Mehmet Loves Peace/ Baris
Mehmet Loves Peace/ Baris* !..
Freedom for Conscientious/Total Objector Mehmet Tarhan..!.
Mehmet Tahran, a gay and a conscientious/total objector in Turkey, was taken into custody by police on April 8, 2005, in Izmir where he went to work in a book fair. He was handed over to the recruiting office and then to a gendarmarie outpost. Because he continues his disobedience, he is now being kept in a cell in a military prison.
Mehmet Tahran is a gay and an anarchist, who declared his conscientious objection on October 27, 2001 in the Ankara Human Rights Association. “War is a crime against humanity. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war and to strive for the removal of all causes of war.” Since then, without hiding himself or his address, he has continued his civil disobedience against war and militarism. We are extremely concerned that Mehmet Tahran, who has previously declared that he would never serve the war-machine, including the compulsory military service, was taken into custody and has since been kept in a cell during such a tense period when racist and ultra-nationalist discourses are on the rise in Turkey.
Military Service in Turkey
There is compulsory military service in Turkey.
There is no right for conscientious objection. Because the objectors refuse to perform compulsory military service, their civil resistance is responded to with arrest and imprisonment. The Turkish Armed Forces see homosexuality as a disorder, removing gay officers from their officers and preparing reports on gay soldiers. Homosexuals who are labeled by a report entitled “Psycho-Sexual Disorder: Homosexuality” are subject to spiritual and material discrimination and their rights in social and professional life are violated. Among all NATO countries, only Turkey’s army sees homosexuality as a disorder. In Turkey, anarchists and Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to be recruited.
Militarist Culture in Turkey
There has always been sexism and homophobia in Turkey, a country with an all-pervading culture of masculinity and soldiery. Militarist organizations have always looked down on homosexuals, especially when it’s about military service, labeled them with filing systems, making their life unbearable. Military organization is defined as a state of grace, which a homosexual can never reach.
The fact that military institutions, as the fortresses of masculinity and militarism, exclude women and homosexual men, does not mean they cannot fight, or manage to be soldiers. The exclusion of women and homosexual men is a result of the ideology of masculinity. This ideology, and the military, one of the strongest institutions backing it, degrades the homosexual individual, attacks his soul and personality because they see homosexuals as nothing but “faggots”. Curse and despise.
Military psychiatry in Turkey provides a scientific basis for such an ideological approach to militarism. Military psychiatry in Turkey still refers to DSM II of the American Psychiatric Association. Thus, contrary to contemporary psychiatric literature, according to the military psychiatrist, homosexuality is a psycho-sexual pathology, Those who have this “pathologhy” will not be permitted to join the army, even when they wish to. If one is discovered to be a homosexual after his recruitment, the same approach applies. This time, the law of “unnatural sexual relations” is applicable.
Under this law, not only a soldier who has homosexual relations is discharged from the Turkish armed forces, but also the definition of this relationship is charged as being “unnatural”!
Nevertheless, the actual circumstances do not always conform to written rules. Those joining the army by hiding their homosexuality and those who are not gay but engage in same-sex intercourse in the army, are facts of life.
There are three approaches to these facts. To overlook, to neglect for the sake of protecting the honor of the unit, to exile these people to separate places, and label and discharge those defining themselves as homosexual. Of these approaches, which is to be taken depends on the situation, the location and the officers involved.
Freedom for Mehmet Tahran!
Gay and conscientious objector Mehmet Tahran has made clear in his public declaration that he would not by-pass the “conscription problem” through means of a “disabled” report that military psychiatrists would offer him because of his homosexuality. Conscientious objection should be a human right ! Stop custodies against conscientious objectors and free the objectors who are being held in military prison cells!
PRESS STATEMENT BY KAOS GL
* “Mehmet Loves Peace/Baris!”= A spontaneous slogan that came out from a “no war” meeting in Turkey. Anti-militarist heterosexuals use it with gay&lesbians. Peace/Baris both means “peace” and also a male name. Mehmet is a common male name and also an anonymous “soldier” name used in civilian and military arenas!
Freedom for Conscientious/Total Objector Mehmet Tarhan..!.
Mehmet Tahran, a gay and a conscientious/total objector in Turkey, was taken into custody by police on April 8, 2005, in Izmir where he went to work in a book fair. He was handed over to the recruiting office and then to a gendarmarie outpost. Because he continues his disobedience, he is now being kept in a cell in a military prison.
Mehmet Tahran is a gay and an anarchist, who declared his conscientious objection on October 27, 2001 in the Ankara Human Rights Association. “War is a crime against humanity. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war and to strive for the removal of all causes of war.” Since then, without hiding himself or his address, he has continued his civil disobedience against war and militarism. We are extremely concerned that Mehmet Tahran, who has previously declared that he would never serve the war-machine, including the compulsory military service, was taken into custody and has since been kept in a cell during such a tense period when racist and ultra-nationalist discourses are on the rise in Turkey.
Military Service in Turkey
There is compulsory military service in Turkey.
There is no right for conscientious objection. Because the objectors refuse to perform compulsory military service, their civil resistance is responded to with arrest and imprisonment. The Turkish Armed Forces see homosexuality as a disorder, removing gay officers from their officers and preparing reports on gay soldiers. Homosexuals who are labeled by a report entitled “Psycho-Sexual Disorder: Homosexuality” are subject to spiritual and material discrimination and their rights in social and professional life are violated. Among all NATO countries, only Turkey’s army sees homosexuality as a disorder. In Turkey, anarchists and Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to be recruited.
Militarist Culture in Turkey
There has always been sexism and homophobia in Turkey, a country with an all-pervading culture of masculinity and soldiery. Militarist organizations have always looked down on homosexuals, especially when it’s about military service, labeled them with filing systems, making their life unbearable. Military organization is defined as a state of grace, which a homosexual can never reach.
The fact that military institutions, as the fortresses of masculinity and militarism, exclude women and homosexual men, does not mean they cannot fight, or manage to be soldiers. The exclusion of women and homosexual men is a result of the ideology of masculinity. This ideology, and the military, one of the strongest institutions backing it, degrades the homosexual individual, attacks his soul and personality because they see homosexuals as nothing but “faggots”. Curse and despise.
Military psychiatry in Turkey provides a scientific basis for such an ideological approach to militarism. Military psychiatry in Turkey still refers to DSM II of the American Psychiatric Association. Thus, contrary to contemporary psychiatric literature, according to the military psychiatrist, homosexuality is a psycho-sexual pathology, Those who have this “pathologhy” will not be permitted to join the army, even when they wish to. If one is discovered to be a homosexual after his recruitment, the same approach applies. This time, the law of “unnatural sexual relations” is applicable.
Under this law, not only a soldier who has homosexual relations is discharged from the Turkish armed forces, but also the definition of this relationship is charged as being “unnatural”!
Nevertheless, the actual circumstances do not always conform to written rules. Those joining the army by hiding their homosexuality and those who are not gay but engage in same-sex intercourse in the army, are facts of life.
There are three approaches to these facts. To overlook, to neglect for the sake of protecting the honor of the unit, to exile these people to separate places, and label and discharge those defining themselves as homosexual. Of these approaches, which is to be taken depends on the situation, the location and the officers involved.
Freedom for Mehmet Tahran!
Gay and conscientious objector Mehmet Tahran has made clear in his public declaration that he would not by-pass the “conscription problem” through means of a “disabled” report that military psychiatrists would offer him because of his homosexuality. Conscientious objection should be a human right ! Stop custodies against conscientious objectors and free the objectors who are being held in military prison cells!
PRESS STATEMENT BY KAOS GL
* “Mehmet Loves Peace/Baris!”= A spontaneous slogan that came out from a “no war” meeting in Turkey. Anti-militarist heterosexuals use it with gay&lesbians. Peace/Baris both means “peace” and also a male name. Mehmet is a common male name and also an anonymous “soldier” name used in civilian and military arenas!
