16 March 2005

1. - "Hitler Finds an Audience in Turkey", Speculation about why his 'Mein Kampf' is on bestseller lists includes anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism or maybe just the piddling price.

2. - "Turkey slams rights group for report on the displaced", Blasting a Human Rights Watch report accusing the Turkish government of painting an overoptimistic picture not warranted by the facts, Ankara voices its determination to reach a permanent, satisfactory solution to the problems of residents previously forced to leave their homes in the Southeast

3. - "A strange world or a strange premier?", Turkey is living through a rather strange period. Some people do something and escalate tension, then make a U-turn and start accusing the opposition and the Turkish media of being the architects of the tension. An editorial by Yusuf Kanli

4. - "US calls on Turkey to join in coalition against Syria", The Turkish side says there is no plan to postpone President Sezer’s planned visit to Damascus

5. - "Iraq: Shiites and Kurds at impasse over oil-rich zone’s fate", On the eve of the first meeting of the new constitutional assembly, the major Shiite and Kurdish political parties have yet to agree to form a coalition government and will have to continue talks later in the week.

6. - "Syria: It's painful-decision time for Assad", a commentary by Ibrahim Hamidi

7. "Turkey: Parliament again approves student amnesty", the opposition claims the amnesty is aimed at lifting the ban on women wearing headscarves at state institutions.

1. - Los Angeles Times - "Hitler Finds an Audience in Turkey"

Speculation about why his 'Mein Kampf' is on bestseller lists includes anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism or maybe just the piddling price.

ANKARA / 16 March 2005 / by Amberin Zaman

"Mein Kampf," Adolf Hitler's notorious work outlining his anti-Semitic world view, has become a bestseller in this officially secular but mostly Muslim nation. Its sudden rebirth has alarmed the country's small Jewish community and raised concern among officials in the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join.

Remzi and D & R, Turkey's two largest bookstore chains, rank the work among the top 10 on their bestseller lists this month, as they did in February.

At the Ada bookshop in a popular Ankara shopping strip, "Mein Kampf," or "Kavgam" as it is called in Turkish, has sold out.

"It's our fifth-highest-selling book," said Serkan Oznur, the store manager.

Though nationwide sales numbers are not available, the number of publishers releasing editions of "Mein Kampf" in Turkey has grown to 13. One of them, Manifesto, announced a press run of 50,000 for its version, which jockeys for shelf space with such titles as "Hitler's Secretary" and "The Unknown Hitler." The German dictator's work appears prominently in most bookstore displays here.

Silvio Ovadyo, a spokesman for Turkey's 20,000-member Jewish community, said he couldn't explain why publishers had decided to promote Hitler as an author.

"It's anti-Jewish propaganda. Naturally, we are very concerned," he said in a telephone interview. "Turkey is our country, our home."

Why this nation — which welcomed millions of Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and was the first Muslim country to recognize the state of Israel — now appears so fascinated with Hitler is a question that sparks heated debate. Booksellers said buyers tended to be men between the ages of 18 and 30.

Like several other vendors here, Oznur insisted that the newfound popularity of "Mein Kampf" was a factor mostly of price. Sales soared after several new translations were published at the beginning of the year and priced at about $3.50 a copy. Most books of a similar length cost nearly double that.

Some analysts say the appeal of "Mein Kampf" probably has to do with the rising anti-Americanism here, a result of the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq. Among the work's chief rivals on the bestseller lists is "Metal Storm," a gory thriller that depicts a U.S. invasion of Turkey. The hero, a Turkish spy whose training includes shooting his puppy, avenges his homeland by leveling Washington with a nuclear device.

In a country where conspiracy theories are commonly used to explain international politics, "it is accepted wisdom in some circles that Israel dictates U.S. policy," said Dogu Ergil, a Middle East expert at Ankara University. Thus, his theory goes, anti-Americanism morphs into a hybrid strain of anti-Semitism that in turn arouses curiosity about Hitler.

Others say Turks are drawn more by the book's nationalistic message than its anti-Semitic rants. Nationalist sensitivities have been sharpened by European Union demands that Turkey ensure greater freedom for the country's religious minorities and restive Kurds as conditions for its membership in the alliance.

"Nationalist reflexes have been triggered, there are fears the country will be dismembered," said Nilufer Narli, an Istanbul-based sociologist.

Though Ovadyo said members of the Jewish community were not yet planning legal action against the book, German officials said they would like to see it withdrawn.

The German state of Bavaria, which controls the copyright, has long fought the publication of "Mein Kampf" around the world, and officials there reportedly plan to take the campaign to Turkey.

"The book's wide availability and popularity ought to be a matter of serious concern," said a German Embassy official here who requested anonymity.

Oznur, the bookstore manager, disagrees.

"Anyone who reads 'Mein Kampf' realizes what a psychopath Hitler was," he said. "If more people had read it, there might have been no [Second] World War."

2. – Turkish Daily News - "Turkey slams rights group for report on the displaced"

Blasting a Human Rights Watch report accusing the Turkish government of painting an overoptimistic picture not warranted by the facts, Ankara voices its determination to reach a permanent, satisfactory solution to the problems of residents previously forced to leave their homes in the Southeast

ANKARA / 15 March 1005

The Turkish Foreign Ministry yesterday criticized an international rights group report on the situation of people displaced in southeastern Anatolia in the course of the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and said its assessments did not reflect the realities on the ground since it did not take into account the government's efforts at repatriation.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report last week in which it accused the Turkish government of exaggerating to the European Union the progress it has made in helping Kurds to the homes from which they were driven in the 1990s.

The release of the New York-based group's report coincided with high-level talks between Ankara and the EU Troika in Ankara last week. The group said the Turkish government's statements, based on inaccurate claims, presented an overoptimistic picture that is not warranted by the facts on the ground.

‘HRW is not constructive':

The Foreign Ministry said the report ignored Turkey's ongoing good-faith efforts on the issue and was far beyond being realistic. The negative attitude and style of the report -- despite the fact that Turkey provided detailed information on the issue to the HRW in the recent past -- indicates that the report was not constructively drafted, it said.

The group had mentioned that as many as 2 million people in some 3,000 villages were forced from their homes as part of a campaign by Turkey's military to deny local support to members of the PKK. Noting that exact figures were difficult to determine, the group, however, added that government statistics provided to the EU suggesting that only around 350,000 people had been displaced were "almost certainly too low." It also noted that figures showing 124,218 Kurds had returned were too high.

Ankara voiced concerns that the HRW has been portraying an internal affair of Turkey as if it were an international matter by expanding the issue beyond its internal dimensions. The ministry said some statements in the report, and in particular the headline, were similar to expressions used by anti-Turkey circles. The report was titled “Still Critical: Prospects in 2005 for Internally Displaced Kurds in Turkey.”

New research projects under way:

“The Turkish government has been dealing meticulously with the issue concerning our citizens who had to abandon their villages,” said the statement. It mentioned that there have been noteworthy improvements in Turkey in the last 10 years within the framework of the Return to Villages and Rehabilitation project.

The ministry listed the Law on Compensation for Damage Arising from Terror and Combating Terror (Law 5233), which went into force on Oct. 20, as a “positive step” towards easing the problems of displaced citizens. It cited a fresh research project conducted by Hacettepe University with the guidance of the United Nations and a separate joint project to be conducted with the U.N. Development Program as “Ankara's efforts in good faith in a cooperative manner and transparency.”

3. - Turkish Daily News Editorial - "A strange world or a strange premier?"

16 March 2005 / by Yusuf KANLI

Turkey is living through a rather strange period. Some people do something and escalate tension, then make a U-turn and start accusing the opposition and the Turkish media of being the architects of the tension.

Of course, the concept of “the best defense is a good offense” helps a lot in this part of the world, particularly in Turkish politics, but are people really so foolish as to be deceived by such campaigns of blasphemy?

Can we really accuse the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (TÜSIAD) of plotting against the government rather than focusing on the problems its members care about or the general problems of this country out of its understanding that we are all in the same boat and responsible for keeping it afloat?

With an awareness that what was done was nothing more than a sincere contribution rather than a head-on confrontation with TÜSIAD, the prime minister and his top brass in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) must have appreciated the constructive criticism of the largest private-sector NGO.

There has been talk for some time of a vendetta between the prime minister and the Turkish press. In a democratic country those who volunteer for public service must accept that as much as they might be praised, they might also be criticized. A lack of criticism can only be possible in Third World countries ruled by dictators because in those countries the price of expressing an opinion contrary to the expectations of the dictator can be as high as the life of the critic.

Was it not the winds created by the Turkish media that carried the ruling AKP to power just eight months after the party was established? Was it not the same media that strongly supported all the positive steps the AKP government has taken and the reforms it unveiled one after the other over the past two years, making it possible for Turkey to get a date to start EU accession talks?

Why does the prime minister feel like he is facing a plot since he one day managed to cook up the so-called adultery crisis, facing a barrage of criticism from the Turkish press and the opposition party? The press attacked the premier on the adultery crisis in the belief that with such manifestations of a possible AKP hidden agenda, Turkey's European vocation could be imperiled. In the end, the premier made a U-turn just before the Dec. 17 summit and tried to put the entire responsibility for the crisis on the Turkish press and the opposition CHP. Was that behaving honestly?

The latest headscarf ban fiasco of the AKP government resulted in the resignation of Culture Minister Erkan Mumcu and scores of AKP deputies. The AKP government is still pressing on with the so-called “student amnesty” issue, despite being very aware that what they have been trying to do is in clear violation of the Constitution and that the legislation will be annulled by the Constitutional Court.

Was it not the prime minister himself who told his Cabinet that he was pretty much aware that the student amnesty would create a new headscarf controversy? Was it not the prime minister who said if the headscarf ban could not be lifted, female students could wear wigs and overcome the problem?

How could reporting on these developments be explained by a prime minister through an ugly accusation that the press has started to attack his party because the government was not allowing them to siphon public funds? This must be a very strange country if, after everything, the government and its flatterers in the press can still talk about a media plot against the AKP or the prime minister. Though the prime minister has a moral -- and perhaps legal -- obligation to disclose to the Turkish public and the judiciary just which “siphons” were stopped by his government, he should as well engage in some self-criticism in order to have a sober mind.

4. - Turkish Daily News - "US calls on Turkey to join in coalition against Syria"

The Turkish side says there is no plan to postpone President Sezer’s planned visit to Damascus

ANKARA / 15 March 2005

The United States urged its long-time ally Turkey to join international calls for Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon, saying Ankara should define its place in a global consensus that Damascus should pull its forces out immediately.

“We hope Turkey will join in the international community. Of course, whether to do so is up to Turkey to decide,” U.S. Ambassador Eric Edelman was quoted as telling reporters in the western province of Bursa during a visit.

He was responding to a question on a planned visit to Syria by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, which Turkish media critics describe as an untimely move that could be interpreted as alliance with Damascus in the face of international pressure. A Turkish newspaper reported yesterday that Washington had advised Ankara to postpone or cancel the presidential visit.

In a statement last week the Turkish Foreign Ministry welcomed neighboring Syria's decision to pull out troops from Lebanon, but media critics said this was too weak a reaction, pointing to a growing consensus on the U.S. insistence that Syria should end its military presence in Lebanon in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Edelman said President George W. Bush had found agreement with French, German, Russian and Egyptian leaders in recent talks that Syria should immediately withdraw from Lebanon.

One U.S. official in Ankara said the time had come for Turkey to decide where it stands. “Turkey needs to define its place,” said the official, emphasizing that there was an international consensus on the issue as contained in Security Council Resolution 1559.

“We certainly want Turkey, and all members of the international community, to fully support the international consensus contained in 1559 on Syria and Lebanon, but how Turkey chooses to express that -- it's up to Turkey to decide,” said the official.

The official, however, declined to comment on reports that the United States was advising Turkey on President Sezer's visit.

Sezer is planning to visit Damascus in the coming months. A Turkish official said the visit would reciprocate a visit last year by Syrian President Bashar Assad to Ankara and added that there were no plans to call it off.

New rift?

The U.S. calls come amid tension between Turkey and the United States, fed by U.S. policies in Iraq and recently increasing over mounting anti-U.S. sentiment in Turkey.

The official said the Syrian issue was something that Turkey and the United States discuss but declined to call it a “problem” when asked. “I would not characterize it that way,” the official said.

Turkish-Syrian ties received a dramatic boost when Assad visited Turkey last year in a landmark trip that buried decades-old enmities.

A group of Turkish intellectuals and journalists visited Damascus recently to voice opposition to a possible armed conflict involving the United States and Syria. But other media commentators called for more active support for calls for Syrian withdrawal.

“If Syria fully withdraws from Lebanon thanks to the international alliance emerging around 1559 and if free elections are held in Lebanon, efforts for democratization and peace will gain momentum,” daily Milliyet columnist Yasemin Çongar wrote. “Turkey should wholeheartedly support that process.”

Edelman said it was understandable that there were concerns in Turkey because of the U.S. military presence in Iraq but said media criticism of the United States must be based on facts, not conspiracy theories. He added that the United States hoped that good relations with Turkey would continue.

5. - The New York Times - "Shiites and Kurds at impasse over oil-rich zone’s fate"

BAGHDAD, 15 March 2005 / by Edward Wong

On the eve of the first meeting here of the new constitutional assembly, the major Shiite and Kurdish political parties have yet to agree to form a coalition government and will have to continue talks later in the week, senior officials on both sides said Tuesday.

Nevertheless, the assembly is still expected to vote for a president and several other high-ranking officials at its first meeting, on Wednesday, Iraqi officials said.

The Kurds and the Shiites, the two blocs that won the most votes in the Jan. 30 elections, have to resolve disputes on several major issues that are hindering moves toward an alliance, the officials from the two groups said. The two sides are deadlocked over conflicting visions of the future of the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk and the status of the Kurdish militia, among other things, the officials said.

The wrangling is continuing into its seventh week after the elections, and there is evidence that it is deeply shaking the public’s trust. Many Iraqis defied insurgent threats to take part in the country’s first free elections in decades and now are expressing growing disillusionment with the top parties, accusing them of selfishly grabbing for power at the expense of the country.

"A state without a government is like sheep without a shepherd, and in such a situation the wolves can play very easily," said Majida Aziz, 40, a teacher at a girls’ high school in western Baghdad. "Not having a government is causing a great deal of harm to the Iraqi people and to the interests of Iraq."

On Wednesday, the 275-member assembly will try to take the first formal steps toward putting together a government, though it is unclear whether that will be enough to assuage the mounting concerns of Iraqis. The assembly will most likely select Jalal Talabani, a top Kurdish leader, as the country’s president and a prominent Sunni Arab as one of the two vice presidents, Shiite and Kurdish officials said. The other vice presidency is expected to go to a Shiite, possibly Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister, said a Shiite official familiar with the negotiations.

The speaker of the assembly post is expected to go to Fawaz al-Jarba, one of the few Sunni Arabs who joined the main Shiite bloc, the official said.

A two-thirds vote by the assembly is needed to install the president and the two vice presidents, according to the transitional law approved last March.

Those three officials, who will constitute the presidency council, will have two weeks to decide on a prime minister, who will be approved, along with the new cabinet, by majority vote of the assembly. If the presidency council cannot settle on a prime minister, then the assembly will appoint a prime minister by a two-thirds vote.

Many Iraqi and American officials had hoped the Shiites and Kurds would be able to reach an accord and announce the formation of the entire top tier of a government - complete with the presidency council, prime minister and cabinet - by the first meeting of the assembly, which is charged with drafting a permanent constitution by August.

But the disagreements between the sides mean the government will have to be put together in steps, and any triumphal atmosphere at the assembly meeting will be dampened. There is also no guarantee that the assembly will elect a presidency council on Wednesday, though Iraqi and American officials put out a news release on Tuesday saying that the assembly will vote people into those positions.

The main Shiite and Kurdish blocs together control more than two-thirds of the seats in the assembly, and so could vote in a presidency council on Wednesday. But the council and the assembly could stall on appointing a prime minister and cabinet until the two sides work out their differences. Shiite and Kurdish leaders say they have drafted a document that lays out the broad principles under which the new government would operate, though they are clashing over details.

"There is more common ground than differences," said Safeen Dizayee, a senior official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties. But sometimes during the negotiations, he added, "you take one step forward and then it’s two steps back."

The senior Shiite official said the two sides, despite their differences, had reached a tentative agreement on some cabinet positions. The Shiite bloc will most likely get the Interior Ministry, the Kurds will probably keep the Foreign Ministry, and a Sunni Arab will be put in charge of either the Ministry of Defense or the Finance Ministry, the official said.

If the Kurds and the Shiites cannot reach a final agreement within a week, he said, then there is a chance that the Shiites could change their prime minister nominee in order to win the confidence of the secular Kurds. The current nominee, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is a religious conservative. A possible alternative is Adel Abdul Mahdi, a more secular Shiite who is close to Mr. Talabani, the Kurdish nominee for president, the Shiite official said.

As the talks continued, the Sunni-led insurgency kept up its campaign of attacks in the capital. Two suicide car bombs detonated in western Baghdad on Tuesday morning, killing four Iraqi civilians and wounding three others, Interior Ministry officials said. The bombs were aimed at an American convoy but missed their target, the officials said.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant, claimed responsibility in an Internet posting.

The American military said a soldier on patrol was also killed Tuesday morning by a car bomb in Baghdad. Several other soldiers, Iraqi civilians and an Iraqi policeman were wounded, the military said. It was unclear whether this was the same attack that killed the four Iraqi civilians.

An American marine was killed in combat in Anbar Province on Monday, the military said Tuesday.

In Najaf, the police chief, Maj. Gen. Ghalib al-Jezaieri, said the police had arrested a man suspected of a car bomb attack in August 2003 that killed a revered Shiite cleric and at least 95 others. The suspect, Ramzy Hashem, is from Mosul, General Jezaieri said. The cleric, Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, was the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shiite party.

Ali Adeeb and Mona Mahmoud contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article.

6. - The Daily Star - "It's painful-decision time for Assad"

16 March 2005 / Commentary by Ibrahim Hamidi

On January 12, 1991, Syria's official radio station announced that President Hafez Assad would address Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the air. It was a rare message between two men who had been on bad terms for some time. Assad appealed to Saddam to withdraw his forces from Kuwait and added: "Some say Iraq will be attacked even if it withdraws from Kuwait; I promise you as a brother that if this came to pass, Syria will stand steadfast in the same trench as Iraq."

Saddam did not withdraw from Kuwait and Assad joined the coalition opposing Iraq. At the time, he saw Syria standing alone; the Soviet Union had lost much power and the winds of change had blown across Eastern Europe, bringing down totalitarian regimes. All this heralded the dismantling of the "historic friendship" between Damascus and Moscow. As for Assad's deal with U.S. President George H.W. Bush, it rested on Syria's joining the international alliance to help provide Arab legitimacy to attack Iraq. In return, Washington gave a green light for Syria to crush the anti-Syrian rebellion in Lebanon of General Michael Aoun, and later launched peace negotiations between Israel and the Arab states.

The decision to join the anti-Iraqi coalition was unpopular in Syria. I was at Damascus University at the time and there was much tension in the air; the security forces and intelligence services were everywhere. However, Assad, realizing what the situation required, stuck by his decision.

Another revealing episode occurred in October 1998. Turkey had deployed thousands of troops on its border with Syria demanding that Damascus hand over Abdullah Ocalan, the head of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Some Syrian officials advised rejecting the demand. As Turkish threats escalated, Syria's silence grew deeper. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt shuttled between Ankara and Damascus, as a result of which Assad sent a security delegation to the Turkish city of Adana. Members of the Syrian delegation were so badly treated by their Turkish counterparts that the former head of the political security branch, General Adnan Badr Hassan, wanted to fly back to Damascus. One of his colleagues prevented him from doing so by saying: "I have strict orders from President Assad not to return without an agreement."

It was a difficult decision for Assad to make. However, an agreement was concluded and Ocalan left Syria only to be captured later by Turkey. Now, seven years on, Syria is reaping the fruits of Assad's move, which transformed his regime from an enemy of Turkey to a friend and strategic regional partner.

Why these two examples? Because Syria can benefit from the experience of the past decade in dealing with the current crisis in Lebanon. The international community and the U.S. are demanding that Syria withdraw its troops and intelligence services from the country. This demand has been formally enunciated in UN Security Council Resolution 1559, and Syria has declared its intention to implement the resolution, most recently this past weekend following a meeting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. The choices are painful for a Syrian regime used to an advantageous relationship with Lebanon. However, the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has propelled many Sunnis clearly to the side of the Druze and Christians who are demanding that Syria pull out.

The Lebanese opposition has expanded, even as the international community and the Arab states have lifted their cover for the Syrian presence in Lebanon. Among the reasons for the U.S. attitude are Syria's opposition to the war in Iraq and its failure to implement demands submitted last May by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, which included disarming Hizbullah, ousting Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Damascus, and sealing Syria's borders with Iraq to prevent infiltrators from crossing over into the country.

Damascus believes that these demands "are not American but Israeli." In this context, a Syrian official told me: "How could Hizbullah, or Hamas and Islamic Jihad, possibly harm the United States?" From the Syrian perspective, the Assad regime willingly collaborated with American demands in the war against Al-Qaeda after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. and imposed strict controls over its borders to prevent infiltration into Iraq. While it does continue to support Hizbullah and a number of Palestinian factions, it also tried to control the situation in South Lebanon and encouraged Hamas and Islamic Jihad to engage in a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority and abide by the truce with Israel.

However, Syria is reluctant to relinquish all of its regional cards. Some officials in Damascus believe U.S. pressure aims to force it to do just that. Others believe the real aim is regime change, so that whatever Syria does it will "neither advance nor delay inevitable regime change, which in Syria's case will be achieved politically rather than militarily, unlike Iraq." As some officials point out: "To do America's bidding would entirely change the nature of the Syrian regime."

Yet it would be a grave mistake for the Syrian regime to buy into this logic. For Syria to believe there is a firm U.S.-European decision to engage in regime change will push it to pursue its present behavior. This, in turn, will inevitably lead to the very outcome that Damascus is seeking to avoid. There is no Western decision to effect regime change in Syria, but there certainly is one to change the policies of this particular regime; in other words, to compel it to adapt its actions to the new order that followed the September 11 attacks and the occupation of Iraq, which thrust Syria's eastward neighbor into every American household.

Why is there no decision to change the Syrian regime? Because the Americans and Europeans believe it has brought stability to Syria for the past 35 years and has fought Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Also, because it is secular and believes in religious tolerance, has respected the May 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel, and played a role in stabilizing Lebanon and in disarming most Lebanese militias.

That said, some neoconservatives and extremists in Washington who hold key positions in the National Security Council and Defense Department are convinced the Syrian regime is beyond redemption. They believe it is little different than the former Iraqi regime, supports terrorists, is incapable of signing a peace treaty with Israel, impedes democracy in Iraq in order to stave it off, and is a remnant of a bygone totalitarian era. Therefore, there is no option but to remove it.

Once again, wisdom requires that Syria's policies not end up buttressing the arguments of its enemies or be carried out with fear of regime change in mind. Syria should also avoid getting involved in the Iraqi labyrinth. Put bluntly, Syria should embrace the same advice Assad gave Saddam in 1991 on the eve of the Gulf war.

Damascus still has room to maneuver and reach a settlement with the international community. However, this can only be done through major regional concessions. Among these is an honorable withdrawal from Lebanon, in parallel to the introduction of domestic reform measures. Historic junctions require historic and pragmatic decisions that alter ways and means but not ultimate objectives.

Ibrahim Hamidi is a Damascus-based journalist and a specialist on Syrian affairs.

7. NTVMSNBC - "Parliament again approves student amnesty"

The opposition claims the amnesty is aimed at lifting the ban on women wearing headscarves at state institutions.

16 March 2005

The Turkish parliament voted late Tuesday to approve an amnesty for university students who had been expelled since 2000.

It was the second time that the legislation had been tabled before the Grand National Assembly. Though approved in early February, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed the bill, saying such an amnesty had to be approved by a three fifths majority in the parliament. This was achieved in the second vote.

Under Turkish law, the President cannot veto legislation a second time if it is passed unchanged.
Up to a quarter of a million students could benefit from the amnesty, including women expelled from university for refusing to remove their traditional headscarves during classes. By law, women cannot wear the headscarf, seen as a symbol of Islam, when attending schools, universities or working in state institutions or the public service.