29
November 2005
1. "527 Kurdish human shields joined the ranks of HPG", 527 Kurdish human shield from the activist group 'Peace and Freedom Brigades' declared on Sunday that all their calls to the Turkish state have been unanswered and the activists have now decided to join the ranks of the Kurdish HPG guerrillas.
2. "The results of the Turkish State's Semdinli summit: More repression", a two-hour summit held by several top Turkish Ministers and military Generals to evaluate the unrest in the provinces of northern Kurdistan (southeastern Turkey) came to an end with the attendees deciding that "illegal separatist demonstrations must absolutely not be tolerated".
3. "Turkey Vows No Tolerance of Kurd Militants", Turkey vowed Friday to offer no tolerance for Kurdish militants despite concern over actions of its own security forces after a convicted rebel was allegedly targeted in a grenade attack earlier this month.
4. "Bombing puts Turkey's EU credentials to the test", Turkish investigations into a bombing apparently carried out by military intelligence agents are likely to become a test of the country's reform process, as European officials this week called for justice to be done.
5. "Turkish police charged for Kurd attack", a Turkish court has charged and arrested two paramilitary officers on suspicion of involvement in a recent grenade attack on a convicted Kurdish rebel as allegations of state-backed summary executions resurfaced.
6. "Turkish premier's remarks stir debate", when Turkey's prime minister recently recognized that not all Turks are alike, the restive Kurdish population rejoiced.
1. - DozaMe.org - "527 Kurdish human shields joined the ranks of HPG":
27 November 2005
527 Kurdish human shield from the activist group 'Peace and Freedom Brigades' declared on Sunday that all their calls to the Turkish state have been unanswered and the activists have now decided to join the ranks of the Kurdish HPG guerrillas.
The decision was taken collectively by the activists on Saturday. Serdar Mete, talking on behalf of the activists declared on Sunday that all 527 activists will now be joining the HPG.
"We tried to struggle in every democratic way in Turkey. But we were met with repression every single time. As a result of that, we decided to come to the Medya Defense Zones. Here, we were met with an open and democratic attitude and we could continue our struggle. All our requests were evaluated by the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation and we got positive feedback. But the Turkish state, on the other side, never answered us. To the contrary, day by day they increased their military operations, their repression of the Kurdish people and the isolation of the Kurdish national leader Abdullah Ocalan. Because of this, our struggle has reached a different level. As Kurdish youth, we once again saw that the Kurdish liberation movement is conducting a justified and legitimate struggle for their people. Therefore, we will continue our struggle as HPG guerrillas until our requests will be answered by the Turkish state." Mete said.
Mete also called to all Kurdish youth to join the ranks of the HPG and together struggle for freedom.
The chairman of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation's (KDC) executive council, Murat Karayilan, held a speech, praising the bravery and the initiative of the young Kurdish activists of the 'Peace and Freedom Brigades'.
"PKK has during 27 years of struggle brought a people from its death bed to this stage. If youth from a society that was about to die has created something like the Peace and Freedom Brigades, that is a proof of how much change PKK has created in Kurdistan. On behalf of the KDC, I congratulate our friends from the Peace and Freedom Brigades for their very valuable, holy and historic step," Karayilan said.
The human shields have been in the Medya Defense Zones (MDZ) since August 10 this year. A majority of the human shields have been struggling since the beginning of the Turkish military operations in 2004, touring war zones in northern Kurdistan (southeastern Turkey) and calling to both sides to declare a cease fire and start a dialog. Every camp they set up in the war zones were raided by Turkish soldiers and they were taken to military bases and many of them were subjected to torture for 'sympathizing with terrorists'.
The Medya Defense Zones are areas declared as 'liberated' by the HPG. The size of the MDZ is approximately the size of Holland according to estimates made in 2003.
The number of recruits joining the ranks of HPG in 2005
is now over 1,700. 
2. - DozaMe.org - "The results of the Turkish State's Semdinli summit: More repression":
26 November 2005
A two-hour summit held by several top Turkish Ministers and military Generals to evaluate the unrest in the provinces of northern Kurdistan (southeastern Turkey) came to an end with the attendees deciding that "illegal separatist demonstrations must absolutely not be tolerated".
The meeting named 'The Semdinli Summit' was held at the office of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday. The summit was attended by the Turkish Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Vice PM Abdullah Gül, Chief of the Turkish General Staff General Hilmi Özkök, Justice Minister Cemil Çiçek, Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu, Chief of the Turkish Land Forces General Yasar Büyükanit, Chief of the Gendarmerie Forces General Fevzi Türkeri.
The summit was held to evaluate the unrest in the Kurdish provinces which started after the leaders of a Turkish black-operations intelligence (JITEM) unit, which was exposed after it had carried out a bomb attack on a Kurdish bookstore in the city of Semdinli on Nov. 9, were released by Turkish authorities.
Kurdish civilians in Semdinli who witnessed the attack, chased and captured the unit. Weapons, bombs and other military material, together with documents such as death lists, list of informers and maps over former and future Kurdish targets were captured in the unit's car by the citizens. Two Turkish military personnel have been arrested while two others, believed to be the commanders of that particular cell, were released.
Chief of the Turkish Land Forces General Yasar Büyükanit
praised Ali Kaya, the leader of the cell, and called him an "excellent
soldier that knew Kurdish and worked in my staff as my intelligence
officer and communicator with the KDP and PUK in the 1995 joint military
operations against PKK in northern Iraq". Ali Kaya was among the
released.
3. - AP - "Turkey Vows No Tolerance of Kurd Militants":
ANKARA / 25 November 2005 / by Suzan Fraser
Turkey vowed Friday to offer no tolerance for Kurdish
militants despite concern over actions of its own security forces after
a convicted rebel was allegedly targeted in a grenade attack earlier
this month.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan presided at a security meeting of
Cabinet ministers and military commanders to discuss the Nov. 9 attack
on a book shop in the mainly Kurdish town of Semdinli, which killed
one person but not its apparent target.
The attack raised fears that security forces had attempted the kind of summary execution that was common in the fight against Kurdish rebels in the early 1990s. It sparked days of rioting by Kurdish rebel sympathizers that left four people dead.
The government has promised a thorough investigation and no cover-up, and parliament this week voted to set up its own committee to look into the attack.
A brief statement issued after the security meeting said "all necessary measures" were being taken to solve people's problems, but stressed "no tolerance should be shown primarily toward separatism and every kind of illegal actions."
The Kurdistan Workers Party has been fighting the military for autonomy for Kurds in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and some 37,000 people have died. The group is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey.
The book store attacked Nov. 9 is owned by Seferi Yilmaz, a former guerrilla who served 14 years in prison for participating in the group's first armed attack in August 1984.
After the Nov. 9 attack, Yilmaz and bystanders chased the suspected attacker to a car and captured him and two paramilitary police officers standing nearby.
Inside the car, allegedly owned by the paramilitary police, there were reportedly hand grenades similar to the one used in the attack, guns, plans of the shop and a list indicating which Kurdish clans were pro-state and which were not.
In violence Friday, suspected Kurdish guerrillas fired
two rockets at a police station and the house of a local police chief
in the southeastern town of Idil in Sirnak province, bordering Iraq,
causing damage to the building but no injuries, the Anatolia news agency
reported.
4. - The Guardian - "Bombing puts Turkey's EU credentials to the test":
ISTANBUL / 26 November 2005 / by Nicholas Birch
Turkish investigations into a bombing apparently carried
out by military intelligence agents are likely to become a test of the
country's reform process, as European officials this week called for
justice to be done. "Severe sanctions must be taken against those
responsible for such provocation," the European commissioner for
enlargement, Olli Rehn, said.
The scandal began on November 9 when an explosion tore through a bookshop
in Turkey's most south-easterly town, Semdinli, killing one man. It
was the 17th bomb attack in the remote Kurdish region in two months.
The others remain unsolved, blamed on the Kurdish PKK which declared
war last summer after a five-year ceasefire.
This time local people caught the suspected bomber as
he attempted to flee in a car with two other men. Investigations showed
him to be a former PKK guerrilla turned informer. His two colleagues
were members of Turkey's shadowy paramilitary police intelligence service,
JIT.
Their car contained machine guns, grenades identical to the one used
in the attack and a sketch map showing the bookshop's location.
The revelations brought back memories of the darkest days of the PKK's war against the state, when security forces had near total control over the south-east. Eighty per cent of the 700 assassinations carried out there between 1990 and 1996 were the work of JIT, according to a former operative interviewed in a documentary released this spring. None of the culprits has been brought to justice.
With a half an eye on the European Union, Turkish leaders say they are determined to shed light on an affair many see as an attempt by anti-democratic forces to destabilise Turkey's progress to EU membership.
"Nobody should expect favouritism from us",
prime minister Tayyip Erdogan said, following a visit to Semdinli. "We
will pursue this issue to the very end."
5. - Al Jazeera - "Turkish police charged for Kurd attack":
29 November 2005
A Turkish court has charged and arrested two paramilitary officers on
suspicion of involvement in a recent grenade attack on a convicted Kurdish
rebel as allegations of state-backed summary executions resurfaced.
Monday's arrests on charges of establishing an organised crime ring and inciting hatred based on ethnic differences increased suspicions that security forces may once again be attempting summary executions by death squads in their fight against Kurdish rebels.
The suspicions are troubling the government at the beginning of membership negotiations with the European Union.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised "no cover-up" and vowed to shed light on the 9 November attack in the southeastern town of Semdinli.
The court on Monday charged and jailed paramilitary officers Ali Kaya and Ozcan Ildeniz in the city of Van, bordering Iran, after nearly 10 hours of questioning by a prosecutor and by the court, the Anatolia news agency said.
No verdict yet
Defence lawyer Vedat Gulsen said their arrests on Monday were a precaution, and should not be interpreted as a verdict.
"My clients have represented the institution that they belonged to with honour and they continue to do so," Anatolia quoted Gulsen as saying.
General Yasar Buyukanit, the head of ground forces, said last week that the military high command did not order the bombing, but left open the possibility that soldiers may have been behind the attack.
The attack was on a Semdinli bookstore owned by Seferi Yilmaz, a former guerrilla who served 14 years in prison for participating in the Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) first and symbolic armed attack, in August 1984.
The group has been fighting for autonomy for Kurds in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and 37,000 people have died. It is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the EU.
Evidence
After the 9 November attack in Semdinli, in Hakkari province, bookstore owner Yilmaz and bystanders chased the suspected attacker, a former Kurdish separatist-turned-informant, to a car and captured him along with two paramilitary police officers standing nearby.
The informant and a sergeant who opened fired on the crowd at the scene have both been arrested.
Inside the car, allegedly owned by the paramilitary police, there were reportedly grenades similar to the one used in the attack, guns, plans of the shop and a list indicating which Kurdish clans were pro-state and which were not.
"The things that were seized in the car reveals everything," said Metin Tekce, the Kurdish mayor of Hakkari province.
Government assassins
A government report in 1998 admitted that Turkish officials had hired assassins and were involved in murders, kidnappings and bombings - many targeting Kurds in the early 1990s - confirming years of accusations by human rights groups.
There also have been recent claims that some security forces have engaged in violent operations to allegedly frame Kurds and provoke a military response against them, such as the 20 November grenade attack on a police station in Silopi that was initially blamed on Kurdish separatists.
Last week, two government-paid armed village guards - who fight alongside Turkish troops against the separatists - were arrested in connection with that attack.
The 1998 report grew out of an investigation into state links with organised crime after a scandalous traffic accident near the western town of Susurluk in which a police chief, a wanted hit man, a lawmaker and a beauty queen were riding in the same car.
Only the lawmaker survived and he is still on trial.
Several newspapers and Kurdish politicians have alleged
similarities with the "Susurluk scandal" and the bombing in
Semdinli which sparked days of rioting by Kurdish rebel sympathisers
that left four people dead.
6. - AP - "Turkish premier's remarks stir debate":
ANKARA / 29 November 2005 / by Selcan Hacaoglu
When Turkey's prime minister recently recognized that not all Turks are alike, the restive Kurdish population rejoiced.
Finally they could call themselves a distinct ethnic group - providing they acknowledged being first and foremost citizens of Turkey.
But many non-Kurds were alarmed, saying the prime minister's remarks amount to a redefinition of Turkish identity that could threaten the nation's survival.
Multiculturalism is an explosive concept in Turkey, where the army has been battling Kurdish rebels since 1984 in a fight that has left 37,000 dead. The conflict has destabilized the country, a key U.S. ally straddling Europe and the Middle East. It has also carried over to neighboring Iraq, where Kurdish militants have established a base.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the comments in an effort to calm unrest in the country's largely Kurdish southeast. No one should be discriminated against because of their ethnicity, he told hundreds of Kurds who gathered to hear him during a trip to the region last week.
"We are all citizens of the republic of Turkey under that upper identity," he said. However all Turks have "sub-identities," Erdogan said. "No one should be offended by this. A Kurd can say 'I am a Kurd.'"
The audience burst into applause.
Back in the capital, though, Erdogan's speech angered the country's powerful nationalists, who assailed him for questioning the "one Turkish nation" policy that gave birth to the republic 82 years ago. So deeply engrained is the policy that Turkish schoolchildren start the day by chanting "Happy is the one who says 'I am a Turk.'"
Many nationalists regard any expression of a separate Kurdish identity as a cover for trying to break up the state along ethnic lines. That fear has been strengthened by the war in Iraq, which left Iraqi Kurds in control of a region in the north of the country bordering on Turkey.
Deniz Baykal, the main opposition leader, claimed that Erdogan's redefinition of Turkish identity could lead to a conflict of the kind that tore up the former Yugoslavia and threatens to do the same in Iraq.
"If we go into that process, we would be drifted toward the danger of becoming the Balkans, Yugoslavia and Iraq," Baykal said.
Turkey is home to the largest Kurdish population in the Middle East - at least 12 million out of a total population of 70 million. It also has an estimated 130,000 non-Muslims - mainly orthodox Christians and Jews.
Turkey grants Jews and Christians minority rights under a 1923 treaty but considers all Muslims in the country to be of Turkish ethnicity. It has never granted Kurds, who also are Muslims, minority rights.
Turkey is under pressure from the European Union to improve its human rights record, including recognizing Kurds as an official minority. The EU started formal talks with the country last month on its application to join the EU.
In a progress report earlier this month, the European Commission urged Ankara to review its restrictive interpretation of the treaty.
"There are other communities in Turkey which, in the light of the relevant international and European standards, could qualify as minorities," the report said.
The national identity debate has only aggravated the unrest Erdogan was seeking to calm.
Violent protests have convulsed southeastern Turkey since a Nov. 9 grenade attack targeting a convicted Kurdish guerrilla. He survived but four people have died in the unrest. Kurds say security forces were behind the attack in Semdinli, the town the prime minister visited last week.
On Monday two paramilitary police officers were arrested in the attack and charged with "establishing an organized crime ring" and "inciting hatred based on ethnic differences."
Human rights groups repeatedly have accused the government of brutal tactics against rebels.
On Monday, NTV television reported that a mass grave containing nine bodies believed to be those of Kurdish guerrillas was discovered in southeastern Mardin province.
On Sunday, police refrained from using force against several hundred stone-throwing Kurdish children marking 27 years since the founding of the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its Turkish acronym PKK.
But a group of Turkish children threw stones back at the Kurdish children - and were awarded chewing gum by the officers, according to Turkish media reports Monday and Tuesday.