Talk:Murat Kurnaz

A partisan and biased article that aims to treat the subject soley as an innocent party. More balance please. Kurnaz is still under investigation by police and security agencies in both Germany and Turkey. unsigned comment from User:85.97.206.199 07:36, 2006 February 5

I encouraged 85.97.206.199 to create a userid, login and sign their talk page edits.

85 called the article "partisan" and "biased". 85 claims that Kurnaz is still under investigation by German and Turkish authorities. Really? I have a google news alert on Murat Kurnaz since March 27th 2005. I have seen zero indications that he was under investigation by German or Turkish authorities. Can 85 offer a single link to an authoritative site that backs up his or her assertion?

Does expressing information from an NPOV require making articles tout the unsubstantiated US line to show balance?

If slavery was legal and if industrial scale slavery was being practiced in advanced societies, I think we could count on the slaveowners hiring the most expert spin doctors. They would try to insist on removing the words slave and slaveowner from the arena of public discourse. They would try to call slaves something like the "beneficiaries of guaranteed lifetime employment". Anti-slavery types would probably call the slaveowners something like flesh-rippers. If slavery was an active item in the arena of public discourse the wikipedia's policy of NPOV would make us avoid using the extreme terms of those on the extreme sides of the debate.

Well, arguing that the article should repeat the unsubstantiated claims as if they were credible, would not, IMO, be following the NPOV policy, it would be distorting it. So, 85, can you cite an authoritative source to back up your assertion?

Please create a userid, login, then sign your talk page comments. -- Geo Swan 17:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Geo Swan, Thanks for your input. I have been very negligent on signing in. My Apologies. You will have to take my advancing years into consideration. In the interests of balance, I should draw your attention to the following reports regarding Murat Kurnaz. Firstly, this part of a report from the German news magazine Der Spiegel entitled "Guantanamo Prisoner Vexing German Authorities" dated January 10 2006-

"...the Federal Interior Ministry regards the Kurnaz problem as less a humanitarian one than one of security. When rumours resurfaced last October that his release was imminent, all German security officials were called upon to gather information that would ensure Kurnaz would be refused permission to enter Germany. The list included details of Kurnaz's habit of using the word "Taliban" as the background logo in his mobile phone, along with quotes from Mohammed Haydar Zammar, the German-Syrian who is currently locked up in Damascus. During his interrogation Zammar, who also recruited the 9/11 pilots, described how he explained Jihad to "two Turks from Bremen" and referred them to the Taliban. One of the descriptions exactly matches that of Kurnaz. Presumably this statement, which remains confidential, is what lies behind the US accusation.The Interior Ministry had already issued a refusal of entry for Kurnaz in May 2004 that is valid until May 11 2007. If Kurnaz is actually released and makes his way from Ankara to Germany he would be stopped at the border as "a danger to public safety and order" and put on the next flight back to Turkey..."

full report at [1]

If the above is correct,it is apparent that the German police and security apparatus (whether rightly or wrongly)still has a continuing interest in Kurnaz....

As far as Turkey is concerned (and let me make clear that I am of Turkish Cypriot origin) its entirely reasonable to assert that Kurnaz is still under investigation. The following report (in Turkish only) from leading daily newspaper Milliyet [2] dated March 2005 states that after being captured in Pakistan and before being taken to Cuba, Kurnaz was taken in early 2002 to the American air base near Adana, Turkey. There he was interrogated by "Turkish authorities", (presumably by the police and secret service) This was confirmed by Kurnz's lawyer. Its fair to say that the Turkish side continues to have an investigative interest in Kurnaz but obviously I nor anyone else can say for sure... Kingsbury 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]