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Legal tussle over Iraq war film
23/02/2006 07:25 - (SA)
Diyarbakir - A non-governmental organisation for children's welfare on Tuesday launched a legal appeal to stop screenings of a Turkish blockbuster movie that depicts United States soldiers in Iraq as villains.
"The movie commits the crime of separatism by trying to instill in the masses xenophobia, racism and the sick idea that the entire world is against Turkey," Nil Demirkazik, the head of NGO Cocuk-Der, said outside the courthouse in Diyarbakir, southeast Turkey.
"It humiliates our nation by depicting Turks as people wracked by inferiority complexes and creates enmity between our people by encouraging them to use violence," she argued.
The film, Valley of the Wolves ? Iraq, is based on a true event in July 2003 when US soldiers arrested and hooded 11 Turkish special forces officers operating in northern Iraq.
The arrests sparked huge uproar in Turkey and offended national pride, even though the soldiers were released shortly afterwards and the US said they had been arrested by mistake.
Demand for movie to be boycotted
In the film, one of the Turkish soldiers commits suicide to save his honour. He leaves a farewell letter with an elite intelligence officer, who goes to Iraq with his men to settle the score over the humiliation.
Once there, the intelligence officer comes across atrocities purportedly carried out by US troops and witnesses them trafficking in organs extracted from Iraqi prisoners under the guidance of a Jewish US military doctor for rich buyers in New York, London and Tel Aviv.
Since it opened on February 5, the film has attracted more than three million viewers, according to its distribution company.
The movie has triggered condemnation abroad as well, with German leaders and Jewish community representatives demanding a boycott of the film on Sunday on the grounds that it was anti-American and anti-Semitic.
- AFP
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South Africa
