Talk:IHH (Turkish NGO)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

General

Reading all the projects at the IHH site no just the title It is clear that the IHH Is Islamic org mainly helping Muslims and the Muslims religion practice

I hope that you are not shocked that an Islamic charity is perhaps more sensitive to the plight of Muslims in need than many Christian or Jewish charities. But by far the largest part of the money goes to projects that have no specific religious connotation.  --Lambiam 01:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Crap. This has become a mess again. If it is still a mess tomorrow I'll try to straighten out the grammar and usage and get the citations linked to the right things again. 65.96.173.41 (talk) 04:11, 18 June 2010 (UTC)VSO'P.

I realize you are fighting against repeated opinion attacks and revisions but somebody really needs to go over the page and do simple proofreading and copy editing. (Update -- thanks, it looks much better today.) You've got typos, words missing, etc. There's also currently no reference or link to the Gaza Flotilla or the Wikipedia Gaza flotilla raid entry, which seems lame given the "current event" warnings. Demonstrate the commitment to quality and clarity over politics by spending some fraction of the time devoted to swapping and re-swapping pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian political arguments to cleaning up the writing for clarity and correctness. People come here looking for information; whatever the controversy it would be nice if the entry were coherent. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.173.41 (talk) 23:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There is an indirect reference to the Gaza Flotilla incident ("several members went on the boat"), plus a "previously arrested" phrase which could mean previous to the 1997 raid (which is described redundantly in succeeding sentences) or previous to the Gaza Flotilla. Winter Maiden (talk) 04:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I still think there needs to be a brief statement such as, "IHH was one of the organizers of the Gaza flotilla, an aid flotilla of six ships carrying 663 activists from 37 nations intended to break through the blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian supplies. The ships were boarded and seized by Israeli naval forces on May 31, 2010, resulting in at least 10 deaths and prompting international reaction [[1]]." PS: Hey, I think I added this. I thought the page was locked, but I guess not?

>>Message from YalePhDHistory<< (I realize this may be an admin board so if you have a better place to put this message so that people can read it, please do move it there.) Listen up folks, I am posting excerpts that are thoroughly and properly cited and are a compilation of reports from the FBI, CIA, French, Turkish, and Danish Intelligence Services. Do not delete my post unless you have some issue with reality or have minor appearance issues. This is neither pro-Palestinian nor pro-Israeli, these are the facts regarding the activities and connections of the IHH as they are seen by global intelligence services. —Preceding unsigned comment added by YalePhDHistory (talk • contribs) 15:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Almost all the references under the heading "controversy" are Israeli sources. The allegations are brought by the Israeli side and they are then proven by Israeli references. No dictionary can be built on such tautology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.238.59.102 (talk) 23:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

Some Israeli people trying to vandalise this article, and add false claims about Humanitarian Aid Foundation. Last paragraph where they claim it has links to al-kaida is one of those edits.

All the info about IHH's alleged terrorist links are properly sourced, with references to established daily papers, quotes from the Carnegie Endowment, etc.  Someone is censoring that information. 

Please stop the nonsense, or you will get banned by the admins.85.103.12.75 (talk)

1. "by conservative American analyst Evan Kohlman"

Is there any evidence he is conservative? His wiki page does not so describe him. This seems like an attempt to dismiss his reportage based his background, a background that is not even sourced.

2. Apparently, Kohlman's theory about IHH has not gained traction, since IHH remains a legal organization everywhere except Israel, which banned it in 2008.

This seems to be original research. The states that have not banned IHH are political entities with their own agendas, not academic organizations designed to confirm or dispute research. In particular they all want to maintain good relations with the current govt of Turkey, which seems to protect the IHH.

3. The entire article seems to have POV issues, in tone and layout.

4. I have added further info on Izzat Shahin's activities on the West Bank to add contect to the deportation.

Ricardianman (talk) 13:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

1. "by conservative..." - I looked at Evan Kohlman wikipedia page and more than 10 articles outside Wikipedia about him + his biography, nothing tells us he might be "conservative". The only thing linked to that word is the several right-wing "patriot" > conservative < american bloggers depicting him as a left-wing uncompetent "expert" for not always blaming Al Qaida for any bombing attempt in the USA, he's more the opposite of "conservative". Also, the article doesnt' mention that the release of Izzet Sahin was decided after negociations between Turkey and Israel, it makes that "controversy" part a little bit POV to me (saw way worse on Wikipedia though :]). --93.15.244.58 (talk) 17:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

(talya) hey i would just like to add some links that proves the connections to the Hamas and other terroists: http://www.ie.edu/IE/site/php/en/school_communication_detail.php?id_new=111 http://www.velfecr.com/gazze-de-goz-yasartan-buyuk-bulusma-video-foto-1408-haberi.html http://www.spittoon.org/archives/4168 http://www.diis.dk/sw241.asp http://hurryupharry.org/2010/04/14/oh-jesus/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.69.230.106 (talk) 16:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• What does that photo article prove? Turkish officials and Russian PM Medvedev have also met hamas leaders before, do you think those countries are terrorist organizations, too? SandyNm (talk) 17:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

This all just seems very fishy to me. The edits regarding the IHH's allegedly Islamist ideology are ones that have been made only in the past couple of days, if not only today. If these connections are so well known, why hasn't it been mentioned before? Furthermore, the brunt of the article goes on about the organizations alleged links to al-Qaida and other jihadist groups, but there are only three source in the entire article, not to mention that little else is mentioned about their humanitarian activities. I think that if this article is to be taken seriously, someone needs to flesh out the parts about the IHH that deal with their humanitarian activites, for as it is now, one'd directly assume that it's a terrorist group. This article as such seems more to want to convince people of this rather than informing them about what this group is and what it does. An article about a charity group should focus primarily on their charitable activities, not their alleged links to terrorist groups! Especially not with so few sources! Nederbörd (talk) 19:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Ok. I recommend, then, either keep only the bare essentials from the Reuter's factbox, which is the most neutral, impartial, and general description, or, if you are to keep references to think-tanks and research organizations, which may or may not include partisan POV's, then add references with opposing views, for a more balanced and inclusive article. Perhaps, you Nederbörd, could find such research? Sextusempericus (talk) 21:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree this article has been hijacked by pro-Israel groups.--shirbil (talk) 04:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

IHH listed as Terrorist Organization by the US

Realizing that this page has come under "semi-protection" for it's possible vandalism, and why, politics again. It is worth noting, and it should be added that in a de-classified report titled "“International Islamic NGOs and Links to Terrorism” from the CIA, the IHH is listed as having "links with extremist groups in Iran and Algeria and was either active or facilitating activities of terrorist groups operating in Bosnia."Erelas RyAlcar (talk) 08:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC) Some more background, and an editor who is more "Wiki-savvy" than I would surely be able to present this information correctly, is this http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:vr1qsPY-xJ8J:www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/312.pdf+Is+%C4%B0nsani+Yard%C4%B1m+Vakf%C4%B1+listed+by+the+US+as+a+terrorist+organization%3F&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgovB4G22Iw7qoltk25qw7z8KFJhw5XXxxU22cstSwFFJPNdbB4cYnpD60HqN1RmdCYVeO5G3bxmiLlk77fGtZP5oqCfMViLrLkPdaOMoWYMW1JOkR02dDdxL880qVfw1w3HdaQ&sig=AHIEtbTt8Rro9Y-fCnl6WrzYWMJOXwamXw PDF of court documents related to IHH, et al. in a federal money laundering case for HAMAS.Erelas RyAlcar (talk) 08:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

That is not an official US government document, and certainly does not mean that the US has listed the organisation as terrorist. --386-DX (talk) 21:01, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, not to get into an argument, but since when is a US Federal Court document, not a US government document? I beg to differ and restate that it is indeed a .pdf copy of a document filed in US Federal Court and therefore is a US government document, and so is my Geneva Convention Identification Card, my Social Security Card, ad naseaum. In addition, I mentioned two pieces of separate documentation, you addressed your disagreement with the second being a US government document, the first mentioned though is published directly by the US Central Intelligence Agency, certainly that qualifies as a US government document.Erelas RyAlcar (talk) 06:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

In any case it is not a "de-classified report", as you stated. It is simply a deposition by an expert witness in a court case. I don't think this is a reliable source as a secondary source, although it could serve as a reliable primary source for statements of the nature: "Brett Getrup declared that ...". But the only bits in his deposition related to IHH that go beyond guilt by association are not based on his personal knowledge, but are derived from a well-publicized closing argument for the prosecution by Jean-Louis Bruguière from a 2001 French court case (see e.g. DIIS Working Paper no 2006/7 by Evan F. Kohlmann, but note the nonsensical claim in this report that this closing argument is a "French intelligence report", as well as the author's inability to render the French title even moderately correctly, an error repeated in his book Al-Qaida's jihad in Europe: the Afghan-Bosnian network [presumably this mangled French should have been Réquisitoire définitif aux fins de non-lieu, de non-lieu partiel, de requalification, de renvoi devant le tribunal correctionnel, de maintien sous contrôle judiciaire et de maintien en détention], making it quite clear that the author does not actually understand French) – but as you can see from our article, his research methods are somewhat controversial, and in any case an indictment is not proof of guilt, otherwise we can just scrap the whole court process. Since the Turkish person related to IHH who is implicated in this indictment is a living person who has never been officially accused of any crimes, we should apply the rules of WP:BLP and leave out the innuendo and hearsay.  --Lambiam 23:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, not to sound argumentative, again I must again point out that this is now the third time I have mentioned in this talk the existence of two documents. Document A being titled "International Islamic NGOs and Links to Terrorism" and Document B, the aforementioned .pdf copy of an affidavit, sworn deposition in a US Federal Court. Being open to discussion, let's at least agree that there are TWO separate documents that I originally mentioned. I'll do a bit more digging and see if I can find you a copy of the de-classified CIA report without having to file a FoIA request personally.Erelas RyAlcar (talk) 21:25, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Your posting was not very clear that these were two separate document; if you mention one document and then continue "Some more background" and "this information", it is natural to assume you are referring to the document just mentioned before. Now some questions. How do you know this is a CIA report? What source told you this report exists? Some source that took it from some source that ... took it from DIIS Working Paper no 2006/7, a paper that can't distinguish between a closing argument in a court case and a "French intelligence report". Does Kohlmann actually have this "French intelligence report" in his possession? Then it is hard to understand how he manages to mangle up its title so badly, not only in the working paper but also in his book. So where does he get his information from? Surprise, surprise, he writes that "a 1996 French intelligence memorandum" discloses that Islamic charities allow young volunteers to be recruited for jihad, and cites as its source this putative CIA report. I bet that the "1996 French intelligence memorandum" and the "French intelligence report" are one and the same thing, and that Kohlmann gets all his wisdom from this CIA report that no-one else has seen. Is it actually a CIA report? The first time he mentions it in the working paper (and the book), Kohlmann writes: "attributed by the Wall Street Journal to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)", without giving a verifiable reference. So (assuming he has a copy – an assumption I don't know to be true) this report does not actually identify its provenance as being the CIA. After this, he just calls it "the CIA report". Does it have an identifying number? What is its title? Kohlmann writes consistently: 'January 1996 CIA Report on “International Islamic NGOs” and links to terrorism'. Are the quotation marks “...” and the part "links to terrorism" part of the title, or is the title just "International Islamic NGOs" and is the rest an editorial addition? Nothing remotely like this can be found on the CIA's website, whether under publications or in the index of declassified articles. Something strange is going on here. Note also that most sources on the web that mention the report as a source give "International Islamic NGOs and Links to Terrorism" as the title, and also note the amount of parroting going on in which every writer creates the suggestion they read the report themselves while actually only copying what someone else (Kohlmann?) wrote. The standard recipe for disinformation is injecting something into the media whirlpool until it gets uncritically copied by a "reliable source", after which it can be endlessly copied by more and more "reliable sources", while each time the hyperbole can gets turned up one notch – what started as a mere suggestion becomes an observation and then turns into a generally accepted fact (recommended reading: Inside the Company). If you want to cite this report on Wikipedia, which you're welcome to do, you need indeed to cite from the report itself, giving a reference from which the reader can verify that the report has been accurately quoted, or, if the information is only summarized, that the summary is fair.  --Lambiam 07:15, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth: İHH is not listed on any of:

• the U.S. Congressional Research Service's report Foreign Terrorist Organizations of 2004;
• the European Union's List of persons, groups and entities referred to in Article 1 of 2007;
• the U.S. Department of State's 2008 Current List of Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations of 2008;
• the European Union's List of persons, groups and entities referred to in Article 1 of 2009;
• the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's notice entitled Terrorism: What you need to know about U.S. Sanctions of 2010.

Thus, labelling the organization as being "listed as Terrorist Organization by the US" is almost certainly incorrect, even if you can cite a dozen "reliable" sources alleging this.  --Lambiam 09:04, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, glad to finally get to the bottom of it. Now I can sleep well knowing that my being "unclear" that there were two separate documents led to all this.Erelas RyAlcar (talk) 01:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Proper title

The present title is a curious hybrid of English and Turkish spelling. Please note that the Turkish alphabet has two distinct letters, dotted and dotless I. In English texts these are often mapped to letters in the Basic Latin alphabet, as follows: the dotless minuscule ı is mapped to dotted i, while the dotted majuscule İ is mapped to dotless I. Here we see the majuscule being mapped while the minuscules remain unmapped, which is rather inconsistent.

Some facts about the name (source: www.ihh.org.tr):

1. The full Turkish name of the organization is İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri ve İnsani Yardım Vakfı.^#
2. The organization usually shortens this long name in Turkish texts to İHH İnsani Yardım Vakfı.
3. The full English name of the organization is The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, which is a literal translation of the Turkish name. (Note that the definite article The is part of the name as used by the organization).
4. In its logo the organization uses both the shortened Turkish name and the full English name (see the logo).
5. In most English news sources the name is given as just IHH (with a dotless I). If the "İnsani Yardım Vakfı" part is mentioned, it is generally done in the "mapped" version Insani Yardim Vakfi. The sources don't appear to understand the connection between the "İHH" part and the "İnsani Yardım Vakfı" part, culminating in the NYT's inane formulation "the group, Insani Yardim Vakfi, known by its Turkish initials, I.H.H." (article here).

^#^ Modified 12:10, 6 June 2010 (UTC) by adding a second ve; see explanation on the article's page.  --Lambiam

The problems with the current version of the page name are:

1. It does not correspond to any version used by the organization itself;
2. It is not by itself a plausible search name;
3. The use of a bracketed part suggests that the words between the brackets are a disambiguating term, which they are not; compare how strange it would be to give the page ABC Unified School District the title ABC (Unified School District).
4. The mixture of mapping to the Basic Latin alphabet with unmapped Turkish characters is schizophrenic.

I think together they have enough weight to make clear that the page should be moved to a better title. (We should of course retain all remotely plausible variants as redirects.)

According to the rule "most common in English", IHH would be the most appropriate name for the article; however, IHH has already been taken and is in the long run probably the better candidate for occupying this page. Next, the most plausible candidates for the name are:

1. IHH (xxx) where xxx is some disambiguation term, for example:
   1. IHH (organization);
   2. IHH (Turkish humanitarian aid foundation);
2. İHH İnsani Yardım Vakfı;
3. (The) Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief.

In order of preference, I'd say 1.2, then 2, then 1.1, with 3 as least preferable. What do others think?  --Lambiam 13:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for this overview, I have a (stupid) question, what the letters IHH stand for ? --Kimdime (talk) 14:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri, which produces the initialism İHH, and hence, with the Turkish letter İ replaced by the Basic Latin letter I, IHH. 85.101.2.34 (talk) 16:50, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Another IHH

It turns out that there is also a German humanitarian relief organization named Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation (which means "International Humanitarian Relief Organization"), based in Frankfurt am Main. As could be expected, this organization generally goes by the initialism IHH. Although having a similar (but not identical) logo and also being run by Turks with an emphasis on projects in Muslim countries, this organization states on its website that it should not be confused with the Turkish IHH (the subject of this article) and that it was not involved in the "Free Gaza" campaign.  --Lambiam

Follow-up: Several sources (also "reliable" ones) mention Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation and the Internationale Humanitaire Hulporganisatie as, respectively, the German and Dutch branches of the Turkish İHH İnsani Yardım Vakfı. However, the other day the head of İHH was on Turkish television, and when interviewed about the relationship he stated that these organizations had been founded and adopted the initials IHH during the Bosnian war in order to profit from the success of the Turkish organization, and that İHH İnsani Yardım Vakfı had begun instituting legal proceeding against them – but that progress was slow due to the difficulties of a border-crossing legal process.  --Lambiam 07:34, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Copyright violation

This edit is made up of copying, word for word, copyrighted material.The text (including the citations) is lifted from the DIIS study (here). nableezy - 22:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Text in the Alleged terrorist ties section is also lifted from the WINEP paper. nableezy - 22:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

As a model Wikipedian, I'm sure you'd be glad to paraphrase it accordingly. Plot Spoiler (talk) 23:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

As a model Wikipedian, I'm sure you will remove the copyright violation immediately. nableezy - 00:43, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Uncritical editorship

I find it rather appalling how all kinds of claims of often dubious provenance – the kind of disinformation the intelligence community is adept in seeding and spreading around – are copied uncritically to the article, without an examination of the stated sources. If A claims that B states that X, we should not simply report that in the form: "B states that X", copying the reference (if any) given by A. We should only report this in such a way if we have examined that reference ourselves, and found that the claim is accurate. Otherwise (if the cited source is not available, so we cannot examine it), if we report this claim at all, we should cite it from A – but only if A is a truly reliable source, which many think tanks, political analysts, and other pundits, are not.  --Lambiam 23:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more with you Lambiam. The whole section on Islamist affiliations is written in a way reminiscent of extremist leaflets. All the sources cited are simple hearsay, specific persons' opinions, or, at best, conclusions of think-tanks and institutes.

• "The Daily Telegraph reports that Israel accuses"... A newspaper reports that Israel accuses, etc. Must this be in an article?
• "the Danish Institute for International Studies published a working paper".... The institutes for International Studies all over the world publish tons of working papers.... Can they be cited in an encyclopedic article to make such claims?
• "According to Henri Barkey, an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"... I think I won't even comment on how unreliable a source this is.
• Furthermore, half of the section is based on a report by three members of the "Washington Institute for Near East Policy". Correct me if I'm wrong but they are just speaking for themselves, or at best for their whole institute. This can hardly justify attributions like "According to statements issued by the U.S. government", or "the United States named", or "According to the U.S. Treasury Department", or "A 1996 CIA report on terrorist abuse of charities, declassified after the September 11 attacks". To make such claims, one should site the actual US Goverment, the US treasury Dept, or CIA. As it stands now it's ridiculous.

I strongly believe that we should just keep the allegations of the "Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center", although even that could be better-cited, and maybe the bit from the Reuters factbox about Izzet Sahin. The rest, IMO, should definitely go.

Awaiting your opinions. Steloukos (talk) 09:52, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Disagree. DIIS is a RS enough, and was cited by reliable media sources. It does not includes only speculations but also fact such as the raid over IHH HQ and the weapons and bomb-making found there. Several sources, including Israel, claims IHH had ties with Hamad. The section on IHH ties with Islamic groups should stay. MathKnight 11:47, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying the entire section should go. I'm just saying that presently, its citation is incredibly bad. The way it is now, it seems like somebody just googled the right words and copy-pasted the first thing they found. DIIS might be a wonderful institute, but a published paper by an institute is just that: a paper from an institute. One should get the actual paper, read it thoroughly, check its sources, and cite the sources themselves before making such a strong accusation. Otherwise, the paper represents only its writer's opinion, and nothing says that even from the same institute there might have been a hundred contradicting papers. And even if we keep the DIIS thing, how acceptable do you find the phrases "According to statements issued by the U.S. government", or "the United States named", etc, when all they have to back them up is a report by three individuals? Steloukos (talk) 12:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

This information is coming from multiple reliable sources. The ties to Hamas seem to be pretty clear while any links to al-Qaeda and jihadist insurgents worldwide appear to be less strong and a bit more tenuous. And based by the behavior on IHH on the boat, their radicalism is pretty apparent. Plot Spoiler (talk) 13:08, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

If the information is coming from multiple reliable sources as you say, please try to find such sources and cite them properly. As things are now I see nothing that justifies such strong claims. I will proceed to edit the section and I sincerely hope you'll find my changes acceptable. Steloukos (talk) 15:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Have to agree with Steloukos, this version looks about right in terms of the weight given to the claims about association with violent extremists. Especially given that an aid organisation working in Palestine is going to have to have relations with organisations Israel and other western govs object to simply because those are the organisations governing the place. And more importantly, beyond that point, these claims are largely speculative: there aren't many convictions for aiding and abetting extremists. Misarxist (talk) 15:50, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The work of the danish institute is manly based on a report from counter terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière. What it say might be questionable, but the source is good enough to be mentioned into the article. If there is a source questioning it statments, it should of course be included, but there is no reason to remove this excellent source.--Kimdime (talk) 17:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been checking in on this page throughout the past week, and making formatting, usage, and grammar corrections to try to keep it readable, but have tried to leave decisions about content to those with more information or more Wikipedia experience, or both. What I want from the article is for people who wonder what IHH is to be able to find out its public identity, its role in the flotilla incident, the fact that a controversy exists over its possible ties to Islamic extremism, and the major players making claims on each side of the controversy, with appropriate pointers if people wish to pursue further. I have to say that today's version (Friday, June 4, 1:45 pm ET) seems really well done. I did change: Israel and various international organizations (such as the Danish Institute for International Studies[3] claim that the IHH had ties with radical militant Islamic groups (such as Hamas and Al-Qaeda) and that the IHH was aiding terrorism." to the present-tense "Israel and various international organizations (such as the Danish Institute for International Studies[3] claim that the IHH has ties with radical militant Islamic groups (such as Hamas and Al-Qaeda) and that the IHH aids terrorism." mainly for grammar/usage reasons -- ties in the past are still ties, and organizations are still claiming IHH's actions this week mostly help terrorists. Thus, present tense is appropriate. 65.96.173.41 (talk) 17:53, 4 June 2010 (UTC)VSO'P

(In reaction to MathKnight and Plot Spoiler:) DIIS may generally a reliable source, but in his working paper Kohlmann (A) just uncritically parrots what Bruguière (B) claims (X), without any mention of the fact that the latter is a controversial figure. He also totally misrepresents the nature of B's "report", namely a closing argument in which the prosecutor states what he hopes the jury or judges will consider proven, and not a "French intelligence report". When you trace it back, the "information coming from multiple reliable sources", consisting mainly of hearsay, innuendo, and guilt by association, all goes back on this one person. The Turkish authorities are not particularly known for their friendly treatment of terrorists, and if there had really been a police raid on the IHH headquarters in which weapons, explosives, bomb-making instructions, and records of calls to an al-Qaida guest house had been found, it would have been all over the front pages of the Turkish newspapers, there would have been a criminal investigation, court cases, and convictions, and the IHH would have been closed down. Nothing of the nature happened.  --Lambiam 18:36, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Isn't this considered original research? Riri145 (talk) 20:47, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I would not put it in a Wikipedia article, but on a talk page you must be free to explain why you think a source is inaccurate or not reliable without citing a reliable source for this opinion. But actually, in correction to what I wrote, apparently a raid on the Istanbul headquarters of the İHH did take place and there was a trial of the head of İHH, only he was acquitted and nothing came out of it (source: Özgür Öğret and Sevim Songün (June 4, 2010). "Turkish humanitarian group on Gaza ship denies accusations against them". Hürriyet Daily News. Retrieved June 6, 2010.).  --Lambiam 08:16, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Court document primary source

Is the source used in paragraph acceptable? The document (testimony16.pdf) is a court transcript, and as such I think can't be used on its own becuase it's a primary source: "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." Misarxist (talk) 15:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't require any analysis - it's just what the Judge said. Originally I posted what he said verbatim, which has now been edited. Why can't we use a court transcript on it's own? It's just like a transcript of a radio interview, can't we use that? It's more genuine than someone paraphrasing what he said in a secondary source Calanen (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It must be said, though, that Bruguière, whose investigation methods have been controversial, is incredibly vague in his allegations, and I wonder how much weight can be given to this before it becomes undue. Is the fact that there were "calls that crossed between Canada and ... Istanbul", combined with the public-knowledge facts that Montreal, where the Montreal cell was located, is in Canada and IHH headquarters in Istanbul, really evidence tying IHH to the Montreal cell? I'm sure there were calls that "crossed" between the United States and Afghanistan, but that is not evidence tying Obama to al Qaeda. There is something I don't understand about this testimony. I don't know if the judge was called as an ordinary witness or as an expert witness, but in either case something is not right. Normally a witness is only allowed to testify things about which they have firsthand knowledge. They can't testify, for example, that the accused is "kind of a type of killer". But most of what the judge states in his testimony can quite obviously not have been first-hand knowledge, but is a synthesis concocted from snippets of information from many diverse undisclosed sources. An expert witness, on the other hand, is not supposed to testify about incidental facts, but about facts of a general – although not generally known – validity, such as the appearance of flesh wounds caused by bullets, or what constitutes current "best practice" in software construction. They can't testify, for example, that the accused is "kind of a type of killer". Was there a cross-examination? The relevance of the statements concerning IHH to the actual Millenium Bomber case in fact appears extremely low, and there may have been no particular reason for the defense to question these allegations at all. Note also that IHH was not a party in the court case, and had no opportunity whatsoever to challenge or otherwise defend itself against the allegations.  --Lambiam 07:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

From that guideline "A primary source can be used only to make descriptive statements that can be verified by any educated person without specialist knowledge." which I don't think adequately describes Bruguière's vague statements in that trial transcript so I'm removing it for now. Is the information (or similar) in the other reports, which are acceptable secondary sources? Misarxist (talk) 08:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

This was why I tried to quote it verbatim. It's an interesting piece of information that a serving anti-terrorist judge gave under oath. This is even more reliable than someone making a statement in a radio or television interview, as there are no perjury sanctions in those forums. There are other secondary sources which have referred to it, I will see if I can find one that is handy.Calanen (talk) 10:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

This is interesting:

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour told prosecutors yesterday they could not use the expert testimony of Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a French prosecutor and expert in Islamic terrorism, to describe Ressam as a player in an international conspiracy that they say stretched from terrorist training camps in Afghanistan to the quiet Washington border town of Port Angeles, where Ressam was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, with a car loaded with explosives. [...] But the judge said he was concerned Bruguiere's expertise could distract the jury from other evidence. "The force of his reputation would carry the risk that the jury would not focus on hard facts," Coughenour said. "I must conclude that the probative (evidence) value of his testimony would be outweighed by its prejudice to the defendant." [Mike Carter (April 3, 2001). "Terrorist expert's testimony limited; judge says Ressam jury might lose its focus". The Seattle Times.]

and:

Bruguiere was allowed to take the witness stand yesterday, but only to acknowledge that he had been investigating Ressam, some of his Montreal friends and roommates, and others in Paris since 1996. He was not allowed to say why, or identify evidence he uncovered that linked Ressam and some of the others to bin Laden's militant Islamic organization or the Afghan terrorist-training camps he allegedly finances. [Mike Carter (April 4, 2001). "Ressam prosecution rests; defense says it can present its case in a day". The Seattle Times.]

Here you can read explicitly that Judge John Coughenour sent the jury out of the courtroom and listened to what Bruguière intended to tell jurors, if allowed: ["The Terrorist Within, Chapter 16: The Reckoning". The Seattle Times. July 6, 2002.]. What we read in the pdf file is not the testimony as presented under oath in the witness stand – which goes a long way to explain what I did not understand (see above).  --Lambiam 15:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The fact that it did not go before the jury, does not mean that it was not a statement made under oath. It was made under oath to the Court, the Court weighs up whether or not to present it to the jury, not as an assessment of its truth or otherwise, but in relation to complex rules and law concerning the fairness to the accused given his rights under the law. Wikipedia is not a court room, if the Judge said it under oath, there is no reason it should not be included in the article. I note that it has been removed from the article, but there is no reason why it should be - even if it was qualified by the fact that it was not admitted into evidence against the accused. It is misleading to imply that the fact it was not admitted into evidence is a value judgment about the truth of the witness, it is not. 202.83.178.126 (talk) 04:24, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the details of US court proceedings, and I don't know if it is somehow unthinkable that Bruguière was not under oath while disclosing what he would proceed to state if called to the witness stand, but I notice that it is recorded in the transcript that an interpreter is sworn in ("Please raise your right hand"), while there is nothing like that for Bruguière; all he is asked when he appears is to state his name and spell it. There was an earlier examination of B. in Seattle on which I can find no further information, and perhaps he was sworn in then, and his oath given then somehow extends to this examination in Los Angeles. In any case, it is clear (see my earlier remarks on the nature of this testimony and the objections of the defense quoted below) that, whether under oath or not, his statements and judgments are mainly based on hearsay. I don't object to inclusion per se, but if the article includes any of this, it should also report the other side of the story.  --Lambiam 07:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I see now that Judge John Coughenour's ruling disallowing this as evidence is actually included in the pdf file, at the page numbered 51 in the typescript, which (as the page boundaries do not agree) is page 45 in the pdf file. A quote from the Judge:

Much of the witness's testimony would necessarily be based upon hearsay and while it might be admissible as a basis for expert testimony that distinction would likely be difficult for most jurors to apply. [italics for emphasis are mine. --L.]

If some of the hearsay from this disallowed testimony is included in our article, it must be made clear that this is what it is, and not what one would expect from a wording like:

In the 2001 trial of Ahmed Ressam in Seattle, the would-be Millennium bomber, French counterterrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere testified that the IHH had played an "important role" in Ressam's plot to bomb LAX airport on New Year's Day, 2000, and mentioned "a rather close relation" between the bomber and the Turkish group.[2]

Also – in comparison a minor issue – Seattle should be Los Angeles, as far as the trial and the disallowed testimony in the cited transcript is concerned.  --Lambiam 16:10, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

See further the objections of the defense against allowing Bruguière's testimony, starting from the page numbered 32 in the typescript, line 15, which I can't resist quoting somewhat extensively:

That aside, when you really listen to what Judge Bruguiere is saying and because we didn't get into the cross much here, there are profound questions concerning the reliability of the information that he relies upon. ... But in addition, when you think just basically about the concept of the reliability, what source of information could be more unreliable than a suspect in a case. ... It's the information supplied by someone we can't reach, can't confront, and who is inherently unreliable.
   Next, component of the question of reliability is the question of methodology. And the interrogations conducted in this case by Judge Bruguiere were conducted under rules which are entirely foreign to our system of criminal justice. We're talking about his ability to go out and interrogate people without counsel and subject them to his questioning where no rules that govern our basic concepts of due process apply. It's an interrogation by a law enforcement entity without any protections whatsoever. That methodology undermines the reliability of this already unreliable source of information.
   In addition, it's done by not an unbiased person. It's not Your Honor or some other judge as we understand that concept in America, but by an officer. I'll use the phrase that Mr. Gonzalez used in his brief of the French inquisitorial system. And the term inquisitorial is a good term for what happens in this case. Who, despite his accomplishments and I'm sure he's had many, is hardly infallible.
   He has brought to court scores of individuals who are actually and factually innocent and detained them for months and months and months on end just to see them leave at the end of the case tarnished only by the fact that they didn't see the light of day for months and years on end. Who is recognized internationally throughout the human rights community for his zealousness and his tendency to overreach.
   This is the speaker who is giving us the information that is coming from the unreliable source that we have no ability to confront on a subject, Your Honor, that is exceedingly complex and not quite as black and white as the government would like the jury to believe.

If Bruguière's statements are included in the article, then, I insist (and think this is also required by the WP:DUE policy), we should also allow some room for presenting this critical view.  --Lambiam 17:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to repeat myself, ;) but I still think it shouldn't be there because it's a primary source. Though as you say if it is mentioned, it should be added per Seattle Times that the jury was instructed to ignore it. More generally I think the alleged terror links should be cut down as there are no actual convictions or listings except in Israel. Misarxist (talk) 15:56, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

UN Status

This reference (currently note 3) "Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, The". NGO Branch, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. http://esango.un.org/civilsociety/showProfileDetail.do?method=showProfileDetails&tab=1&profileCode=2525. Retrieved 2010-06-02. provides a link to IHH's profile page, but it is a search result and the link isn't stable--when your search times out, it reverts to the search page. I don't know what Wikipedia policy is on such a link. I added a direct link to the public document listing NGOs, which also supports the assertion (currently note 4), so this one could come out. 74.104.211.63 (talk) 00:22, 9 June 2010 (UTC)VSO'P

Title of section

I think "allegations of terrorist affiliations" is a better title than the "alleged islamist and jihadist affiliations" the second one seems to carry racist implications. It also appears take Israeli accusations as facts. ManasShaikh (talk) 23:54, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

are there are any terrorist organizations that IHH is accused of having contact with that are NOT islamist? Is it racist to note that Hamas and Al Qaeeda are Islamist, and that the latter at least is jihadist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ricardianman (talk • contribs) 17:39, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

There is by itself nothing unlawful about being, or having contact with, an Islamist organization, and it would not be particularly surprising to discover that one Islamist organization has contact with other Islamist organizations (such as, for example, the Felicity Party); publicizing claims of lawful contacts with lawful organizations as "allegations" would be strange and non-neutral. It is by the unlawfulness of groups with which affiliation is claimed that such claims become allegations; the alleged unlawful character of the groups that were named in the specific claims put forward in this case is quite adequately expressed by the word "terrorist".  --Lambiam 18:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

To the extent that Islamist organization means advocating for a political role for Islam, I am not sure Islamism per se wasn't at one time unlawful in Turkey, but thats certainly not the case anymore, so I agree with you that the use of the word allegations is at least strange (is it non neutral? We use the word allegations from time to time for many things that are not unlawful, though I am not sure if that usage is always excluded from wiki section headings.) I will not revive here the debate on the word "jihadist". My point was not so much to argue that terrorist is not a good section title, as to take issue with what seemed to me (perhaps incorrectly) to be an attempt to silence as "racist" the assertion that a given terrorist organization is specifically Islamist or Jihadist. Note that the organizations IHH is accused of ties to in this particular discussion are NOT peaceful Islamist groups, but organizations that are both Islamist AND Terrorist. Of course as things stand one could simply follow the links to Hamas and Al Qaeeda and discover that they are Islamist, so I agree that it is not necessary to point that out in this article. Ricardianman (talk) 19:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I too think the term "racist" is not quite the most appropriate term here, but as a thought experiment, imagine that the section title had been "Allegations of Arabic and Jihadist affiliations". Note that the organizations IHH is accused of ties to in this particular discussion are NOT peaceful Arabic groups, but organizations that are both (largely) Arabic AND Terrorist.  --Lambiam 01:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

If it was in a context where there were terrorist groups with an explicitly pan-arab/arab nationalist platform, that would not be racist. Imagine its a reference to "allegations of anarchist affiliations" or "allegations of Jewish settler affiliations" or "kahanist affiliations" or "westboro Baptist church affiliations". Islamism is a political movement, it is not Islam. Of course not all Islamists are terrorists, and arguably there are(particularly in Turkey) muslim political movements analogous to Christian Democrats in western europe, who deserve the name "moderate Islamist" thats a dispute well argued elsewhere. However using the word allegation wrt to affiliations with Islamism, while a little odd, is really analogous to using it for any other POLITICAL movement. And like anarchists, kahanists, and Westboro style "Christianist", but unlike western european christian democrats afaik (with the exception of pre civil war Spain) there ARE some very extreme groups holding a version of that ideology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ricardianman (talk • contribs) 21:52, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid our judgements diverge here; also in the context you sketch I'd feel such a section title would seem to carry, possibly unintentional, racist implications, even if you concede that "of course not all Arabs are terrorists" – or perhaps even more so with that concession. But let us agree to disagree; this is no longer in the scope of improving the article.  --Lambiam 22:49, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Sometime later

I removed the reference in the opening section to the flotilla victims being "killed at close range and some in the back" because a) you can't be "killed at close range," or rather, you are always killed at close range, death being among the most intimately personal of experiences. What you can or can not be at close range is "shot". Likewise, you can't be killed in the back. You can be shot in the back, stabbed in the back, etc. AND b) but either way, it's not relevant to a description/definition of IHH. It may be relevant to the entry on the Gaza flotilla raid, which this article handily links to; if so, it should be added there, and good luck to it. 65.96.173.41 (talk) 02:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)VSO'P.

Thanks for the grammer fixes, and the good humour. It is certainly very important to include the fact, especially since it is this incident that has brought so much attention towards IHH. ManasShaikh (talk) 04:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

References from WSWS.org

This link is used as a reference to the lack of IHH being on the US State Departments list of 45 terrorist organizations.

This link does not provide a reference for that, it instead goes directly to a follow-up article regarding the boarding of the MV Rachel Corrie provided by the World Socialist Web Site, published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). This being a neutral source can certainly be questioned.Erelas RyAlcar (talk) 12:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Dug up real references at US State Department -- DOS Terrorist Organizations list and transcript of the June 2 press briefing in which PJ Crowley actually says the words "can't be validated". VSO'P 65.96.173.41 (talk) 23:18, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I removed a parenthetical about an offer to land at Ashdod because it wasn't supported by the references attached to it (which applied to the first half of the original sentence but not to the Ashdod offer) and because I could not determine whether this was supposed to refer to the standing offer from the IDF to allow aid ships to land at Ashdod or the demand from the IDF group intercepting the flotilla that the ships go to Ashdod. The whole thing is laid out pretty well in the Gaza flotilla raid page. If it's going to be reiterated here it needs more than a single passive-voice clause to make it understandable for readers. VSO'P.65.96.173.41 (talk) 04:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. Seems reasonable and there are no objections. --RegentsPark (talk) 11:06, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

IHH (İnsani Yardım Vakfı) → IHH (Turkish NGO) — Above I've explained the problems with the current title and why it should be moved to a better title. After ample consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the best disambiguating phrase is "Turkish NGO"; it is impeccably NPOV, and makes immediately clear which meaning of "IHH" this is.  --Lambiam 09:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Guess so, current title is a bit random. The title shld be most common english name which is IHH which is currently taken by a hedgehog gene. I think there's a definite case to be made for this IHH being the better known one. Misarxist (talk) 16:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

That is probably true at this moment, but just as it was not one month ago, one may doubt it it will still be so, say, five years from now. As there is also the German IHH (Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation), I'm actually more inclined to be in favour of moving the current IHH page to IHH (protein) or Indian Hedgehog protein, and turning IHH into a disambiguation page.  --Lambiam 17:37, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes you're correct. Suggest moving per Lambian's suggestion if no-one objects in next 24 hrs. Misarxist (talk) 10:48, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

PR war

The article is not very stable, as allegations are being added and removed without apparent effort to reach a consensus.

It should be clear that a PR war is going on in the media, in which one side wants the world to think that Israel, in an act of piracy on the free seas, murdered a bunch of innocent peace-loving people with no other aim than to bring humanitarian aid to victims of cruel oppression, while another side is promoting the viewpoint that a radical Islamist group masquerading as a humanitarian agency planned and provoked a violent confrontation with a group of unsuspecting commandos attempting a nonviolent takeover of a vessel about to break a legal blockade. Now I don't know which is closer to the truth, as all information I have access to is from this PR battlefield. What I do notice, though, is that almost all published allegations directed against IHH simply parrot earlier allegations, sometimes with attribution to a source, but often without.

Wikipedia must not serve as a theatre of war, and we as editors must avoid being used as pawns. On the other hand, the allegations do exist, they are (obviously) notable, and should be reported on – and such reports should not be summarily removed if they are in conformance with our core policies. But please do not use tertiary sources if there is a secondary source that can be cited. For example, there is an allegation that IHH is a member of the Union of Good, which is reportedly the reason why the organization was banned by Israel. Now I don't know whether this is so or not, but I haven't been able to find any other originating source than the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), for example here. (See also this copy of a report by the ITIC – reported by Google search as being on the ITIC website, but that has now become a dead link – which manages to confuse the German IHH with the Turkish IHH.) This Union-of-Good allegation has been repeated all over the Western media, but all appears to be based, ultimately, on the Israeli assertion. Almost all other allegations can be traced back to Bruguière, mostly by way of Kohlmann. If twenty sources parrot Kohlmann, it does not become twenty times as true.

Also please avoid using opinion pieces, unless the source is notable, such as an editorial in a major newspaper, but then it should be clearly identified as such.

Should we have a spinout article with a title such as "Allegations of terrorist affiliations of IHH (Turkish NGO)" (while leaving an adequate summary here)? It could perhaps help to make the present article more stable, and also allow in-depth treatment that would be excessive in this article.  --Lambiam 17:08, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Disagree with splitting the article, this should only be done if it becomes too long. Think that section should be condensed further though, it really only needs reports of what actions have been taken against them, not random accusations based on investigations which didn't lead to convictions. Also the contextualisation of their links with Hammas (ie they're taking aid to the Gaza Strip so of course they need to talk to them) should be kept. Misarxist (talk) 12:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Specifically stuff like this [3], are these all acceptable? Misarxist (talk) 13:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Acceptable in proportion to notability of work of group. Not half of article. WP:UNDUE and WP:LABEL.--Brendumb (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what "too long" is, nowadays; there used to be a rule of thumb recommending splitting up articles reaching 32K – originally because of browser limitations, but also with a view to readability. The last time I looked at the article – as I said, it is unstable – it was 35,179 bytes (34.4K), of which 21,760 bytes (62%) was due to a single section: Affiliations controversy. (That was the section title when I wrote this; it may be different now.) That one section is also the major contributor to the instability.  --Lambiam 01:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:SIZERULE says some, but length also be guided by WP:UNDUE and WP:RECENTISM. Maybe try a lot of summarizing.--Brendumb (talk) 04:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

NPOV

It is obvious that edits are being added to this article to support the (notable) allegations of IHH links with terrorism, but without mentioning the counter-arguments that it is active in many countries, and has been investigated in many countries, without it having been restricted outside of Israel. This is WP:UNDUE, bordering on WP:FRINGE. I have added an {{npov}} tag to the article, and watchlisted it. Physchim62 (talk) 15:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

It is my understanding that Turky themselves found weaponry in the IHH offices. How is mentioning this in the article falling under FRINGE ? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:30, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

And then there was a court case, and nothing came out of it: the head of IHH was acquitted of all charges, and IHH was not shut down. Note that this took place during a time when the secular guard of Turkey, with which the judicial apparatus is rather cozy, was trying to crack down on Islamic institutions. Apparently the evidence collected was not very convincing. Bruguière, and in his footsteps Kohlmann, carefully fail to mention this.  --Lambiam 16:28, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Your opinion on the "secular guard ... judicial apparatus" is irrelevant. If the case was overruled, then this should appear in a reliable secondary source and the full story should be covered in Wikipedia -- both the finding of explosives as well as the aquittal on the head of the IHH. FRINGE has nothing to do with this issue. So, please post the source here and work out a version that writes in the whole info per sources. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 18:28, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

What I wrote is relevant as background information in this discussion. Among the issues with the allegations is that most of it is vague and unspecific, and (in the secondary sources) reported as stemming from primary (?) sources that cannot be traced ("a CIA report", "a French intelligence report"). That does not make it easy to dig up material to show other sides of the story. The best reference I have for the acquittal, I posted already above: Özgür Öğret and Sevim Songün (June 4, 2010). "Turkish humanitarian group on Gaza ship denies accusations against them". Hürriyet Daily News. Retrieved June 6, 2010. Unfortunately the link is broken at the moment, but a copy of the article can be found here. As this is not a direct source, but information given by an IHH officer, it can only be reported as such. Nevertheless, my plausibility detector tells me this is most likely true, for the simple reason that otherwise the original allegers would certainly have included information on the conviction, conjoined with the fact that the organization would make itself rather vulnerable by publicly lying about such a verifiable fact. Furthermore, it is evident that IHH has not been closed.  --Lambiam 20:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

All due respect to the "plausibility detector", we can only relate this response to İHH deputy head Yavuz Dede (per "According to Dede, the group was set up due to the political situation in Turkey at the time and [According to Dede] nothing came out of the trial after the raid. İHH President Bülent Yıldırım was [According to Dede] acquitted and released from prison after three months. [According to Dede that's the whole truth and nothing but the truth]"

p.s. there are many evident things going on in Turkey -- but they are irrelevant. Thank you for the link.. now let's sort the text and close this issue. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 22:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Keep POV box?

Are there remaining unresolved NPOV issues that are of sufficient importance to justify keeping the {{POV-section}} box on the section Allegations of affiliations with terrorist organizations? Unless serious issues are identified, I'll remove it in a couple of days.  --Lambiam 20:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Weasel tag

WP:LABEL say "Biased labels, particularly when the label is negative—such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, or a sexual practice a perversion—are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. Terrorist and freedom fighter can be especially contentious. If they are not in wide use by authoritative sources, use a more specific term such as bomber, gunman, hijacker, hostage taker, or kidnapper. If none of these apply, use a more neutral, general word such as insurgent, paramilitary, partisan, or militant.

The prefix pseudo- indicates that something is false or spurious, which may be debatable. The suffix -gate suggests the existence of a scandal. Use these in articles only when they are in wide use externally, with in-text attribution if in doubt. When using controversial, give readers enough information to know what the controversy is about. Make sure, as well, that reliable sources establish the existence of a controversy, and that the term is not used to grant a fringe viewpoint undue weight." --Brendumb (talk) 23:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Who is terrorist

Israel named terrorist living in America who "tried to bring electronic components into the Gaza Strip, which Israel has forbidden". Israelis pressing the Americans to quit harboring terrorists? Or is America terrorist for supporting terrorist who support terrorist?--71.156.84.246 (talk) 20:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

More Bruguière

Apart from above,

In the 2001 book "Manipulations Africaines", he was accused by the French journalist Pierre Péan of having deliberately ignored evidence pointing to Lebanon, Syria and Iran in order to put the blame on Libya

The Mitrokhin Commission, Bruguière participated in, has been discredited following a manipulation by a network to defame Prime minister Romano Prodi and other political opponents of Berlusconi, by claiming they worked for the KGB

Bruguière involved in the 2003 Casablanca bombings case, and the defendants' lawyer questioned his methods

Bruguière's thesis over Rwandan assassination has been very controversial, and criticized by Le Figaro, Libération and others newspapers

Unsuccessful conservative French political candidate

Some way to convey?--Brendumb (talk) 04:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

If properly attributed to reliable sources, and conforming to WP:BLP, this could find a place in the article Jean-Louis Bruguière. I don't see it fitting here.  --Lambiam 11:55, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevance in article

Certain editors find it appropriate to inundate the Allegations section with random quotations.

• It is already clear that the U.S. does not label it a terrorist group. No need to repeat that, or anything similar, multiple times. Not to mention this is about what does exist, not what doesnt. One can assume without that that the U.S. has not labeled it terrorist.

• The Wall Street Journal does not need to be verified.

• Collecting random descriptions of the IHH from news media does not, as I suspect the editors were trying to suggest, equal that that the IHH thus has no ties to Islamist or terrorist groups on the basis of that alone. This includes: "NPR has described the group as a "humanitarian organization that co-sponsored last week's flotilla of aid ships that attempted, with deadly results, to break Israel's blockade of Gaza" and the link. It is completely irrelevant. Stephen Walt does not mention the IHH even once in his article. That is irrelevant. This is not a laundry list. The BBC's rationale for why it is popular among Turks has nothing to do with anything about allegations to terrorist ties, neither does the fact that the Israeli army said they did not carry heavy weapons--and any of such talk belongs on the Gaza flotilla raid article. The IHH chairman describing an allegation as propaganda cetainly does not translate to "Reuters also reported ... that the move was Israeli "'propaganda'."

--Shamir1 (talk) 08:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

If you have issues with parts of the article, please address them one by one in your edits. Massive reversals to older versions of the article are not a way to reach consensus. I agree that random descriptions serve no purpose, and repetition of the same information from the same source in tertiary sources does not make it somehow more true. On the other hand, in a court case you can have character witnesses, and likewise a point can be made that characterizations of IHH by reliable sources that depict it as a benevolent organization do have a role here. I, for one, have attempted to merge separate paragraphs that argue the same point, but your reversals undo such work. They also undo my efforts to fix mischaracterizations of sources and misleading renderings of the information in the cited sources.  --Lambiam 09:23, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Unlike you, I very clearly explained my edits--all of which are sourced and relevant. Your logic, that descriptions of humanitarian activities necessarily means they hold no fundamentalist beliefs or ties to terrorist groups is your original research. This logic does not hold up. It is POV and no article on this encyclopedia follows that model. Let me begin. Again.

• While the group has widely been described as a "humanitarian"[33][34][35] group and as a "charity"

This has nothing to do with anything. It infers that a charity and humanitarian group cannot necessarily have ties to a terrorist group. This is logic does not hold.

• Israel is the only country which has banned the group.

This is fine, but it does not need to a) be written multiple times, and b) can also be written, as modeled by other articles: Israel has outlawed the group. Stressing it is the only one is pointless for an encyclopedia. Most articles do not write such statements. This is not the big deal though. It does not need to be written multiple times.

• And by far the most pointless, redundant, and irrelevant section: In the media following the flotilla raid.

This is not a collection of short descriptions of the IHH. All that belongs in the lead or in Background/History. Furthermore, the group being a charity does not necessarily mean it has no ties to Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, etc. as others (must be with sources!) are included. Stick to what is relevant.

• "as the IHH shot to attention, so have Israeli accusations that it supports terrorism" --This does mean that those accusations are true or false, and we already made a similar statement in the beginning. No need for multiple references of something irrelevant to begin with.
• the group was "renovating the port, funding a Turkish-Palestinian school and plans to build a hospital and apartments for Gazans made homeless during the war with Israel early last year. The group also supports 9,000 families with money and food parcels, and is hosting computer and sewing courses for women."

??? What does this have to do with allegations of ties to terrorist groups? Furthermore, I myself already added this to its humanitarian activities, long ago, where it still is.

• The BBC reported "its energetic championing of the Palestinian cause, in particular the plight of people in Gaza, has struck a chord with many Turks".

Again, this has nothing to do with anything. It's in the wrong section if anywhere.

• The Guardian has described IHH as "an Islamic humanitarian group that is based in Istanbul but operates in several other countries

...and?

• "the Americans appeared to confirm that there was no evidence to suggest that IHH was a terrorist organisation with links to al-Qaida. And the Israeli army all but admitted that the activists did not have guns of their own before the raid."

The idea of the first part of this passage is already included (and expanded/clarified) in the Newsweek source. The second part is an issuesalready included, discussed, and expanded in Gaza flotilla raid and has nothing to do with terror ties.

• Today's Zaman has written "the Israeli government tries to portray the Turkish human rights activists as terrorists. I have been closely monitoring the activities of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), who cannot be labeled terrorists. Such language would only help al-Qaeda or other terror organizations justify their actions. In fact millions of Turks consider the İHH to be a humanitarian organization and would not buy such an argument

This is not the position of Today's Zaman, but rather the opinion of a columnist. There is nothing significant or encyclopedic about his statements. There are several more important columnists and commentators at the New York Times, Haaretz and others have written about this more directly. This has little relevance, and no significance. He is stating his opinion. We have already included the IHH opinion.

• Cihan News Agency has described IHH as a "Turkish humanitarian relief organization"

This has nothing to do with anything, and does not specifically say that the IHH has or has no ties to terrorist groups.

• a British MP said "Israel has also creating blind excuses and trying to cover the attack".[55]

This statement (totally random and un-notable—what about other MP's and politicians?) has nothing to do with whether or not the IHH has ties to terrorists.

• Reuters has written that "the Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) is an Islamic charity group that was formed to provide aid to Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990s. It has been involved in aid missions in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Indonesia, Iraq, Palestinian territories and other places, according to Turkish media."[36] Reuters also reported that IHH is not classified as a terror organisation by Israel and that the IHH chairman said the Israeli accusations were "propaganda".[56]

Everything here is already in the article. Reuters's introductory description does not mean the IHH does or does not have ties to terrorist groups.

• Hurriyet wrote that the Turkish government "dismissed the responsibility of the IHH, an Islamic charity that owns Mavi Marmara"[37] and that "officials with the group deny the claims, saying the passengers on the vessels were ‘100 percent’ peaceful volunteers and that the NGO is pursuing an agenda of broad humanitarian assistance rather than promoting Islam". Hurriyet further reported IHH officials said "claims that the İHH has ties to terrorist organizations are part of a smear campaign by Israel".[58]

I already included some of this in Background. We do not need essentially the same argument from the IHH chairman written multiple times. Please stop clustering this article.

--Shamir1 (talk) 17:37, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I was specifically referring to these edits: [4] and [5], with respective edit summaries nothing was "mysterious"--they did not include allegations or any of the sort, and i already added its humanitarian activities in the appropriate section, no need twice, and too much irrelevance, much has nothing to do with the IHH, this is not about what does not exist, but what it does. How does the IHH leader = Reuters?. Both removed more than 10,000 bytes of content, scattered all over the place, and it is hard to characterize the edit summaries as "very clearly explained". My complaint, however, was not about the removal of content, but the re-introduction of much earlier versions of paragraphs, discarding all improvements that had been made in the meantime. This has nothing to do with the examples and motivations you give above.

I have no clue what you might be referring to when you state: "Your logic, that descriptions of humanitarian activities necessarily means they hold no fundamentalist beliefs or ties to terrorist groups is your original research." I have not stated, suggested, or implied, anything of the kind. Are you mistaking me for someone else? By the way, "ties" is a very general and loose term; if a member of the AAA has donated money to the al-Haramain Foundation, does that tie the AAA to that organization?  --Lambiam 18:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned strictly with facts and accuracy from reliable sources, and as such will not respond to your personal red herring about AAA. Your allegation that "'ties' is a very general and loose term" is your original research. At Wikipedia we are concerned about sources, and if reliable or notable sources describe those specific ties, then we include them as such from the source.

You did in fact write: "...likewise a point can be made that characterizations of IHH by reliable sources that depict it as a benevolent organization do have a role here." That, again, is your original research. I don't know what you mean by "depict it as a benevolent organization"—this laundry list of sources simply gives a one-line uncontroversial description of the organization. It is not intended to prove or deny that the IHH has ties to terrorists, as you imply by insinuating it can counter other sources it does not intend to counter. That logic, in fact, necessarily depends on the erroneous notion that a group involved in humanitarian activities categorically cannot have ties to terrorist groups. Involvement in humanitarian activities does not necessarily = "benevolence," and "benevolence" does not necessarily = no ties to groups that other sources allege. Those descriptions have nothing to do with terror ties or fundamentalist ideology, and are not intended to debunk any such allegations thereof as you essentially purport them to be. Lastly, your response seems intentionally vague. It does not address the careful, step-by-step critique of your edits and or the edits you say you support. Certainly, per above, the last thing they can be described as are "improvements," but factually flawed and extremely messy and irrelevant. I carefully looked at every edit and explained why it is is or is not appropriate. No time for red herrings. --Shamir1 (talk) 18:52, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Importance of this dispute

I think that when you have a subject as ideologically charged as this one, where the accusations and counter accusations are equally the product of political sympathies and ideological proclivities, the contestation of fact itself becomes more significant and relevant then the normative preference, i.e. an imaginary idea of a clear, defined and uncontested truth. (Not to suggest at all that all claims are thus equally valid) But even if some of the claims have been manipulated to suit a particular agenda, it is better that they lie ugly, contested, unsubstantiated and disempowered. It is a better reflection of the nature of this topic. In my mind it is irresponsible to try and figure out a depoliticized version of this issue as wikipedia editors are often compelled to do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.97.118.71 (talk) 11:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

What you are appear to be suggesting is that we, as editors, should not follow Wikipedia policy with regard to ideologically charged articles, but leave them to be the playing field of unscrupulous POV pushers. Many other articles have a subject as ideologically charged as this one, and I think that taking this seemingly morally high ground would lead to a fast and dramatic decline in the quality of our encyclopedia, letting Wikiality win the battle. But really, this talk page is not the right forum for discussing this general point; its sole purpose is to discuss how to improve this specific article. You are welcome to argue the case for changing Wikipedia's core policies in this respect at the policy section of the Wikipedia "Village pump". Until such time as you have achieved a consensus in giving a new direction (or lack of direction) to policy, I think the best approach is if we all try to stick to it.  --Lambiam 14:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Allegations terrorist organizations - Others positions

should we consider this informations and add them ? In a respond about eventual terrorist links, Nu Bolat, a French specialist of Turkey who work for IFRI,[6] the French Institute for International Studies, says about IHH : " "His goals are humanitarian, she wants to help Muslims all over the world, for example in the past in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Africa. But his priority is clearly the plight of Palestinians." Its activities have also been banned by Israel, which sees it as an organization close to Hamas, which it would transmit weapons. "This link is to prove," qualifies the researcher."[7] ( It's a French source from a national newspaper) - And both of France and Germany didn't ban IHH. Samuel B52 (talk) 00:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see this as bringing something new to the article. The last bit is subsumed by the currently included statement "Israel remains the only country which has banned the group"; we could perhaps include that the EU did not designate IHH, but it doesn't seem important to me. For the rest, there is a flurry of published statements of the nature: "According to Bruguière/Kohlmann/Israel/ITIC IHH is bad, but according to IHH/Turkey IHH is good." It is pointless to pile this up in the article; we need less of this, not more. What we can use (in my opinion):

• Statements by people or institutions that have a specific notability with respect to the issues, and that offer a direct assessment of IHH or the allegations (rather than merely acknowledging the existence of such allegations). For example, Ban Ki-moon has a specific role in the Middle-East peace process, so if he were to say something on the issue, that is important.
• An analysis of the allegations (beyond stating that they exist and are controversial) by reputable and reliable sources.
• A description (and if available an analysis) of the PR offensive by reputable and reliable sources.

 --Lambiam 11:49, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The article seems to be getting bloated again with what Lambiam has summarized so sweetly above as: "According to Bruguière/Kohlmann/Israel/ITIC IHH is bad, but according to IHH/Turkey IHH is good." This also ends up leaving the language all tangled; too many confused antecedents, etc. If it's still a mess tomorrow I'll do some "housecleaning" and hope someone will winnow this down again to an acknowledgment of the two camps without the necessity of providing a quote from each constituent of either camp. Sigh. 65.96.173.41 (talk) 04:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)VSO'P.

Milli Görüş

I added the following information, which was removed by Lambiam:

Mete Çubukçu, News Director, NTV, stated: The IHH has a strong Millî Görüş basis. The supporters have a close connection to this Islamist movement. But they say that themselves.[Translated] SWR Television: The German Left in a boat with Turkish Islamists and right-wing extremists

Lambiam's reason for reversion was that this is irrelevant to the section called Allegations of affiliations with terrorist organizations, because, and I quote: "bad things have been said of Milli Görüş, but not that they are terrorists". The fact that reliable sources allege that Milli Görüş actively supports Hamas is sufficient to establish relevance to this section, it seems to me. See for example http://www.elsevier.nl/web/10219080/Nieuws/Nederland/Bestuurders-Milli-Grs-betrokken-bij-steun-Hamas.htm Can Lambiam give a cogent argument to explain why it is irrelevant to include a Turkish News Director's statement connecting IHH to an organization that (according to reliable sources) actively supports Hamas? Precis (talk) 09:36, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

For one, affiliation is not transitive. I pay rent to my landlord, who is the accountant of Ernie C., who is a Freemason. You can't use the chain Lambiam → landlord → Ernie C. → Freemasonry to establish that Lambiam → Freemasonry, or, in words, that I'm affiliated with the Freemasonry. Likewise İHH → members → Millî Görüş → Hamas does not establish İHH → Hamas. Also, İHH does not make a secret of their good relations with Hamas; this is openly displayed on their website, including pictures of officials of the two organizations meeting – although they state that this does not mean they support Hamas, only that they have to cooperate with Hamas, being the de facto government of the Gaza strip, in order to be able to deliver aid to the Palestinians there. So why go this roundabout way? Interestingly, the Elsevier article you linked to mentions a relationship between Millî Görüş and the German IHH to establish the stated link of Millî Görüş to Hamas, so the chain is even İHH → members → Millî Görüş → Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation → Hamas. But in the article the source of the last link is the fact that Israel alleges that IHH is a member of the Union of Good. Now which IHH is this? If it is the Turkish İHH, we get this picture: İHH → members → Millî Görüş → Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation ↛ İHH → Hamas, were "↛" is a broken link in the chain, followed by the link of the Union-of-Good allegation. The latter is already in the article. If, on the other hand, it is the German IHH, then the current statements in our article concerning the Union of Good need to be revised, because they concern a different organization than the topic of the article.  --Lambiam 19:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Good points, and I find your argument convincing. But it is not clear to me if you feel that the Millî Görüş basis was just mentioned in the wrong section, or if you feel it shouldn't be mentioned at all. I would like to mention this basis in the Background section. Here is my rationale. The way the lead and Background sections currently read, it appears that IHH is only affiliated with humanitarian organizations; IHH's political roots seem to be suppressed. If the Turkish NTV director is to be believed, the strong Millî Görüş basis is not under dispute, and IHH makes no secret of it. As you've pointed out, the Millî Görüş basis does not belong in the section Allegations of affiliations with terrorist organizations, which deals mainly with disputed allegations of terrorism originating from the West. While I'm on the subject of that section, why is the following paragraph there? Although the Turkish government did not officially support the flotilla, it backed the IHH mission.[57] When the planes with the bodies of the casualties arrived in Istanbul, they were welcomed by Turkey's Vice Prime Minister Bülent Arınç.[58] What does that have to do with terrorism? Precis (talk) 21:56, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

To start with the last question, I did not add that paragraph; but I did edit it to reflect better what actually happened – an earlier version stated that "Turkey has said it supports the charity", which was some editor's infelicitous rendition of this statement in the cited source: "Mr Arinc said his government saluted the Turkish Islamic charity", and then robbed of its context. Actually, Arınç just used the common Turkish phrase for "Welcome", Hoş geldiniz, and he addressed it to people, not to an organization. There is some relevance to (notable, relevant) entities continuing to support IHH in the face of the allegations (compare the last paragraph about FGM being "proud and honored to work and be associated with the IHH"), so I thought the presence of the paragraph by itself was defensible, but that it inaccurately reflected the extent of the support. What remains after my edit is so feeble that the relevance is questionable, and I would not oppose its removal – although I think something inaccurate may be added back, as there is a meme "Erdoğan = IHH" going around in some circles.

A good treatment of the relationship between İHH and Millî Görüş would indeed be welcome, but this is a tricky issue. It would need to be based on material of impeccably neutral character and provenance – much of what is out there is produced by people and institutions with an anti-Islamist, if not anti-Islamic, agenda, and usually rests on scholarship of abysmal quality. The Elsevier article is an illustrative case: this is unethical journalism of the worst kind, creating an allegation of terrorism purely by guilt by association. It is a tertiary source; I can't find the specific article in De Telegraaf this is supposed to be reporting on, so I don't know whose fault is what, but what I did find in Google searches shows that De Telegraaf has been reporting for years about putative proofs associating Millî Görüş with terrorism. For all I know all MG supporters are trained terrorists who possess huge arms caches that somehow keep eluding the inept police, but we (as Wikipedia) need concrete evidence and must not advertise innuendo. It also appears to me that by the reasoning given anyone who in any way helps to provide economic aid to the people in the Gaza strip thereby supports terrorism: Israel is conducting economic warfare against Hamas (as they have admitted), such aid undercuts Israel's warfare effort, and thereby has the effect of offering support to a terrorist organization.

It is also tricky because Millî Görüş is a moving target that is hard to define, with different manifestations in Turkey and in Europe, also between different European countries. As our article Millî Görüş formulates it: "Like the movement in Turkey, it went through some remarkable changes". The political and social basis of İHH is largely the same as that of originally Refah, then Fazilet, and now Saadet – and with its outspoken anti-Western stance not at all that of AKP, like many Western sources repeatedly try to assert; I also see suggestions of association with BBP, but they contradict assertions by other at least equally reliable sources, and while İHH is strong, BBP is a marginal party. So yes, the supporters of İHH are largely conservative Muslims with a strong Islamist stance, and more likely to agree with the "National View" of Millî Görüş and align themselves with Saadet (see e.g. the statement by İbrahim Bilgen during his 2009 campaign), but that is not enough for reporting on an association of İHH with Millî Görüş; for that we need a more organic relationship, something with more substance than mutual sympathy reflecting a shared socio-political basis.  --Lambiam 07:46, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

German organisation

I see the citation of an article that says that the group split in two in 1997. This does not look correct. IHH has declared that their German HQ in Freiburg was closed in 1996 following the official foundation of the association in Turkey. The other organisation with the same initials was founded in the city of Frankfurt by totally different people. They have already sued that association for trademark infringement and have published ads on their website and numerous newspapers in Europe in the past years to deny any direct or indirect association. Perhaps we should open a new section on German IHH? --386-DX (talk) 11:32, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

They also state that "there is no relation whatsoever", which is quite strong. Investigative journalism and hear both sides ain't what they used to be. However, as Wikipedia editors we should not suppress verifiably sourced statements from reliable sources ("reliable" as defined by WP:RS) because we know them to be incorrect. Instead, we should present both (notable) statements even if false, together with any (reliably sourced) rebuttals. In such cases, proper ascription in the text of the sources of the various statements is essential; only when there is no dispute about something can it be presented as a factual statement.  --Lambiam 12:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

IHH split

According to an article written by Verena Schmitt-Roschmann,

The organization was founded in 1992 in Freiburg, Germany, the ministry said. In 1997 the group split in two, IHH Germany and IHH Turkey, which are now two separate entities, it said.

Here, "the ministry" is the German Interior Ministry (BMI). However, the press release by the BMI does not mention "Freiburg", the "IHH Turkey", or any "split", and a search on the BMI website for "IHH AND Freiburg" also comes up with no hits (in fact, for just "IHH" this press release is the only hit), so the BMI must have said this elsewhere – but if there was a press conference, or if a spokesperson declared this, that is something a journalist would usually mention in a hot news item. There are mentions of Freiburg and this split in articles on the prohibition of IHH e.V. in several major German news sources, but each time as a bare factual statement without ascription to a source, while other statements are duly ascribed to the ministry or the minister. On the face of it, it sounds more as if the source is the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution or Verfassungsschutz (which technically falls under the BMI). Can anyone find more information on the actual source of this statement?  --Lambiam 11:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The Canadian press source [8] seems solid. The fact that the two organizations split in 1997 is confirmed in other reliable sources as well, such as [9] and [10]. Is anyone claiming these are not reliable sources? Marokwitz (talk) 13:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The cited sources are not themselves claiming that the same organisation split in 1997, but quoting the German minister/ministry on that. I agree that it is significant and we should definitely include it, but with proper attribution. On the other hand; clarifications made on the websites and ads published in European newspapers, as well as the case opened in 2008 show that both organisations have been distancing themselves from each other. Turkish IHH says that there are 8 organisations in Europe with the same initials and similar logos. That is a common tactic in Europe to collect donations from the uneducated members of the diaspora as published in the news reports in previous years. --386-DX (talk) 16:18, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source that says that the Turkish group which emerged from the split 1997 is the Turkish NGO that was involved in the Gaza flotilla? The New York Times reports that the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation was founded in the early 1990s, which suggests that they are two separate groups. Another possibility would be that the Turkish group that emerged from the split has joined the already existing Turkish NGO in 1997, or later.  Cs32en Talk to me  10:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The sources I have found that mention a split do so in the context of reporting the crackdown on the German IHH, and they all use almost identical phrasings, so apparently all derive directly or indirectly from one single source, usually unspecified or only vaguely specified ("the ministry", "German authorities").  --Lambiam 21:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Original research?

I am a bit concerned by the apparent WP:OR/WP:EDITORIAL recently added to the article. Are the following fragment policy compliant without source?

Image caption:

Fragment of declassified 1996 CIA report alleging support of IHH for "extremist/terrorist activity" – but which IHH? (see text)

Body text:

however, the text of that fragment mentions "International Humanitaire Hilfsorganization (IHH)" [sic] having "headquarters in Germany", which can only refer to the German IHH e.V. with which the Turkish IHH is often confused.

This seems to be an original interpretation of primary sources, not backed by any secondary source... With respect to the "Detective work", Wikipedia is not the place for such novel analysis. For now I am reverting this addition for discussion here. Now one more point. Not that it matters (since policy disallows original research in main article space), but a document from 1996 means it was created BEFORE the two groups were split in 1997, so according to the reliable sources we have independent of the subject, the two groups (IHH Germany and IHH Turkey) were both a single group at that date . Comments? Marokwitz (talk) 06:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

You are right, it was too "original", and I will not attempt to reinstate it. But allow me to say a bit more. You appear to be assuming that the claim that the organizations were one up to 1997 are correct. But I would think you are aware that this has been quite explicitly and strongly contradicted by İHH İnsani Yardım Vakfı; see e.g. here. Now it is conceivable that they are lying through their teeth – in which case they will soon be humiliated in front of the whole world as irrefutable evidence of this comes to light, but until then we should present this as controversial and not as an accepted fact. Of the many news sources that published the "same roots" narrative, only the AP version by Verena Schmitt-Roschmann (which was distributed by many news outlets, not just Canadian Press) attributes it to a source, "the ministry", but there the trail vanishes; I still want to know what the actual source was: a press release? a press conference? a spokesperson? an official speaking under the condition of anonymity?  --Lambiam 10:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

You are absolutely right, but you know, Wikipedia is based on verifiability, not truth. For now I'm assuming that the German government said they did split in 1997, since it's a number of reliable sources vs. the IHH statement which is not considered a reliable source. This also explains a few things such as the similar name and logo, and the IHH have good reasons to lie about this, since it can destroy their already shaky reputation. It's very possible that the sources are wrong, and if so I assume in the next few days those sources will either publish a retraction, or other reliable sources will investigate into this and provide us better info. Marokwitz (talk) 11:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

It is quite verifiable that IHH denies the existence of a connection, and we must avoid taking sides and presenting the German statements as facts – and thereby the IHH statements as false. By the way, the IHH did not affirm or deny that the German government made such a statement; they only contested its veracity. If the IHH is right in their claim that the European operation is a parasitical rip-off set up to capitalize on their success, it not only explains the similarity in logos, but even why they are similar but different. I'm less optimistic than you that "those sources will either publish a retraction, or other reliable sources will investigate into this and provide us better info". Investigative journalism ain't what it used to be; most news outlets have an NPOV approach much like Wikipedia's: they just uncritically report what others are stating without doing any in-depth research of their own.  --Lambiam 16:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Too many cooks?

In a 2006 Working paper published by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), with respect to IHH largely based on Bruguière's findings,[56] terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, citing as source the closing argument for the prosecution in a French criminal court case co-authored by Bruguière, described by Kohlmann as "a French intelligence report", alleges that Turkey had known of the IHH links to terrorism for at least ten years, and that Turkish authorities began their own domestic criminal investigation of IHH as early as December 1997, when sources revealed that leaders of IHH were purchasing automatic weapons from regional Islamic militant groups.

This sentence, if it may be so dignified, appears to assert that Kohlmann's conclusions about IHH are largely based on Bruguière's findings. Is there a reference for this, or do we have to rely on the original research of some Wikipedia editor who analyzed Kohlmann's paper? Precis (talk) 08:06, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyone who is interested can readily and routinely verify this; the external link to the working paper is given in the article. Kohlmann gives sources for virtually every statement he makes, and there is no suggestion that any factual statement in the paper is based on his own research. In the part of the paper where he reports on allegations of possible involvement of IHH with extremist groups, including the bits about the Turkish domestic criminal investigation, each citation (numbered 43 to 48 inclusive) is of a report or pronouncement by Bruguière.  --Lambiam 20:38, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me try to be more clear. The initial part of the convoluted sentence makes it sound as if a large part of ALL of Kohlmann's analysis of IHH is based on the findings of one person. That is unverifiable original research which discounts, for example, citations 49 through 60. There is no question that the convoluted sentence must be rewritten and clarified. Are you willing to do it? Precis (talk) 21:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Since the only content aspect mentioned in this sentence is the stuff about the Turkish domestic criminal investigation, we can solve this by simply leaving out the qualification "with respect to IHH largely based on Bruguière's findings", resulting in:

In a 2006 working paper published by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, citing as source the closing argument for the prosecution in a French criminal court case co-authored by Bruguière, described by Kohlmann as "a French intelligence report", alleges that Turkey had known of the IHH links to terrorism for at least ten years, and that Turkish authorities began their own domestic criminal investigation of IHH as early as December 1997, when sources revealed that leaders of IHH were purchasing automatic weapons from regional Islamic militant groups.

Is that acceptable? However, in that case I'd like to insist on not including Kohlmann in the sentence in the lede, since – as far as the allegations referred to are concerned – he solely relies on Bruguière, and by mentioning him there while omitting that fact totally, we create the false impression that B.'s and K.'s findings are independent and together stronger evidence of terrorist affiliations than only B.'s findings.  --Lambiam 22:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The proposed new sentence neatly solves the connotation problem, although syntactically it leaves something to be desired. Hemingway it's not. Perhaps break it up into two sentences. As for removing Kohlmann from the lede, I offer the following counterargument. K could have easily ignored B's findings had he found them wanting. If K is removed from the lede, we lose the information that a well known expert on terrorism deemed these findings credible enough to support. If we may interpret the word "affiliations" loosely to mean "close political connections", then I would further argue that K bases his allegations of affiliation on more than just B's; see for example here. Precis (talk) 02:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

An analogy: Researcher B alleges that drug X causes cancer. NIH Chief K carefully examines B's work, crosschecks B's data, and then writes a paper endorsing B's conclusions. A wiki page says that B and K both allege that X causes cancer. Should we remove the mention of K on the grounds that B and K together offer no stronger validation than B alone? Precis (talk) 09:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You write "K bases his allegations of affiliation on more than just B's", citing a blog entry. First, Kohlmann just parrots there what the NEFA Foundation writes; if you feel there is substance to the allegations by the NEFA Foundation, then report that, and not Kohlmann's echo – who obviously has an interest in publicizing material that appears to support his earlier position. About the allegations themselves, if someone reports that Obama had contact with Erdoğan, a contact that has been publicly advertized by the Obama administration, can we call that an "allegation"? IHH has never made a secret of its cordial contacts with Hamas; you can find the evidential photographs on their website. Further, we learn (actually old news) that Islamic charities whose president (Al-Amoudi) turned out to have extremist sympathies financially supported some humanitarian IHH projects. You have to skip several steps to turn this into an allegation of having "affiliations with groups some governments have designated as terrorist organizations".  --Lambiam 14:46, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Kohlmann has written a Working paper, this is not a thoroughly vetted study that has gone through a publication process at an academic journal. While it's fine to include such statements in the article, I think that we should not include it in the lead section of the article. There are a number of allegations about the IHH to which we can refer to, in summary style, in the lead section.  Cs32en Talk to me  11:34, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I was only addressing L's reason for removing K from the lead. If you want K removed because his writings are not sufficiently reliable or notable, that's a different story. Precis (talk) 13:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I have addressed above that (at least for this part of the paper) Kohlmann's scholarship is sloppy, to say the least, not even noticing (or else falsely reporting) that the "French intelligence report" authored by Bruguière is actually a prosecutor's summary in a court case – prosecutorial statements are not generally accepted as reliable unbiased sources of information. From how he manages to totally mutilate its French title, it is obvious he doesn't read French.  --Lambiam 13:51, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

He was indeed sloppy, but your pointing out his sloppiness in the article is Poisoning the Well. If he is not deemed sufficiently reliable, one wonders why he was put in the lead in the first place. Precis (talk) 14:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The history is as follows. After edits adding a paragraph to the lede referring to unspecified "think tanks" as making allegations, which were reverted, re-added, ..., the first more specific version erroneously gave DIIS as a specific alleger – erroneously because, as it says in the working paper, The papers do not reflect the views of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs or any other government agency, nor do they constitute any official DIIS position. Then I corrected that error, naming instead the author of the DIIS paper, Kohlmann, as alleger. I'm sure that if I had just removed the reference to "think tanks" in order to redress the error, it would have been immediately reverted. Let's see what happens now.  --Lambiam 15:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree with that change, Kohlman just isn't all that important, and 'working paper' is hardly a ringing endorsement of his opinions from the DIIS. Misarxist (talk) 15:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Support for HAMAS

From "The Slow Death of Gaza" at IHH site http://www.ihh.org.tr/gazzenin-olumu/en/

The 2006 parliamentary election, which was the first democratic election held in the history of Palestine, was expected to bring stability to the country. Instead, it has given way to a deepening crisis and the current clashes. Palestinians raised Hamas, which has contributed greatly to the resistance movement, to power and chose it as the political leadership of Palestine; however, Israel, its Western supporters and certain Arab countries were shocked by the rise of a group to power which they viewed with hostility. These parties cut off relations with the Hamas government rather than negotiating with it, and furthermore offered overt support to opposition groups, thus widening the political differences within Palestine, in line with their interests. International players have refused to recognize the Hamas government, which has been in power since 2006, and have employed practices such as suspending relations, imposing an economic embargo, carrying out military operations, and accepting the Fatah-controlled Palestinian presidency as an alternative government for the past year and a half. Foreign policies in support of a two-headed Palestine have intensified the conflict between Palestinian groups and have engendered the risk of a civil war.

"Although Hamas had centered its efforts on implementing its legal de jure control on the ground, as in accordance with its democratic remit,"

I think the case is clear IHH Support HAMAS Eyal Morag (talk) 21:50, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox.  --Lambiam 14:53, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is also not a battleground and we should assume good faith.Erelas RyAlcar (talk) 21:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

State Department Mulls Terror Designation for Gaza 'Aid' Ship Funder —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.251.22.220 (talk) 14:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

French Intelligence Report

Is there any justification for the phrase described by Kohlmann as "a French intelligence report" beyond the original research of a wiki editor? I don't see where Kohlmann ever explicitly EQUATES reference 45 with a French intelligence report. Is it possible that Kohlmann instead refers to an intelligence report (authored by B) that is discussed WITHIN page 112 of reference 45 (authored by judges B and R)? If not, do we have any proof beyond the sayso of a wiki editor? I propose that the offending phrase be removed, especially since it seems to have no other function than Poisoning the Well. Precis (talk) 21:49, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't know. Suppose someone writes: "An article by Anthony Gawker stated that Earth was colonized by visitors from Sirius", citing as source: A. Gawker (March 1991). "Are we alone?". The Stargazer, p. 22. Then, I claim, any reader would assume that the cited source is the article referred to; but it is indeed theoretically possible that the cited source is not the article referred to, but a different article summarizing parts of an earlier article by the same author, perhaps concluding: "but now I realize I was wrong". But wouldn't any reasonable writer realize that this presentation leads the reader astray? It is not just reference 45; this extends to 46 and 47 (unless Kohlmann is trying even harder to create the wrong impression), which means, if the cited source is not the French intelligence report referred to, that it quotes quite extensively from it. So I'm not convinced that removal is indicated. I actually wish there was a way of adding that Bruguière's investigation methods and his way of jumping to conclusions have repeatedly been the subject of considerable controversy – something you would expect responsible journalists to have pointed out instead of slavishly repeating these allegations, but as far as I see they haven't done their jobs.  --Lambiam 22:04, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is a better analogy. Author A writes: "According to a confidential CIA report, X happened. [N]", where reference [N] is the New York Times. One should not accuse author A of being so stupid as to equate a CIA report with the NYT report. At most, one could say that author A should have been more precise, by writing "The NYT reports that according to a confidential CIA report, X happened. [N]"

Your Gawker analogy is unsound if only because the referenced author is the same as the source's author (both being Gawker). In the case of Kohlmann, the author referenced is B while the source [45] has two authors. Perhaps you think Kohlmann is sufficiently stupid or careless to equate a one-author report with a two-author report. If so, you may be doing what you say B does, jumping to conclusions.

Reference [45] is well over 150 pages long. For all we know, it contains the entire French intelligence report as a subsection, or at least it quotes the intelligence report extensively. Unless it can be verified that this ain't so, I think you should err on the side of caution.

Regarding your final remarks, I can empathize with your frustration. I'd be tempted to change "M and W assert that X is due to the Lobby", to "M and W, who have mischaracterized X, assert that X is due to the Lobby," especially if I thought journalists were slavishly accepting M and W's characterization of X. Nevertheless, Poisoning the Well should be resisted at all times. Even if it were absolutely verified that Kohlmann mistakenly equated the one-author report with the two-author report, I'd still find it rather petty to point out such a mistake in the middle of the sentence, particularly because such a mistake is not relevant to the rest of the sentence.

This ends my two-pronged attack on the inclusion of your phrase. If you are still not persuaded, I won't remove the phrase. But watch out, lest once you become famous, some journalist writes, "Lambiam, who has practiced well poisoning, asserts that B jumps to conclusions." :) Precis (talk) 08:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I see your point, but am still not entirely convinced – although I don't think the contested phrase is terribly important in the larger scheme of things. Proper scholarship requires that when you present a quotation (text between quote signs) in a study, you cite the original source of that quotation (possibly in the form: as quoted by <secondary source>). If I was misled by Kohlmann due to the latter's sloppy scholarship, then so was ITIC, who wrote: "The study quotes a French intelligence report", and so were others (see the opening link in my last paragraph below).

As to not "poisoning the well", if there is reliable information that, for example, someone is a notorious liar and cheat who has a clear interest in misrepresenting an issue, statements by that person on the issue should not be reported by the media just like that, as if nothing is the matter; on the contrary, I feel they have an obligation to mention this, and I would not call pointing out the unreliability of the person a "logical fallacy".

Here is a source pointing out some issues with Kohlmann and his allegations, published by Mondoweiss, a project of The Nation Institute, which – as far as I know – is a respectable organization. The author is on the faculty of the Middle East Studies Center of Florida International University,[11] of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, a project of the Hebrew University,[12] and currently Lecturer in the Master of Arts in International Administration Program of the University of Miami.[13] Poisoning the well? I say this qualifies as much as a reliable source as Kohlmann's working paper.  --Lambiam 21:44, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thought experiment: Let's assume that

(*) The French Intelligence Report (FIT) is included as a subsection in reference [45] (the Bruguière-Ricard report).

In that case, your assertion in the article that Kohlmann equated the FIT with [45] is flat out wrong. Since you continue to stand by your assertion, it appears that you are jumping to the conclusion, without evidence, that (*) is highly unlikely. Someone else might not agree with that conclusion, which illustrates why Wikipedia frowns on original research.

In any case, I wonder why you felt misled in the first place. Kohlmann took pains to state that the FIT was singly authored, so it's hard to imagine that he was trying to pass it off as the doubly authored report [45].

Re your defense of poisoning the well, consider again my Mearsheimer and Walt analogy. They have been accused of sloppy scholarship by several reviewers of their book. Do you give me carte blanche to replace "In their book, M and W point out that ...." with "In their book, M and W, who made a mistake on page 8 , point out that..."? Precis (talk) 01:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no need to use hypothetical examples to make my point. Here's an actual passage from page 142 of Kohlmann's 2004 book "Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network".

A French intelligence report in late July aptly concluded that, while ‘it would be going too far to assert that a “Green International” exists at the present time,’ there was a definite security threat in Western Europe posed by Arab (particularly North African) mujahideen terrorist sleeper cells trained in Bosnia. [76]

So Kohlmann's reference [76] must be a French intelligence report, n'est-ce pas? Mais non. A glance at page 147 reveals that reference [76] is:

76. Inciyan, Erich. ‘France uncovers Islamist networks.’ Manchester Guardian Weekly, 21 July 1996, p. 17.

Kohlmann was simply quoting from Inciyan, who had written the following on page 17:

A report issued by the French security services this month noted that, while "it would be going too far to assert that a 'Green International' exists at the present time", there was a danger that teams of Bosnian trained mojahedin might become operational in western Europe.

Since you continue to insist that Kohlmann equated the Bruguière-Ricard report to a French intelligence report, musn't you now similarly insist on the absurdity that Kohlmann equated a Manchester Guardian Weekly article with a French intelligence report?

P.S. According to Jean-Charles Brisard, the citation for the Bruguière-Ricard report should be:

Réquisitoire définitif aux fins de non-lieu, de non-lieu partiel, de requalification, de renvoi devant le tribunal correctionnel, de maintien sous contrôle judiciaire et de maintien en détention, Parquet du Procureur de la République, 16 Octobre 2000, Affaire P96 253 3901.2

Kohlmann is not much of a proofreader - the spelling in his book got garbled on pages 31, 100, 177, but at least it's close to being right on page 210. Precis (talk) 11:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

(Back from a hard disk crash – as far as I could check all important data was recovered, but it all took a lot of time.)

Close to being right? One missing space has reappeared, but the other errors (mantien, Judiciaiare, missing diacritics) are all still there on page 210. I don't blame Kohlmann for not knowing French and being a poor proofreader, but that is what you have copy editors and fact checkers for. Reputable publishing houses are supposed to employ these for the books they publish. Doesn't Berg use copy editors?

If Cohen and I were mistaken in assuming that the cited Requisitoire is the same as the "French intelligence report", we are not the only ones. For two more examples of people who interpreted Kohlmann's way of citing this the same way as Cohen and I did, see here and here. Any such mistake is entirely Kohlmann's fault. Here is a formulation motivating the rule I mentioned above for citing sources you have not read: "When an author cites a source in a footnote or reference in the text, that citation is conventionally understood to indicate that the author has personally seen and read that source".[14] So if Kohlmann has personally seen and read the French intelligence report he quotes, that is what his citation should refer to, in which case what he calls the "French intelligence report" is the same as the Requisitoire. If, on the other hand, he has not seen and read the French intelligence report he quotes, but is copying a quotation (possibly of text reproduced in extenso, like in an appendix) he found in the Requisitoire, then he should have made that explicit by using a note in the form of "⁴⁵ Unnamed French intelligence report, as cited in Bruguière & Ricard (2000): Réquisitoire ...". I find it hard to imagine, if the "French intelligence report" and the Requisitoire are different documents, that Kohlmann did not realize readers would naturally assume that these two designations refer to the same document. Anyone reading this who lives in Paris and could obtain a copy of page 112 of the Réquisitoire, to check what it really says there?

The point of mentioning any of this (in whatever form) in our article is not to point out that Kohlmann's scholarship leaves something to be desired, but that the source he cites is a prosecutorial statement, something that most English readers would otherwise not realize. Prosecutorial statements are not particularly known for being unbiased reliable sources.  --Lambiam 16:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up. I found this statement in a document on IHH attributed to Bricard:

Dans son réquisitoire définitif de 2000², le Parquet indique à propos de l’IHH que « Lors d’une perquisition au siège de l’organisation en Turquie, des armes, des explosifs et un mode d’emploi de fabrication d’explosifs étaient découverts ».

...

2 Réquisitoire définitif aux fins de non-lieu, de non-lieu partiel, de requalification, de renvoi devant le tribunal correctionnel, de maintien sous contrôle judiciaire et de maintien en détention, Parquet du Procureur de la République, 16 Octobre 2000, Affaire P96 253 3901.2. Archives JCB

This document cites the allegation as stemming directly from the prosecutorial statement, and not as from some "intelligence report" quoted therein, which tends to support my interpretation of Kohlmann's citation.  --Lambiam 17:34, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

"If Cohen and I were mistaken in assuming that the cited Requisitoire is the same as the French intelligence report..." Cohen did not make this mistake. Like Kohlmann himself, she took pains to distinguish the two sources. Both pointed out that the Requisitoire is doubly authored while the intelligence report is singly authored. Regarding the bloggers who conflated the two, for all we know, they may have been influenced by your accusation on Wikipedia. I see nothing in Brisard's statement to support your interpretation. The word "indique" means "indicates". To say "The Guardian indicates X" need not imply that the Guardian is the original source for X. Bottom line: Your clause in the IHH article accuses Kohlmann of intentional misrepresentation. Especially when a living person is maligned, Wikipedia requires a reliable source. You call for Parisian Wikipedians to check out page 112. That would be helpful to settle our dispute, but such original research could not be used as a source in the article. At the beginning of this section, you dismissed my position as being merely "theoretically" possible. But the Inciyan reference above shows that this is practice, not just theory. At the very least, the Inciyan example shows that your conjecture is controversial. According to WP:GRAPEVINE, "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that is unsourced or poorly sourced; that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research); ..." Precis (talk) 09:19, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Where you (Precis) write: "Cohen did not make this mistake", you are apparently assuming that the identification is a mistake, but that is the point under discussion. The way I read Cohen's words, she assumes that the heftily titled Requisitoire Definitifaux ... is the intelligence report. Apparently she does not know French well enough to see that that title can't be right; not knowing French, she also did not notice that this is clearly not an intelligence report. She just echoes the choice of words of Kohlmann, up to "famed counterterrorism magistrate", and so she calls it, like Kohlmann (who apparently doesn't read French either), a "report" (which it is not).

Again, if (say) Glenn Beck states "Obama is a racist", and The Tea Express writes: 'Glenn Beck, that tireless champion of Truth, stated: "Obama is a racist"', then you cannot quote that statement again in the form 'The Tea Express indicated that "Obama is a racist"'. If you quote a statement and cite a single source without further qualification, then that source has to be the origin of the quoted statement, otherwise you are committing a serious error. Brisard quotes a statement and cites a single source without further qualification. Should I now assume that he is committing this very error? Or am I allowed to conclude that this strongly suggests that the original source of the quoted text is the one document he cites?

Nowhere have I said or suggested that Kohlmann is intentionally misleading. I don't think he is purposefully sloppy in order to mislead us. When he wrote the DIIS working paper, he probably truly did believe that the Réquisitoire was an intelligence report. But I do think that his sloppiness and vagueness, spinning a vast web of suspicion from feeble links, may have the effect of making impressionable readers draw conclusions that are not warranted by the actual evidence.  --Lambiam 02:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Equating a singly authored document with a doubly authored document is a mistake. In the IHH article, you accuse Kohlmann of making this mistake, and therein lies our dispute. Contrary to your claim, I see no evidence that Cohen made this mistake, and I can't find anything in Cohen's statement that suggests that Kohlmann made this mistake.

I had thought you were accusing Kohlmann of deliberate misrepresentation, based on what you said above, e.g., "unless Kohlmann is trying even harder to create the wrong impression". I stand corrected - you simply contend that Kohlmann actually believed that a report (that he asserts is singly authored) is exactly the same as the doubly authored Réquisitoire.

In his 2004 book, Kohlmann follows his quote from a French intelligence report with the citation [76], which is a Manchester Guardian Weekly article. You've made it clear that you view this method of citation as a "serious error". Even so, you do not contend that Kohlmann actually believed that the French intelligence report and [76] were one and the same document. So why is it that when Kohlmann makes the same type of "serious error" in the DIIS working paper, you are convinced that he believes that the two documents are one and the same? What's the difference? This is not a rhetorical question, I'd like an answer to help me understand your reasoning.

Finally, you ask if Brisard could be committing the same type of "serious error". Let's say that a passage ABC..Z appears in the Réquisitoire, followed by a footnote citing a French intelligence report. Brisard then writes informally that the Réquisitoire indicates "ABC..Z". If passage ABC..Z is just a paraphrase from the French intelligence report, then Brisard made no error at all. Of course I haven't seen the Réquisitoire, so all this is speculation. You haven't seen it either, and you are speculating as well. According to WP:GRAPEVINE, conjecture must not be used as a basis for maligning a living person in a Wikipedia article. Precis (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think "maligning" is the proper term here, but to make things even stranger, someone more knowledgable with the French criminal system than I told me that she does not think that the actual Réquisitoire définitif can have Bruguière and Ricard listed as authors: its author should either be the avocat général (prosecutor), or, anonymously, the parquet (the prosecutor's office); while Bruguière and his deputy Ricard were in charge of a branch of the French police attached to that office, Bruguière was charged by the court with an investigation in the court case, and not directly involved with prosecution. I can't evaluate this, but I've modified the text in the article such that it leaves it open whether the "report" is the same document as the cited source.  --Lambiam 00:24, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Equating two clearly different documents suggests stupidity, sloppiness, or intentional misrepresentation. But I think you are right, the term "disparaging" would have been more apt than "maligning". I'm happy with your modification because it is factual. (Perhaps remove the comma after Kohlmann's name?) Precis (talk) 01:36, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Move the article

The article should be moved to İHH (Turkish NGO). It is a Turkish name, the first word is "İnsan", the name in the logo is also "İHH". Kavas (talk) 23:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

POV

First check these claims: "IHH is also known to be a radical Islamist organisation dedicated to the ideology that is genocidal in its antisemitism, sexist, homophobic and anti-democratic."

Second, balance is needed if this op-ed is to be included:

The Daily Telegraph calls the IHH, "a radical Islamist group masquerading as a humanitarian agency."[1] According to Henri Barkey, an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment, the IHH is, an Islamist organisation as it has been deeply involved with Hamas for some time," and "Some of its members went on the boat saying that they had written their last will and testament." [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sextusempericus (talk • contribs) 02:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• note this is a news article from a responsible daily, not an op-ed. and the Carnegie endowment for Internaitonal peace is a highly reputable source.Broad Wall (talk) 03:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Noted. I added information from Reuters, which seemed a little more balanced. And reverted the changes of 24.153.123.201 03:22, which was vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sextusempericus (talk • contribs) 04:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

New User:Jayaka appears to be an identity created for the purpose of removing information, some sourced and some not, about the Islamist ideology of the IHH.Broad Wall (talk) 16:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Insani Yardim Vakfi has no ideology. its a charity helping people in Afrika and giving them food, and it is represented on the UN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.108.203.10 (talk) 16:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

More weight needs to be added to its support of terrorist orginizations and it's racism against Jews.Unicorn76 (talk) 11:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Too much weight is already given to these allegations. The fact that only Israel, and not even the US, considers it a terrorist organization strongly suggests that such claims are exaggerated. Therefore, there should be less weight given to them than already is given in the article. -Pgan002 (talk) 07:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't the Gaza Flotilla be mentioned somewhere in this article?

Given that's why many people are likely to be reading it at the moment, it seems odd that the Gaza Flotilla isn't mentioned. It would be useful to make clear exactly what the link between IHH and the flotilla is. Robofish (talk) 14:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I suggest something like this: "IHH was one of the organizers of the Gaza flotilla, an aid flotilla of six ships carrying 663 activists from 37 nations intended to break through the blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian supplies. The ships were boarded and seized by Israeli naval forces on May 31, 2010, resulting in at least 10 deaths and prompting international reaction. International reactions to the Gaza flotilla raid —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.173.41 (talk) 18:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC) PS: I think I may have added this. I thought the page was locked, but maybe not?

If so we shouldadd that Israel and other sources they were the instigators of the violence on theHate Flotilla.Unicorn76 (talk) 11:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus, page not moved  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

---

IHH (Turkish NGO) → İHH (Turkish NGO) — Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC) per Turkish spelling of a Turkish charity Kavas (talk) 12:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose based on the usage at the organizations English web site. They only use IHH when providing the information in English. They only appear to use İHH in sentences written in Turkish. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment But, the English name is The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, then IHH would not be the abbreviation of the English term. They are doing something wrong. Kavas (talk) 14:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment Turkish newspapers published in English uses İHH: http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-211989-100-ihh-website-downed-before-israeli-attack-on-aid-convoy.html, http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-212070-ihh-chief-tells-of-violence-chaos-on-international-aid-ship.html, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkey-sets-up-its-own-inquiry-into-israeli-raid-2010-08-12, http://www.tdn.com.tr/n.php?n=israel-finally-releases-turkish-activist-2010-05-18 Kavas (talk) 14:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Personally I don't care – redirects are cheap – but I see no compelling reason to deviate from established policy. Our policy (not just a guideline) WP:COMMONNAME states: "Articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources." Wrong or not, the spelling "IHH" with a dotless "I" is far more common in English-language reliable sources. Hürriyet Daily News also uses "IHH": [15][16][17]. And the fact that the organization itself uses IHH in English-language texts – on their website, as noted by Vegaswikian, and also for instance here – appears rather compelling to me.  --Lambiam 10:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment That number 17 link uses the name İHH. Can you please examine the links you post? Kavas (talk) 01:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Not common usage in English-language reliable sources. Also, using non-English letters may make the organization appear unduly exotic to English readers.  Cs32en Talk to me  22:46, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support Does your arguments make sense? The media in English uses Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but the articles on Wikipedia has Serbian and Turkish names: Jelena Janković, Ana Ivanović, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The name is İHH, İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri, it's not an English name, it's a Turkish name. http://www.anaivanovic.com/ uses the name Ana Ivanovic, then should Ana Ivanović page be moved to Ana Ivanovic? Please, is avoiding "unduly exotic letters to English readers" a Wikipedia policy? If there was such a policy, the page of Ana Ivanović would have the name: Ana Ivanovic. This is not so. Kavas (talk) 01:25, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I think we don't have clear rules or precedence for use with or without diacritics within an article in such a case, but for titles it's well established that if the common English name is simply a proper name without the diacritics, then the article name is the proper name with the diacritics. An example for this from WP:ENGLISH is Tomás Ó Fiaich. For Irish Gaelic this is explained in Orthography. The distinction between İ/i and I/ı doesn't matter to most English-speakers, and it doesn't matter much to me (although I understand it and can hear it and only keep forgetting which is which). But it obviously matters to Turkish speakers, many of whom are also using this encyclopedia. Hans Adler 08:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

I think it is an uncontroversial move. It should be moved to the correct Turkish spelling, İHH (Turkish NGO). An admin can move it without a discussion as no one wrote his/her objection to it. Kavas (talk) 13:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

IPT report

In this link http://www.investigativeproject.org/1998/ihhs-deep-longstanding-terror-ties, there is a report on the connections of the IHH to terrorist activities. I think that currently the fact that IHH is involved in terrorism is sublimated in the article. There are additional resources of course (some of them already mentioned in the conversation page) MorningTwilight (talk) 18:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

The more terrorists there are, the more books Steven Emerson will sell... ;-)   Cs32en Talk to me  18:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

POV

First check these claims: "IHH is also known to be a radical Islamist organisation dedicated to the ideology that is genocidal in its antisemitism, sexist, homophobic and anti-democratic."

Second, balance is needed if this op-ed is to be included:

The Daily Telegraph calls the IHH, "a radical Islamist group masquerading as a humanitarian agency."[1] According to Henri Barkey, an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment, the IHH is, an Islamist organisation as it has been deeply involved with Hamas for some time," and "Some of its members went on the boat saying that they had written their last will and testament." [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sextusempericus (talk • contribs) 02:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• note this is a news article from a responsible daily, not an op-ed. and the Carnegie endowment for Internaitonal peace is a highly reputable source.Broad Wall (talk) 03:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Noted. I added information from Reuters, which seemed a little more balanced. And reverted the changes of 24.153.123.201 03:22, which was vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sextusempericus (talk • contribs) 04:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

New User:Jayaka appears to be an identity created for the purpose of removing information, some sourced and some not, about the Islamist ideology of the IHH.Broad Wall (talk) 16:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Insani Yardim Vakfi has no ideology. its a charity helping people in Afrika and giving them food, and it is represented on the UN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.108.203.10 (talk) 16:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

More weight needs to be added to its support of terrorist orginizations and it's racism against Jews.Unicorn76 (talk) 11:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Too much weight is already given to these allegations. The fact that only Israel, and not even the US, considers it a terrorist organization strongly suggests that such claims are exaggerated. Therefore, there should be less weight given to them than already is given in the article. -Pgan002 (talk) 07:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems as though some are overlooking the fact that these allegations have been mentioned already in the article, and that they are nothing more than that: allegations. User:Yserbius is perpetuating an unfounded bias by making definitive sentences (that are sometimes contrary to sections later in the article) without any citation. I have removed the sentences that were added by this user into the introduction. WiiVolve (talk) 07:32, 21 February 2012 (UTC)