Not so fast! Turkey was no great 'secular' state before Erdogan - WND

Ethnic cleansing of Greek Cypriots by the invading Turkish military, 1974

Exclusive: Andrew Bostom examines brutal conquest, Islamization of northern Cyprus

By Andrew Bostom

Although much ballyhooed 42 years later for its unsuccessful attempt to remove current Neo-Ottoman, Islamic Jew-hating President/Muslim despot Mas-Kom-Ya Erdogan, July 20, 1974, the same putatively “secular” Turkish military waged a “successful” jihad invasion of n
orthern Cyprus.

Using Cyprus’ own short-lived July 1974 military putsch (the Greek junta-supported coup had collapsed by [July 23, 1974]) as a pretext for long sought expansionist designs within Cyprus, pseudo-secular Turkey claimed its 1974 jihad invasion was a “peaceful action” that sought to “restore” Cypriot rights, territorial integrity, and security “without any discrimination toward the (Christian majority and Muslim minority) Communities.” But the July-August, 1974 jihad of Turkey’s pseudo-secular military regime, consistent with the devastating half millennial legacy of its Ottoman forbears’ campaigns, was punctuated by Islamic jihadism’s trademark “sacralized” brutality against non-Muslims: massacre, pillage, enslavement, rape, deportation (of infidels) and colonization (by Muslim replacements).


The Sunday Times of London managed to secure a copy of the then secret European Commission of Human Rights, or ECHR, report (Applications Nos. 6780/74 and 6950/75, entitled, “Cyprus Against Turkey Report of the Commission,” adopted on July 10, 1976), and published this harrowing overview (“What Secret Report Tells About Turk Atrocities,” The Sunday Times), on Jan. 23, 1977:

It amounts to a massive indictment of the Ankara government for the murder, rape, and looting by its army in Cyprus during and after the Turkish invasion of summer, 1974…[including] systematic killings of civilians who were not involved in the 1974 fighting; repeated raping of women aged from 12 to 71, often brutally in public; the torture and savage and humiliating treatment of hundreds of Greek Cypriots, including children during their detention by the Turkish army; and charges of extensive looting and plunder which were supported by unpublished United Nations documents.

The July 10, 1976, ECHR report provided an ugly overarching chronicle of the prototypical sectarian jihadist behaviors of the invading Turkish Muslim army:

In the course of the said military operations and occupation, Turkish armed forces have, by way of systematic conduct and adopted practice, caused deprivation of life, including indiscriminate killing of civilians, have subjected persons of both sexes and all ages to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, including commission of rapes and detention under inhuman conditions, have arrested and are detaining in Cyprus and Turkey hundreds of persons arbitrarily and with no lawful authority, are subjecting the said persons to forced labor under conditions amounting to slavery or servitude, have caused through the aforesaid detention, as well as by displacement of thousands of persons from their places of residence and refusal to all of them to return thereto, separations of families and other interferences with private life, have caused destruction of property and obstruction of free enjoyment of property, and all the above acts have been directed against Greek Cypriots only, due, inter alia, to their national origin, race and religion.

These specific “atrocities and crimes” perpetrated by the occupying Turkish army between Sept. 19, 1974, and July 10, 1976, when the report was filed, were described, verbatim:
Murders in cold blood of civilians including women and old men. Also about 3000 persons (many of them civilians) who were in the Turkish occupied areas, are still missing and it is feared that they were murdered by the Turkish army.

• Wholesale and repeated rapes. Even women of ages up to 80 were savagely raped by members of the Turkish forces. In some areas, forced prostitution of Greek Cypriot girls continues to be practiced. Many women who remained in the Turkish occupied areas became pregnant as a result of the rapes committed by the Turkish troops.
• Forcible eviction from homes and land. The Greek Cypriots who were forcibly expelled by the Turkish army from their homes (about 200,000) are still being prevented by the Turkish array to return to their homes in the Turkish occupied areas and are refugees in their own country living in open camps inhuman conditions. Moreover, the Turkish military authorities continue to expel forcibly from their homes the remaining Greek Cypriot inhabitants in the Turkish occupied areas most of whom are forcibly transferred to concentration camps. They are not even allowed to take with them their basic belongings. Their homes and properties have been distributed amongst the Turkish Cypriots who were shifted from the southern part of Cyprus into the Turkish occupied areas as well as amongst many Turks who were illegally brought from Turkey in an attempt to change the demographic pattern on the island.
• Looting by members of the Turkish army of houses and business premises belonging to Greek Cypriots continues to be extensively practiced
• Robbery of the agriculture, produce, and livestock, housing units, stocks in stores, in factories, and shops owned by Greek Cypriots, and of jewelry, and other valuables found on Greek Cypriots arrested by the Turkish army continues uninterrupted. The agricultural produce belonging to Greek Cypriots continues to be collected and exported directly or indirectly to markets in several European countries. Nothing belonging to the Greek Cypriots in the Turkish occupied areas has been returned and no compensation was paid or offered in respect thereof.
• The seizure, appropriation, exploitation and distribution of land, houses, enterprises and industries belonging to Greek Cypriots.
• Thousands of Greek Cypriot civilians of all ages and both sexes are arbitrarily detained by the Turkish military authorities in the Turkish occupied areas under miserable conditions. For this purpose additional concentration camps were established. The situation of most of the detainees is desperate.
• Greek Cypriot detainees and inhabitants of the Turkish occupied areas, including children, women and elderly people continue to be the victims of systematic tortures and of other inhuman and degrading treatment, eg., wounding, beating, electric shocks, lack of food and medical treatment, etc.
• Forced labor. A great number of persons detained by the Turkish army, including women, were and still are made during their detention, to perform forced and compulsory labor.
• Wanton destruction of properties belonging to Greek Cypriots including religious items found in the Greek Orthodox Churches [Note: See additional details on church destruction and/or conversion to mosques below.]
• Forced expatriation of a number of Greek families in the Turkish occupied areas, to Turkey
• Separation of families. Many families are still separated as a result of some of the crimes described above, such as detention and forced eviction.

Observing that these atrocities, as enumerated above, “were all committed at a time when no military operations or any fighting whatsoever was taking place,” the report concluded, appositely:

The aforementioned atrocities and criminal acts were directed against Greek Cypriots because of their ethnic origin, race and religion. The object was to destroy and eradicate the Greek population of the Turkish occupied areas so as to move therein Turks, thus creating by artificial means a Turkish populated area in furtherance of Turkey’s policy for the formation of the so called “Turkish Cypriot Federated State.” In pursuance of this policy the members of the Turkish army who took part in the invasion (about 40,000) and their families have been recently declared as subjects of the illegally and unilaterally proclaimed “Turkish Cypriot Federated State”, i.e. the Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus, with the official blessing of Turkey and have occupied the properties, belonging to the Greek Cypriots.

Independent validation of this cultural jihad waged by Turkey’s Muslim invaders was published in a report by the United States Law Library of Congress entitled, “Cyprus: Destruction of Cultural Property in the Northern Part of Cyprus and Violations of International Law,” more than three decades later (April 2009), which confirmed the following:

• 500 Greek Orthodox churches and chapels have been pillaged, vandalized or demolished;
• 133 churches, chapels and monasteries have been desecrated;
• 77 churches have been turned into mosques, 28 are being used by the Turkish military forces as hospitals or camps and 13 are used as agricultural barns.

Almost 50 years ago now, the nonpareil scholar of Ottoman and Republican Turkey, Uriel Heyd, delivered a remarkably prescient March 1968 lecture (shortly before his untimely death, May 13, 1968), redolent with wisdom, and another quality almost entirely absent from our present era’s infinitely less informed “experts” on Turkey and Islam: self-critical humility, and the ability to express mea culpa. Taking his own measure, Heyd confessed – in 1968!

When Ataturk died in 1938, many people believed that he had not only succeeded in transforming Turkey into a modern secular state but that Islam was doomed as a vital force in Turkish social and cultural life. It soon, however, became manifest that this judgment was premature, if not altogether wrong … Until a few years ago many foreign observers, including, I admit, myself, were inclined to think that this development [Turkey’s re-Islamization] was no more than a renewed expression of sentiments which for a long time could not be freely manifested and that the overall process of secularization was going on very slowly but irresistibly. Today I doubt whether this view is still tenable.

Nearly a half century later, today’s far less astute “experts” on Turkey and Turkish Islam, etc., nonetheless, not only offer no apologies for their distressingly belated recognition of Turkey’s re-Islamization (if they recognize it at all), most remain in complete denial of its repeated manifestations, including the brutal 1974 jihad invasion and annexation of northern Cyprus, launched July 20, 1974.

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Andrew G. Bostom, M.D., M.S., is an associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, and the author of the highly acclaimed “The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims,” “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History” and his most recent book, “Iran’s Final Solution for Israel—The Legacy of Shi’ite Islamic Jew-Hatred in Iran.” Dr. Bostom has published numerous articles and commentaries on Islam in the New York Post, Washington Times, The New York Daily News, National Review Online, The American Thinker, Pajamas Media, FrontPage Magazine.com, Family Security Matters, and other print and online publications. More on Andrew Bostom’s work can be found at his website: http://www.andrewbostom.org.

Source: http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/not-so-fast-turkey-was-no-great-secular-state-before-erdogan/#