ISTANBUL — When the auto writer Merve Sena Kilic shifted a Mini into gear for a recent test drive, she had little idea that she was fueling a remarkable shift in the head-scarf debate in Turkey.

Covering her hair with a patterned cream and brown scarf, Ms. Kilic steered the sporty Mini down winding forest roads outside Istanbul for a November episode of her television program, “A Passion for Cars,” while discussing its merits with her co-host Burcu Cetinkaya, a glamorous blonde who also happens to be a champion rally driver in Turkey.

The program on the private station Kanal 24 initially aired without causing a stir, but when a photo of the women and the car appeared last month in the society pages of the daily newspaper Hurriyet, Ms. Cetinkaya received a call from Borusan Holding, the company that distributes the Mini and BMW brands in Turkey.

via New Twists and Turns in Turkey’s Head-Scarf Debate – NYTimes.com.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/middleeast/new-twists-and-turns-in-turkeys-head-scarf-debate.html?_r=1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

February 1st, 2012

MEDIA CONTACT:  352-371-2487 or 352-871-2680 or info@standupamericanow.org

International Judge Muhammad Day vs. The Istanbul Process

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ~ George Washington

The Istanbul Process Begins 2011

Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State: “I want to applaud the Organization of Islamic Conference and the European Union for helping pass Resolution 16/18 at the Human Rights Council…. together we have begun to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of expression, and we are pursuing a new approach based on concrete steps to fight intolerance wherever it occurs. Under this resolution, the international community is taking a strong stand for freedom of expression and worship, and against discrimination and violence based upon religion or belief.

“…The resolution calls upon states to protect freedom of religion, to counter offensive expression through education, interfaith dialogue, and public debate, and to prohibit discrimination, profiling, and hate crimes, but not to criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence.

“…we have seen how the incendiary actions of just a very few people, a handful in a country of nearly 300 million, can create wide ripples of intolerance. We also understand that, for 235 years, freedom of expression has been a universal right at the core of our democracy. So we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor. ” ~ Hilary Clinton, July 15 2011, Istanbul, Turkey

Burning the Koran was an act of warning, of exposing the long entrenched intolerance of Islam. We did not create intolerance. We do not hate Muslims. We are also not intolerant of Islam. Muslims have freedom to worship and must keep it, unless their worship involves drowning daughters in canals, detonating suicide bombs among crowds of innocents, or supporting those that ‘worship’ in this way. This is not tolerated by any Western law, yet the West has begun to shelter such crimes as they are sheltered in many Islamic countries.

It is the radical, violent and oppressive aspect of the ‘worship’ of Islam that needs to be exposed. We need more ‘interfaith education’ about Islam and Muhammad, not less. Expose the ‘polarizing debate’ of the Koran! Expose the lack of respect Muhammad had for those he murdered and raped, for those that just had a different view from his own.

The Istanbul Process shifted to Washington DC in December 2011 where the Obama Administration met behind closed doors with the OIC. Why is the OIC telling the American government what to do? And why can we not know what they said?

Hilary Clinton said in a public speech, “…it’s one thing if people are just disagreeing. That is fair game. That’s free speech. But if it results in sectarian clashes, if it results in the destruction or the defacement or the vandalization of religious sites, if it even results in imprisonment or death, then government must hold those who are responsible accountable.

“We have to get past the idea that we can suppress religious minorities, that we can restrict speech, that we are smart enough that we can substitute our judgment for God’s and determine who is or is not blaspheming.” ~ Hilary Clinton, December 14, 2011

So when the Islamic leaders claim it is blasphemy to say anything nagative about their teachings or prophet, although we are just quoting from the Koran itself, or repeating what those leaders themselves say about the life of Muhammad, and those Imams and Mullahs incite violence among their followers, or individual Muslims react with violence, what is she saying? Is the White House supporting the OIC’s demand for holding people like us responsible? They certainly pressure the media to ‘shame’ and ‘abhor’ what we do, to call it ‘hate crime’ and ‘criminalize speech.’  Are these the ‘concrete steps’ planned to bow to Islamic ‘religious sensitivities.’

Istanbul Process Continues, 2012

The OIC is delighted with their puppets in Washington.

JEDDAH, 8 Safar/Jan 3 (IINA)- “Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said that the European Union offered to host the third meeting of the ‘Istanbul Process’, which deliberates, in a series of meetings, on developing mechanisms to implement UNHRC Resolution 16/18 on combating intolerance, discrimination and incitement to violence based on religion or belief.

“The Secretary General of Islamic Cooperation in his office in Jeddah on Tuesday 30 January 2012 pointed out that the EU’s offer to host the meeting represents a qualitative shift in action against the phenomenon of Islamophobia, which spread in many European countries, targeting the Muslim communities there.

“Ihsanoglu said that the growing role of the extreme right in politics in several European countries has become stronger than the capacity of the Organization, explaining that the extreme right, who hates Muslims, became leverage in the hands of politicians. He added that the rise of the extreme right through elections has become an issue that cannot be countered, considering the democratic way in which these extremist reach their positions. He pointed out to the referendum held in Switzerland, as an example, which resulted in suspending the construction of minarets there following a vote by the Swiss people.” ~JEDDAH, 8 Safar/Jan 3 (IINA)

So according to Mr. Ihsanoglu, the Swiss ‘hate Muslims’ because they banned minarets, and all the ‘extreme right’ in Europe do too, it seems. We are considered by some to be on the right, but we and many others on the right do not speak from hate. They are not ‘targeting Muslims.’ They speak against the hate that exists in some Muslims because of the hate that is evident in Islamic teachings and is emphasized by some Imams and Mullahs justifying more hate, violence and oppression. This is NOT ‘islamophobia,’ a popular word invented recently by Islamic leaders to shame dismiss any opposition to Islam. It is truth. In the West we care about truth and justice.
So the heads of Europe will meet with the US and the OIC in July to continue this ‘process.’ Will any in the West have the guts to block their demands which many see as an explicit aim is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law. The four dead women in Canada cannot speak now. The countless mutilated from suicide bombs which the media cannot hide cannot speak. We will.

Terry Jones:

“International Judge Muhammad Day will be a day that we put Muhammad on trial.  We will examine his life.  Was he a prophet of God as is claimed by the religion of Islam?  Or was he a pedophile?  Was he a deceiver?  Was he a man of peace or was he a man of violence?  Did he leave behind a world religion that betters mankind and promotes the equality of mankind?  Or did he leave behind a religion of violence, a religion of racism and prejudice?  Did he leave behind a religion that does not promote living together in peace and harmony and disrespects others opinions and religions?  Or did he leave behind a religion that believes only Muslims, believers in Allah and the so-called prophet Muhammad deserve the right to live and pursue their goals in life?”

Link to Video Introduction:  International Judge Muhammad Day 9/11/12

On Facebook:  International Judge Muhammad Day

Upcoming events:  April 7, 2012 ~ Dearborn, MI ~ in front of the Islamic Center of America

September 11, 2012 ~ Gainesville, FL ~ International Judge Muhammad Day

Thank you,

Turkish people demonstrate in France against a voting session for a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide

(CNN) — Europe and the Muslim world seem to be on a collision course that could have major political, economic and ideological ramifications. January 23, 2012, may well come to be remembered as the crucial date when Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, which many of us believed discredited beyond repair, was reaffirmed.

Political scientist Huntington wrote in 1993 that cultural divisions preclude a defining global civilization, and the West and the Muslim world would never share the same values.

Last month, Europe took two different actions that nonetheless sent the same message to the Muslim world: You are not our equals and are doomed to be judged by standards different from those by which we judge ourselves. Future historians might call January 23 the day when Europe irreversibly alienated not one, but both, pivotal powers — Iran and Turkey — that in all probability will dominate the political landscape of the Middle East for several decades.

One action was the European Union’s decision to ban oil purchases from Iran, including imports of crude oil, petroleum products and petrochemical products, to force Tehran to negotiate away its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran insists is for civilian use only. This is the latest in a series of increasingly stringent sanctions that Western powers have unilaterally imposed on Iran. These sanctions go well beyond those required by the U.N. Security Council.

Mohammed Ayoob

Mohammed Ayoob

The EU sanctions attempt to hit the Iranian economy where it hurts most: Europe imports about a fifth of Iranian oil. When combined with a ban on transactions with Iran’s Central Bank, this action is aimed at paralyzing the Iranian economy.

At the same time, the French Senate passed a law making it a crime to deny genocides that are officially recognized by France. The two genocides in this category are the Holocaust and the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Anatolia during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Because the denial of the Holocaust is already a crime under French law, the obvious objective of the bill is to criminalize the denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

Sanctions hurting Iran economy

France passes Armenian genocide bill

The issue of Armenian genocide touches a very raw nerve in Turkey, which denies the scale of the killings — Turkey maintains that roughly 500,000 Armenians were killed — as well as the claim that it was planned. According to Turkey, the killings happened in the midst of the disarray accompanying World War I and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says a nearly equivalent number of Turks and Kurds were also killed in inter-ethnic strife with the Armenians, who were allied with the Ottoman’s Russian adversaries.

It’s not the accuracy of the opposing claims that is at issue; it’s Muslim perceptions. Iran may well be trying to develop nuclear weapons, and what amounts to an Armenian genocide may well have taken place. What roils Muslim opinion worldwide is the perception that the West uses blatant double standards to pass judgment.

Harsh sanctions on Iran are seen as an attempt to prevent a Muslim country from developing deterrents to attacks from Israel and the United States, both nuclear powers hostile to the Islamic Republic. Most Western discussions of the Iranian bomb do not make even passing reference to the well-documented Israeli nuclear capability, even as Israel threatens to militarily strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. This omission is seen as hypocritical, dishonest and self-serving.

For many in the Muslim world, double standards explain why France singled out Turkey, and didn’t criminalize the denial of other nations’ crimes against humanity. Although denying Germany’s crimes is a crime, the Holocaust is universally accepted as genocide, while Turkey’s is not.

Many ask why disputing European massacres of non-European people is not criminalized — such as the French actions in Algeria, as Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has said. These would include the near-total extermination of native populations by European settlers in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.

They would include the killings of millions of people by the Belgian administration of the Congo Free State, whose population was halved during the early decades of Belgian rule. Most pertinent of all, Muslims ask, why not criminalize the denial of the genocidal Spanish Inquisition that led to the extermination, expulsion or conversion of the entire Muslim and Jewish populations of the Iberian peninsula?

Many Muslims perceive these moves as the West targeting Iran and Turkey in an attempt to prevent important Muslim countries from achieving the military capacity — Iran — and the political stature — Turkey — they deserve. Many see behind these moves the not-so-hidden hand of an ideology based on Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations. Although these perceptions may not fully conform with reality, it is well established that perceptions count much more than reality in the conduct of international relations.

via Is Europe setting up clash between Muslims and the West? – CNN.com.

“The Chechen diaspora in Turkey asked Erdogan to give the holy hairs to Chechnya. We received a positive response within a month and the priceless gift has been delivered to Grozny today,” Aihan Ergyuven, chairman of the Chechen committee Sivas, told reporters at the Grozny airport.

Despite the cold weather, thousands of Chechens, including Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, met the hairs at the Grozny airports and in the city’s streets.

A religious ritual marking this event was held in the republic’s central mosque.

According to earlier reports, a different hair of Prophet Mohammad was taken from Uzbekistan to Chechnya on January 26, 2011. The hair is a capsule, which is located in a box. According to historical documents, the hair, which was taken to the Grozny central mosque, had been in Uzbekistan since the times of the Caliphate.

via Interfax-Religion.

The headline over her latest article is Israel’s never-ending Holocaust. One of her main points is that Israel has never confronted the trauma of the Nazi holocaust and has “turned it into a placard in the service of the national trauma, to reinforce the constant existential fear and the aggressiveness that comes with it.”

Because what she wrote is so important, and in my view ought to be read by all peoples of all faiths everywhere who want to understand why the Zionist state is what it is, I am going to quote her at some length.

She wrote:

The Holocaust is the primary way Israel defines itself. And that definition is narrow and ailing in the extreme, because the Holocaust is remembered only in a very specific way, as are its lessons. It has long been used to justify the existence and the necessity of the state, and has been mentioned in the same breath as proof that the state is under a never-ending existential threat.

The Holocaust is the sole prism through which our leadership, followed by society at large, examines every situation. This prism distorts reality and leads inexorably to a forgone conclusion… that all our lives are simply one long Shoah (experience of persecution and extermination – my amplification not Merav’s).

The ‘Hitlers’ are always there: Just a week ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said for the nth time that there is no shortage of those who want to exterminate us completely. In other words, there is no lack of reasons to continue to reinforce the fear of the Holocaust – which, according to his father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, has never ended.

So it is that we don’t have any rivals, adversaries or even enemies. Only Hitlers. This is how the Holocaust is taught in school, this how it is that Israeli students are taken to visit death camps – and how it came to be that, as Ha’aretz reported on Friday, just 2 percent of Israeli youth feel committed to democratic principles after studying the Holocaust… That’s the way it is with traumas. Because of our human limitations, a trauma that is not dealt with makes us constantly see yet another trauma approaching – even when whatever is coming has no connection to the previous trauma and may even be a good thing. Trauma leads to belligerence and a strong tendency to wreak havoc on one’s surroundings, but first and foremost on oneself.

What we consider rational is actually a frightened, defensive, aggressive pattern. Our current leaders have made Israeli Judaism just a post-traumatic syndrome, while they lead us to self-destruction.

I imagine that most if not all Arabs and other Muslims everywhere would welcome the prospect of Israel self-destructing, but in my Gentile view it is not actually a prospect to be welcomed. Why not?

If there comes a time when it seemed to them that the Zionist state’s self-destruction was imminent, Israel’s leaders would respond in the same way as they would if their state was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield. As readers of my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews know, that response was put into words by Golda Meir in the course of one of my BBC Panorama interviews with her when she was prime minister. In a doomsday situation, she said, Israel “would be prepared to take the region down with it.”

The question arising is something like this. Is there any power on Planet Earth that could assist Israeli Jews to save themselves from themselves – perhaps I should say save themselves from their deluded leaders?

The more I think about this question, the more I am convinced that there is only one power that could do it – the Jews of the world. But that must be the subject of another post and I will welcome thoughts from others before I write it.

www.alanhart.net, January 30, 2012

By Katie Silver

A magazine for the modern, fashion-conscious Muslim woman is proving that when it comes to Turkey, you don’t need bikinis, breasts and legs to sell issues.

Outraged when he saw photos of transsexuals in a magazine, devout Muslim Ibrahim Burak Birer, 31 decided to create a magazine in Istanbul that would contest the ‘diktat of nudity’.

With his friend Mehmet Volkan Atay, 32, he created Alâ, a magazine described as the avant-garde of ‘veiled’ fashion.

The first issue: Released in June, Alâ has been described as the ‘Vogue of veiled fashion’. It appeals to the modern, education, fashion-conscious Muslim woman

The magazine only shows women in headscarves

Alâ, which is Turkish for ‘the most beautiful of the beautiful’, only shows models in headscarves and will only advertise clothing that conforms to Islamic customs.

‘Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, Marie Claire, it’s all about sex and naked skin,’ says Mr Birer. ‘The motto is that sex sells. But we, and millions of women around the world, believe that fashion can also be different.’

Despite having only six issues under their belt, the magazine has been so successful that they have needed to increase circulation multiple times.

The magazine now has a circulation of 30,000 with some 5,000 subscriptions are sent abroad.

‘We had no experience with magazines before that. We’re marketing people,’ Mr Atay told SpiegelOnline. ‘We specialised in recognising market niches.’

1,500 of the subscriptions are sent to Germany alone where the magazine has a big following amongst devout Turkish migrants.

As a result, entrepreneurial Mr Birer and Mr Atay said they could definitely foresee coming out with a German Alâ in the future.

The magazine has been very successful with a circulation of 30,000

And not just a Muslim product, it would be marketed to all females since the ‘battle against nudity’ is important to all women, Mr Birer said.

More…

It’s not my fault I’m a sex addict: Woman reveals she has slept with more than 1,000 men

Bollywood on board: Finnair cabin crew become YouTube sensation with dance routine

Selling for 9 lira, or £3.20, it has been described as ‘the Vogue of the veiled’ by German magazine Radikal.

Atay and Birer have found a product for an increasingly prevalent part of Muslim society: the educated, fashion-focused woman with disposable income who still believes in wearing the veil.

Creating the magazine: Mr Brier and Mr Atay attribute their success to finding an untapped market

Creating the magazine: Mr Brier and Mr Atay attribute their success to finding an untapped market. Their backgrounds are in marketing, not magazine publishing

Cosmopolitan

Scarlett Johansson

Mr Birer was fed up of the ‘dikat of nudity’ in found in others women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Vogue

But the men have faced objections from their own camp with one theologian complaining that women should be submissively behind rather than putting themselves forward.

‘That’s not our understanding of Islam,’ says Mr Atay. ’We don’t believe that women should hide themselves. Even the veiled have a right to stylish fashion.’

via Alâ: Turkish fashion magazine created for women who wear headscarves | Mail Online.

The ministry sent a letter to state television channel TRT on Jan. 3 recommending that pop singer Can Bonomo represent Turkey at the yearly event, Haberturk reported. The move was intended as an opening to Jews amid the worst period in Turkish- Israeli relations in the countries’ histories, the Istanbul- based newspaper said. Bonomo was announced as Turkey’s representative for the contest by TRT on Jan. 6, it said.

Turkey will also be the first Muslim country to air a documentary about the Holocaust as part of the same cultural opening toward Jews, Haberturk reported. French director Claude Lanzmann’s 9.5-hour documentary “Shoah” began airing with Turkish subtitles on TRT on Jan. 26 and will continue in episodes to be aired each Thursday, it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul at bharvey11@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net

via Turkey Ministry Recommends Jewish Artist for Eurovision, HT Says – Bloomberg.

Photo: Reuters

Turkey’s Chief Rabbi Izak Haleva (C) and Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu (L) light candles, in memory of holocaust victims, during a commemoration to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day at Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul, January 26, 2012.

Turkey marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by becoming the first predominantly Muslim country to screen the iconic holocaust documentary, Shoah.

The screening of the legendary nine-hour documentary on the Jewish Holocaust on Turkish state TV was a key part of Turkey’s observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

By video link-up from Paris, Shoah director Claude Lanzmann addressed a ceremony in Istanbul’s Neve Shalom Synagogue on Thursday, the eve of the Holocaust commemoration. The meeting was attended by high-level state officials, who joined members of the Jewish community. Lanzmann says the screening in Turkey of Shoah has special significance.

“This is [a] pioneering event, the consequences that Turkey will be followed by other Arab countries and one day by Iran, I am sure,” said Lanzmann. “And I want to salute the determination, [the] courage of the people of Turkish television.”

It is the first time the film is being shown on state television in a predominantly Muslim country. The screening is part of the French-based Aladdin project that seeks to build greater understanding through culture between Muslims and Jews.

Aladdin director Abraham Radkin says the film is important in raising awareness among Muslims about the Holocaust.

“Over the past 60 years, the Muslim world [has] been excluded from history learning in other parts of the world,” said Radkin. “So we are trying to fill a gap, a knowledge gap, and we hope we can promote relations between Jews and Muslims and remove some of the misunderstanding.”

That view is shared by Turkish Jews attending Thursday night’s ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This woman says Turkish people are not sufficiently aware about the Holocaust.

“I don’t think so. If you think about the whole of Turkey, I don’t think so,” she said. “So everybody should know about it, because it should not repeat again.”

In 2003, the Neve Shalom Synagogue, where the Thursday-night ceremony was held, was hit along with another synagogue by simultaneous truck bombs, killing 27 people. The attacks were blamed on a Turkish al-Qaida cell. The synagogue was also attacked by gunmen in 1986. Twenty-two Jews were killed.

Observers say anti-Semitism in Turkey, fueled by Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, remains a concern.

Political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University was instrumental in persuading Turkish state TV to screen Shoah. He says the broadcast is important for Turkey.

“There [are] a lot of misjudgments about Judaism, about the lack of knowledge about European Jews, what happened to them in the Second World War,” said Aktar. “Turkey was a neutral country and didn’t know about much about all of this. Turkish public needs to be informed about atrocities of the 20th century.”

Turkey’s broadcast of Shoah comes as diplomatic tensions between Ankara and Israel remain high. Israeli commandos in 2010 killed nine Turkish citizens seeking to break by sea Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza. Turkey’s decision to screen Shoah is seen as part of its policy to separate its differences with the Israeli government from the Jewish people.

The documentary’s screening also comes as Ankara is embroiled in a diplomatic fight with France over Turkey’s denial that its Ottoman rulers committed a genocide against the country’s Armenian population during World War I. Earlier this week, the French Senate passed a bill that makes it a crime to deny Armenian genocide claims.

Shoah’s French director Lanzman, who condemns the law, believes the screening of films like his is effective in helping countries to face up to their past.

“I [am] absolutely sure that this is [a] first step and that the day when [they] will decide to deal themselves with their own past, they will do it, and they don’t need anybody with a gun behind them,” he said.

Turkey’s broadcast of Shoah has already drawn praise both at home and abroad. The move is seen as an important step in supporting Turkey’s small Jewish community but also, observers say, a shrewd diplomatic move by the government.

via Turkey Marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day | Europe | English.

By Cristina Everett / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Liam Neeson, who was raised Catholic, said Islamic prayer ‘got into his spirit’ during his time in Istanbul.

Liam Neeson may have found a new faith during his time filming in Istanbul.

The Irish actor admitted to the U.K.’s Sun newspaper that he is considering giving up his Catholic beliefs in order to become a Muslim.

Neeson, 59, went on to explain that Islamic prayer “got into his spirit” when he spent time in the Turkish city working on the action-thriller “Taken 2.”

“The call to prayer happens five times a day, and for the first week, it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit, and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing,” he told the newspaper.

“There are 4,000 mosques in the city,” he added. “Some are just stunning, and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”

Neeson, who was raised a devout Catholic, served as an altar boy during his youth and was named after a local priest in Northern Ireland.

However the actor, who stars in the upcoming action flick “The Grey,” has previously expressed his opinions toward religion.

“I was reared a Catholic, but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What’s it all about?” he has said. “I’m constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.”

via Liam Neeson may convert to Islam: Actor says he’s considered ‘becoming a Muslim’  – NY Daily News.

Turkey's broadcast of the film is the culmination of work by a group which tries to improve Jewish-Muslim relations (AFP/File, Andrei Nacu)

ANKARA — Turkish public television will show an epic French documentary about the Holocaust, the first broadcast of its kind by national media in a Muslim state, it was announced Wednesday.

A spokesman for Turkish public television TRT said the 1985 film “Shoah” would be shown on one of the network’s 14 channels, but did not say when.

The director of nine-hour-plus documentary, Claude Lanzmann, called the Turkish move historic.

“We should acknowledge the courage and determination of the Turks,” said Lanzmann, who spent 11 years working on the documentary. “Turkey is a country people don’t know and understand very badly.”

Turkey’s broadcast of the film is the culmination of work by the Aladdin Project, a Paris-based group which tries to improve Jewish-Muslim relations.

The group said in a statement the film would be shown Thursday, the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, adding that it had never before been shown in its entirety in a Muslim country.

Consisting largely of Holocaust-survivor interviews, the film examines the killing of European Jews in Nazi death camps during World War II.

Its broadcast comes at a sensitive time in Turkey’s international relations.

Ankara hopes to eventually join the European Union, but it is embroiled in a spat with Paris over the French senate’s approval of a law making it a crime to deny that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces in World War II was genocide.

Ankara’s relations with Israel were damaged in 2010 after Israeli commandoes stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for the Gaza Strip in an operation that led to the deaths of nine Turkish activists.

via AFP: Turkey to become first Muslim nation to show Holocaust film.