Mehmed Şevket Eygi

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Mehmed Şevket Eygi
Born(1933-02-07)February 7, 1933
Ereğli, Turkey
DiedJuly 12, 2019(2019-07-12) (aged 86)
Istanbul
EducationAnkara University
Occupation(s)Journalist, writer, columnist

Mehmed Şevket Eygi (February 7, 1933 – July 12, 2019) was a Turkish journalist, writer, columnist,[1][2] and Holocaust denier.[3] He had Islamist-nationalist views,[4] including some that were described as antisemitic or conspiracy theories by various sources. Eygi was imprisoned for many years, including for demagoguery in 2002 and 2006.[5][6]

Biography[edit]

Eygi was born on February 7, 1933, in the Ereğli district of Zonguldak as the only child of his family.[7] He completed his primary, secondary and high school education in Galatasaray High School.[8] Eygi learned French at Galatsaray High School[9] He received a scholarship for Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University in 1952.[10] While attending university, he worked as a translator at the French Cultural Center in Ankara.[11]

After graduating from university in 1956, he worked as a translator at the Directorate of Religious Affairs for two years. After this, he worked as the private secretary of Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen.[6] Eygi began publishing the daily Bugün newspaper in 1966.[12] In February 1969, he made a call for jihad in relation to the anchoring of the US 6th Fleet in Istanbul. This resulted in the "Eygi Bloody Sunday" attack in which two people were killed and 200 people were injured.[2]

Before dying, Eygi donated over 45,000 books to the Presidential Library.[13]

Eygi died in the Istanbul hospital where he was treated for heart disease on July 12, 2019.[14][15][16] He was buried in Merkezefendi Cemetery following funeral prayers at Fatih Mosque on July 13, 2019. Attendees of his burial ceremony included Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (President at the time), Abdulhamit Gül (Minister of Justice at the time), Mustafa Varank (Minister of Industry and Technology at the time) and Temel Karamollaoğlu (chairperson of the Felicity Party at the time.[17][18]

Ideology[edit]

Eygi is described by H. Esra Arcan as "a renowned Islamist who [wrote] on religious and political subjects".[19] He favoured a political system based on the Sharia, and demanded the rejection of laws that are incompatible with the Quran.[20] Eygi was a Holocaust denier[3] who argued that criminalising Holocaust denial is both a human rights violation and against the freedom of speech principle. Eygi propagated the conspiracy theory that, the English and the Americans have faked the Holocaust by killing millions of German civilists and soldiers.[21]

Ozan Ekin Gökşin argues that, "rightists such as Mehmet Şevket Eygi (…) were the standard bearers" of the conspiracy theory that, "the cadres who founded the Turkish Republic consisted of the elite of Thessaloniki immigrants who converted from Judaism to Islam, but who secretly performed their own religious rituals."[22] Rıfat Bali outlines that, Eygi spread the conspiracy theory that the group of the Dönme Jews were responsible for the Armenian Genocide, and that Eygi believed that "it wasn't the Muslim Turks who committed [atrocities against the Armenians]".[23] Furthermore, Bali describes Mehmed Şevket Eygi as one of those "political players" and "propagandists" that were responsible for "establishing antisemitism" in post-1946 Turkey.[24] The German Interior Ministry also considered Eygi to be an anti-Semite, who had been spreading the "Dönme Delusions" conspiracy theory since the 1960s.[25] The German Amadeu Antonio Foundation called Eygi's 1999 book Yahudi Türkler yahut Sabetaycılar an "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory book".[26]

He propagated the conspiracy theory that "[t]here are more than one million Crypto Jews in Turkey", with "some of them" being "Crypto Kurds, Kurdish Jews". In addition to that, Eygi believed that "there are more than one million Crypto Christians in [Turkey]".[27] In his 2005 article "State, Law, Civil Society and Islam in Contemporary Turkey", İhsan Yılmaz describes that, Eygi also spread Papacy conspiracy theories. He argues that "Whatever topic Eygi [wrote] about in his column, he (…) somewhat fiercely [alleged] that some groups are the secret agents of the Papacy in Turkey."[28] On February 16, 1969, Eygi published an article in the Bugün newspaper entitled "Get Ready for Jihad" in which he claims that a "total war between Muslims and red infidels has become inevitable". Mustafa Yalçıner writes that Eygi is a "Bloody Sunday Instigator". According to Yalçıner, Eygi called upon the Muslim population to fight back against the "red infidels" with their own weapons, which, according to Eygi, were stones, sticks, iron bars, and home-made incendiary grenades.[29] Eygi denied having anything to do with the event.[30]

Eygi wrote that "the mission of the PKK is to break Turkey to pieces, to separate Turkey. Do they want to form a Kurdistan? No! They want to form a United Armenia, a Greater Israel, and Christianised Anatolia".[31] He stated that the PKK's entire leadership, and over 80% of their fighters, are crypto Jews rather than Kurds.[32]

Eygi was fiercely critical of Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen movement, and wrote much about what he believed their intentions were and which danger he believed they posed to the wellbeing of Turkey.[33][34]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Mehmet Şevket Eygi". www.biyografya.com. Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Mehmet Şevket Eygi öldü". www.cumhuriyet.com.tr (in Turkish). July 13, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
  3. ^ a b Bundesministerium des Inneren (ed.): Antisemitismus in Deutschland: Erscheinungsformen, Bedingungen, Präventionsansätze, August 2011, p. 114. Quote: "Eygi bestreitet in der „Milli Gazete“ (...) den Völkermord an den Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland."
  4. ^ Serpil Yılmaz: İstanbul’u parça parça vakıflara geçirdiler, July 11, 2021, retrieved November 20, 2021, (in Turkish)
  5. ^ Hürriyet (ed.): Mehmet Şevket Eygi'ye 'din düşmanlığı' cezası, 9 October 2002
  6. ^ a b "Babıali'nin renkli siması: Mehmed Şevket Eygi". www.aa.com.tr.
  7. ^ "Mehmet Şevket Eygi kimdir, nereli? Mehmet Şevket Eygi'nin cenazesi ne zaman kalkacak?". Ahaber (in Turkish). Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  8. ^ "Mehmet Şevket Eygi kimdir? İşte Mehmet Şevket Eygi'nin son yazısı". takvim.com.tr (in Turkish). Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  9. ^ "Mehmet Şevket Eygi kimdir? Mehmet Şevket Eygi nereli? – Son dakika haberleri". sozcu.com.tr. July 13, 2019. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
  10. ^ "Mehmed Şevket Eygi kimdir?". Milli Gazete. July 13, 2019.
  11. ^ "Timeturk – Son Dakika Dünya Haberleri Çeviri Haberler ve Video Haber". timeturk.com. Archived from the original on February 16, 2020. Retrieved April 21, 2021.
  12. ^ "BUGÜN – TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi". TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi.
  13. ^ "Cumhurbaşkanlığı Millet Kütüphanesi'nde Mehmed Şevket Eygi detayı". www.milligazete.com.tr. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  14. ^ "Mehmed Şevket Eygi vefat etti". www.aa.com.tr.
  15. ^ "Gazeteci yazar Mehmet Şevket Eygi vefat etti! Mehmet Şevket Eygi kimdir? İşte hayatı". Sabah (in Turkish). Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  16. ^ Haber7. "Mehmet Şevket Eygi vefat etti!". Haber7 (in Turkish). Retrieved June 22, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ "Yazarımız Mehmed Şevket Eygi, ebediyete uğurlandı". Milli Gazete. July 13, 2019.
  18. ^ "Mehmed Şevket Eygi'nin cenazesi toprağa verildi". www.aa.com.tr.
  19. ^ Arcan, H. Esra. (2013). Interrupted Social Peace: Hate Speech in Turkish Media. In The IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication and Film. Vol. 1. No. 1. p. 52
  20. ^ Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport (ed.): Verfassungsschutzbericht 2010 Archived November 20, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, April 2011, p. 37, (in German)
  21. ^ Bundesministerium des Inneren (ed.): Antisemitismus in Deutschland: Erscheinungsformen, Bedingungen, Präventionsansätze, August 2011, p. 114. Quote: " In völliger Verkennung des Prozessgegenstands schreibt Eygi, dass die Verurteilung einer solchen Aussage eine Menschenrechtsverletzung und nicht vereinbar mit der Meinungsfreiheit sei. Den eigentlichen Völkermord hätten die Amerikaner und Engländer während und nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg durch die Tötung von Millionen deutscher Zivilisten und Soldaten verübt."
  22. ^ "Üst Akıl, Gezi Direnişi ve Komplo Teorileri". www.Avlaremoz.com (in Turkish). March 5, 2020. Retrieved October 27, 2021.
  23. ^ Rıfat Bali: A Recent Anti-Semitic Theme: The Sabbatean Role in the Armenian Genocide, December 7, 2009, retrieved November 20, 2021. Quote: "The question of the Armenian genocide and Dönme responsibility for it was also recently taken up by the columnist of the Islamist daily Millî Gazete, Mehmed Şevket Eygi."
  24. ^ Rıfat Bali: Die Geschichte des Antisemitismus in der Türkei oder: Es gibt keinen Antisemitismus, Lecture held in Berlin and Hamburg, February 2004, translated by Sabine Adatepe. Quote: "Für die Etablierung des Antisemitismus in der Türkei nach 1946 waren folgende Akteure und Propagandisten von Bedeutung: in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren (…) der Journalist Mehmed Şevket Eygi."
  25. ^ Bundesministerium des Inneren (ed.): Antisemitismus in Deutschland: Erscheinungsformen, Bedingungen, Präventionsansätze, August 2011, p. 113. Quote: "Traditionell war der Dönme-Wahn in adikalnationalistischen und vor allem in islamistischen Kreisen verbreitet. Unter den antisemitischen Publizisten des islamistischen Spektrums ist insbesondere Mehmet Şevket Eygi hervorzuheben, der sich dem Thema seit den 1960er-Jahren widmet."
  26. ^ Amadeu Antonio Stiftung (ed.): „Die Juden sind schuld”: Antisemitismus in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft am Beispiel muslimisch sozialisierter Milieus., 2009, ISBN 978-3-940878-03-8, p. 14.
  27. ^ Mehmet Şevket Eygi: Türkiye’de bir milyondan fazla kripto Yahudi var, bunların bir kısmı kripto Kürt!, April 13, 2016, retrieved November 20, 2021, (in Turkish)
  28. ^ Yilmaz, Ihsan. (2005). State, Law, Civil Society and Islam in Contemporary Turkey. SSRN Electronic Journal. 10.2139/ssrn.1777222. p. 405
  29. ^ Mustafa Yalçıner: Kanlı pazar kışkırtıcısı M. Şevket Eygi..., in Evrensel, July 16, 2019, retrieved November 20, 2021, (in Turkish)
  30. ^ "'Kanlı Pazar'da sorumluluğum yok'". Haber7. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  31. ^ Arcan, H. Esra. (2013). Interrupted Social Peace: Hate Speech in Turkish Media. In The IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication and Film. Vol. 1. No. 1. p. 52
  32. ^ "Mehmet Şevket Eygi: Türkiye'de bir milyondan fazla kripto Yahudi var, bunların bir kısmı kripto Kürt!". T24 (in Turkish). Retrieved March 7, 2024.
  33. ^ "Mehmet Şevket Eygi: Gülen cemaati fantoş bir İslamî rejim kurmak istiyor!". T24 (in Turkish). Retrieved November 23, 2021.
  34. ^ "'Fethullah Gülen ve Mehmet Şevket Eygi Özel Harp Dairesi elemanıydı'". Tele1 (in Turkish). December 10, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
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