#Istanbul University Press

[younes-ben-amara]

الإلهام والموهبة في الأعمال الفنية لا حقيقة لهما: إِنْ هما إلا عمل مستمر ومواظبة وصبرٌ جميلٌ

ما هذه المجموعة من المختارات تسألني؟ إنّها عددٌ من أعداد نشرة “صيد الشابكة” اِعرف أكثر عن النشرة هنا: ما هي نشرة “صيد الشابكة” ما مصادرها، وما غرضها؛ وما معنى الشابكة أصلًا؟! 🎣🌐هل تعرف ما هي صيد الشابكة وتطالعها بانتظام؟ اِدعم استمرارية النشرة بطرق شتى من هنا: 💲 طرق دعم نشرة صيد الشابكة. 🎣🌐 صيد الشابكة العدد #158 ال��لام عليكم؛ مرحبًا وبسم الله؛ بخصوص العنوان فستجده في قسمه المعنيّ به أدناه. 🎣🌐…

[metamorphesque]

<<Your Excellency, Mr. Minister, At this moment, as discussions are underway regarding the deportation of Armenians, I notice that there is a tendency to primarily attribute the blame to the governors-general and chiefs. I have the honor to bring to Your Excellency's attention the atrocities committed in the name of science... In December 1915, in Yerznka, under the orders of Tevfik Salim, the chief physician of the 3rd Army Corps, the contaminated blood taken from patients with spotted typhus was used as a vaccine on innocent Armenians condemned to exile without "activation." Such experiments are typically conducted on specific laboratory animals. As a consequence of those actions, many of the individuals subjected to the experiment became ill and died. Prior to the vaccination, they were deceived, being told that the vaccinations were administered as a preventive measure against typhus. The organizer of these experiments, Hamdi Suad, a professor of pathological anatomy at the Ottoman Medical University, published the results of his research in the pages of the "Medical-Military Newspaper of Constantinople," announcing that they were applied to those sentenced to death. However, I, your humble servant, witnessed everything and can attest that the subjects of the professor's deadly experiments had no other crime than being Armenian. These facts can be corroborated by Dr. Refet Bey, the chief physician of Yerznka Central Hospital, two Armenian doctors who worked with him, as well as Dr. Selaheddin Bey, the chief physician of the Yerznka Red Cross. Therefore, I, your humble servant, declare that in addition to political crimes, scientific crimes were also committed, about which I am prepared to provide full explanations.>>

Published in the "Türkçe İstanbul" newspaper on December 23, 1918, the author of the letter is the Turkish doctor-surgeon Haydar Jemal; let's not forget this name. He addressed the letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkey.

In the issue of the same newspaper on December 24, 1918, that is, the following day, another Turkish doctor, Selaheddin, wrote the following (let's remember him with kind words):

<<Yesterday, I was cited as a direct witness of several events in the open letter of surgeon Haydar Jemal addressed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Being aware of what transpired in Yerznka Central Hospital, I consider it a matter of conscience to elucidate this matter. In 1915, numerous Armenians who struggled to conceal themselves in Yerznka were chosen and treated as experimental subjects in the city's central hospital, subjected to microbiological experiments typically conducted on guinea pigs and rabbits. This is how numerous Armenians perished...>>

Here is also a third letter written by the same doctor, Selaheddin, but printed in another newspaper, "Alemdar", on January 8, 1919. Let's reflect on his name once more, with kindness in our hearts.

<<If we acknowledge that the government of the "Union and Progress" (let's also include Germany) never valued conscience, morality, honor, and all sacred values, one can easily grasp the guiding principle that led to inflicting so much suffering on Armenians. At that time, no one demanded accountability for the atrocities committed, and many believed that all of it would go unpunished. It was this mindset that led to such experiments with the spotted typhus vaccine being conducted in Yerznka... We possess ample evidence to substantiate the accusations we've made. It's noteworthy that despite the numerous speeches delivered, I refrained from publishing anything on this matter, while uninformed doctors surfaced in the press to deny rightful accusations. This circumstance compelled me to take up the pen. It's important to note that these individuals, who seek attention, are pandering to the crowd and resorting to sensational measures. If informed and authoritative figures take charge of this matter, justice will prevail. And in this case, there are also culprits involved in matters of deportation, pogroms, and plunder. Our doctors need not worry. The perpetrators have been identified. If there are those who wish to shield criminals, let them await the return of the government of the "Union and Progress" party. The truth will be established not through the publication of newspaper articles, but in the courtroom.>>

"A Shirt Made of Fire", Vardges Petrosyan (translated by metamorphesque)

All the names mentioned in the translated section are of real people. Similarly, the events described are based on real occurrences.

[mariacallous]

On April 25, 1974, a left-leaning military coup overthrew Portugal’s 48-year dictatorship. The uprising, known as the Carnation Revolution, represented the country’s pivot to democracy after decades under António Salazar’s oppressive rule and a boost for women’s rights. In 1976, a new constitution afforded equal rights to men and women. More recently, in 2011, Portugal signed the Istanbul Convention, a treaty addressing violence against women and domestic violence; it was ratified in 2013. But as is often the case with gender, Portugal’s laws and norms do not sync up. “Some things are the same as they were before the 25th of April,” journalist Fernanda Câncio said. “Machismo is one of them.”

As a Portuguese American woman, I’ve rubbed against that machismo for as long as I can remember. During a visit to Lisbon last summer, I was reminded yet again of the country’s confining gender roles as I hosted a visiting American. During lunch one day, an older friend described the ex-girlfriend of a mutual acquaintance, saying, “Ela é muito atrevida.” The American, who didn’t speak Portuguese but had a keen ear for gossip, asked what was said. Here I fumbled: The direct translation is, “She’s very sassy,” but “precocious,” “bold,” and “cheeky” were also trotted out. Though all are technically correct, they missed the point. Finally, I offered “boundary-pushing,” but even then my translation failed.

Part of the problem is that atrevida means something different when applied to a woman than a man. For a man, as with the word’s English counterparts, the gendered atrevido easily serves as a compliment. But any Portuguese speaker would have known the comment at lunch was not kindly meant. The woman we were discussing, my friend had intimated, was a troublemaker who pushed against norms, perhaps even for pleasure. As such, she is best avoided.

I asked Anália Torres, a sociologist at the University of Lisbon and the director of its Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies, to articulate my misgivings. “The word atrevida for a woman is not positive,” she said. “It is different when applied to a man. For a woman, you’re implying that she is too forward, that she has a flirty personality. It means she says things that are a little provocative, in the sense that she is offering herself. It has a sexual implication.” For a man, Torres said, “it is not negative. It can mean he says things that are provocative but he is amusing. It implies he is bold, has a sense of humor, and is open.”

In considering the negative connotations of atrevida, and especially its sexual dimensions, I wondered if concern over the label might help explain why the #MeToo movement has floundered in Portugal. Since the movement took off seven years ago, very few Portuguese women have put their names on sexual harassment allegations that detail abusive acts while naming the perpetrators outright.

Perhaps because of this, few investigations have run in the Portuguese press. While one could assume there aren’t many #MeToo stories to report—as a Portuguese man suggested to me—a host of anonymous complaints have surfaced that suggest otherwise. In fact, Câncio said, she was recently investigating sexual harassment claims against a famous media personality. Despite looking into credible allegations for months, she gave up on the story when none of the five women interviewed were willing to go on the record. “If I didn’t,” she said, “I’d be at risk of defamation.” The reason for their silence? Fear.

Last spring, Câncio helped break Portugal’s most significant #MeToo story yet with an article that named Boaventura de Sousa Santos as the professor accused of sexual harassment by anonymous former students at the prestigious University of Coimbra. Santos admitted to Câncio that he had been accused but said the allegations had no merit. Days later, two other women—one from Brazil and one from Argentina—went on the record and shared their stories in detail. No Portuguese women joined them in speaking out with specifics. (This year, the university released a report on its investigation into allegations within the department where Santos served as director emeritus.)

In my own #MeToo reporting in the United States, I’ve also encountered reluctance from women when it comes time to go public. But the explanations I’ve received pertain mostly to concerns of professional blacklisting or legal jeopardy. While the process is not simple, I never felt that any woman was concerned with being thought of as atrevida in the Portuguese sense. I have spoken to well over 100 women, and societal perceptions were not raised. That is not the case for Câncio. “Of course I think women are worried about how they’re going to be perceived by society,” she said. “They don’t want to be talked about.”

She understands their reluctance. For 36 years, Câncio has reported on gender issues in Portugal, and she believes that women’s silence around #MeToo reflects their standing within the country. “The feminist movement never really took off here,” she said, “especially compared to what’s happened elsewhere in Western Europe or even right next door in Spain.”

One reason for the lag may relate to Salazarism, which, until the 1974 revolution, was enshrined in the nation’s laws. Anne Cova, who, along with António Costa Pinto, co-wrote the chapter “Women and Salazarism” in Political and Historical Encyclopedia of Women, explained that the ideology is based on the motto “Deus, pátria e família” (God, Fatherland, and Family). Women, she and Pinto wrote, had limited freedoms when Salazar was in power, and only a few—such as widows and heads of family—had suffrage. Married women, Cova wrote in an email, were especially powerless and were “prohibited from working in the judiciary, in diplomacy, and in public administration.”

According to the European Institute for Gender Equality’s 2023 Gender Equality Index, Portugal still ranks below the average European Union member state. A separate 2014 survey, conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, found that from the age of 15 onward, 24 percent of women in Portugal experienced physical and/or sexual violence, and 9 percent reported stalking.

In 2017, the same year #MeToo took off in the United States, a different story made headlines in Portugal. That year, a male and female judge in an appeals court in Porto, the country’s second-largest city, upheld a light sentence—15 months of suspended jail time and a fine—for an assailant who violently beat his ex-wife with a nail-spiked club. The Washington Post reported that he coordinated with the woman’s former lover, who kidnapped and held her down during the attack. In their ruling, the judges wrote, “Adultery by a woman is a very serious attack on a man’s honor and dignity,” adding that “society has always strongly condemned adultery by a woman and therefore sees the violence by a betrayed, vexed, and humiliated man with some understanding.” Reuters, which also reported on the case, provided context: “Ultra-orthodox patriarchy—one of the cornerstones of the fascist dictatorship of Antonio Salazar up until the 1974 revolution—still survives in parts of Portugal.”

Fifty years have passed since the Carnation Revolution and seven since #MeToo forced an international reckoning on the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the workplace. To ensure that the goals of Portugal’s democratic revolution come closer to actualization, perhaps it is time for atrevida to finally serve as a compliment, just as it does for men in Portugal. After all, change requires boldness, and it won’t come for Portuguese women until the descriptor is embraced.

[inkbirdie]

Help Palestinian Families Without Donating!

If you’re unable to donate and looking for a way to help Palestinians, I cannot recommend Artist Antics enough (@artistanticsllc) on TikTok and YouTube. Amanda is a soap maker raising money for three Palestinian families (listed below) and donating all of the profits from social media. All you have to do is watch a short video, comment (over nine words on YT for engagement), like, and press the copy link button. What I do is leave muted videos on repeat on a device I’m not using all day and overnight. This way, you get to support these families while watching cool soaps being made. There are also incentives for when we meet donation goals with sales on soaps and a chance to get your soap design made. 

The families:

Nagham is a 19-year old college student still trapped in Gaza with her family. They need funds to be able to evacuate once the borders open. Until then, they need support to afford to survive. In Gaza now, a carton of eggs can cost $70. Tents cost $1,000, and Nagham’s family’s tents have been destroyed by bombardment multiple times. They had to create a new link for their fundraiser recently and lost their progress. The family, including 8 adults and 2 babies, is now in Rafah. Nagham also needs money for her and her sisters’ educations and to rebuild their home after they evacuate. 

Abdulla was studying to be a doctor at the University of Gaza and has now evacuated with his family. He and his sisters need donations to survive and finish school. He was collecting donations for his father Walid’s cancer treatment, but he sadly passed away last month after a long and difficult battle. Walid was a doctor and their hope for income after evacuating, so now Abdulla needs more help than ever to continue his studying to support his family. This fundraiser was removed by GoFundMe, so they lost all of their progress. Incentives by Amanda from Artist Antics support this campaign. 

https://gofund.me/2a3cd494

Asma and Mohammed: This young couple was separated for almost a year and unable to reunite until they raised enough money. Though they were both able to evacuate to Egypt and Turkey, they could not reach each other. They lost everything, including their home and business in the bombing, and Asma’s sister and grandfather were martyred. Now they are getting married and need funds to rebuild their bakery and rent a house in Istanbul. 

Please help to support these families by following Artist Antics on all platforms and engaging with all of their videos as much as possible. Share with family and friends as well. If you want to donate and only have a dollar, send it to Amanda on Venmo. They donate everything they receive there as a lump sum. 

All fundraisers are verified and completely legitimate. Updates are posted on Artist Antics’ platforms.

https://www.instagram.com/artisticanticsllc/

[n0thingiscool]

This article is infuriating.

So they just "reprimanded" him. Oh, and also he killed Israeli hostages...

Interesting how the leadership in the IDF are burning houses and blowing universities up without asking. And then Israel only reprimands them. Also interesting how stories like this don't make it into the US news stream.

"The Israeli army on Monday officially reprimanded its brigadier general for blowing up Al-Isra University in the northern Gaza Strip without prior approval from his superiors.

On Brigadier General Barak Hiram's orders, Israeli forces blew up Al-Isra University on Jan. 18, which they had used as a military headquarters prior to its demolition.

Major General Yaron Finkelman, the Southern Region Commander of the Israeli Army, conducted a thorough investigation and presented the findings to Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, the Israeli army said in a statement on Monday.

The statement alleged that Hamas used the university building and its surroundings to attack Israeli forces, and the demolition was deemed illegal without the required permits.

According to the statement, the commander of the 99th Division, Hiram, has been officially reprimanded.

The Times of Israel reported on Monday that Hiram ordered a tank strike on a house in the Be'er settlement on Oct. 7, which probably resulted in the deaths of some Israeli hostages.

On Feb. 1, Haaretz reported that Israeli commanders had instructed soldiers to burn houses in Gaza without legal authorization."

The government press office in Gaza reported on Feb. 7 that Israeli forces had burned 3,000 homes.

*Writing by Gizem Nisa Cebi in Istanbul"

[beardedmrbean]

It seems a long way from the misery of Gaza's shattered buildings. Situated a short walk from the Golden Horn, an estuary of the Bosphorus in bustling Istanbul, AG Plaza boasts terraces, pools and commercial space, and is designed to attract tech companies that want to benefit from the city's Commerce University campus.

Yet the two places are indeed linked. The glistening project in Turkey's cultural capital was built by a company controlled by what the U.S. Treasury Department describes as "Hamas elements."

The AG Plaza in Istanbul is just one example of how, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, It reveals extensive new links between companies and individuals that the U.S. says are funding Hamas operations.

By examining business records and cross-referencing them with the sanctions lists, Newsweek's investigation shows how Hamas is using some of its key personnel to set up such companies around the Middle East and elsewhere to run its financial empire—often in places where, one expert said, it may find tacit approval for such operations. They include businesses in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, and may even reveal how the group is expanding into Western Europe.

It also illustrates that while the unprecedented aerial and ground assault on Gaza, which Israel says is necessary to ensure Hamas' destruction, may paralyze the militant group there, it seems unlikely to stop the flow of funds from abroad.

This task—cutting off Hamas funding at source—appears to have become an urgent priority for the Biden administration, which on January 5 announced it is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that could dismantle the group's economic foundations.

The Rewards for Justice Program aims to disrupt the broader network that sustains Hamas, including targeting any source of revenue, major donors, financial facilitators and financial institutions that facilitate transactions for the group.

The program also focuses on businesses or investments owned or controlled by Hamas or its financiers, as well as front companies engaged in procuring dual-use technology and criminal schemes that financially benefit the organization.

The program reflects the difficulty of targeting such funding. Hamas' web of interconnected companies, which has also enriched senior Hamas figures to a degree unimaginable for the ordinary people of Gaza, is remarkable in its size and complexity.

Newsweek found that one Yemeni business administrator is the joint owner of Hamas' UAE property company, which owned an office block worth $150 million; is the co-founder of a Hamas-linked, publicly traded Turkish construction company; owns 20 percent of a Hamas front company in Saudi Arabia; and is on the board of another Hamas-linked Sudanese company. Separately, company records show an accountant from the West Bank is central to four major construction and real estate companies in three countries: Turkey, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

The network appears to be growing. A wealthy Sudanese businessman who had close ties to Osama bin Laden, the late Al-Qaeda leader, and who is described by the U.S. Treasury Department as a "Hamas financier," set up a Hamas-linked company in Spain last December, corporate filings show.

In a press release on May 24, 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department estimated that the Hamas-linked construction empire was worth $500 million in total and said that a publicly traded Turkish company—the same company that developed the AG Plaza in Istanbul—was 75 percent-owned by Hamas-connected members in 2018. It alleged that the same company planned to secret away $15 million in shares for senior Hamas figures that same year.

The U.S. placed companies and executives on its Hamas sanctions list in 2022 and during three rounds of sanctions imposed on Hamas after the October 7 attack on Israel. That attack killed around 1,200 people, and militants took some 250 others hostage, the Associated Press reported. As of January 9, 2024, Israel's air, ground and sea assault in Gaza had killed more than 22,400 people, two-thirds of them women and children, the AP said, citing the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. The offensive has devastated large parts of the Gaza Strip, displaced nearly 85 percent of its population of 2.3 million, and left a quarter of its residents facing starvation, according to the United Nations.

"In addition to the funds Hamas receives from Iran, its global portfolio of investments generates vast sums of revenue through its assets, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with companies operating in Sudan, Algeria, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries," the U.S. Treasury said in a statement when it updated its Hamas sanctions list on October 18, 2023.

"The companies in Hamas' portfolio have operated under the guise of legitimate businesses and their representatives have attempted to conceal Hamas' control over their assets.

"This investment network is directed by the highest levels of Hamas leadership and has allowed Hamas senior officials to live in luxury while ordinary Palestinians in Gaza struggle in harsh living and economic conditions."

The Israeli government also says that construction companies are a vital part of the Hamas finance model and has mirrored the U.S. sanctions list. In an online statement on October 29, the Israeli embassy in the U.S. said that Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chair of the Hamas Political Bureau, was worth $3 billion, while senior leaders Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh were each worth about $4 billion.

The reason that Hamas has turned to property is clear, experts say. Stephen Reimer, a senior research fellow at the U.K.'s Royal United Services Institute, told Newsweek that "building and then selling real estate is a handy way for Hamas to obfuscate its funds."

Reimer, an expert in terrorism financing at RUSI's Center for Financial Crime & Security Studies, said that "financial crime regulation of the construction, property development and real estate industries is fairly weak globally," meaning that Hamas-connected developers "can put funds into building apartments and then selling units to buyers, who would have no way of knowing the provenance of the funds that went into building their home."

In other words, ordinary homeowners are unaware that their purchases have helped to fuel the growth of a militant organization responsible for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Turkey

On the surface, Hisham Younis Yahya Qafisheh's resume makes him an unlikely plutocrat, let alone militant "element." Born on September 1, 1956, in Hebron in what was then Jordan and which would later become the West Bank, he graduated in accounting from King Abdulaziz University, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1978. He started his business life as an accountant in the branch of a French company in Saudi Arabia and worked as a finance manager at the Dar Al Eiman hotel company in Jeddah between 1987 and 2005. Arabic is his native language, and he speaks English.

Yet this CV, included in documents that the Turkish company Trend GYO submitted to the Turkish Department of Finance in 2018 as part of its public offering requirements, does not highlight two crucial parts of his life story.

First, the Ticaret Sicil Gazetesi trade registry publication in Turkey printed a notice on March 25, 2021, which corrected Qafisheh's personal data. He had assumed a new Turkish name and obtained Turkish citizenship. This could help him to avoid scrutiny and travel more easily.

Second, according to a U.S. Treasury statement when it placed Qafisheh on its sanction list the following year, he served as deputy head of Hamas' investment office and has played an important role in "transferring funds on behalf of various companies linked to Hamas' investment portfolio." It had been investigating his involvement in Hamas-linked companies in three countries.

"Qafisheh was involved in managing the operations or held key roles in several companies controlled by Hamas," the Treasury Department added.

One of those is the fashionable-sounding Trend GYO, which advertises plush, middle-class apartment blocks and business plazas in its Turkish brochures and website. The company has also set up a Trend REIT, or real estate investment trust, for investors who want to buy into its property developments.

Turkish business records reviewed by Newsweek show that, as of September 2023, Trend is 55 percent publicly traded, meaning it raises money from the public and investors.

According to its own records, Trend GYO has completed 12 major projects throughout Turkey, including AG Plaza at Istanbul Commerce University, one of its most recently completed and largest projects, and a series of apartment blocks in the city of Bursa in northern Turkey that include the Anda Park Sultanbeyli, Anda Park Ertuğrul, Anda Park Özlüce, Anda Park Balat-1, Anda Park Balat-2 and Anda Park Millet projects.

In total, the company says it has built over 500,500 square feet of business and residences over the past 16 years.

Among Trend GYO's six upmarket residential blocks in Bursa is "Trend Boulevard," which the company is encouraging investors to buy into through its investment trust. The 34-unit apartment complex Andapark Ertuğrul offers "the key to a peaceful life with its modern architecture and a green field" in "the most modern district of Bursa," the advertising states. Behind this glossy façade lies a truth that it does not want to advertise.

"As of 2018, Hamas elements held about 75 percent of the issued capital at Turkey-based company Trend GYO. Additionally, Hamas planned to privately issue more than $15 million of Trend GYO's shares to senior officials in the investment portfolio," the U.S. Treasury Department said when it placed Trend GYO on its sanctions list in May 2022.

Corporate governance filings reviewed by Newsweek show that Qafisheh, the accountant who now has Turkish citizenship, had 13 percent of the shares; a billionaire Yemense businessman and politician, Hamid Abdullah Hussein Al-Ahmar, had 17 percent; and the company's deputy chairman, Yemeni national Sahel Mabrouk O. Mangoush, had 30 percent.

Qafisheh is the most significant and is instrumental in both running Hamas-linked construction companies in the Middle East and transferring their funds to Hamas, the U.S. Treasury Department says.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, among those helping to disguise Hamas involvement in Trend GYO is Musa Dudin, a former suicide-bomb coordinator with close links to the Hamas leadership in Gaza. Dudin was jailed for life but was released in 2011 as part of an Israeli exchange of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The U.S. Treasury Department said that Dudin was trying to cover up Hamas involvement in the company by transferring shares to other people.

"Musa Muhammad Salim Dudin is a West Bank-based member of Hamas' Political Bureau and Investment Office official and is responsible for negotiations to free Hamas members in prison. Dudin has publicly represented and spoken on behalf of the terrorist organization," it said in a press release to announce its sanctions against Dudin and other Trend GYO-linked officials on October 18, 2023.

It said that "Dudin attempted to obfuscate Trend GYO's continued affiliation with Hamas by transferring ownership to other parties. Dudin has also worked directly with designated Hamas senior leader Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar. Additionally, Dudin has previously received tens of thousands of dollars from Political Bureau Deputy Chief Salih Al-Aruri. Dudin has used these funds to purchase a variety of weapons for Hamas that were subsequently used in deadly terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of Israeli soldiers." The U.S. placed Sinwar on its sanctions list on August 27, 2015, and Al-Arouri on September 10, 2015. Al-Arouri was assassinated in an alleged drone attack in Beirut on January 2.

In May 2022, Trend GYO was placed on the U.S. sanctions list by the Treasury Department, which listed the company "as part of Hamas' investment portfolio" and "a key component of Hamas' global asset holdings which had previously been estimated to be worth over $500 million."

Although the then chairman, Hamid Al-Ahmar, is not on the U.S. sanctions list, Trend GYO's public offering documents in 2018 state that he is chair of Al-Quds International Foundation, a Lebanese organization that is on the U.S. sanctions list as a Hamas front. Al-Ahmar has frequently spoken about his support for Hamas.

There is evidence of major changes in share ownership from Trend's filings with the Turkish Department of Finance. Trend's latest corporate accounts, filed for September 30, 2023, and reviewed by Newsweek, show that 55.4 percent of the company is publicly owned, compared with 45.74 percent at the end of 2022. The largest private shareholder is Alaeddin Senguler, with 22.19 percent of the company; followed by Arwa Saleh M. Mangoush with 12.07 percent; and Gulsah Yigidoglu with 10.34 percent. All three were placed on the sanctions list in November for "having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support" to Hamas.

One of the three, Arwa Mangoush, a 37-year-old Saudi national, was born in Jeddah and is a female relative of Trend's co-founder Saleh Mangoush, who transferred all his shares to her.

According to Trend GYO public offering documents at the Turkish Department of Finance, Saleh Mangoush was born on November 28, 1957, in Hadhramaut in eastern Yemen. Like Qafisheh, he studied at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, having graduated from the Faculty of Business Administration in 1983. He started work life as a cashier at Al Ahli bank in Saudi Arabia in 1979, moving up to be the general manager's special secretary, a position he kept until 2004. His native language is Arabic and he speaks English fluently, the document states.

According to Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt, who has investigated Trend GYO for the Swedish news website the Nordic Monitor, the company is both hiding money for Hamas and generating income for its operations.

"The reviews I have conducted so far definitely indicate both. The company develops real estate which is a very lucrative market to make money in Turkey. Its shares are partly traded in the stock exchange so it raises money from the public and investors as well," he said.

For Nicholas Ryder, a law professor and terrorism financing expert at Cardiff University in the U.K., Hamas' use of property companies fits a pattern.

"Property companies could prove to be a useful funding mechanism because the global property market has proven to be a safe investment for both terrorist groups and organized criminal gangs. Additionally, the property sector, via mortgage fraud, has also been used to finance acts of terrorism and there have been several related terrorist financing convictions in America," he told Newsweek.

Newsweek sought email and phone comment from Trend GYO on November 21 and December 1 and email comment from Saleh Mangoush and Hisham Qafisheh on December 18.

Trend GYO has previously denied supporting Hamas or any other organization, saying it is "impossible for it do so." It said it was established with foreign capital and is a profit-oriented institution subject to regular audit by Turkey's Capital Markets Board that acts in accordance with the principle of transparency.

United Arab Emirates

UAE business records reveal that Saleh Mangoush, Trend's co-founder, set up Itqan Real Estate JSC, in Sharjah, the country's third most-populous city, in 2004. The company is listed as being involved in construction and design. It owned UAE office blocks worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

2022 corporate records reviewed by Newsweek show that Saudi national Mangoush, who is listed as "general manager," owns 49 percent of the company. This is consistent with UAE rules that, until recently, stipulated that all companies must be 51 percent owned by UAE citizens, who receive a monthly payment and may have no connection to the day-to-day running of a company. Itqan was "among several commercial companies controlled by Hamas' covert investment portfolio," according to the U.S. Treasury sanctions list statement in May 2022.

"In mid-2019, Hamas investment portfolio managers considered selling one of Itqan's highest-value assets, valued at $150 million," it added. That asset is believed to be a UAE office block the company purchased, although the details are not listed by the U.S. Treasury Department.

However, while Itqan was a major concern on the Sharjah property market for years, there may have been a crackdown. After Itqan was listed on the U.S. sanctions list, it was listed as "inactive" on company records. Newsweek attempted phone and email contact with Itqan Real Estate JSC on November 21 and December 18. The Itqan phone number no longer appears to be working and the emails bounced. Its website also appears to have been removed.

The UAE government, which called the October 7 attack on Israel a "serious and grave escalation" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has taken a much tougher view of Hamas than the Turkish government. The UAE launched a major crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood after the 2011 Arab Spring and placed 94 alleged members of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group on trial in 2013.

Saudi Arabia

According to the Trend GYO public offering documents, Saleh Mangoush, founder of both Trend in Turkey and Itqan in the UAE, is also founder of Anda Company.

Mangoush said in the 2018 Trend public offering documents that he owns 20 percent of Anda Company and is its general manager. He also lists several other Saudi companies he founded, including one with interests in gold and jewelry, hotel management, packaging, car spare parts and contracting.

The U.S. Treasury Department said that Anda is "among Hamas' larger investments in real estate and construction." Anda was placed on the U.S. sanctions list in May 2022. It also said that Anda Company was managed by Mangoush's fellow Trend GYO board member, the accountant Hisham Qafisheh. Newsweek sought email comment from Anda Company and Saleh Mangoush on November 22 and December 18.

Sudan

Sudan-based multimillionaire and Hamas financier Abdelbasit Hamza Elhassan Mohamed Khair "has longstanding ties to terrorism financing, including historic ties to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden-linked companies in Sudan," according to a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department when it placed Khair on its sanctions list on October 18, 2023. He is the CEO and owner of Sudan-based company Zawaya Group, which was also placed on the U.S. sanctions list on October 18.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Kahir also owns the Western-sounding Larrycom Investment Company, a Sudanese firm in which Hamza is a top executive. Zawaya Group and Larrycom were also put on the U.S. sanctions list on October 18.

Qafisheh, the former chair of Trend GYO, is also heavily involved in the Sudan operations. In Trend GYO's 2018 public offering documents, Qafisheh states that he began investing in Sudan in 2000 and, from 2010 onwards, has been on the board of two of Khair's Khartoum companies: Agrogate Holding, an infrastructure and mining company, and Al Ruwad Real Estate Company, both of which were placed on the sanctions list in November 2023.

In his submission, Qafisheh told the Turkish Department of Finance that Ruwad started real estate investments in Turkey in 2006, using a partnership. The document said that, through Ruwad, Qafisheh took part in "the feasibility and construction of many residences, offices and commercial buildings in Turkey." In 2014, he became the chairman and remained in that position in 2018, the document said.

Through its sanctions list statement, the U.S. Treasury Department confirmed Qafisheh's claim that he is on the board of Agrogate Holding and Chairman of Ruwad.

Qafisheh "interviewed and hired candidates for Agrogate leadership and had a direct line of communication to the company board of directors," according to the statement. Agrogate has been a major player in the Sudanese construction business for over a decade. In 2009, Zawaya Group was awarded a Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) contract for the Dongola Argeen Highway Project, a 40-year plan to build a 223-mile highway connecting Sudan and Egypt, at an estimated cost of $500 million. Zawaya Group established Agrogate Holding to carry out the project.

Ruwad was established in 2010 by merging several Hamas companies based in Sudan, the U.S. Treasury Department said. Qafisheh "made hiring and firing decisions at Al Rowad and was also involved in the company's financial dealings," it said.

Newsweek sought email comment from Larrycom; Zawaya Group; Agrogate Holding; and Ruwad on November 18 and December 1.

Spain

Spain is at the center of what may be a bold development in the Hamas financing strategy. Osama bin Laden's friend, Abdelbasit Khair, is the CEO of Spanish company Zawaya Group for Development Investment Sociedad Limitada, which was placed on the U.S. sanctions list on October 18. There is evidence that Hamas' decision to move to western European companies is a new development, possibly enabling it to avoid detection in the Middle East.

Spanish company records reviewed by Newsweek show that the Spanish Zawaya Group was established in Valencia, Spain, on December 19, 2022. The company's financial reports are not yet available. Newsweek sought email comment from Zawaya Group on December 1 and December 15.

Algeria

The U.S. also links Hamas to Sidar Company, which was established in Algeria in 1998, according to company records reviewed by Newsweek. The company works in construction and is headquartered in Algiers. "Sidar Company, Anda Company, and Agrogate Holding were among Hamas' larger investments in real estate and construction. Hamas Investment Office leadership actively managed Sidar Company, a real estate development company," the U.S. Treasury Department said.

Perhaps reflecting the covert nature of the company's finances, Sidar's financial records do not appear to match the U.S. claim that it was among Hamas' larger real estate and construction investments. Company records show it is listed as having four employees with 2022 revenue of 106,414,226 Algerian dinar, equivalent to $790,504. Newsweek sought email comment from Sidar Company, and from two of its company managers, on December 1 and December 15.

'Tacit Support'

Despite the complex nature of the Hamas-linked businesses, the roots of the network lie in support for the organization globally, or support for the Palestinian cause in general. Timothy Wittig, author of Understanding Terrorist Finance and a fellow at Oxford University, told Newsweek that Hamas has sought out countries where it knows its property companies will have support in the business community.

He said it was common in terrorism financing for "sympathetic businesspeople and political and community leaders to align efforts to provide mutually beneficial financial support to 'the cause.'"

"This has long been true for the Islamist movement and Muslim Brotherhood, where there is an appealing quid pro quo offering blacklisted groups a financial lifeline and their business partners a privileged position in peripheral yet lucrative markets," he said.

Wittig said that Hamas' financial success in some countries "may be an indicator of tacit and indirect state support."

"It's a way to financially support Hamas without doing so directly—which would have more international political costs due to the sanctions," he said. "By allowing Hamas to do business in your country, governments can have their cake and eat it too."

[ejb59195]

Works Cited

¹ Çelebi, E. (17th century). Seyahatname. [Book of Travel].

² Krautheimer, R. (1986). Hagia Sophia: A History. Princeton University Press.

³ Hagia Sophia Research Team (n.d.). Hagia Sophia. [Photograph of Hagia Sophia exterior]. Harvard University. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/sites/projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/styles/os_files_xxlarge/public/whoseculture/files/hagia_sophia_exterior.jpg?m=1607399097&itok=xge9nGpj

⁴ Peyssonnel, C. de. (2011). The Ottoman Empire in the 18th century: An account by Charles de Peyssonnel. (R. Dankoff, Trans.). Istanbul: The Isis Press. (Original work published 1791)

⁵ Wohl, S. (2017). The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul: The Emergent Unfolding of A Complex Adaptive System. Delft Technical University and Iowa State University. https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f478ee3b-4098-4630-996b-024d6eefca01/content

⁶ Sèbah, J. P. (1890). Istanbul Grand Bazaar. [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Istanbul-Grand_Bazaar_Sebah.jpg

⁷ Zelazko, A. (2024). Topkapı Palace Museum. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Topkapi-Palace-Museum

⁸ Crocker, S. (2021). What life was like as a member of the sultan’s harem in the Ottoman Empire. Grunge. https://www.grunge.com/337783/what-life-was-like-as-a-member-of-the-sultans-harem-in-the-ottoman-empire/

⁹ Britannica. (n.d.). Third courtyard. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Topkapi-Palace-Museum/Third-courtyard

¹⁰ William J. Bowe, (n.d.). Topkapı Palace Museum. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://cdn.britannica.com/86/148586-004-9ADEC63B/Topkapi-Palace-Istanbul-Turkey.jpg?s=1500x700&q=85

¹¹ Field, J. F. (2023, July 6). Süleymaniye Mosque. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Suleymaniye-Mosque

¹² Sinan, M. (2017). The Book of Architecture of Sinan, the Chief Architect (H. Crane & E. Akin-Kivanc, Trans.). Leiden: Brill. (Original work published 1588)

¹³ Agiel, A. (2020). Süleymaniye Mosque (1550) in Istanbul. [Photograph]. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ahmed-Agiel/publication/342666235/figure/fig1/AS:909290281914379@1593803105947/Sueleymaniye-Mosque-1550-in-Istanbul.jpg

¹⁴ Janissary Letter. (1526). [Letter written by a Janissary to his family]. Ottoman Empire Historical Archives.

¹⁵ Aksan, V. H. (2007). Ottoman Wars, 1700-1870: An Empire Besieged. Pearson Education Limited.

¹⁶ Nasuh, M. (1558). Ottoman Janissaries [Painting]. https://www.realmofhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facts-ottoman-janissaries_14-min.jpg?ezimgfmt=ng:webp/ngcb20

[sonospace]

Liminal Acoustic Ecologies

Liminal Acoustic Ecologies by Patrick Quinn

Liminal Acoustic Ecologies explores interior/exterior space (e.g., open windows and balconies) from two very different locations: Istanbul, Turkey and Chiang Mai, Thailand. I traveled to these locations this past winter for my honeymoon; first stopping in Thailand and then traveling on to Turkey the following week. One of my rituals while traveling is to record at the threshold of what is considered inside and outside space in the places I stay. These in-between spaces have a unique sonic character. They are sites where the sounds of domesticity intermingle with the sounds of the world beyond our walls. Walter Benjamin believed “[c]apital alienates the employer … from his means of production … culminat[ing] in the emergence of the private home.” 1 The private interior is a sanctuary, a “safe space” that keeps the ever-changing, exterior world “out.” In this private space he “assemble[s] the distant in space and in time” to “maintain him in his illusions.” 2

Indeed there are dwellings that are capable of keeping the sounds of the outside world at bay. However, in my experience in the mountains in Chiang Mai and the bustling metropolis of Istanbul, and certainly in New York City where I live, the sounds from outside are a part of the private interior soundscape—particularly during the warm months when windows and doors to things like balconies and decks are more likely to be open. It is nearly impossible to avoid the sounds from outside in these places. In the case of Chiang Mai, this is primarily due to the openness of the architecture and the prominence of birds and other animals; with Istanbul (particularly, the neighborhood of Galata) and New York City, this is due to the bustling city streets, constant stream of traffic, and seemingly endless construction.

I feel that these liminal acoustic sites, where the intermingling of inside and outside sound is prominent, are important. They remind us that we are a part of a larger system even when we are in our interior sanctuaries. Listening to the sonic portraits I made from Chiang Mai and Istanbul evoke strong memories for me. Immediately I am transported back to these places, reminded of the spaces I was staying in and the unique soundscapes of the outside world calling out to me from the window or balcony. 

Notes: 

Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

2002), p. 226.

Walter Benjamin, “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” New Left Review I,

48 (1968): 83.

[vcpide]

Four Talks in Istanbul: 8th & 9th Oct 2024

First Talk: Istanbul University,Wednesday, 9th Oct, 11:30am to 13:00pm SLIDES for talk Title: Unlocking Prosperity: How Islamic Property Laws Can Transform Our World Abstract: In a world grappling with rising inequality, unsustainable land use, and social fragmentation, the answer to our most pressing challenges may lie in a surprising place—Islamic property law. Far from being a relic of the…

[justwannaflex]

(—) ★ spotted!! ZEYNEP YILMAZ on the cover of this week’s most recent tabloid! many say that the 25 year old looks like HAFSANUR SANCAKTUTAN, but i don’t really see it. while the ARTIST, JOURNALIST & POLITICAL ACTIVIST is known for being CARING my inside sources say that they have a tendency to be IMPULSIVE i swear, every time i think of them, i hear the song WHO'S AFRAID OF LITTLE OLD ME by TAYLOR SWIFT {she + her / cis female}

Headline

"Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Stats

name: zeynep yilmaz

age: 25

nicknames: Z

date of birth: 1998

place of birth: Istanbul (Turkey)

nationality : turkish

gender identity: cis woman (she/her)

sexuality: bi-curious

family : tba

occupation: journalist, activist & artist

career claim: banksy

net worth : not much lol

spoken languages : turkish, arabic & english

positive traits: caring, brave, curious, lively, creative, loyal

negative traits: impulsive, judgemental, short tempered, resentful, loud

characters/celebrities inspo: tba

zodiac sign : tba

Bio

Zeynep was born in Istanbul to university professor parents. She was raised in the most beautiful and lively city which was almost like another family member to her. Thanks to her parents she spent a lot of time around the brightest turkish minds. Her house was always buzzing with activity and visitors. Just like the city. Zeynep never knew quiet. She embodied everything hectic, passionate, lively and loud ever since she was a little girl.

She grew up around intellectuals, activists, artists and they all inspired her. She greatly admired her parents and their friends. They all encouraged the little girl to develop her voice and her artistic talents. They enthusiastically posed for portraits or debated with Zeynep about how unfair it was that she had to go to bed while everyone else was staying up. She had a beautiful childhood full of love and stimulation.

Inspired by her parents and their friends, she had a passion for politics and naturally she chose to study journalism. She wanted her voice to be heard, through a pen but also through paint. She started to graph at the age of 9 years old. Even before that, if you counted the walls of her family's house. What she could not say with her words, she would paint. Istanbul became her canvas. Whenever she would travel, she also made sure to leave a mark in any city she visited.

In 2017, at 19 years old, Zeynep moved to England to study journalism since there was no prospect for her in her own country. Since 2016, free press was basically dead in Turkey. She also had seen her own parents and many of their friends get arrested or flee the country. She knew she could not remain in Istanbul anymore. So with a student visa, she started a new life in England. She planned on one day running a turkish media based outside of the country so her voice and many others could still be heard.

She also kept graffing. After Istanbul, her works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. She started to get noticed and took the pseudonymous Banksy. She uses a blog to claim her works. She knows that she has to remain anonymous to retain her freedom of speech. Only her family and a selected few knows that Zeynep is Banksy.

She is enraged that her work is sold for millions sometimes and more often than not without her permission. She chose the streets and buildings as her canvas so her work would belong to the people. Yet greedy capitalists tear down walls to make a profit of her art. However whenever her trusted agency sells her work, Zeynep donates the money to fund NGOs, people and projects. She especially funds freedom of speech, the arts and war relief.

At 22 she graduated and started to work freelancing and published articles on a blog, until she gathered enough attention to get hired by BBC Turkish. While working for the British news channel, Zeynap kept her blog and was also pretty active on social medias. A few months ago, she received an offer from a billionaire who wanted to start a new media and offered her to cover Turkey and the middle east.

Now she lives in Los Angeles and tries to navigate that new world, so far away from home.

Career

Zeynep worked for BBC turkish from 2021 to 2023. She knows work for a brand new media : tba. She is also Banksy.

[xtruss]

Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign To George Washington University

The Smears Spurred Austrian Police to Raid Islamophobia Scholar Farid Hafez’s Family Home. Then the Terrorism Charges Fell Apart.

— Murtaza Hussain | April 20, 2024 | The Intercept

Police raid a cultural center in Graz, Austria, as part of Operation Luxor, a dragnet of suspected Islamists, on Nov. 9, 2020. Photo: Erwin Scheriau/APA/AFP via Getty Images

Once A Well-Respected Public Commentator and Academic in His Native Austria, Farid Hafez’s life slowly began to unravel after rumors spread that he was an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood — allegedly a sleeper agent promoting extremism in the country.

“I used to be published every month in newspapers from both the left and right. I had a high profile in Austria, and people took me seriously,” Hafez said. “But some years ago, people started calling me to tell me that there were rumors about me spreading behind closed doors. I felt there was a difference, and that something was changing.”

“Eventually,” he said, “I was sidelined to such an extent that newspapers would not even publish me anymore.”

“I was sidelined to such an extent that newspapers would not even publish me anymore.”

Hafez’s growing ostracism in Austria culminated in a controversial police operation in 2020 called Operation Luxor. Hafez and others were targeted with raids and asset seizures. Hafez ultimately left Austria for the United States, where he took up a visiting professorship at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Operation Luxor was later deemed unlawful by Austrian courts, and the police’s terrorism charges against Hafez were eventually dropped. Today, the case is widely viewed as a witch hunt that targeted Austrian Muslims. Despite his exoneration, the damage to Hafez’s life from the yearslong ordeal have been immense.

“A lot of this has basically been about destroying my reputation,” he said. “Everybody knew that I was affected by this, even far from Austria.”

Little did Hafez know at the time, but the rumors about him and others in Austria originated from a research center at George Washington University and a prominent U.S.-based terrorism analyst there named Lorenzo Vidino, according to a lawsuit filed late last month. Hafez’s suit alleges fraud and racketeering, asking for $10 million in damages from Vidino, along with George Washington University and its Program on Extremism, the research center that Vidino heads.

The lawsuit, according to a press release, alleges that Hafez and others were targets of an organized smear campaign, accusing Vidino of “participating in a criminal enterprise that deployed fake journalists, social media bots and pay-to-play reporters to destroy the careers of dozens of individuals by constructing and disseminating false narratives linking them to the Muslim Brotherhood.” (Vidino and George Washington University haven’t filed a response to the lawsuit, and neither replied to requests for comment.)

The campaign against Hafez exploited an environment of suspicion that can result in Muslim or Arab scholars being targeted, said an academic who works on anti-Islam bias, noting that such campaigns often fixate on people whose work touches on politically sensitive subjects.

Farid Hafez, now a professor at Williams University, at a panel on Islamophobia in Istanbul on Oct. 19, 2017. Photo: Emrah Yorulmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

“Farid Hafez is not the first Muslim professor to be targeted by ideologues who seek to silence and censor scholarship on Islamophobia, or Palestine, or anti-Arab racism,” said Sahar Aziz, a national security expert and director of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers University. “In the U.S., individuals who are critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East are often slandered as un-American or disloyal. In direct contradiction of American principles of academic freedom and free speech, Islamophobic organizations and government officials seek to censor Arab and Muslim professors when they disagree with the substance of their scholarship.”

“Meanwhile,” Aziz added, “in Europe there is vilification of almost any Muslim individual or group that is politically active, such that their activities are conflated with support for terrorism.”

GWU’s Lorenzo Vidino

Vidino worked with a private investigation firm in Switzerland that covertly spread spurious allegations against various Muslims in Europe, accusing them of involvement in terrorism and extremism, according to a report last year in the New Yorker.

Many of the details in the New Yorker, which are repeated in part in Hafez’s lawsuit, became public when hackers leaked internal communications from the firm behind the campaign, known as Alp Services. The hackers sent the files from Alp, another defendant in Hafez’s suit, to one of its intended targets: an American citizen living in Italy named Hazem Nada, who alleged in a separate lawsuit that his company and personal reputation were tarnished by unfounded accusations of terrorist financing.

The leak suggested that the operation was being financed to the tune of millions of dollars by the United Arab Emirates government as part of a broader campaign to destroy perceived ideological enemies in Western countries, and particularly those it accused of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE campaign reportedly targeted more than 1,000 people in 18 European countries.

Among those mentioned in the files as working with Alp was Vidino, who took a 3,000-euro consulting fee from the firm for “a series of gossipy reports about the Brotherhood’s reach,” according to a passage from the New Yorker quoted in Hafez’s lawsuit. The “gossipy reports,” which helped form the basis of the campaign on behalf of the UAE, appeared to consist of lists of suspected Islamists that Alp could then show it had discredited on behalf of its Emirati client. (Alp has neither responded to Hafez’s lawsuit nor a request for comment.)

In addition to his work with the Austrian government and George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, Vidino maintains public connections with think tanks based in the UAE, including the Abu Dhabi-based Hedayah, which is chaired by members of the royal family. Earlier in his career, he worked as a senior analyst at the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a think tank run by anti-Muslim activist Steve Emerson.

Lorenzo Vidino, of the George Washington University Program on Extremism, at a press conference following a meeting on radicalization with Italian officials in Rome on Jan. 5, 2017. Photo: Riccardo De Luca/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Nada filed his separate lawsuit against the government of the UAE, Vidino, Alp Services, and several others alleged to have been involved in the smear campaign against him. The UAE-sponsored campaign, the suit says, triggered a series of events that ultimately led Nada’s oil trading company, Lord Energy, to declare bankruptcy.

Nada is seeking $2.7 billion in damages and compensation. In addition to ideological reasons for the campaign against him, Nada’s lawsuit alleges that the UAE, a major oil and gas producer, had commercial motivations when it hired Alp Services to help shut his firm out of competing in the global energy market.

“The enterprise’s sham accusations that Hazim and Lord Energy were involved in terrorist financing were meant to — and did — eliminate a commercial competitor by causing banks and financial institutions to stop lending to Hazim and Lord Energy and causing other industry participants to stop doing business with Hazim and Lord Energy,” Nada’s lawsuit says.

The defendants in Nada’s case have not responded directly to the allegations against them, either in court or in the press.

Luxor’s Toll

Hafez would seem like an unlikely target for a smear campaign. A well-respected academic researcher in Austria, his work focused on documenting and combating anti-Muslim racism in Europe. He was a co-author of the European Islamophobia Report, a scholarly annual analysis of anti-Muslim discrimination on the continent, and was affiliated with a Islamophobia research center based out of Georgetown University.

Starting in 2015, Vidino began appearing as a public commentator and later working as a consultant with the Austrian government, focusing on issues of political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. Hafez said his reputation began to suffer around the same time.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a political movement mostly based in the Arab states, which has often clashed with the conservative monarchies in the region. The movement has been suppressed in countries like Egypt but remains a bogeyman for local leaders as well as right-wing groups in Western countries who have frequently accused Muslim political opponents of association with the group.

Hafez felt himself gradually becoming the target of these attacks. The accusations were often put forward vaguely in public where individuals or organizations were accused of “affiliations” with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than holding any concrete roles or membership. The allegations were amorphous enough that they were impossible to refute, or even challenge, mostly disseminated as they were through whisper campaigns spread through the Austrian government and security establishment.

After the smears took hold, Operation Luxor came down on the night of November 9, 2020. Hundreds of armed police officers raided the homes of Hafez and dozens of others, along with institutions they were affiliated with.

The search warrant used to justify the raid was based on a report authored by Vidino about the Muslim Brotherhood in Austria. Vidino also served twice as a witness for the Austrian government against targets in the case.

The Austrian government at the time — led by right-wing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz — celebrated the raids as a blow to “political Islam.” Despite these claims, however, the operation ultimately failed to uncover evidence of terrorism or even generate any arrests and convictions.

Despite being eventually exonerated by Austrian courts, Hafez’s career and reputation suffered in Austria and his financial assets were frozen. He has suffered ongoing stress — along with his family, including his young children who remain traumatized by the armed raid on their house in 2020.

“In a way, what Vidino was enabling was the criminalization of critical scholarship about Islam and anti-Muslim racism in Europe.”

The lingering impact of the smear campaign and raid on his life have now led Hafez to seek relief from American courts against Vidino, George Washington University, and Alp Services. A press release about Hafez’s lawsuit said, “Vidino presented himself as a disinterested academic with an expertise on terrorist figures and groups, feeding the narrative to both legitimate reporters and pay-to-play journalists, fellow academics and think-tanks that Hafez was deeply connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Hafez knew that Vidino was antagonistic to his work on behalf of Muslim communities in Austria. The New Yorker article and Nada’s lawsuit, however, had raised more troubling questions. Vidino had, according to Hafez’s lawsuit, acknowledged that he strongly suspected the payment from Alp was coming from the Emirates. Hafez’s lawsuit said, “Alp and Dr. Lorenzo Vidino (‘Dr. Vidino’), with the assistance of the other co-defendants, targeted Dr. Hafez and others similarly situated because they saw him as a means of keeping their UAE gravy train rolling and veracity was simply beside the point.”

Hafez’s lawsuit, in other words, raises the possibility that Vidino’s advocacy may not have been merely ideological but driven by financial incentives from the UAE.

“In a way, what Vidino was enabling was the criminalization of critical scholarship about Islam and anti-Muslim racism in Europe,” Hafez said. “But when I first started looking into him, I was focused on his ideological ties to the far-right in the United States. I assumed that he was an ideologically inspired person. I had no clue whatsoever that the UAE was behind his work, and maybe even the main driver.”

[metafinancies1]

How Did Recep Tayyip Erdogan Become A Prominent Figure In Turkish Politics?

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a name that resonates with power and controversy, has been a central figure in Turkish politics for more than two decades.

Rising from humble beginnings, he has navigated the intricate maze of Turkish politics, leaving an indelible mark on the nation's history.

This blog will delve into the fascinating journey of Erdogan's ascent to prominence and examine the factors that have contributed to his enduring influence in Turkish politics.

The Early Years

To understand Erdogan's rise to prominence, we must first rewind to his early years.

Born on February 26, 1954, in Istanbul, Erdogan hailed from a working-class family.

His father, a coastguard, and his mother, a housewife, instilled in him traditional Turkish values and a strong work ethic.

Erdogan's upbringing in the Kasimpasa neighborhood of Istanbul shaped his worldview and forged a connection with the common people of Turkey that would later become a hallmark of his political career.

Erdogan's educational journey took him to Marmara University, where he studied Business Administration.

However, his real passion lay in politics, and he was an active member of various Islamist organizations during his university years.

This early involvement in political activism laid the foundation for his future in Turkish politics.

Mayor of Istanbul

Erdogan's political career began in earnest when he was elected as the Mayor of Istanbul in 1994. His tenure as mayor marked a turning point in his political trajectory.

He demonstrated strong leadership skills, implementing infrastructure projects and policies that improved the city's quality of life.

Erdogan's success as mayor earned him recognition and popularity among the residents of Istanbul, a crucial stepping stone toward his prominence in national politics.

Erdogan's time as mayor was not without controversy. In 1997, his recitation of a controversial poem led to his temporary imprisonment and a ban from political office.

However, this setback did little to dampen his resolve. Erdogan used this time to regroup, refine his political strategy, and emerge stronger than ever.

Founding the AK Party

One of the pivotal moments in Erdogan's political career came with the founding of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in 2001.

This moderate Islamist party, led by Erdogan, aimed to bridge the gap between religion and politics in Turkey.

The AK Party quickly gained support from a broad spectrum of the Turkish population, particularly from the conservative and religious segments.

Erdogan's charisma, combined with the AK Party's platform of economic growth and political stability, resonated with the masses.

In the 2002 general elections, the AK Party secured a landslide victory, allowing Erdogan to become the Prime Minister of Turkey.

This was a significant milestone in his journey to political prominence, as he became the leader of one of the most influential countries in the region.

Economic Reforms and Regional Influence

Erdogan's leadership was characterized by significant economic reforms and a more assertive foreign policy.

Under his watch, Turkey experienced impressive economic growth, modernization, and infrastructure development.

These achievements garnered both domestic and international recognition, solidifying Erdogan's position as a prominent political figure.

On the regional stage, Erdogan pursued an ambitious foreign policy, positioning Turkey as a key player in Middle Eastern affairs.

His stance on issues such as Palestine, Syria, and Libya has drawn both praise and criticism, but it undeniably enhanced Turkey's influence in the region.

Challenges and Controversies

Erdogan's journey to prominence has not been without its share of challenges and controversies.

He has faced accusations of authoritarianism, curtailment of press freedom, and human rights violations.

These issues have sparked protests and international scrutiny, leading to a polarized view of his leadership.

Conclusion

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's path to becoming a prominent figure in Turkish politics is a captivating tale of determination, political acumen, and resilience.

From his humble beginnings in Istanbul to his current status as Turkey's President, Erdogan has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to connect with the people and navigate the complexities of Turkish politics.

While his leadership is marked by achievements and controversies alike, there is no denying that he has left an indelible mark on the nation's political landscape, shaping Turkey's present and future in ways that will be debated and discussed for years to come.

[theninjasanctuary]

It would be cool if the universe dropped me a random 5000 € or so, because with these flight prices, even my deluded ass will never make it to Tokyo this August. As in, I kind of saw a deal-ish (under the circumstances) situation tonight that would have been 1100 € via Istanbul for business class, or 800 in economy with a 16-hour connection, and back for 500 in economy via Seoul and Istanbul, with the caveat of needing to change airports in Seoul during a 5-hour connection. And even the boyf was like "so a minor delay would mean we're stranded in Seoul", and I am not feeling all that adventurous tbh. (A full day connection in Seoul, admittedly, might have been cool.) The reality is, I cannot afford this anyway, and where things are currently, it is the season to go out and mingle and enjoy life and drink Spritz whilst wearing sandals, and here I am, needing whole days to sleep and dissociate so I can complete just some minor chores, fml.

I did contact the physio and set up a session, but not feeling great about it. Since we're in a drought, I've helped mom water eeeeeeeeeverything in her garden (except the lawn, as burnt as it is, this would be unfeasible), filling countless buckets and the old cast-iron bathtub with the pre-war water pump, and before that, when it wasn't as dry yet, I did a few sessions of strimming, etc., and the physical toll is just... I wake up with my dominant hand feeling swollen and stiff to the point I can't make a fist and it's hard to grip things (tbh this has been going on for several summers), and for several days now, I've had annoying nerve pain along my ribs below the right shoulder blade. It hurts to take deep breaths, which is obviously not great from the exercise viewpoint. And overall, feeling flabby and worn out and meh. Even with a fresh flippy bob, and polished nails. (Zoya Avril is still a favourite, I wish the brush was better though.) I would like to press pause on the world for, idk, two weeks at least, just to gather myself.

Failing to get work done is not improving moods, either. Did go to a union meetup, which was okay, and an expo opening, and a social with students, too. The disconnect between how I feel and how these bright young people see me is making me uneasy. Also, it's sad that a colleague is moving on to other things, he was great at the job and we get along really well. I mean, the person taking over is pretty okay too, but still. (That being said, a one-time cool co-worker has been taken on as a PhD student in my department, so it will be nice having her around again.)

There is hope for thunder and rain this weekend. Fingers crossed. It might make me feel more sane and less out of it.

Received a Sellpy order with several pairs of trousers to try, and only one kind of fit (the cheapest, so am getting a decent refund if I manage to send the returns back). Also included a black silk tank top (good!), and a Lambretta Cielo watch, because it was 9 € and I thought that maybe having a backup watch is good. Sellpy also has the same model of minimalist, rectangular brushed steel Fossil f2 that I lost several years ago, and the price keeps dropping, but I kind of think I need to let the past go.

[osarothomprince]

Metatime Token Sale Will Start on March 3 to Kickstart Its Web3 Ecosystem — Help My Assignments

[PRESS RELEASE – Istanbul, Turkey, 2nd March 2023] Web3 ecosystem, Metatime, has announced its private token sale will commence on March 3. Despite being billed as a private sale, the event will be open to the public, giving them an opportunity to stake a claim in the web3 universe that Metatime is creating. The first… Metatime Token Sale Will Start on March 3 to Kickstart Its Web3 Ecosystem —…

[eagletek]

Metatime Token Sale Will Start on March 3 to Kickstart Its Web3 Ecosystem

[PRESS RELEASE – Istanbul, Turkey, 2nd March 2023] Web3 ecosystem, Metatime, has announced its private token sale will commence on March 3. Despite being billed as a private sale, the event will be open to the public, giving them an opportunity to stake a claim in the web3 universe that Metatime is creating. The first phase of the Metatime private sale will see 1% of the 10 billion token supply…

[parolim-prlm]

Metatime Token Sale Will Start on March 3 to Kickstart Its Web3 Ecosystem

[PRESS RELEASE – Istanbul, Turkey, 2nd March 2023] Web3 ecosystem, Metatime, has announced its private token sale will commence on March 3. Despite being billed as a private sale, the event will be open to the public, giving them an opportunity to stake a claim in the web3 universe that Metatime is creating. The first phase of the Metatime private sale will see 1% of the 10 billion token supply…