1067) GUILTY of OPINION at age 93 - Muazzez Ilmiye Cig

When I read on Tuesday’s Cumhuriyet the news of Hilal Kose “They opened a court case against History”, I indeed could not believe my eyes. A world-wide-known famous scholar woman aged 93, was going to be put on trial, charged with “inciting the public of hatred, antagonism and defamation” because of a book, she had edited based on her studies in the Sumerology branch. . . . . .

District Attorney of Beyoglu, based on the complaint of a citizen had taken action and had found a discrepancy between paragraph 2 of Turkish Penal Law’s art. 216 and truths carried to our day, during the past half century, throughout her voyage of some 5 thousand years over the cuneiform tablets, our reputed Sumerolog had brought into light.

Muazzez Ilmiye Cig should be put into prison for “openly humiliating a section of the public, based on social classification, race, faith, sex or regional discrimination”. Moreover, art. 218 of the law, was requiring that the punishment to be given to those committing crime through publication, should be increased by half of the penalty.

What was the crime of Mrs. Cig ?
Our famous scholar of Sumer, had succeeded to undo the mystery of living, in the areas starting in our South down to Mesopotamia, in past 5 thousand years. She had reached to the fact, that prostitution was a sacred profession with Sumerians. Those women, doing this job voluntarily in the name of God, were separated from other sex workers, by covering their heads.

Truly, after edition of Hilal Kose’s news, I was expecting that the circles who recently proved their sensitivity on crimes of opinion, will take immediate action and announce their reactions.

The other day and yesterday, for example, the sensitivity shown for similar investigations against our thinkers such as Hasan Cemal, Hirant Dink or Perihan Magden, for reasons I cannot understand was spared when this almost a century old pine-tree was called to face the judge! And I did not hear the voice of any commissar from EU environment or even a moving hair!

To read more than 300 tablets ! (Some say it is 3000 pcs)
To make a first sound in this silence of two days, I made a quick investigation for Muazzez Ilmiye Cig. I learned that after graduation from Ankara Language’ History and Geography Faculty, she had decoded over 300 Sumer tablet ciphers, and added to the world archive of history for which Western Scholars exclaimed “you created a monument”. Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, has written 13 books on her branch of scholarship. In a book she wrote titled “The Cult of Abundance and Temple Whoring”, she found similarities between the religion of Sumers and writings of Torah. A portion of these similarities were carried into the Bible and Koran. She traced prophet Abraham in Sumerian religion. Honorary Dr. Cig, wrote articles against the distortions in our society based on the scholarly observations of her book “The Cult of Abundance and Temple Whoring”. She wrote letters to all dignitaries of the country Starting from Celal Bayar to Demirel, Erdal Inonu, Bulent Ecevit, Tayyip Erdogan, Mesut Yilmaz, Tansu Ciller, Recai Kutan, Kivrikoglu, Abdullah Gul and Baykal. She complained in her letters, wrapping of heads like a bundle by girls, and insertion of bands like nuns, in lieu of turban. She later edited all such letters in a book titled “My Citizenship Reactions”…

How dare you collected these letters?
Erdogan, was Mayor of Istanbul when he got the letter… But now that he is the Prime Minister… a loyal informant , jumped out of the bath like Archimedes exclaiming “I found it” and rushed to the office of Beyoglu District Attorney and versus the reactions of citizenship, he performed his duty of bigotry.

When you learn the past of Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, you understand that she will not be scared of such court cases. In 1933, when she was a 19 years old teacher, on of the Tenth Anniversary of the Republic, she went out in the streets with her violin at hand to teach her friends the “Tenth Year March”. “There was no radios at homes. Those who heard us rushed to doors, accompanying the march with applauds. I was not scared or ashamed, being teased or humiliated… because I was performing my duty of citizenship”…

Those who believe that you should do something for this scholar lady , who in her 93 years age is performing the duty of citizenship… Can’t you make your voice heard ?

Faks 0212 677 08 21 obirgit@e-kolay.net

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“CUMHURIYET” Newspaper 1.09.2006
“Article by Orhan Birgit”
(Translated by S.S.Aya)

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