Human rights in Turkey are still a disaster

You would think that in Turkey, things are civilized enough for a country of their sort, right? Not so according to this item by Steven Plaut on FPM, which talks about Tayyip Erdogan's sick assault on Israel at the UN:

Brutal force has been used against Kurdish separatists and other political groups. Indeed, the operations of the Turkish military against the Kurds make Israel's recent incursion into the Gaza Strip (in Operation "Cast Lead") look like a May Day picnic. Until 2003, it was forbidden to speak Kurdish on the radio or television; the Kurdish alphabet still cannot be used. The state of human rights in Turkey, according to numerous human rights NGOs, continues to be atrocious. Women in Turkey are mistreated; until very recently women students applying to universities had to pass a virginity test. The Turkish military police routinely kill civilians. Journalists have been assassinated.

One such reporter was an Armenian named Hrant Dink. If you're one of those who didn't know about this before, now you do - how a country once thought to be a decent tourist attraction is really a nightmare behind the scenes.

I think the time has come to stop paying money to Turkey's tourism, though I got a feeling that, with dictatorships making a comeback, that may be moot already. Turkey's future does not look bright.

Pig Farming In Turkey And Banning Pork In Baltimore, Maryland

First, about Turkey, the Islamic nation yearning for admission to the EU.

Excerpt from this BBC News article:

For more than 40 years [Lazari Kozmaoglu, possibly the last pork butcher in Istanbul] has been selling pork to his own fast-shrinking Christian community, to defiant Muslims, and to foreigners. Now, he is being squeezed out of business.

Lazari's being prevented from slaughtering pigs and the stock of meat in his freezer is running critically low.

He owns an abattoir but the Agriculture Ministry has refused him a license to operate it, saying it does not meet strict new regulations.

Curiously, all the other slaughter-houses that once dealt with pork have been closed too.

[...]

"The government doesn't announce out-loud that it has banned the pig farms," Zafer [said].

"But at the end of the day, that's what's happened here. They're trying to send a message to their religious constituents," he said.

Back in Istanbul, the local agriculture ministry man denied the situation's anything to do with Islam.

He insists the regulations were introduced to bring Turkey up to European standards.

"We've got no problem with pork," Ahmet Kavak [said]...

Maybe the EU will swallow that taqiyya. I won't.

Meanwhile, right here in the United States, the Beasleys of Baltimore ran into a problem with getting a loan for a Church's Chicken franchise. Why? Because the Beasleys wanted to serve pork for breakfast. See "Shari'ah Law and Church's Chicken" over at THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS for the details.

Could we see a ban on pig farming in the United States? If shari'ah finance controls agricultural loans, yes.

Breakfast just won't be the same for me.