BasBasBas.com

Month: November 2008

  • Hypnotized by Futbol

    By far the most popular sport in Turkey is soccer, or as they call it futbol (football). This snapshot was taken on Istiklal Caddesi during the match of Turkey’s two biggest teams, both coming from Istanbul: Fenerbahçe versus Galatassaray. It’s one of the top 10 derby’s in Europe and one of the most exciting games for futbol fans across Turkey and especially in Istanbul. People in shops were following the match on the radio, waiters watching on televisions (as you can see in the above pic) or if they don’t have a TV in their restaurant you can see the waiters running around the corner whenever they can to look at a TV through the window of a nearby shop or restaurant.

    How popular is soccer/futbol/football in your country? What do you call it? What other sports are very popular in your country?

    I’m off to Bulgaria for a few days but posting will continue. You can stay up to date by following my Twitter feed, or subscribe to this blog by RSS or email.

  • Mosque Street Shot


    click to enlarge

    A typical shot of a street on the Asian side of Istanbul in Kadıköy, where I live. I didn’t want to feature this picture until I realized that this very every day scene for me might not be so ‘every day’ for the my many visitors from around the world. Click on the picture or here to get a larger and higher quality version of the photograph. In Holland we have a huge debate about the towers of the mosques, called minarets, spoiling the way the street/neighbourhood looks.

    What do you think, would one (or a few) of these towers spoil the sight of your neighbourhood? Why (not)?

    If you’re not yet subscribed to updates from this blog and you’d like to be, do so now either by RSS or through email updates. If you have any questions about Istanbul, about me, anything else, or you’d just like to tell me how your day was, do not hesitate to email me at .

  • Germany Shuts Down Wikipedia, Earthquake Hits Sofia, Brazilian Bloggers Take To Streets

    Thank God I didn’t wake up with a hangover today. Where to begin!

    Germany Shuts Down Wikipedia

    Censorship’s creeping up on us. Just 3 weeks ago I wrote about Turkey’s ban of Blogger/Blogspot, which I didn’t write about because I specifically care about Turkey’s internet, but because I care about the freedom of the internet. I’m sure a lot of visitors were able to stay detached from the situation and not care so much, maybe this time the news will have more impact because even Germany is guilty of web censorship now.

    Lutz Heilmann, a German parliament member, took legal action against Wikipedia, because of an article mentioning his alleged involvement in the Stasi, Eastern Germany’s secret police during communist time. Great job in proving you’ve not been a member or showing that you’ve changed by getting the web censored, it’s almost like if the police called for web censorship after being accused of Gestappo practices. Oh wait, that actually happened.

    What happened in Germany is that www.wikipedia.de no longer links to wikipedia.org, the main site of wikipedia. The German version of Wikipedia is still available through de.wikipedia.org.

    It looks like Heilmann realized what kind of shitstorm his legal procedures were starting to bring down on him and before accidentally flushing his future political career down the toilet and he issued a press release (in German) saying that Wikipedia can make Wikipedia.org accessible via Wikipedia.de again. He also adds that it wasn’t about censorship for him. Hey, guess what, this is exactly what China says too. Good job, Lutz.

    More at TechCrunch.

    Earthquake Hits Sofia, Bulgaria

    Last night after coming home from meeting with Hans, a Dutch expat and international communication specialist in Istanbul, I had an email in my inbox from my girlfriend telling me that there was an earthquake in Sofia. She’s fine, her family’s fine and I believe my friends are all safe, since I already spoke to those living closest to the epicenter. It was a 4.0-magnitude (Richter scale) earthquake lasting 2.3 seconds.

    This morning there was an aftershock, which was less heavy.

    More at Novinite.

    Brazilian Bloggers Take To Streets

    Coming back to the topic of internet freedom, Brazilian bloggers and internet junkies (in the good sense of the word) took to the streets in São Paolo to demonstrate against the Digital Crimes Bill, which defines cyber-crimes and stipulates penalties accordingly. Bloggers feel the bill, which was passed by the Brazilian Senate in July, is too loosely formulated and might lead to over-surveillance of the internet at the cost of freedom of speech and expression.

    More at Global Voices.

    What are some of the best initiatives you have seen regarding the freedom of speech on the internet? Or, completely unrelated, have you ever been in an earthquake?

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  • Turkish Lamps

    click to enlarge

    Taken in a touristy shop along Istanbul’s famous Istiklal Caddesi (Independence Avenue), this photo features the famous Turkish glass mosaic lamps. I’m not sure about the origins of them, whether they’re Middle Eastern, Central Asian or from other regions or just from Turkey, but they’re undeniably associated with Turkey. Every one of them is very unique and very beautiful and they make a great object for photography, don’t you think?

    I see there are quite a bit of mosaic lamps on Amazon, what lamps do you prefer? The mosaic lamps there or the ones above? Though the ones on Amazon are true works of art, I prefer the more exotic ones.

    Can anyone tell me more about the origins of these lamps? Can anyone tell me how to take these lamps on a long busride or airflight without breaking them?

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  • Dutch smartshops take legal action against ban on magic mushrooms

    This is a follow-up article on “Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1“.

    Amsterdam, Saturday 8th November 2008

    The Association of Smartshopowners has been surprised and is disappointed about the decision of the government of last Friday to implement the intended ban on magic mushrooms as from December 1st. The Association will take legal action.

    The Association condemns the decision of the Government since both Ministers of Justice and of Public Health refuse to listen to the stream of warnings from the experts, scientists and from the Association. The warnings consistently refer to the increased dangers of unwanted side effects of such a ban. The Association was in regular discussions with the Government over the past ten years in order to properly regulate the market for hallucinogenic mushrooms and pleaded consistently for proper regulation rather than banning the ‘shrooms’. The Association deplores that, by the decision of the government, further co-operation is made impossible and that her members and their customers are facing an accomplished fact in a rather raw manner.

    The Dutch Opiumwet (druglaw) requires that there must be a proof of damage to the public health and the community at large. Against a yearly turnover of some 1,5 million portions of magic mushrooms there is only a very small amount of incidents. Moreover, these incidents cannot be traced back to the exclusive use of ‘shrooms’. There has been no scientific investigation of such incidents nor has there been any toxicological examination. The Minister ignores the clear advice of his own advisory body (CAM) and bases his decision on unfounded assumptions and takes his own suppositions for granted.

    The members of the Association are feeling highly derogated by this decision and by the clearly unreasonable attitude of the Minister.

    A general ban on the sale of shrooms will inevitably lead to the closure of many smartshops whilst the remaining shops will incur a sizable financial loss. This aspect was hardly discussed in the parliamentary discussions about the proposed ban.

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  • Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1

    Dutch Christian Democrat minister of Public Health, Ab Klink, has announced the ban of selling and growing ‘magic mushrooms’, or shrooms, will take place on December 1. This knee-jerk reaction follows a media and political hype caused last year by the suicide of a 17-year old French tourist who was said to be under the influence of mushrooms at that time. It was also her second suicide attempt.

    Politicians got riled up as the media started covering every mushroom mishap in Amsterdam. Since nobody really stopped campaigning since the last government was formed – as they’re doomed to fail – they saw this as a good chance to speak up, speak out and win votes. At the cost of liberty and sanity.

    Ab Klink, minister of Public Health, previously asked the Coördinationpoint for the Assessment and Monitoring of new drugs (CAM) to research illegalizing shrooms. They concluded that these are the risks involving mushrooms:

    • Health of the individual: no risk.
    • Public health / society: minimal risk.
    • Public order / safety: minimal risk.
    • Criminal involvement: no risk.

    The CAM advised against a ban on mushrooms for the following reasons:

    • The smartshops selling the mushrooms might replace them by substances which carry more risk;
    • It will lead to shrooms being sold in tablet-form, like XTC pills;
    • Users would pick mushrooms in nature, which could lead to serious problems if they mistake the wrong type of mushrooms for the ones they are looking for;
    • Users might switch to other drugs, which might be more interesting from a criminal perspective and possibly carry more risk for usage… Leading to more danger to the public;
    • The banning of mushrooms is a rather tough sanction given the current problems its causing;
    • Maintaining a ban would bring costs.

    What did Ab Klink do? Ban them! Of course. The CAM was surprised as this is the first time a minister has ignored the advice of this advice organ. Minister Klink is obviously tripping. Or maybe he’d like to see the Bible as our lawbook?

    Dutch ‘smartshops’ that sell magic mushrooms and other legal mind-altering substances are taking this to court. For updates on this matter you can follow Dutch blog Red De Paddo (Save The Shroom).

    Recently a Christian Democrat politician called for the closing of all coffeeshops in Holland and illegalizing cannabis. In a follow-up poll, Dutch citizens expressed their opinions about the Dutch policy regarding drugs. 36% want coffeeshops illegalized, but 34% wants to see them completely legalized. Coffeeshops in Holland are currently in a grey area, more can be read about this in the article below or on Wikipedia. In short the sale of softdrugs is legal in Holland, but supplying coffeeshops of them is not.

    Last year I wrote about the pending mushroom ban in several articles, one of which is reposted below, the others can be found via these links:

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    Below a repost of my article “Dutch government to ban cultural identity“. (more…)

  • Flickr Banned in Turkey? Nope.

    It appears to be a false alarm. Flickr’s working fine now. Disregard this post 😉

    Just received a message that popular photo management and sharing application Flickr is unavailable in Georgia. The sender asked me about the situation in Turkey, since a few weeks ago when Blogger/Blogspot was banned in Turkey, it was also unavailable in Georgia.

    Guess what? Flickr is unavailable in Turkey also. Could it be a new ban? Who knows.

    I guess we will find out soon. Either it will come back online, or we will see something like the below:


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  • Dutch Police Union Head Calls for Web Censorship

    In response to the intimidation of a Dutch police woman, both on- and offline, head of police union ACP, Geert van de Kamp, has called for web censorship.

    An investigation has been launched into the intimidation of the police woman, who works for the foreign police of The Netherlands. In the night of Monday to Tuesday, unknown people vandalized the front door of the police woman’s house with red paint.

    Also, the tires of the police woman’s car were slashed.

    A group called the Winterschilders (Winterpainters) claimed responsibility for the act by posting a message on indymedia.nl, which included the full name and address of the police woman (and a picture, claims the police union). Their message reads:

    Tonight The Winterpainters visited XXX, foreign police, XXX, XXX. (XXX replacing her personal data which have been removed by indymedia)

    Her frontdoor got some red paint on it; symbol for the blood of the people that suffer due to the practices of the foreigner police.
    We also made sure she couldn’t get to her work quickly today (flat tires).
    This is a warning to all her colleagues of the modern gestapo (foreign police, immigration and naturalisation service, justice dept.).

    You are responsible for what you are doing.
    Stop it.

    The Winterpainters

    Gerrit van de Kamp, head of police union ACP, calls the incident “unheard of”, saying this “absolutely cannot and may not happen again.” And what better way to react to Gestapo accusations than calling for censorship?

    Van de Kamp wants to ask the ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs to make it impossible to publish messages like the above on the internet, saying it should be “technologically possible” to filter such messages.

    Gerrit van de Kamp, you are either unaware of what exactly is “technologically possible” or you are calling for censorship. In a statement on ACP’s website, you call for “preventive measures to prevent name & address data of police people to be posted on the internet”. That’s a lot more nuanced and understandable, yet it is impossible to put such filters in place without seriously endangering the freedom of the citizens you’re serving. You are asking for ISPs to filter what their users are posting to the internet:

    • Should the ISPs report every filtered instance to the police?
    • How will the “technologically possible” filter prevent innocent people from being censored?
    • What prevents the government from adding more and more terms to the filter once it is in place?

    Such a filter would be a step towards fascism. Yes, you have the duty to protect police staff, as do we, as Dutch citizens, but you are calling for a very extreme measure. The internet shall not be filtered, instead, prosecute websites or people that post this data on the internet. Call for tough laws and higher penalties to discourage people from committing these acts. That way it will be the websites’ responsibilities to filter the content posted to them.

    Also, there have been many reports over the last 5 years about ill-treated asylum seekers and there has been a lot of protests about this, this incident being the most extreme protest thus far. Maybe it actually is time for the government to have another look at what’s going on and punish those responsible for incidents.

    The suggested measure in your reaction is disproportionate. Please reconsider.

    That will be all.

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  • Kadıköy Bazaar

    The following shot was taken at a big bazaar that’s held every Tuesday and Friday in Istanbul’s Kadıköy area, which is on the Asian side of the Bosphorus.  You can find food like fruit, vegetables, spices, nuts and grape leaves there, but also clothes such as the headdresses below. I was walking around there with a blond girl and boy, do you draw attention if you’re a young, blond, European woman in Istanbul. People were yelling out “Obama, Obama”, “hoş geldiniz” (welcome), “hello!” and “buyrun” (come in please/come here).

    I apologize for the recent lack of updates. I had a friend from Holland visiting me here, but will now resume my posting about life in Istanbul. 🙂

    I plan on posting a lot more pictures and short stories like this one in the coming time, so if you’re not yet subscribed to updates from this blog, do so now either by RSS or through email updates.

  • Obama Elected, The World Rejoices – Turkey, Macedonia Perhaps Not So Much

    Even though sentiments are mixed in the US, around the whole world people have reacted enthusiastically about Obama‘s election. People around the world have had more than enough of Bush’ policies and were hoping for a change. Change being the keyword of Obama’s campaign and McCain being associated with Bush, caused the most people to be more favourable towards Barack Obama. The website If the world could vote? shows that all over the globe, more people were rooting for Obama than for McCain.

    Obama is young, ‘black’, a Democrat and instills hope, whereas McCain was seen as very similar to Bush, partly due to employing similar tactics to the ones of former Republican campaigns.

    One country that seemed significantly pro-McCain on aforementioned If the world could vote? is Macedonia. Why? The Republic of Macedonia borders Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Serbia and Kosovo. Not the easiest region for a country. Greece refuses to recognize ‘Macedonia’ as their name, one of the reasons being a similarly named province in northern Greece, and Macedonia is thus referred to in the UN as The Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia (FYRM). It’s a very complex issue. McCain has been very outspoken about recognizing Macedonia by its constitutional name, whereas Obama has been more careful about it.

    Randy Scheunemann, a McCain adviser said the following about NATO membership bids:

    On Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, Senator McCain has been strongly outspoken in support for including them. They are ready. In the case of Macedonia, they’ve been a membership action plan for eight or nine cycles.

    With respect to the Greek concerns, the United States recognizes Macedonia under its constitutional name.

    And he certainly hopes that there’s not going to be this throwback to the 19th century style of Balkan politics, and the Greeks throw a red card on the membership of Macedonia.

    Since this is a very big issue in Macedonia, as territorial, cultural and national integrity always are in the Balkans, it’s no wonder people in Macedonia were hoping for McCain to win.

    As for Turkey, people might be happy to see a change in government. Bush’ unpopular policies have led to an increase in anti-Americanism around the world. In June, a Pew poll found that out of 47 countries, Turkish people had the least favourable view of the United States (source: The New York Observer). In that sense, Obama will be a welcome change.

    It is hoped that the new President will aid Turkish efforts against the PKK and the Kurdish insurgency in the Iraqi border area, support the EU’s membership bid and put pressure on European politicians, and support Turkey in its process of becoming a modern, democratic country. It’s not expected that Obama will aid Turkey’s military efforts or put significant pressure on the EU to get them to admit Turkey.

    Moreover, just one day before the elections, Obama renewed his commitment to recognize the Armenian genocide, a very sensitive issue in Turkey. McCain “never pledged to label the Armenian killings as genocide and is seen by the U.S. Armenian community as a politician against or indifferent to Armenian matters” (Turkish Daily News).

    Turkey’s foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said “the formal recognition by the United States of genocide would seriously damage U.S.-Turkish ties and hurt Turkey’s efforts for reconciliation with Armenia” after meeting Phil Gordon last week, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama.

    Turkey is an important ally (NATO member) and trade partner to both the US and EU, as it has a stabilizing presence in the Middle East, often mediating in Arabic-Israeli talks.

    Looks like Obama will have a lot on his hands when he takes office in January.

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