21 April 2006

1. "Prosecutors opppose retrial of Kurdish rebel leader", Turkish prosecutors say they cannot retry Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, serving a life sentence since 1999, under current law regardless of a European court finding that he was unjustly condemned, the Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.

2. "Unrest presents setback for Turkey’s Kurdish minority", earlier this month Kurdish frustrations erupted in the worst civil unrest for years, which resulted in at least 15 civilian deaths, and in which banks and other institutions were targeted. The violence, with its ominous echoes of the 1990s when Turkey was at war with PKK Kurdish rebels, seemed to suggest that nothing had changed in Kurdish Turkey.

3. "New Anti-Terror Bill Incites More Violence", Turkey's new Anti-Terror Bill is at Parliament. MAZLUMDER's Bilgen says "Tightening democratic rights will fire-back. Rights advocates are being punished. Everyone should be against this draft"; IHD's Alatas "The intention is to create a silent society".

4. "Turkish Army Sends Extra 40,000 Troops To southeast-source", Turkey has sent nearly 40,000 troops to the southeast to prepare for an expected rise in Kurdish rebel incursions from northern Iraq, a senior military official said on Thursday.

5. "Turkish prosecutor sacked after accusations against general", a Turkish prosecutor who called for a top general to be investigated for alleged illegal actions in the fight against Kurdish rebels was sacked Thursday for misconduct, the Anatolia news agency reported.

6. "Endless Trials of Publisher Zarakolu", Belge Publications House owner Ragip Zarakolu was once again at court this week, this time on trial for Prof. Dr. Sakayan's book "Accounts of an Armenian Doctor" and Jerjian's "The Truth Will Set Us Free". Publisher faces 13.5 years jail if found guilty.

1. - AFP - "Prosecutors opppose retrial of Kurdish rebel leader":

ANKARA / 20 April 2006

Turkish prosecutors say they cannot retry Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, serving a life sentence since 1999, under current law regardless of a European court finding that he was unjustly condemned, the Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.

Ocalan, leader of the armed separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), asked for a retrial in January after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled last year that his trial was unfair.

A possible retrial could unleash fierce public anger in Turkey, where Ocalan is widely seen as public enemy number one among many Turks.

Pro-PKK Kurdish youths went on the rampage and clashed with security forces in several cities in the southeast and in Istanbul last week, resulting in 15 deaths, and hundreds of injuries and arrests.

Ocalan, 57, who launched a bloody rebellion in southeast Turkey in 1984, was condemned to death in 1999 for treason, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2002 after Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of efforts to align with European Union norms.

Ocalan's demand for a review of his sentence poses a legal challenge to the government because current laws do not allow for his retrial, although Ankara is under pressure to comply with the rulings of the Strasbourg-based ECHR.

The ECHR ruled in May that the court that convicted Ocalan was not impartial because it included a military judge during part of the trial, and because Ocalan and his lawyers lacked sufficient time and opportunity to prepare their defense.

Ankara has said it will respect the ruling, but the authorities have so far failed to say how they will proceed.

Officials have said a possible retrial will seek to correct procedural flaws but cannot result in a lighter verdict for Ocalan.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the predominantly Kurdish southeast in 1984.

2. - Financial Times - "Unrest presents setback for Turkey’s Kurdish minority":

20 April 2006 / by Vincent Boland

Down a dirt road on the outskirts of Kiziltepe, a shabby town in southeast Turkey near the border with Syria, Makbule Kaymaz sits hunched and grieving on the floor of her tiny home. Nearly 18 months after her husband and 12-year-old son were murdered, allegedly by Turkish police officers, she is waiting for the Turkish legal system to deliver justice, and doubts that she will ever get it.

A few streets away, in the mayor’s office, Cihan Sincar can sympathise. Ms Sincar’s husband, Mehmet, was murdered 13 years ago, but his killers – presumed to be members of the security forces – have never been caught. Ms Sincar, who is 48 and the mother of three sons, can sense the ordeal ahead for Ms Kaymaz who, at 35, does not speak Turkish, a sign of how alienated she was from Turkey even before it made her a widow.

“We pay a heavy price for being Kurds in Turkey,” Ms Sincar says, seated behind her enormous mayor’s desk, on which the only personal touch is a photograph of her youngest son, Kamran, taken just before her husband was killed. “I paid my share of that price in 1993. Now it’s Makbule’s turn.”

Earlier this month Kurdish frustrations erupted in the worst civil unrest for years, which resulted in at least 15 civilian deaths, and in which banks and other institutions were targeted. The violence, with its ominous echoes of the 1990s when Turkey was at war with PKK Kurdish rebels, seemed to suggest that nothing had changed in Kurdish Turkey. But such a perception, widely held by the Kurds themselves, does not tell the full story.

Slowly, but perceptibly, the economic, political and cultural plight of even the poorest of Turkey’s urban Kurds is improving. This has much to do with the European Union, which Turkey wants to join and which has made addressing the Kurdish issue central to that aspiration. It is also the result of a strong economy and of a more democratic and increasingly freer Turkey.

Even the fact that four police officers are on trial for the murders of Ahmet Kaymaz and his son Ugur is a sign of progress. If the four are convicted – their trial resumes next month – it will be a rare example of the security forces being held accountable for their activities in the southeast. As Ms Sincar’s case proves, that did not happen in the 1990s.

Millions of Kurds are fully integrated into Turkish society. But a substantial minority – perhaps several millions in the east and southeast – have yet to assimilate. They live in appalling conditions in towns like Kiziltepe, often forced evacuees from the countryside, and many support the PKK. But even they are beginning to see the benefits of an improved infrastructure and more attention to civil rights, which Turkey is undertaking to advance its claim to EU membership. The shifts in policy are beginning to counterbalance Ankara’s long insistence on treating the Kurdish issue solely as a security problem.

The worry now, Mr Tugmaner suggests, is that the violence earlier this month may set back the modest progress of recent years. Already the military presence in southeastern Turkey is visibly heavier than it has been for several years. Skirmishes between the army and PKK rebels are increasing in frequency and ferocity. The government has accused a Kurdish-language television station broadcasting from Denmark of stoking the violence, and has blamed local Kurdish leaders for not controlling their towns and villages.

Footage of riots, demonstrations and children throwing bricks through windows has been broadcast nationwide, and businesses in the region are already beginning to feel the effects. Ebru Baybara Demir, owner of the famous Cercis restaurant in Mardin that attracts tourists from western Turkey, says “hundreds” of reservations over the next few weeks have been cancelled in response to the violence.

Kurdish political and civic leaders are now assessing the impact of the violence on the region’s chances of making further progress. Ms Sincar says: “We were beginning to hope that things were changing and slowly getting better, but the last few days have made us think again.” It is possible that the unrest could even affect the Kaymaz case, since these trials are ultimately political events. “We were very hopeful at the beginning of this case that we would get justice,” says Erdal Kuzu, a Kaymaz family lawyer. “Now I’m not so sure.”

3. - "New Anti-Terror Bill Incites More Violence":

Turkey's new Anti-Terror Bill is at Parliament. MAZLUMDER's Bilgen says "Tightening democratic rights will fire-back. Rights advocates are being punished. Everyone should be against this draft"; IHD's Alatas "The intention is to create a silent society".

ISTANBUL / 20 April 2006 / by Tolga Korkut

Human rights activists are challenging Turkey's new "Draft Law to Amend the Anti-Terror Law" aiming to boost the powers of the country's security forces in combating terrorism. The law restricts democratic rights in the country and punishes those who attempt to enjoy their rights in order to pursue their goals they say. The controversial bill is to be debated soon at the Grand National Assembly (TBMM).

Ayhan Bilgen, the Deputy Chairman of the Association for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER), told Bianet that he was seriously concerned of escalating violence in Turkey if the draft was passed in its present form by Parliament.

"To adopt violence against violence serves no purpose but to strengthen violence" he said. "This is the kind of intervention that will stimulate the violence stemming from the Kurdish problem instead of focusing on the Kurdish issue and its reasons".

Human Rights Association Chairman Yusuf Alatas argued that the bill was "incompatible with human rights" and said it intended to bring back all of the country's past suppression laws and create a silent society.

Both activists said that as the bill would affect everyone, everyone should challenge the draft while it is still being debated at Parliament.

Bilgen: It will fire back, violence will increase

Ayhan Bilgen said the mentality behind the bill was "to punish activities that could be perceived as supporting armed groups in order to eradicate those groups, thus preventing that support".

"In my view," he added, "just the opposite will happen. Wherever you are in the world, if you punish those using democratic means, you will be doing what the armed groups want".

Bilgen emphasised that Article 6(c) of the bill described the offence of "conducting activities to recruit for the organisation" doubling the prison term where such an offence was committed at "associations, foundations, political parties, labour and professional establishments or in any building, club house, bureau of any of their side establishments, or in educational establishments or student hostels as well as their annexes".

He argued that "the mentality here is to prevent people from being used in a supporting way and isolating them. But this will fire back. When social activities, political work is punished, people will inevitably direct themselves to the field of armed activities".

Bilgen said what appears to have been overlooked is that when the concept of "terrorist organisation" is mentioned currently, there is a general consensus that the society is aware what this refers to. "But a while later, when the conjecture changes, with this flexible and ambiguous understanding, the target itself could change".
He added, "we need to see from today that this will target every section of the society. In the past they said only leftists would be put on trial under article 312, that the State Security Courts would be involved in the struggle against separatism. But non of these happened. They should not think they can get away with it saying that it will specifically effect religious groups, the PKK and left-wing organisations".

Rights advocates to pay

Bilgen, said that both in the articles of the bill and its reasoning, it could be felt that freedom of expression, democratic struggle and human rights activists were being held responsible and expected to pay for the failure of the security forces and intelligence organisations in conducting their duties.

"This framework is that, 'using human rights advocacy you will be defending terror or something else' and because of this, it will incriminate defending human rights, allow for the conviction of it" he said.

"The field of carrying out politics will be narrowed down" he argued. "The very fact that the bill itself had to be prepared shows that the ties between sections of the society against the status quo and the government, the very credit between them, is coming to an end."

Alatas, meanwhile, said it needed to be noted that even debate of the bill was being prevented.

"They did not disclose it beforehand, they are not allowing a debate" he said. "Not even Parliamentarians are free. Everyone standing up against the law will be accused of supporting terrorism and standing up against the regime. I do not even believe it will be debated at Parliament".

Alatas added, "This government, which is trying to shelve democracy, has no right to talk about freedoms, democracy nor human rights."

4. - Reuters - "Turkish Army Sends Extra 40,000 Troops To southeast-source":

TUNCELI / 20 April 2006

Turkey has sent nearly 40,000 troops to the southeast to prepare for an expected rise in Kurdish rebel incursions from northern Iraq, a senior military official said on Thursday.

The official, who declined to be named, said more troops would arrive from central and western Turkey to back up security forces fighting Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas in the mountainous provinces Hakkari, Van and Sirnak.

"The Kurdistan Workers Party is trying to send half of its 4,900 militants (based) in northern Iraq here and preparing for attacks in Turkey's cities," the official told Reuters.

Dozens of guerrillas and members of Turkey's security forces have been killed in clashes and mine attacks in recent months, and a string of bomb attacks has hit Istanbul, some of them claimed by a group linked to the PKK.

Turkey already has some 220,000 to 250,000 troops in the southeast.

5. - AFP - "Turkish prosecutor sacked after accusations against general":

ANKARA / 20 April 2006

A Turkish prosecutor who called for a top general to be investigated for alleged illegal actions in the fight against Kurdish rebels was sacked Thursday for misconduct, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Prosecutor Ferhat Sarikaya caused a storm last month when he demanded an investigation against Army Commander Yasar Buyukanit for suspected links with rogue groups in the military seeking to stir tensions in the mainly Kurdish southeast and derail Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

The armed forces condemned the allegations against Buyukanit as "ill-intentioned" and urged the government to punish those behind "this onslaught... aimed at wearing down the Turkish armed forces."

The justice ministry subsequently launched an investigation and inspectors concluded that the prosecutor went beyond the limits of his jurisdiction.

A board of senior jurists Thursday overwhelmingly voted to expel Sarikaya from the profession and to suspend him until his expulsion becomes definite, Anatolia said. Sarikaya has the right to appeal the decision.

The affair has underscored tensions between the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has its roots in a now-banned Islamist party, and the army, self-appointed guardians of the secular system.

The government has sought to distance itself from the prosecutor.

The accusations were part of an indictment against two soldiers and a Kurdish informer over the November 9, 2005, bombing of a bookstore in the town of Semdinli.

The attack on the shop, owned by a former Kurdish guerrilla, killed one person and sparked deadly Kurdish riots.

The bombing raised questions over whether Turkey had succeeded in purging rogue elements from the security forces.

These elements were accused of summary executions, extortion, kidnappings and drug smuggling in the mainly Kurdish southeast in the 1990s, the peak years of a separatist Kurdish rebellion there.

The indictment sought life terms for the two soldiers and the informer for the attack, which it described as a provocative act to stir unrest in the southeast, discredit the government and undermine Turkey's bid to join the EU.

6. - Bianet - "Endless Trials of Publisher Zarakolu":

Belge Publications House owner Ragip Zarakolu was once again at court this week, this time on trial for Prof. Dr. Sakayan's book "Accounts of an Armenian Doctor" and Jerjian's "The Truth Will Set Us Free". Publisher faces 13.5 years jail if found guilty.

ISTANBUL / 20 April 2006 / by Erol Onderoglu

In addition to a number of cases launched against him over the past years for his publishing activities, Belge Publications owner and journalist Ragip Zarakolu now faces up to 13.5 years imprisonment if found guilty for printing and distributing the Turkish translations of two books related to Armenians in Turkey.

Zarakolu appeared in court once again this week, this time on trial for the Turkish language publication of Prof. Dr. Dora Sakayan's book "Garabed Hacheryan's Izmir Journal: An Armenian Doctor's Experiences " and George Jerjian's " The Truth Will Set Us Free: Armenians and Turks Reconciled".

The prosecution demands 7.5 years imprisonment for the Turkish translation book "The Truth Will Set Us Free" for which the court has assigned Korkmaz Alemdar and Cafer Yenidogan of the Galatasaray University and Prof. Dr. Emin Artuk of Marmara University as expert witnesses. They are to read and analyse the book for an expert report.

"Garabed Hacheryan's Izmir Journal: An Armenian Doctor's Experiences" promises Zarakolu up to 6 years imprisonment if he found guilty of the charges but the court decided this week that statements taken were fulfilling and an additional expert witness report was not required for this publication.

Zarakolu: Court should interview author Sakaryan

Appearing before Istanbul's number 2 Court of First Instance on Wednesday and defended by attorney Osman Ergin, Zarakolu submitted a petition to the bench where he explained that author Sakaryan was a lecturer at the Mc Gill University in Canada and that his book put on trial in Turkey had been translated into nine different languages.

Zarakolu said Sakaryan had been honours by the German Presidency for his eminent services in recognition to 50 years of his contributions to the German language.
He said that Sakaryan was author of the most comprehensive work on the "Western Armenian" spoken in Turkey and requested the court to interview the author for his views.

Judge Sevim Efendiler adjourned the case until June 21.

Charges based on controversial articles

Zarakolu faces 6 years imprisonment for the Turkish translation publication of Sakaryan's book on grounds that he violated the law by publishing context that "degraded Turkisism" and "insulted and ridiculed the Army".

He faces 7.5 years imprisonment for Jerjian's book on charges of "insulting and ridiculing the State and Republic" as well as "Insulting the memory of Ataturk".

The two consecutive hearings on Wednesday were held in the presence of International PEN representative Eugene Schoulgin, International Human Rights Federation (FIDH) deputy chairman Akin Birdal, Pencere publications executive Muzaffer Erdogdu, Aram publications editor Fatih Tas and author Oner Eyuboglu who attended the court in support of Zarakolu.