<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2627" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff><FONT size=1>
<P><FONT size=3> </FONT><A
href="http://newappeal.blogspot.com/2005/05/iders-bring-in-islamist-journalist.html"><FONT
size=3>http://newappeal.blogspot.com/2005/05/iders-bring-in-islamist-journalist.html</FONT></A><FONT
size=3> </FONT></P>
<H3><FONT size=3>Monday, May 09, 2005</FONT></H3>
<H2><FONT size=3>IDers bring in Islamist journalist</FONT><A
name=111569010790342393><FONT size=3> </FONT></A></H2>
<DIV class=blogPost><FONT size=3>Josh Funk of Knight-Ridder had this intriguing
tidbit towards the end of his article on the</FONT><A
href="http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11592176.htm"><FONT
size=3> third day</FONT></A><FONT size=3> of the evolution
hearings.<BR></DIV></FONT><SPAN class=body-content>
<P class=blogPost><FONT size=3></FONT></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=blogPost>
<P><FONT size=3>One of the other witnesses was a Turkish newspaper columnist
with no science background but a nearly 10-year-old interest in intelligent
design. Mustafa Akyol testified that the naturalistic bias in Kansas' science
standards contributes to the ill will between the Muslim world and the United
States.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>He urged the board to adopt the critical approach to help
alleviate that ill will.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>"This is not the only reason for anti-Westernism, but it is an
important one," he said.<BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P class=blogPost><FONT size=3></FONT></P>
<DIV class=blogPost></SPAN><FONT size=3>Tony Ortega's story on the Kansas
hearings, in KC alternative weekly The Pitch “</FONT><A
href="http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/001020.html#more"><FONT size=3>Your
OFFICIAL program to the Scopes II Kansas Monkey Trial"</FONT></A><FONT size=3>
discusses Akyol in detail.<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=blogPost><FONT size=3>[Akyol] also has identified himself as
a spokesman for the murky Bilim Arastirma Vakfi, a group with an
innocuous-sounding name — it means “Science Research Foundation” — but a nasty
reputation.<BR><BR>Said to have started as a religious cult that preyed on
wealthy members of Turkish society, the Bilim Arastirma Vakfi has appeared in
lurid media tales about sex rings, a blackmail prosecution and speculation
about its charismatic leader, a man named Adnan Oktar. But if BAV’s notoriety
has been burnished by a sensationalist Turkish media, the secretive group has
earned its reputation as a prodigious publisher of inexpensive ideological
paperbacks. BAV has put out hundreds of titles written by “Harun Yahya” (a
pseudonym) on various topics, but most of them are Islamic-based attacks on
the theory of evolution.<BR><BR>Turkey is a secular country that aspires to
join the European Union and boasts several institutions of higher learning on
a par with good Western universities. But beginning in 1998, BAV spearheaded
an effort to attack Turkish academics who taught Darwinian theory. Professors
there say they were harassed and threatened, and some of them were slandered
in fliers that labeled them “Maoists” for teaching evolution. In 1999, six of
the professors won a civil court case against BAV for defamation and were
awarded $4,000 each.<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=blogPost><FONT size=3>Ortega asked William Harris, the University of
Missouri-Kansas City professor of medicine and point-man for the Kansas ID push,
about the harrassment of Turkish scientists.<BR></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=blogPost><FONT size=3>Told of the group’s harassment of
biologists in Turkey and evolution’s defeat there, he replies, “Great!
Congratulations! I mean, that is the point, once people start to see science
more objectively.”</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=blogPost><FONT size=3>According to an </FONT><A
href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol19/8371_cloning_creationism_in_turkey_12_30_1899.asp"><FONT
size=3>article </FONT></A><FONT size=3>by </FONT><A
href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/taner_edis/index.shtml"><FONT
size=3>Taner Edis</FONT></A><FONT size=3>, a Turkish-born physicist teaching at
Truman State University, Askhol's movement is involved with anti-Semitism and
holoccaust denial.<BR></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=blogPost><FONT size=3>Another interesting difference from
ICR emerges when BAV explains how a godless conspiracy established evolution.
Much of what appears under the pseudonym Harun Yahya comes straight from Henry
Morris, but it identifies the main forces behind evolution as Masons and Jews.
This fits in with the all-too-common antisemitism among Islamists; indeed,
Harun Yahya is also listed as the author of a book entitled <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Holocaust Hoax,</SPAN> which borrows much from
well-known American holocaust-deniers (Yahya nd). Bashing Masons may seem
peculiar, but this is actually a common motif in Islamist tirades, where
Freemasonry, as for many Christian conspiratologists in the past, serves as a
symbol personifying the Enlightenment culture that helped to erode traditional
religiosity. Usually the ancient enemies — the Jews, who refused to accept
Muhammad as the final prophet — turn out to be behind Masonry, secularism,
communism, and just about every godless evil. </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=blogPost><FONT size=3>The revisonist Institute for Historical Review
gave a </FONT><A href="http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n4p35_Weber.html"><FONT
size=3>favorable review </FONT></A><FONT size=3>to the book.<BR></DIV></FONT>
<P class=blogPost></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=blogPost>
<P><FONT size=3>A new revisionist book in Turkey has been receiving both warm
praise and sharp criticism. Published in Istanbul, Soykirim Yalani ("Holocaust
Deception") is the first book-length dissident study of the Holocaust issue to
appear in the nation of some 64 million people...<BR></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>Holocaust deception and fraud is the focus of the book's
second section, which relies to a considerable extent on books and other
material put out by the Institute for Historical Review, including the IHR
Journal. This section traces the development and impact of Holocaust
revisionism, showing how revisionist scholars have succeeded in debunking
numerous Holocaust claims.</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P class=blogPost><FONT size=3>Stuart Elliott</FONT></P>
<P class=blogPost><FONT size=3><A
href="http://newappeal.blogspot.com/">http://newappeal.blogspot.com/</A><BR></FONT></P></FONT></BODY></HTML>