Author Archives: Jim Colella

RedHack: In Their Own Words

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TURKEY’S OWN WIKILEAKS, REDHACK, have barely been out of the headlines since the year began. Although formed in 1997, the socialist hacktivists and their declaration to be the “voice of the oppressed”, only caught the glare of the Turkish media just over four months ago.

At the tail end of February, the Hürriyet Daily News revealed that a little-known “left-wing Turkish group” had successfully hacked servers belonging to the Ankara Police Dept. What followed was not just a leak of “informants” held on police databases. but also the embarrassing revelation that police in the nation’s capital used “123456” as their “secret” password.

From there on in, the high-profile hacks have kept on coming. To date, the list of their online victims includes controversial Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen; the Turkish Armed Forces; milk production firms implemented in the poisoning of hundreds of school children; a national religious newspaper; as well as government ministries for the Interior, the Family, and, most recently, of Foreign Affairs.

With the latest news that an inceasingly irate special prosecutor is threatening to have the media-savvy hacktivists re-designated as “terrorists”, İ.D. thought it timely to to take a look behind the red masks of the men (and perhaps women) behind the headlines.

The following interview took place on 27 June, before the Foreign Ministry hack. Originally conducted in Turkish, TV host-producer-journalist Hıdır Geviş asked and fielded questions to RedHack over 20 minutes on Twitter. Published in full on GazeteVatan.com the following day, here it is in English courtesy of — and many thanks to — the İ.D. translation dept. (all women): Continue reading →

“My Body, My Decision”

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PROVOCATIVE. POWERFUL. INSPIRING. Just some of the many words that sum up “My Body, My Decision”, an online protest against the upcoming abortion bill, due to be presented to the Turkish parliament this month. With a comfortable majority in the house, the ruling Justice & Development Party — better known by its Turkish acronym, AKP — look set to pass their drastic cut on the time limit, in place since 1983, in which a woman can legally abort the foetus, from 10 weeks down to four.

Alongside the AKP’s rising no-holds barred approach to molding the nation — riding on the crest of their unprecedented 3rd term of office & much-touted “model democracy” for the Middle East — their latest crack at pleasing their core voter base (conservative / religious / Islamic / Islamist — take your pick) has brought a storm of idignation onto the streets, as well as online.

Entering the fray from the outset, one of the few independent news sources in Turkey, Bianet.org (who also report in English), kickstarted their own campaign of outrage with staff members scrawling their message to the AKP goverment across their own bodies & posting the rather creative results on their website. Sensing the mood, Bianet then opened their platform to the public: Continue reading →

HDN: RedHack Leaks Turkish Army Staff Documents

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Link: HDN: RedHack Leaks Turkish Army Staff Documents

FIRST THE TURKISH POLICE, then just about any Turkish government ministry you care to mention, now Turkey’s crack hacking force RedHack have broken into databases of NATO’s 2nd largest army, the Turkish Armed Forces.

Leaked into the public domain via Twitter Tuesday morning (12 June), the link to Google Docs detailed army personnel of the 2nd Commando Brigade.

According to the Hürriyet Daily News, who finally broke the story in English by Tues. evening, RedHack also explained their intention behind the leak:

“Think of what foreign agencies are capable of achieving if we were able to obtain this list. Here is a small example of the situation the country’s protectors are in.”

The group continued their message, saying: “We will criticize – in our own way – an army that chose so stubbornly not to give rights to its non-commissioned officers and denied U.S. involvement in the Uludere massacre. The sons of ranking officers [in this army] are sent to study abroad while conscripts are made to march toward certain death.”

RedHack continued to say that the Turkish Armed Forces chose to be “an army of the United States instead of an army of the [Turkish] people.”

The hacking group added they did not publicize any information that could put the military personnel in danger. “What we have made public is what was already known to foreign [intelligence] services and to the [Fethullah Gülen] community. We are on the side of the people and the righteous,” the message from RedHack said.

Hacktivists Slaughter Agriculture Ministry Site

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ANOTHER HIT & RUN HACK took place earlier today, from Turkey’s own “Anonymous” hacktivists, RedHack. Gaining in notoriety for their many attacks on state websites & even reportedly causing a nationwide shutdown of the ‘net, this time the group fired its politically loaded message at the Ministry of Agriculture — more specifically its Strategic Development Directorate.

The remains of the ministry’s website opened with the above pic & message “hackers on behalf of the villager”, with the group criticising a government quota system that favours imports of American & European produce over support for the Turkish farmer.

The culturally & politically packed statement, laced with their hallmark wit, took a range of pot shots: from poking fun at the Agriculture Minister, Mehmet Mehdi Eker; to the Turkish prime minister’s 2007 blunt response to a desperate farmer railing against government policies; to the recent “poisoned milk” scandal, whereby some 4,000 school pupils were, it was reported, hospitalised:

Let’s get to the point: It’s not enough for you to get the famers into trouble and say “take your mother and leave”, now it’s the children’s turn. You are distibuting free milk at schools. That’s good but give children real milk, not milk powder. You are playing the demagogue to people who criticise you, by saying we are against milk. Actually, we are not against milk, but against poisoned milk. Last month, we hackedall of the distribution companies, and we see that you gave all the milk tenders to “cemaat” members [read: a closed Islamic community; here alluding to the followers of Fethullah Gülen] … What is the relationship bewteen you & those companies? If you were brave enough, you would explain it.

Look my Mehdi: If you and your predcessors hadn’t ruined agriculture and husbandry by supporting the quotas and policies of imperialist economies, today every child would be able to drink [safe] milk. Leave the country to the workers. Don’t worry about it. As you see in the picture, our children can make their own cake :) Take it easy Captain Mehdi.

The hacked page closed with a dedication to Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, “who devoted himself to the workers’ struggle and was tortured to death on 18 May, 1973.”

HDN: RedHack Hacks Turkish Family Ministry Website on Mother’s Day

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Link: HDN: RedHack hacks Turkish family ministry website on Mother’s Day

REDHACK LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED. Their latest missive at the AKP government involved taking down the Ministry of Family and Social Policy website on Mother’s Day (Sunday, 13 May, here in Turkey), with the focus firmly on women’s rights, both in Turkey and abroad:

The hacked page showed a collage that was made up of the picture of a woman murdered by her husband, a mother crying over her fallen son’s grave at a military cemetery, an Israeli soldier facing a woman and her two daughters, and a picture of the “Saturday Mothers,” an organization that seeks to shed light on unsolved murders and disappearances of civilians in Turkey in the 1990s.

A message was written below a picture with the headline “Happy Mother’s Day,” which gave detailed information on violence and sexual abuse against women in Turkey. RedHack said the Turkish family minister, Fatma Şahin, was more concerned with regulating soap operas and TV shows, instead of finding solutions to women’s issues.

The group also called for an end to what it called the “dirty war that makes mothers cry” and an end to “the disrespectful attitude of ‘Take your mother and leave,’” a statement made by Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan after a villager had asked him to help farmers and said, “Our mothers are crying,” a Turkish expression meaning that one is in great pain or suffering.

RedHack also rounded off with a taunting footnote for special prosecutor Hakan Yüksel, charged with (somehow) hauling the now notorious hackers in front of a judge:

“Prosecutor Hakan, what’s up? We’re going to end up being buddies if we keep this up ;) We’re hacking from prison, what do you say to that? ;)”

In other words, those he’s locked up are not RedHack.

Global Voices Online: Outrage at Sentencing of Scarf Case Student

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Link: Global Voices Online: Outrage at Sentencing of Scarf Case Student

CAUSING A FIRESTORM OF PROTEST on Twitter, reactions to the infamous “scarf case” — 11 years jail time for 22 year old whose only “crime” appears to be wearing the wrong clothing while waiting at a bus stop — are given a detailed rundown on Global Voices Online. Author Stratos Moraitis’s excellent & succinct analysis highlights both sides of the Twitter debate, in both Turkish and English.

Turkish Student Sentenced to 11 Years in Poshu Scarf Case

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Link: Turkish student sentenced to 11 years in poshu scarf case

BECAUSE HE HAPPENED to be wearing the same piece of clothing as “unidentified attackers” of a grocery store, student Cihan Kırmızıgül gets 11 years in prison. And Turkey is the “model democracy” for the Middle East? On that score, there’s no hope then. R.I.P. democracy.

Kırmızıgül was taken into custody for wearing a poshu scarf on Feb. 20, 2010, when a group of unidentified individuals also wearing poshu scarves attacked an empty grocery store with Molotov cocktails in the same area.

The Common Pain of the Armenians and the Turks

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ONE AMAZING DOCUMENTARY from Al Jazeera World, which takes a fresh, balanced approach to the brutal tragedy of the Armenians in 1915. Director Ramazan Mut has eschewed the issue in black and white rhetoric in favour of historical context, dating back centuries before what many call genocide wiped out a distinct Ottoman community.

The focus also rests on the present day, highlighting the three main actors in this bitter dispute raging for a near century: the republics of Turkey and Armenia, and the influential Armenian Diaspora.

Aptly titled “Common Pain”, if there’s one scene that nails the essence of the tragedy, it’s the prescient TV interview with Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, predating his assassination by Turkish ultranationalists:

We are two sick communities, the Turks and the Armenians. Their relationship is interwoven. The Armenians are experiencing a great trauma because of the Turks, and the Turks experiencing paranoia because of the Armenians. We are both clinical cases.

Who is going to cure us? Is it a decision of the French or American Senate? Who will provide the prescription? Who is our doctor?

The Armenians are the doctor of the Turks, and the Turks are the doctor of the Armenians. Besides that, there is no doctor or cure. Dialogue is the only prescription. They are each other’s doctor.

Anonymous Declare Solidarity with RedHack

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REDHACK HAS THE GOVERNMENT on the run. Their only defence against RedHack’s attacks on state websites appears to be either to shut the Internet in Turkey down, or to label them as “terrorists”:

The government declared RedHack a “terrorist organization”, keyboards and screens as “weapons”, PlayStation CD’s as “evidence,” and turned over the RedHack case to special prosecutors.

— Source: Anonymous

Never mind the fact that all you need to hack a Turkish police website is the password “123456”, the last I heard was that the criteria for committing acts of “terror” was to kill innocent civilians.

Not that we should expect much else from a nation that locks up stone-throwing kids for “terrorism”, but if keyboards & screens are weapons too, then there’s a global supply of terrorists waiting in the wings… in a war the state can only lose.

10,000 Turkish Journalists Dragged Through the Courts

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Link: 10,000 Turkish Journalists Dragged Through the Courts

Turkey Journalists Association (TGC):

We expect the cancelation of the specially authorized courts, which we regard as the continuation of the State Security Courts which were the product of extraordinary eras.

For “extraordinary eras” read: Military Coups d’Etat