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Turkey

Turkey's Most Famous Pianist Convicted For "Blasphemous" Tweets

Turkish pianist Fazil Say in 2011
Turkish pianist Fazil Say in 2011
Ismail Saymaz

ISTANBUL – Earlier this month, a Turkish court sentenced world-famous pianist Fazil Say to a ten-month suspended jail sentence for “insulting religious values.”

Say, 43, had tweeted the following verse from 11th century poet Omar Khayyam: “You say that the rivers flow with wine, is Heaven a tavern? You say that you will give every believer two very beautiful women, is Heaven a brothel?”

He also retweeted a missive posted by someone else: “I am not sure if you have noticed, but where there is a louse, a non-entity, a lowlife, thief or idiot, they are all pro-Allah. Is this a paradox?”

In another tweet, he made fun of the muezzin’s call for prayer: “The muezzin recited the evening prayer in 22 seconds. Prestissimo con fuoco!!! What is your hurry? A lover? Raki?” (raki is a Turkish alcoholic drink flavored with aniseed.)

Hulusi Pur, the judge who handed down the April 15 ruling, said the tweets "do not contribute anything to the public debate but unnecessarily offend the common values of Allah, heaven and hell of the three major religions in the world, and were written to denigrate religious values by creating the opinion that these concepts are meaningless, unwarranted and worthless.”

He added, “the contents of the tweets cannot be considered within the scope of the practice of the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion and expression.”

According to Judge Pur, freedom of expression can be limited under some circumstances according to the second article of the European Convention on Human Rights. He referred to three past verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to support the justification of his verdict, including a 1995 ruling that Turkish authorities did not violate freedom of expression by convicting a book publisher who'd printed insults against Allah, Islam, the Prophet and the Koran.

Article 216(3) of the Turkish Criminal Code states: "Any person who openly denigrates the religious beliefs of a group shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to one year if the act is conducive to disrupting the public peace.”

Between heaven and hell

The judge said that the possibility that these tweets could disrupt public peace incorporated a virtual threat and the court did not have to wait for that threat to become a fact before sentencing.

The guilty verdict complies both domestic and international legal proceedings, Judge Pur argued, since concepts like heaven and hell are considered holy in Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Important values were mocked and demeaned and believers were openly insulted by being called a louse, a non-entity, a lowlife, thief or idiot” while heaven was likened to a “tavern” and a “brothel”, stated the judge.

Say’s lawyer Meltem Akyol said her client did not write the incriminating tweets, only retweeted them, and that there was “no intentional act of denigration or mockery.”

Since the verdict was issued, columnists from the Turkish press have shown the wide range of opinions on such a hot-button subject, even though the majority of observers argued that Say deserved to be punished for insulting religious values.

The commentary included:

*Ahmet Kekeç from the Daily Star said although the tweets were “problematic, vulgar and rude,” Say should not be convicted for them.

*Berat Özipek, also from the Daily Star, said he was hurt by Say’s tweets but added: “However, I have no intention of sacrificing the freedom of expression because I was hurt.”

*Ali İhsan Karahasanoğlu from daily newspaper Yeni Akit said Say was guilty, and that he should have gotten a harsher punishment.

*Davut Åžahin of the Milli Gazete said: “I have no doubt that he would have received a higher penalty in another country.”

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Green

Forest Networks? Revisiting The Science Of Trees And Funghi "Reaching Out"

A compelling story about how forest fungal networks communicate has garnered much public interest. Is any of it true?

Thomas Brail films the roots of a cut tree with his smartphone.

Arborist and conservationist Thomas Brail at a clearcutting near his hometown of Mazamet in the Tarn, France.

Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema, & Justine Karst

Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighboring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests — a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks. The narrative — recounted in books, podcasts, TV series, documentaries, and news articles — has prompted some experts to rethink not only forest management but the relationships between self-interest and altruism in human society.

But is any of it true?

The three of us have studied forest fungi for our whole careers, and even we were surprised by some of the more extraordinary claims surfacing in the media about the wood-wide web. Thinking we had missed something, we thoroughly reviewed 26 field studies, including several of our own, that looked at the role fungal networks play in resource transfer in forests. What we found shows how easily confirmation bias, unchecked claims, and credulous news reporting can, over time, distort research findings beyond recognition. It should serve as a cautionary tale for scientists and journalists alike.

First, let’s be clear: Fungi do grow inside and on tree roots, forming a symbiosis called a mycorrhiza, or fungus-root. Mycorrhizae are essential for the normal growth of trees. Among other things, the fungi can take up from the soil, and transfer to the tree, nutrients that roots could not otherwise access. In return, fungi receive from the roots sugars they need to grow.

As fungal filaments spread out through forest soil, they will often, at least temporarily, physically connect the roots of two neighboring trees. The resulting system of interconnected tree roots is called a common mycorrhizal network, or CMN.

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