contents
The Erdogan regime is becoming increasingly authoritarian. With Celal Sengör, a world-renowned geologist is now in the pillory – because for him progenitor Abraham belongs in the realm of fairy tales.
“Darkness descends over the country”: This was the headline recently in the Turkish opposition newspaper “Cumhuriyet”. That’s no coincidence, because a cheerless summer is coming to an end in Turkey: concerts and festivals have been banned, writers and journalists have been imprisoned, and musicians are subject to censorship.
Now the world-renowned geologist Celal Sengör has fallen out of favor because of unpopular statements in a science program. It was about the excavations of Harran, an ancient site in today’s south-eastern Turkey, where the progenitor Abraham is said to have once lived.
The tale”
“It’s a fairy tale. There is no evidence that Abraham actually existed,” Sengör threw around. And that also applies to other figures from the holy scriptures of the three religions that spring from the Mesopotamian tradition: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Judaism, for example, refers to Moses as a prophet, but this man did not exist historically either.
The television station received a warning from the broadcasting supervisory authority and a fine for this heckling in the two-hour discussion program among academics. The state religious office sees the comment as a violation of Turkish theology, it was justified. Sengör himself was summoned by the public prosecutor’s office for publicly insulting religious values.
Gülsen’s joke
Such procedures are no longer rare in Turkey. Well-known pop singer Gülsen was recently arrested for making a joke about religious schools. The public prosecutor’s office has now brought charges and is asking for up to three years in prison. The public prosecutor’s office is investigating the international music platform Spotify because it is selling religiously objectionable titles.
Legend:
The singer Gülsen Colakoglu faces up to three prison terms after a “joke” about religious educational institutions. The trial is scheduled for October 21 in Istanbul. The 46-year-old said at a concert in April that a colleague’s “perversity” was due to his time at an Imam Hatip school. She was temporarily detained.
Keystone/AP
While Turkey has no religious police, a Turkish political scientist recently commented, its prosecutors are now playing a role similar to that in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Sengör defends himself – and reminds of Galileo and Darwin
Professor Sengör appeared for interrogation at Istanbul’s Palace of Justice this week. The public prosecutor had given him a deadline of ten days, otherwise he would be picked up by the police. In his defense speech, which his lawyer distributed to the press, the geologist pointed out that he had scientifically proven that the legend of the Deluge came from ancient Mesopotamian tales.
Legend:
The geologist Celal Sengör is said to have insulted religious values with statements about Abraham, the progenitor of three religions. Now he must expect that his scientific statement will be punished.
Wikimedia Commons
The authorities, on the other hand, base themselves on medieval views and make themselves look ridiculous, according to Sengör: “The broadcasting supervisory authority and the public prosecutor’s office brace themselves against science when they want to punish a scientific statement. They should remember how the Church condemned Galileo and Darwin and drop the case at once if they don’t want to go down in history the same way.”
If the public prosecutor’s office is not impressed by this warning and charges are filed, the scientist faces a year’s imprisonment for his comment on the history of religion.