Please write for 2 missing Turkish men, Gokhan Turkmen and Mustafa Yilmaz

From Amnesty International:
"Gökhan Türkmen and Mustafa Yılmaz have been missing since...February 2019...suspected to have been abducted and forcibly disappeared. The authorities have so far been denying that they are being held in official custody."

And "On 29 July four men who had been missing since around the same time resurfaced in detention at the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the Ankara Police Headquarters."

"The authorities must promptly investigate to determine the whereabouts of Gökhan Türkmen and Mustafa Yılmaz and urgently inform their families."

Turkey "is bound by the prohibition of committing enforced disappearance under customary international law and other human rights treaties of which it is party, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights."

"Write a letter...email, fax, call or Tweet them.

Mr Abdülhamit Gül
Minister of Justice
Adalet Bakanlığı
06659 Ankara, Turkey
Fax: +90 312 417 71 13
Email: info@adalet.gov.tr
Twitter: @abdulhamitgul
Dear Minister,

Ambassador Serdar Kiliç
Embassy of the Republic of Turkey
2525 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008
Phone: 202 612 6700 | 6701
Fax: 202 612 6744
Email: embassy.washingtondc@mfa.gov.tr
Contact Form: https://bit.ly/2HZCUZu
Twitter: @SerdarKilic9 @TurkishEmbassy
Facebook: @turkishembassy

Salutation: Dear Ambassador,
https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/urgent-action-investigate-whereabouts-of-two-missing-men-turkey-ua-111-19/



In the Light of Human Rights, Justice, and Equality,

Dan Wilcox

Stand for Taner Kilic! Please write the Government of Turkey

https://act.amnestyusa.org/page/19447/action/1

from the Amnesty International Website:
"The decision to renew the detention of Amnesty International’s Turkey Chair mere hours after a court ordered his release must be immediately reversed and Taner Kılıç set free, said Amnesty International."

“Over the last 24 hours we have borne witness to a travesty of justice of spectacular proportions. To have been granted release only to have the door to freedom so callously slammed in his face is devastating for Taner, his family and all who stand for justice in Turkey."
--AI Secretary General Salil Shetty

“This latest episode of his malicious detention has dashed the hopes of Taner and those of his wife and daughters who were waiting by the prison gates all day to welcome him into their arms.”

https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/re-arrest-and-detention-of-amnesty-chair-hours-after-release-ordered-devastates-family-disgraces-justice/

“This is the latest example of the crisis in Turkey’s justice system that is ruining lives and hollowing out the right to a fair trial,” said Salil Shetty.

“By riding roughshod over justice and ignoring the overwhelming evidence of his innocence his re-detention only deepens our resolve to continue to fight on Taner’s case. One million voices have already called for his release. He should never have been arrested, and we will not rest until he is free.”

"The next court hearing has been set for June 21, 2018."

Stand for human rights! Support prisoners of conscience, especially Taner Kilic. Please write today!

Daniel Wilcox

Widening Our Circle of Concern: Vegetarianism

"Pigs by nature are every bit as loving, sensitive, and full of personality as the animals we call "family."

"Pigs dream, recognize their names, and are gregarious and affectionate being who form loyal bonds with each other and other species including humans."
--

If so, why do millions of American citizens sit down to fancy feasts of ham, pork, sausage, and bacon, especially at Thanksgiving and other holy days?

Sometimes these pork-barrel* times include their deeply loved pet dogs in attendance, waiting impatiently for any pig scraps to gobble up.
("Chester Collins Maxey in the National Municipal Review...
claimed that the phrase originated in a pre-Civil War practice of giving slaves a barrel of salt pork as a reward and requiring them to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout.")
from wikepedia

YET, "the curious and insightful pig is the smartest domestic animal in the world, with intelligence beyond that of a 3-year-old human child."

"In their natural setting, pigs spend hours playing, mother pigs sing to their piglets while nursing, and groups of pigs enjoy lying close together in the sun."
--from vegetarian poster

Consider these startling facts from scientists:
from "Pigheaded: How Smart are Swine?"
By Andy Wright
"Candace Croney is an Associate Professor of Animal Sciences at Purdue University and once taught pigs to play video games...
she participated in a study that set pigs to a task that previously only Rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees had been asked to perform."

"The pigs were provided with specially made joysticks that they could control with their mouths or snouts and then tasked with the job of moving a cursor around on the screen to make contact with different target walls that would shrink and move away."

"Croney did not think the pigs would be able to do it. But they could..."they’re really very fast learners... learn novel things quite quickly and quite well.”

"She soon set her pigs to other tasks...They were given odor quizzes, correctly picking out, say, spearmint, from an array of other smells that included mint and peppermint."

"Some studies have shown that scent is so important to a pig that if you cover up a part of a pigs’ cheek, they have trouble recognizing each other because that is where they emit a certain pheromone."

"Croney says the pigs were extremely clean, that they housebroke themselves and that at the end of a play session they put their own toys away in a big tub."

"Pigs are social, they remember locations well, they remember negative and positive experiences, can tell the difference between individual pigs and humans, recognize themselves in mirrors and learn from other pigs," says Dunipace.

"Kristina Horback, an ethologist (a person who observes animals in their natural habitat): “The social structure of pigs is just like elephants, they have the increased prefrontal cortex like primates and humans because they eat meat and they have the need to hunt and forage."
from "Pigheaded: How Smart are Swine?"
By Andy Wright
READ the whole insightful article at Modern Farmer:
https://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/pigheaded-smart-swine/
--

Of course, for those of us who are moving toward vegetarianism, who have long ago quit pork and beef, but who still eat salmon, cod, and shrimp-- and sometimes fowl food at family meals to be courteous--for us in transition toward non-face food, there is this problem:
"Seth Dunipace, a veterinarian and post-doctoral fellow at University of Pennslyvania...thinks we should be asking ourselves why we care how smart a pig is. “I don’t think that’s necessarily fair because they’re using intelligence as a stand-in for suffering."

“And its this kind of thought that allows us to eat fish, and fish suffocate to death or bleed out over a course of thirty minutes, but a cow or pig must be rendered instantaneously insensible at slaughter. It’s a double standard."

"And fish do feel pain, fish do have memory. But we just don’t think of them as intelligent. And intelligence, I don’t think, should factor in to how greatly an animal can suffer.”

Hmm...we need to work toward a world of a widening circle of deep ethical concern, but keep in mind that we are all on this life voyage at different places.

Hopefully, we will live deeper and deeper into ethical truths,

Daniel Wilcox

More Human Rights Workers Arrested in Turkey: Please Sign Petition

Turkish police have arrested the second Amnesty International Turkey leader within the space of a month.

On the morning of July 5th, Turkish police arrested 8 human rights defenders and two trainers at a human rights meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. One of those arrested was Idil Eser, the Director of Amnesty International Turkey.

"For over 24 hours, they weren’t allowed to contact their families or see a lawyer — and no one even knew where they were."

The denial of free speech, restrictions against freedom of press, etc. and oppression of human rights defenders are becoming much worse in Turkey.

"Idil and the others were doing nothing wrong. Some are being questioned on suspicion of “membership of an armed terrorist organization,” a baseless and ridiculous accusation."

Please write to Turkish authorities asking for the immediate and unconditional release of all ten detainees as well as the Chair of Amnesty Turkey Taner Kiliç.

Arrested:
İdil Eser (Amnesty International),
İlknur Üstün (Women's Coalition),
Günal Kurşun (Human Rights Agenda Association),
Nalan Erkem,(Citizens Assembly),
Nejat Taştan (Equal Rights Watch Association),
Özlem Dalkıran (Citizens’ Assembly),
Şeyhmuz Özbekli (lawyer),
Veli Acu (Human Rights Agenda Association).
https://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=74080

Also, please go to Amnesty International website and sign their petition.


Thank you.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"NO FLAG LARGE ENOUGH...

Historian Howard Zinn down-dated to the 6 wars the U.S. is now waging, bombing, especially Syria:

"We live in a world in which we are asked to make a moral choice
between one kind of terrorism and another.

The government, the press, the politicians, are trying to convince
us that [the U.S. support and funding
of Muslim killers in Syria, etc.], our "terrorism is morally
superior to [President Assad's] terrorism."

"Of course, we don't call our actions that, but...congratulating
[our]selves that the world's most heavily-armed nation [the U.S.]
can bomb with impunity..."

"Modern technology has outdistanced the Bible. "An eye for an eye" has become
a hundred eyes for an eye, [by the U.S. government, with over 400,000 slaugtered
by our side and Assad's side]
which tried to wrap their moral nakedness in the American flag."

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing..."

"...terrorism...is a very old weapon of fanatics, whether they operate
from secret underground headquarters,
or from ornate offices in the capitols of the superpowers."
Howard Zinn
from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Tripoli_ZR.html






How great is the darkness of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, etc.



Please, for Aleppo's civilians, turn to the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

9/11, A Last, Again

News: This is the 15th anniversary of the slaughter
of over 3,000 humans at the World Trade Center.

Yet tragically now the U.S. is planning to sell 1.5 billion dollars' worth of weapons to an Islamic government which is bombing, killing many civilians, and denies its citizens basic human rights, a country where you can be executed for disagreeing with Islam!

Further, we continue to supply millions of dollars to jihadists involved in the slaughter in Syria.

WHY?!

Multiply the 3,000 9/11 deaths to about over 300,000 deaths, (probably about 413,000 deaths) in Syria and millions wounded.

Why are we involved in this slaughter being conducted by various contrary groups of Muslims against each other?

A Last

Alas, grieving sorrow, tribulating
Don’t ask from where—
Yes, Shiloh; down to Sheol, after Shoah

Welted eyes, shadowed tears,
Wind-cuffed face with ‘fulled’ lashings

Of more less and less,
Wiping away
With wept wetness
In a downward swirling wet sweep,
The torn sky in
A multiple series of weeping losses,

Stark--
Abyssed fall of all welling reveries
In the wreck--aging.

How long, how many tomorrow’s tomorrow
This a las—ting loss lostness?

Selah



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in The New Verse News
in different form

Lift the people of Baghdad, Dhaka... in the Light.

Please lift the people of Baghdad, Dhaka, Istanbul, Orlando, and so many others suffering in religious darkness.

Baghdad Massacre, 215 precious individuals lost to religious hatred, Sunni Muslims against Shia Muslims.

Faraaz Hossain, a 20-hear-old Muslim student killed by Quranic jihadists
in Dhaka attack

Nibras Islam, one of the killers. Only months previously,
he was studying at Norhtsouth University in Dhaka,
driving around, hanging out with friends at restaurants, and watching movies.

Nibras and the other 4 attackers are all Bangladeshis from rich families and with good educations, according to Bangladeshi's home minister Asaduzzaman Khan. Islam's father is a successful businessman, one uncle a police officer, another a scientist, and another a government official.

The Bangladesh government said that the attackers belonged to a banned group, Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB)

What is it about the Islamic religion that it leads bright, educated, wealthy men to murder large groups of people for Allah?

Why do millions of Muslims support attacks of other Muslims, ex-Muslims, other religions, and atheists?

Another father said of his son, "My son used used to pray 5 times a day from a young age."

Then there are the older leaders such as Ramadan Shalah, Secretary-General of Islamic Jihad who inspire the young men. Again, like the young jihadists, these Islamic leaders are highly educated--economists, engineers, doctors, etc.

Shalah earned a PhdD in banking and economics at the University of Durham in Britain. Later he was a professor at the University of South Florida.


He has been indicted in the past with a 53 count indictment in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida for activities related to Islamic Jihad and been added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.

Shalah was involved in the March 2014 launch of over 100 rockets toward civilians in Israel. He said the rocket attack was coordinated with HAMAS.


Why do many millions of Muslims support attacks of other Muslims, ex-Muslims, other religions, and atheists?


May this ocean of darkness which has, again, swamped across the world, engulfing, deluding, destroying be wept against by all.

May all Muslims reject the horrific commands of the Quran and the false witness of Muhammad
and come to experience what is true, what is good, and what is compassionate.


May the Light of peace, hope, justice, and human rights shine.






In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Encountering Jesus Part #1

Jesus said, Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God..Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. NIV Luke 12:6-7

These loving words mean so much--that God cares even for the sparrows and so very much for all humans, every single unique individual who has ever lived.

Indeed this may be the central reason to be a theist--to have deep hope for all people we meet now, and hope for all the millions lost in wrong harmful ways in this life. And hope especially for all past humans who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia and Turkey, the pestilences of the Black Plague, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death from other forms of havoc and evil in the past, and the multi-millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood...

NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING if somehow all will be made good.

There is not the despair as in a nontheistic cosmos where ruthless determinism or chance rules.

No!

We have God's Yes--Faith, hope, and love are eternal:-)

For those millions of humans and all others, and even countless lesser creatures--they all are loved by God and cared for living within God, and as the NT says, and many people of faith have trusted, God will bring all into the loving realm of total goodness and blessedness in the end.

That, dear Friends, is the Good News, the Glad Tidings, the Ocean of Light--God IS and loves us deeply and endlessly:-)

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

The Love of God
by Frederick M. Lehman and
Meir Ben Isaac (from his Jewish
poem Hadamut written in Aramic
in 1050 A.D.)

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Refrain


Next in part 2 we will look at the rest of the Luke passage.

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox