the ancient world.

According to Fabre, the bowl is also very similar to one depicted in two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual.

“It has been known in Mesopotamia probably since the 3rd millennium B.C.,” Fabre said. “The soothsayer interprets the forms taken by the oil poured into a cup of water in an interpretation guided by manuals.”

Fabre added that the individual, or “medium,” then goes into a hallucinatory trance when studying the oil in the cup.

“They therefore see the divinities, or supernatural beings appear that they call to answer their questions with regard to the future,” he said.

Viegas writes that scientists theorize the magus might then have used the engraving on the bowl to legitimize his supernatural powers by invoking the name of Christ.

Goddio said, “It is very probable that in Alexandria they were aware of the existence of Jesus” and of his associated legendary miracles, such as transforming water into wine, multiplying loaves of bread, conducting miraculous health cures, and the story of the resurrection itself.

Viegas explains that while not discounting the Jesus Christ interpretation, other researchers have offered different possible interpretations for the engraving, which was made on the thin-walled ceramic bowl after it was fired, since slip was removed during the process.

Bert Smith, a professor of classical archaeology and art at Oxford University, suggests the engraving might be a dedication, or present, made by a certain “Chrestos” belonging to a possible religious association called Ogoistais.

Klaus Hallof, director of the Institute of Greek inscriptions at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, added that if Smith’s interpretation proves valid, the word “Ogoistais” could then be connected to known religious groups that worshipped early Greek and Egyptian gods and goddesses, such as Hermes, Athena and Isis.

Hallof additionally pointed out that historians working at around, or just after, the time of the bowl, such as Strabon and Pausanias, refer to the god “Osogo” or “Ogoa,” so a variation of this might be what’s on the bowl. It is even possible that the bowl refers to both Jesus Christ and Osogo.

Fabre concluded: “It should be remembered that in Alexandria, paganism, Judaism and Christianity never evolved in isolation. All of these forms of religion (evolved) magical practices that seduced both the humble members of the population and the most well-off classes.”

“It was in Alexandria where new religious constructions were made to propose solutions to the problem of man, of God’s world,” he added. “Cults of Isis, mysteries of Mithra, and early Christianity bear witness to this.”

The bowl is currently on public display in the exhibit “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures” at the Matadero Cultural Center in Madrid, Spain, until November 15.

Report from the Christian Telegraph