Turkish pianist on trial for insulting Islam

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2009 file photo, Turkish pianist Fazil Say, center, stands during a performance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Say appeared in a Turkish court on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012 to defend himself against charges of offending Muslims and insulting Islam in comments he made on Twitter. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, Pool-File)

ISTANBUL (AP) — A top Turkish pianist and composer appeared in court on Thursday to defend himself against charges of offending Muslims and insulting Islam in comments he made on Twitter.

Fazil Say, who has played with the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and others, is on trial for sending tweets that included one in April that joked about a call to prayer that lasted only 22 seconds.

Say tweeted: "Why such haste? Have you got a mistress waiting or a raki on the table?" Raki is a traditional alcoholic drink made with aniseed. Islam forbids alcohol and many Islamists consider the remarks unacceptable.

Prosecutors in June charged Say with inciting hatred and public enmity, and with insulting "religious values." He faces a maximum 18 months prison term, although any sentence is likely to be suspended.

Say, who has served as a cultural ambassador for the European Union, rejected the charges and demanded his acquittal, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

The trial was adjourned until Feb. 18 and the musician was granted the right not to appear at subsequent court hearings due to his concert schedules.

The prosecution has caused anger among intellectuals in Turkey and escalated concerns over freedom of expression in the country. Hundreds of his fans, supporters and human rights activists went to the courthouse in Istanbul in a show of solidarity, holding up signs that read: "Fazil Say is not alone" and "Free Art, Free World."

Say, 42, is a strong critic of the Islamic-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a devout Muslim who has preached conservative values, alarming some secular Turks who fear the government plans to make religion part of their lifestyle.

Some have drawn parallels between Say's case and that of the Russian band Pussy Riot who staged an impromptu punk performance at Moscow's main cathedral in February in protest against President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy. The three women were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, but they insist that their protest was political in nature and not an attack on religion.

Turkey has a history of prosecuting its artists and writers, and the European Union has long encouraged the nation to improve freedom of speech if it wants to become a member of the bloc one day.

In a report on Turkey's progress toward membership issued last week, the EU criticized Turkey for "recurring infringements of the right to liberty and security and to a fair trial, as well as of the freedom of expression." It said restrictions on media freedoms and an increasing number of court cases against writers and journalists remained "serious issues."

Turkey's Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has been prosecuted for his comments about the mass killings of Armenians under a law that made it a crime to insult the Turkish identity before the government eased that law in an amendment in 2008. In 2007, ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who received death threats because of his comments about the killings of Armenians by Turks in 1915, was shot dead outside his office in Istanbul.

On Thursday, Egemen Bagis, the minister in charge of relations with the EU, suggested the case against Say should be dismissed saying the court should regard Say's tweets as being within "his right to babble." However, he criticized the pianist for "insulting people's faith and values."

The charges against Say also cite other tweets he sent, including one — based on a verse attributed to famous medieval poet and wine-lover Omar Khayyam — which questioned whether heaven was a tavern or a brothel, because of the promises that wine will flow and each believer will be greeted by virgins.

Say has since closed his Twitter account and has said he plans to leave Turkey for Japan. His lawyer said Say has received some death threats.

The musician, known for his eccentricities on stage, has pressed ahead with concerts and recitals in Turkey despite his legal woes. Last month, he played to a packed auditorium in Ankara where people without tickets were allowed to sit on the steps of the aisles, and received a standing ovation for the recital that included his own compositions influenced by a traditional Turkish string instrument as well as a jazzed-up rendition of Mozart.

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Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

Clashes erupt at Greek anti-austerity protests

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek police clashed with anti-austerityprotesters hurling stones and petrol bombs on the day of a general strike that brought much of the near-bankrupt country to a standstill.

In the second major walkout in three weeks on Thursday, almost 40,000 protesters marched in Athens in a bid to show EU leaders meeting in Brussels that new wage and pension cuts will only worsen their plight after five years of recession.

Tensions mounted when a small group of protesters began throwing pieces of marble, bottles and petrol bombs at police barricading part of the square in front of parliament, prompting riot police to fire several rounds of teargas to disperse them.

A 65-year old protester died of a heart attack, hospital sources told Reuters. Another three people were injured. Police detained about 50 protesters suspected of attacking them.

Most business and public sector activity ground to a halt at the start of the 24-hour strike called by the country's two biggest labor unions, ADEDY and GSEE.

"Enough is enough. They've dug our graves, shoved us in and we are waiting for the priest to read the last words," said Konstantinos Balomenos, a 58-year-old worker at a water utility whose wage has been halved to 900 euros and who has two unemployed sons.

It was the third time since late September that tens of thousands of Greeks have taken to the streets holding banners and chanting slogans to show their anger at austerity policies imposed by EU and IMF lenders in exchange for aid.

Some were carrying Greek, Spanish and Portuguese flags and shouted: "EU, IMF out".

"Agreeing to catastrophic measures means driving society to despair and the consequences as well as the protests will then be indefinite," said Yannis Panagopoulos, head of the GSEE private sector union, one of two major unions that represent about 2 million people, or half of Greece's workforce.

Greece is stuck in its worst downturn since World War Two and must make at least 11.5 billion euros of cuts to satisfy the "troika" of the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF, and secure the next tranche of a 130-billion-euro bailout.

LENDERS DEMAND AUSTERITY

European Union leaders will try to bridge their differences over plans for a banking union at a two-day summit which starts on Thursday. No substantial decisions are expected, reviving concerns about complacency in tackling the debt crisis which exploded three years ago in Greece.

The austerity policies being pursued in Europe's indebted Mediterranean countries at the behest of Germany and other rich euro zone members will drive the euro apart, protesters warned.

"This can't go on. We sure need measures but not as tough as the ones (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel is asking for," said Dimitris Mavronassos, a 40-year-old shipyard worker who has not been paid for six months.

The strike emptied streets and offices in Athens. Ships stayed in port, Athens public transport was disrupted and hospitals were working with emergency staff, while public offices, ministries, bakeries and other shops were shut.

Newspaper kiosk owners, lawyers, taxi drivers and air traffic controllers were among those protesting over the cuts, which include further drastic reductions in welfare and health spending.

Opinion polls show rising anger with the terms of the bailout keeping the economy afloat, and Greeks becoming increasingly pessimistic about their country's future.

"The new, painful package should not be passed," the ADEDY public sector union said in a statement.

"The new demands will only finish off what's left of our labor, pension and social rights."

But with Greece due to run out of money next month, Athens has little choice but to push through the austerity package being discussed with lenders.

Greece and inspectors from the troika say they have agreed on most issues. Athens is expected to secure aid needed to avoid bankruptcy given EU determination to avoid fresh market turmoil threatening bigger economies such as Spain and Italy.

But the protests are expected to increase pressure on Greece's fragile three-party coalition cobbled together in June to implement the harsh austerity terms under its international 130-billion euro bailout agreed in March.

Emboldened by the strikes, the main opposition Syriza party turned up the heat on the government.

"Their time is running out," said the party's 38-year old leader Alexis Tsipras who took part in the march.

"People are taking matters into their own hands."

Article: Council of Europe says some Greek labor reforms illegal

CIA found militant links a day after Libya attack

People demonstrate during a rally to condemn the killers of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and the attack on the U.S. consulate, in Benghazi September 12, 2012. On the back of the burning of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the killing of staff connect to it, demonstrators on Wednesday gathered in Libya to condemn the killers and voice support for the U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three embassy staff were killed Wednesday in the attack on the Benghazi consulate and a safe house refuge, stormed by Islamist gunmen blaming America for a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad. REUTERS/Esam Al-Fetori (LIBYA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA station chief in Libyareported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S.

Those statements have become highly charged political fodder as the presidential election approaches. A Republican-led House committee questioned State Department officials for hours about what GOP lawmakers said was lax security at the consulate, given the growth of extremist Islamic militants in North Africa.

And in their debate on Tuesday, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney argued over when Obama first said it was a terror attack. In his Rose Garden address the morning after the killings, Obama said, "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."

[Related: Obama admits 'not optimal' communication on Benghazi]

But Republicans say he was speaking generally and didn't specifically call the Benghazi attack a terror attack until weeks later, with the president and other key members of his administration referring at first to the anti-Muslim movie circulating on the Internet as a precipitating event.

Now congressional intelligence committees are demanding documents to show what the spy agencies knew and when, before, during and after the attacks.

The White House now says the attack probably was carried out by an al Qaida-linked group, with no public demonstration beforehand. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton blamed the "fog of war" for the early conflicting accounts.

[Related: Libyan Islamist denies role in attack]

The officials who told the AP about the CIA cable spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to release such information publicly.

Congressional aides say they expect to get the documents by the end of this week to build a timeline of what the intelligence community knew and compare that to what the White House was telling the public about the attack. That could give Romney ammunition to use in his foreign policy debate with Obama on Monday night.

The two U.S. officials said the CIA station chief in Libya compiled intelligence reports from eyewitnesses within 24 hours of the assault on the consulate that indicated militants launched the violence, using the pretext of demonstrations against U.S. facilities in Egypt against the film to cover their intent. The report from the station chief was written late Wednesday, Sept. 12, and reached intelligence agencies in Washington the next day, intelligence officials said.

Yet, on Saturday of that week, briefing points sent by the CIA to Congress said "demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault."

[Related: Mystery deepens about U.S. enemy in Libya]

The briefing points, obtained by the AP, added: "There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations" but did not mention eyewitness accounts that blamed militants alone.

Such raw intelligence reports by the CIA on the ground would normally be sent first to analysts at the headquarters in Langley, Va., for vetting and comparing against other intelligence derived from eavesdropping drones and satellite images. Only then would such intelligence generally be shared with the White House and later, Congress, a process that can take hours, or days if the intelligence is coming only from one or two sources who may or may not be trusted.

U.S. intelligence officials say in this case the delay was due in part to the time it took to analyze various conflicting accounts. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the incident publicly, explained that "it was clear a group of people gathered that evening" in Benghazi, but that the early question was "whether extremists took over a crowd or they were the crowd."

But that explanation has been met with concern in Congress.

"The early sense from the intelligence community differs from what we are hearing now," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said. "It ended up being pretty far afield, so we want to figure out why ... though we don't want to deter the intelligence community from sharing their best first impressions" after such events in the future.

"The intelligence briefings we got a week to 10 days after were consistent with what the administration was saying," said Rep. William Thornberry, R-Texas, a member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees. Thornberry would not confirm the existence of the early CIA report but voiced skepticism over how sure intelligence officials, including CIA Director David Petraeus, seemed of their original account when they briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"How could they be so certain immediately after such events, I just don't know," he said. "That raises suspicions that there was political motivation."

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.

Two officials who witnessed Petraeus' closed-door testimony to lawmakers in the week after the attack said that during questioning he acknowledged that there were some intelligence analysts who disagreed with the conclusion that an unruly mob angry over the video had initiated the violence. But those officials said Petraeus did not mention the CIA's early eyewitness reports. He did warn legislators that the account could change as more intelligence was uncovered, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the hearing was closed.

Beyond the question of what was known immediately after the attack, it's also proving difficult to pinpoint those who set the fire that apparently killed Stevens and his communications aide or launched the mortars that killed two ex-Navy SEALs who were working as contract security guards at a fallback location. That delay is prompting lawmakers to question whether the intelligence community has the resources it needs to investigate this attack in particular or to wage the larger fight against al-Qaida in Libya or across Africa.

Intelligence officials say the leading suspected culprit is a local Benghazi militia, Ansar al-Shariah. The group denies responsibility for the attack but is known to have ties to a leading African terror group, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Some of its leaders and fighters were spotted by Libyan locals at the consulate during the violence, and intelligence intercepts show the militants were in contact with AQIM militants before and after the attack, one U.S. intelligence official said.

But U.S. intelligence has not been able to match those reported sightings with the faces of attackers caught on security camera recordings during the attack since many U.S. intelligence agents were pulled out of Benghazi in the aftermath of the violence, the two U.S. intelligence officials said.

Nor have they found proof to back up their suspicion that the attack was preplanned, as indicated by the military-style tactics the attackers used, setting up a perimeter of roadblocks around the consulate and the backup compounds, then attacking the main entrance to distract, while sending a larger force to assault the rear.

Clear-cut answers may prove elusive because such an attack is not hard to bring about relatively swiftly with little preplanning or coordination in a post-revolutionary country awash with weapons, where the government is so new it still relies on armed militants to keep the peace. Plus, the location of U.S. diplomat enclaves is an open secret for the locals.

Blast in Afghanistan kills 19 en route to wedding

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An explosion from a roadside bomb tore into a minibus carrying people to a wedding in northern Afghanistan on Friday, leaving 19 dead and 16 wounded, authorities said.

Spokesman Shir Jan Durani said the group was traveling to Dawlat Abad district, about 450 kilometers (270 miles) northwest of the capital, Kabul.

District police commander Bismullah Muslimyar said six children and seven women were among the dead in the blast, which occurred at 6 a.m. after a nighttime police patrol.

Muslimyar said the bride and groom were not on the bus at the time of the attack. The party was heading to the groom's home to meet and congratulate the newlyweds.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the attack.

"Planting a mine on a road used by civilians and the killing of innocent people represents hostility toward humanity," he said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the U.N. Security Council expressed serious concern at the high number of civilian casualties in the war, especially among women and children.

The Taliban and other militants are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in the country. About 77 percent of the deaths between January and June can be attributed to insurgents, a UN report said.

Insurgent-placed homemade bombs continue to be the deadliest weapon for civilians, accounting for 29 percent of all such deaths in the period, it said.

Beirut car bomb kills 8, link seen to Syria war

A wounded woman is carried at the site of an explosion in Ashrafieh, central Beirut, October 19, 2012. At least two people were killed and 15 wounded by a huge bomb that exploded in a street in central Beirut on Friday, witnesses and a security source said. REUTERS/Hasan Shaaban

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A huge car bomb that exploded in centralBeirut during rush hour on Friday killed a top security official and seven others, wounded about 80 and heightened fears that Syria's war is aggravating tensions in Lebanon.

Among the victims was Wissam al-Hassan, who was in charge of a top intelligence unit, Lebanon's al-Jadeed television said. He had led an investigation that uncovered a recent bomb plot that led to the arrest of a pro-Syrian Lebanese politician.

Analysts said the bombing, which was reminiscent of grim scenes from Lebanon's own 1975-1990 civil war, was linked to the heightened tension between Lebanese factions on opposite sides of the conflict in neighboring Syria.

The explosion ripped through the street where the office of the anti-Damascus Christian Phalange Party is located near Sassine Square in Ashrafiyeh, a mostly Christian area.

Phalange leader Sami al-Gemayel, a staunch opponent ofSyrian President Bashar al-Assad and a member of parliament, condemned the attack.

"Let the state protect the citizens. We will not accept any procrastination in this matter, we cannot continue like that. We have been warning for a year. Enough," said Gemayel, whose brother was assassinated in November 2006.

The war in Syria, which has killed 30,000 people in the past 19 months, has pitted mostly Sunni insurgents against Assad, who is from the Alawite sect linked to Shi'ite Islam.

Lebanon's religious communities are divided between those supporting Assad and those backing the rebels trying to overthrow him.

The blast occurred during rush hour, when many parents were picking up children from school, and sent black smoke billowing into the sky.

Eight people were killed and at least 78 were wounded, the state news agency said, quoting civil defense officials.

Several cars were destroyed and the front of a multi-storey building was badly damaged, with tangled wires and metal railings crashing to the ground.

SCENES REMINISCENT OF DARK DAYS

In the aftermath, residents ran about in panic looking for relatives while others helped carry the wounded to ambulances. Security forces blanketed the area.

In scenes reminiscent of the dark days of the Lebanese civil war, ambulances ferried the wounded to several hospitals, where doctors, nurses and students waited for casualties at the doors. At one, an elderly woman sat in the emergency room with blood staining her blouse.

The hospitals put out an appeal for blood donations.

An employee of a bank on the street pointed to the blown-out windows of his building.

"Some people were wounded from my bank. I think it was a car bomb. The whole car jumped five floors into the air," he said.

Michael Fish, 25, a British musician visiting Beirut, said he was in his hotel a street away when the explosion happened.

"At first I thought it was an earthquake. It shook the whole hotel for a second."

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a statement that the government was trying to find out who carried out the attack and said those responsible would be punished.

The prospect that Syria's war might spread to Lebanon has worried many people here and fighting broke out in February between supporters and opponents of Assad in the northern city of Tripoli.

Syria has played a major role in Lebanese politics, siding with different factions during the civil war. It deployed troops in Beirut and parts of the country during the war and they stayed until 2005.

In Damascus, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoabie told reporters: "We condemn this terrorist explosion and all these explosions wherever they happen. Nothing justifies them."

Tension between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Christians in Lebanon has continued after the civil war but has increased with the Syria conflict erupted.

"CANNOT BE ISOLATED FROM SYRIA"

Nabil Boumonsef, a columnist at the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar, said: "They warned of the implications of the Syrian crisis and here it comes. Who did it and why nobody knows but what is certain is that it cannot be isolated from what is happening in Syria."

"The explosion shows that Lebanon cannot be safe and peaceful in the middle of this situation boiling around it."

He hoped the bombing did not mark the start of a new era of such attacks.

"The regional conflagration of course will have its implications on the Lebanese scene. They are dragging in Lebanon so that it becomes a conflict arena," he told Reuters.

Sunni-Shi'te rivalry hit a peak when former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni, was killed in 2005. Hariri supporters accused Syria and then Hezbollah of killing him - a charge they both deny. An international tribunal accused several Hezbollah members of involvement in the murder.

Hezbollah's political opponents, who have for months accused it of aiding Assad's forces, have warned that its involvement in Syria could reignite the sectarian tension of the civil war.

Sarkis Naoum, a columnist on Syrian affairs at an-Nahar said: "This is all interlinked to the sectarian and political conflict, and the conflict among intelligence services in the region. The aim of this is to spoil things."

Bombings were a hallmark of the civil war but the last such attack in Beirut was in 2008 when three people were killed in an explosion which damaged a U.S. diplomatic car.

Beirut has undergone massive reconstruction to repair the damage from the civil war and in recent years has enjoyed a tourist boom, boosted by Beirut's pulsating nightlife. That is now also under threat.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny, Oliver Holmes, Laiala Bassan and Samia Nakhoul, Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Michael Roddy)