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Turkish Hackers Target Vatican Website After Pope's Genocide Comment

Posted by timothy on from the robust-free-speech dept.

An anonymous reader writes Turkish hackers have brought down the official Vatican City website, following Pope Francis' statement in which he referred to mass killings of Armenians by Turks as 'genocide'. According to reports, the website www.vatican.va was first taken offline on Monday evening with a Turkish hacker, named @THTHerakles, announcing that he would continue to target the website should an official apology not be issued from the Vatican City. The hacker said that the Pope's comments were "unacceptable" for a respected religious figurehead. "Taking sides and calling what happened with the Armenians genocide is not true ... We want Pope [Francis] to apologize for his words or we will make sure the website remains offline," he added.

9 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Mass Murder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because killing over a million people of a certain way of life is not genocide...

    1. Re:Mass Murder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People who don't actually look at facts, but at feelings they have do to patriotism, ethnocentrism, or other sorts of values don't really care about accuracy in labeling. They also don't like unacknowledged but horrible national acts brought up because it stains their sense of nationalism and machismo.

      It was a genocide. There may have been awful things happened to precipitate it, but it was a genocide and the record is fairly clear on this.

      It would take courage for Turkey to accept this part of their past, apologize for it, and show that they are big enough to accept the bad and the good in their past. But they aren't, nationally, and these hackers are an example of that.

      Until you can be brutally honest with yourself about the warts on your nation's past, you can't ever really be a great nation. You have to be able to look your mistakes and misdeeds in the eye and say 'yeah, I own that... not proud of it.... and there were reasons.... but I own that'.

      When and if Turkey can ever do that, they'll show they (as a country and Turks as a national population) have grown and are not so fragile as to need to hide, deny, and otherwise act like an ostrich in the face of their darker moments in the past.

      Most nations have them. The number that have the guts to face up to them and try to accept the dark parts and maybe even do something to commemorate or make restitution are not that large. Turkey is hardly alone in living in denial.

    2. Re:Mass Murder by khallow · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think a big part of the reason it's so taboo is that the founders of modern Turkey were probably involved in the genocide, including Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the president of Turkey from 1923-1938. To admit that the leaders of Turkey of the past, were involved might call into question the legitimacy of Turkey today (particularly among minority groups like the Kurds and the hardcore religious) and undermine its secular myth building.

  2. Because beating up the clergy always works so well by ClayDowling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not sure how he thinks he's going to come out on top in the public eye for attacking the clergy. Sure, he'll be the hero of his hacker friends, but most of the world has a pretty low opinion of people who attack the clergy.

    --
    Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
  3. Genocide. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was a genocide. Genocide, genocide, genocide. The mass killings of the Armenians by the Turks 1925 was a genocide.

    Now, vailant Turkish hax0rs, go ahead and take down the Internet.

    1. Re:Genocide. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      In fact, Raphael Lemkin, coined the term "genocide" in 1943 describe the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. Those acts were the inspiration for the term.

      Armenian Genocide

      Raphael Lemkin was explicitly moved by the Armenian annihilation to coin the word genocide in 1943 and define systematic and premeditated exterminations within legal parameters. The Armenian Genocide is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, because scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out in order to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust.

  4. Re:Because beating up the clergy always works so w by pjt33 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would have thought that most of his Turkish friends would have a low opinion of him already for choosing a Greek handle.

  5. Perfect opportunity for the Pope by tao · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This would be the perfect opportunity for the Pope to fire a second salvo by commenting on the Turkish oppression of its Kurdish minority...

  6. Re:Just curious by Pope+Hagbard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Unexpected.