20 May 2005

1. "Turkey says won't retry Kurdish rebel leader", Turkey will not retry jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan after Europe's top human rights court ruled his 1999 prosecution was unfair, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying on Friday.

2. "Bringing of Ocalan from Kenya was a Mistake", the former President of the Organization of Turkish National Intelligence (MIT), Mehmet Eymur, claimed that the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan's being brought to Turkey in an operation organized in Kenya on 16 February 1999 was a big mistake.

3. "European rights court condemns Turkey in two freedom of speech cases", the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey on Thursday for violating the freedom of expression in two separate cases, one of them regarding an article of minority Kurds.

4. "Turkey Parliament Probes 'Honour' Killings", the Turkish parliament has unanimously approved a proposal made by two women MPs to launch a probe into the widepread practice of 'honour killings' - the murder by relatives of women accused of bringing shame to their families.

5. "Turkey not European: Sarkozy", Sarkozy said he did not want an Asian country as a member of the EU. Having what he described as an Asian country in the EU would bring problems such as the Kurds and Hizbullah to the bloc, he said.

6. "Kurdish tragicomedy premieres at Cannes", 'Kilometre Zero' portrays a conscript's perspective of the nightmare world of Saddam Hussein.

1. - Reuters - "Turkey says won't retry Kurdish rebel leader":

ANKARA / 20 May 2005

Turkey will not retry jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan after Europe's top human rights court ruled his 1999 prosecution was unfair, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying on Friday.

But Gul did not rule out taking up an alternative recommendation from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that the original case against Ocalan be reopened.

"The court said retry him or reopen the file due to this or that procedural inadequacy," Milliyet daily quoted Gul as saying in an interview with television station Kanal D.

"Since we have the option to reopen and look at the file, we are honestly not thinking of taking any steps for a retrial."

The government earlier signalled it might retry Ocalan after last Thursday's ECHR ruling, which comes at a sensitive time for Ankara as it tries to meet European Union human rights standards before the expected start of EU entry talks in October.

Any move to re-examine Ocalan's case will face strong opposition at home from Turkish nationalists who see the ECHR verdict as an example of European bias against Turkey.

Ocalan is widely reviled in Turkey as a terrorist for leading a Kurdish rebellion in which at least 30,000 people, mainly Kurds, have been killed. But he remains a figurehead for many members of Turkey's large Kurdish minority.

He was sentenced to death in 1999 but capital punishment has since been abolished as part of Turkey's EU-inspired reforms.

The verdict of the Strasbourg-based court must still be confirmed by the Council of Europe, to which Turkey belongs.

Gul said this was the first time the ECHR had ruled on the head of a major terrorist organisation -- Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) -- and the fact that it gave options in its verdict showed the court was "uncomfortable".

"This is a problem for the whole of Turkey. Making politics out of this will neither benefit Turkey, nor help us get rid of this problem easily," he said.

"We have to do our work meticulously so we don't have fresh problems and face new retrials or new files."

Turkish media have reacted calmly to the ECHR verdict, noting that it ruled against Turkey on a technical procedural matter and did not question Ocalan's conviction.

2. - Zaman Online - "Bringing of Ocalan from Kenya was a Mistake":

19 May 2005 / by Erkan Acar

The former President of the Organization of Turkish National Intelligence (MIT), Mehmet Eymur, claimed that the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan's being brought to Turkey in an operation organized in Kenya on 16 February 1999 was a big mistake.

Noting that bringing Ocalan to Turkey was presented as a great success to the public, Eymur said, "Considering an operation in which Turkey was cheated and fell for a trick we believed served our own aims is something beyond naive". In an article titled "Why did they give Apo?" on the website www.atin.org, Eymur said that the real success in the Ocalan operation belongs to "the ones that gave the PKK leader to Turkey as a present".

Remembering the words of former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit: "Why they gave us Abdullah Ocalan? I still couldn't guess. But, the good thing happened at last. They set up no conditions from us regarding Ocalan," Eymur claimed: "What good is there in bringing Ocalan to Turkey. The US decided the conditions of capture before everyone's eyes. The US-Turkish teams were going to perform the operation; Ocalan was going to be brought to Turkey alive no matter what, he was going to be tried at the court, and not to be killed… Aware of Turkey's operations to eliminate Ocalan, the US government was insistent on Ocalan's live capture."

3. - AFP - "European rights court condemns Turkey in two freedom of speech cases":

STRASBOURG / 19 May 2005

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey on Thursday for violating the freedom of expression in two separate cases, one of them regarding an article of minority Kurds.

The court ruled in favor of Teslim Tore, who was sentenced to one year, one month and 10 days in prison for "disseminating separatist propaganda" in a 1994 article entitled "Kurdistan's socialists must seize the moment."

"Finding that the severity of the applicant's sentence was disproportionate and not necessary in a democratic society, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 10" on freedom of expression, the court's registrar said.

It also ruled that the state security court that sentenced Tore could not be considered independent and impartial, and ordered Turkey to pay 310 euros (390 dollars) in material damages, 6,500 euros in moral damages, and 3,000 euros in legal costs.

The Strasbourg-based court also ruled in favor of Talat Turhan, who was sentenced to pay damages to a senior Turkish official for passages in his book "Extraordinary War, Terror and Counter-terrorism" which a Turkish court ruled defamatory.

The European court said the sentence amounted to a violation of freedom of expression because statements on the official were "value judgments on an issue of public interest.

"The Court reiterated that the truthfulness of a value judgment was not susceptible of proof and that the value judgment made by the applicant was based on information which was already known to the general public."

It ordered the Turkish state to pay Turhan 600 euros (760 dollars) in material damages, 1,000 euros (1,300 dollars) in moral damages, and 1,500 euros (1,900 dollars) in legal costs.

4. - AKI - "Turkey Parliament Probes 'Honour' Killings":

ANKARA / 20 May 2005

The Turkish parliament has unanimously approved a proposal made by two women MPs to launch a probe into the widepread practice of 'honour killings' - the murder by relatives of women accused of bringing shame to their families. Following a vote on Wednesday, the National Assembly formed a 15-member commission of inquiry, which has been given three months to report on its findings. Honour killings - which according to officials figures claimed the lives of 43 women in 2004 - have provoked growing public outrage since a spate of recent television and radio documentaries focused on the issue.

Human rights activist allege that the real number of murders is higher than what is officially reported, because families sometimes report the deaths as suicides or murdered women are listed as missing.

Despite some recent reforms, activists say that legislation fails to grant women enough protection.

Under a new law, municpalities and local authorities are obliged to set up shelters for abused women, but safety provisions at these centres are inadequate, critics say.

The country's new penal code, which will be adopted by August, aims to enhance women's rights following EU requirements for Turkey's membership to the bloc. It no longer lists the "protection of the honour of a family" as an extenuating circumstance in a crime, and includes harsher penalties for those who commit honour killings.

But it still lists as a criminal motive "unjustifiable provocation" which activists say could be used to win lighter sentences by those convicted of honour killings.

5. - NTV/MSNBC - "Turkey not European: Sarkozy":

Sarkozy said he did not want an Asian country as a member of the EU.

20 May 2005

The Middle Eastern countries of Israel and Lebanon were more European than Turkey, according to the man who may well be the next president of France.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the chairman of France’s ruling centre right Union for Popular Movement, and tipped to be a candidate in the 2007 French presidential election, said Thursday that while he did not opposed to either Muslim countries or Turkey itself, he did not want to see an Asian nation as part of the European Union.

Turkey has tried to join the EU since 1963 and if it was European it would have been a member by now, Sarkozy said.

Having what he described as an Asian country in the EU would bring problems such as the Kurds and Hizbullah to the bloc, he said.

6. - The Daily Star - "Kurdish tragicomedy premieres at Cannes":

'Kilometre Zero' portrays a conscript's perspective of the nightmare world of Saddam Hussein

CANNES / 20 May 2005

"This is paradise. This is Kurdistan." So says Ako, the central character in Hiner Saleem's eagerly anticipated "Kilometre Zero," making its world premiere in competition at Cannes this week. Opening and ending in 2003 with news of the Iraq war, much of the film's action takes place in 1988, just before the horrific events at Halabja, as Ako, a Kurdish everyman, is reluctantly drafted into the Iraqi army to fight against the Iranians.

What ensues is by turns a funny, heartbreaking and occasionally disappointing delve into the nightmarish world of Iraq under Saddam. Focusing strongly on the brutal treatment of the Kurds by the Baath regime, the film is essentially a series of vignettes, often surreal, as Ako is dispatched on a cross-country drive to deliver the coffin of a dead Iraqi soldier to his family.

Travelling from Basra in the south to a northern village, Ako's companion for his journey is an Arab Iraqi and it is with their mistrustful relationship that the film plumbs much of its humor.

At one point the two characters, exasperated with the other's attitudes, decide to sort out once and for all Arab-Kurdish relations. Rather than reach a consensus, however, all that occurs is silence and futile invitations to speak. The lack of a resolution is indicative of Saleem's ambiguous approach. There will be no rapprochement, no pat happy endings. In its place is a bitter indictment of the fate of the Kurds.

"Our past is sad. Our present is tragic. It's a good thing we have no future," Ako's wife jokes, the comedy pocked with the tragedy of their situation. For Saleem, there is no difference. "Saddam Hussein wrote in his own blood, 'Allah Akbar,' on the Iraqi flag," Saleem commented. "But he made a spelling mistake and this mistake was left on the Iraqi flag. No one had the courage to tell him he had written it wrong. Is there a bigger comedy than this?"

For Saleem, though, the biggest joke is pre-Cannes publicity that saw "Kilometre Zero" vaunted as the first Iraqi film to be selected in competition. "It's a lie," he commented. "After being selected I didn't receive one phone call of congratulations from an Iraqi official. Not one minister, even the Iraqi ambassador in Paris didn't call me. They don't treat us as foreign nationals."

The question of Kurdish identity is a central theme of the film, and one that lies at the heart of most of Saleem's comments when discussing it.

"I'm Kurdish. My nation is Kurdistan. Iraq was imposed on us," he notes, growing increasingly impassioned. "All I've seen from Iraq has been killing, chemical weapons. We haven't been allowed to keep a nationalist sentiment. If we are going to live together now then there needs to be equality between the Arabs and the Kurds. Both languages should be the national language of Iraq."

One of the recurring motifs in the film is a statue of Saddam Hussein, his arm aloft in that familiar salute, seemingly endlessly following Ako and his coffin convoy. This omnipotence extends throughout the film, with each room, mural or checkpoint boasting portraits of the all-powerful former leader.

At one point Ako's commanding officer tells his conscripts: "Not a fish will be left in the Tigris and Euphrates unless it swears loyalty to Saddam Hussein." The line is made all the more ridiculous by the fact that it is uttered with such deadpan seriousness.

"I came out of the generation under Saddam. In school the first page of our textbooks had a picture of Saddam. On TV there was Saddam. On the radio there were songs about Saddam," Saleem quipped. "Saddam was in our kitchen, our bathroom, our bedroom. He was bigger than God. With God you have to pray five times a day. With Saddam you had to think about him five times every minute."

Arguably the film's most controversial moments come with its ending. Ako and his wife, now living in a European city, celebrate the news of Saddam's fall by shouting "We are free" outside their window, in French.

At its Cannes screening, the moment brought a tense atmosphere, taking place as it did on the home territory of one the leaders of the anti-war movement. "We would have welcomed liberation by France, Switzerland, Slovakia," says one Iraqi interviewed on the radio. "But no one else came."