5 April 2006

1. "Kurdish Main party In Northern Kurdistan Accuses Turkish Regime Over Deadly Rioting", Turkey's main Kurdish party lashed out at the government on Monday over the use of excessive force in response to a week of violence between Kurdish protestors and police that has claimed 15 lives.

2. "EU urges Turkish restraint over Kurdish unrest", the European Union urged Turkey Tuesday to show restraint in the face of deadly Kurdish violence which spread to the west of the country at the weekend.

3. "Use of Firearms Should be Investigated", rights activists said that police forces may not use firearms against demonstrators who don't have firearms in their possession. "There was a disproportionate use of force," said Danis Bestas. "Extrajudicial killings generally go unpunished," added Ondul.

4. "Turkish policemen killed in Kurdish rebel attack", a policemen died in hospital from injuries sustained in an armed attack by Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country, hospital sources here said Wednesday.

5. "Five Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with Kurdish rebels", suspected Kurdish rebels have killed five Turkish soldiers in fighting in a mountainous area of southeastern Turkey , a television report said Wednesday.

6. "Kurdish TV Says Into Journalism Not Propaganda", a Denmark-based Kurdish television station denied on Tuesday Turkish accusations it was stoking street violence in the southeast of the country and said it sought only to give voice to people Ankara refused to heed.

1. - AFP / Reuters / AP - "Kurdish Main party In Northern Kurdistan Accuses Turkish Regime Over Deadly Rioting":

3 April 2006

Turkey's main Kurdish party lashed out at the government on Monday over the use of excessive force in response to a week of violence between Kurdish protestors and police that has claimed 15 lives.

"We condemn all protests that fall outside democratic limits, but in a state based on the rule of law, no weapons can be used against an unarmed protest," Aysel Tugluk, the co-chairman of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), told a press conference here.

"It is the government and the prime minister who are responsible for all that has happened," she added.

The rioting began last Tuesday in Diyarbakir, the biggest city of the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country after the funerals of separatist Kurdish rebels killed in fighting with the army, before spreading to the region.

Riot police used firearms to disperse the protestors as angry youths torched government buildings and banks, vandalized shops and attacked the police with petrol bombs and stones.

Among the 15 victims were three children, one of whom was shot while watching the rioting from the balcony of his home, Tugluk said.

"Children who had no part in the incidents and who were watching the events from the balcony or the park were massacred," she said.

Tugluk expressed concern that the clashes could deteriorate into ethnic fighting and called on the government to drop its "policy of violence" and focus on democratic reforms that would allow it to make peace with the Kurdish minority.

"Through this policy, the government is shutting off dialogue and peace and dragging Turkey into darkness with its anti-terror law and anti-democratic measures," she charged.

"There is no option other than a political and democratic solution."

Ayhan Karabulut, a local DTP leader in Batman, east of Diyarbakir, was detained on Monday for speeches made during the unrest, Anatolia news agency reported.

The situation was calm on Monday in Diyarbakir but the spread of unrest to Istanbul, home to hundreds of thousands of often poor Kurdish immigrants, raised the spectre of ethnic violence.

"The use by some anti-government parties of ethnic divisions as a political instrument could degenerate into violence," warned Jean-François Perouse, a researcher with a French sociological institute based in Istanbul.

He was referring to nationalist opposition parties that strongly reject any political solution to Turkey's Kurdish problem, preferring military action to what they consider a security issue.

Perouse added that Istanbul's Kurdish community -- the result of "forced immigration" sparked by fighting between the army and the PKK in southeast Turkey in the 1990s -- was particularly violence prone because "it has been economically and politically marginalised".

An armed Kurdish rebel group that has claimed several deadly bomb attacks in Turkey in the past threatened Monday to hit tourist targets across the country.

In a statement posted on the website of the Europe-based pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) called on foreign tourists to avoid Turkey "or face the consequences."

"Foreign currency brought in by tourists is the greatest resource of the Turkish state ... in its attacks against the Kurdish people," the TAK statement said.

"We declare that we will target hotels, amusement areas and tourism companies," TAK said.

In Istanbul's Gazi district, which has a sizeable Kurdish population, police also fired tear gas to break up a 150-strong group of stone-throwing youths who had set up barricades and set fire to rubbish containers, CNN Turk reported.

2. - AFP - "EU urges Turkish restraint over Kurdish unrest":

STRASBOURG / 4 April 2006

The European Union urged Turkey Tuesday to show restraint in the face of deadly Kurdish violence which spread to the west of the country at the weekend.

"We expect the Turkish authorities will refrain from excessive use of force," said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, who is leading EU membership negotiations with Ankara on behalf of the 25-nation bloc.

The countrywide death toll from nearly a week of unrest in Turkey climbed to 15 on Monday after violence involving supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) spread to Istanbul.

Turkey won an EU green light last October to begin membership talks, despite widespread concern that the mostly Muslim country is too culturally, politically and economically different to the EU.

Rehn dismissed suggestions that the EU should threaten to suspend talks with Ankara if the violence continues.

"A suspension of negotiations would not provide any improvement of the situation for the moment," he said.

The situation "requires economic and social development and bridge-building, rather than dramatic measures by Europeans," he added, speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

3. - Bianet - "Use of Firearms Should be Investigated":

Rights activists said that police forces may not use firearms against demonstrators who don't have firearms in their possession. "There was a disproportionate use of force," said Danis Bestas. "Extrajudicial killings generally go unpunished," added Ondul.

ANKARA / 4 April 2006 / by Tolga Korkut

Six people, including three children in Diyarbakir, and three-year old Fatih Tekin in Batman were killed when security forces used firearms to disperse demonstrators last week.

Spokesman Ismail Caliskan of the Police Headquarters, on the other hand, said the security forces in Diyarbakir behaved with discretion and prevented the worsening of the situation.

"The use of firearms by security forces in recent incidents is unacceptable," said lawyer Meral Danis Bestas, a board member of the Diyarbakir Bar Association. "The demonstrators did not possess any firearms."

"While they could easily disperse the demonstrators through other commensurate means, they used disproportionate force."

Danis Bestas underlined the fact that not only police forces but troops and special police teams also intervened in the demonstrations. "Security forces are obliged to act within a legal framework when intervening in such illegal demonstrations," said Danis Bestas. "They should have detained demonstrators and referred them to court. They caused the death of civilians and children."

Danis Bestas said nine-year-old Abdullah Duran, who was killed during the incidents, was not among the demonstrators but at home.

Prosecutors should take action at once and begin investigation

Husnu Ondul, the former head of the Human Rights Association and lawyer Ergin Cinmen of the Istanbul Bar Association, argued that the prosecutors should begin investigating the commanders who ordered the use of firearms and the members of the security forces who caused the death of civilians.

"The right to live, which is the most basic right, has been abated," said Danis Bestas. "Both, those who ordered the use of firearms and those who fired shots should be held responsible."

The lawyers advocated that each incident of death is a separate offense and added the following points should be clarified during the investigation:

* They should determine where the bullets entered the body and where they exited, through body examination reports and autopsy reports.

* They should determine what kind of guns were used in the killings through autopsy reports and the bullet shells.

* Eye witnesses and security forces should be made to testify. Cinmen explained why it is important to determine where the bullets entered the body and where they exited:

"The autopsies of those who died through firearms during the demonstrations in Hakkari, revealed that the bullets entered the bodies form above. This means that there were security forces deployed high up and that they fired guns on certain targets. "

Ondul said that the prosecutors should investigate the issue without waiting for a legal complaint.

The police and troops do not have the right to fire shots on demonstrators

Ondul talked about the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, and said according to these principles, law enforcement officials may use firearms only under exceptional circumstances.

"Law enforcement officials may use force and firearms only when strictly necessary; the use of force or firearms should be commensurate," said Ondul. You cannot fire guns at a demonstrator who is hurling stones. And when you do, you have to fire shots in the air or to parts of the body which would not cause death. The law enforcement officials should give a clear warning of their intent to use firearms, try to persuade or set up barricades. There is need for gradual measures."

The Human Rights Watch Group, referring to the incidents in November 2005, during which some demonstrators were killed, said: "There is no evidence that the demonstrators used firearms. It is clearly a disproportionate use of force, to use automatic pistols to disperse the crowd."

Cinmen and Danis Bestas added that there are clear provisions in internal law, which specify conditions under which the police forces may use firearms. According to these provisions, police forces may use firearms for self-defense purposes, to save lives, or when inevitable.

Ondul: Extrajudicial killings generally go unpunished

After calling on the prosecutors to take action at once, Ondul added that such incidents in Turkey usually go unpunished.

"Law enforcement officials can very easily use firearms and fire at targets," said Ondul. "And those who are involved in such a behavior are usually protected by the juridical system."

4. - AFP - "Turkish policemen killed in Kurdish rebel attack":

DIYARBAKIR / 5 April 2006

A policemen died in hospital from injuries sustained in an armed attack by Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country, hospital sources here said Wednesday.

The officer was wounded late Tuesday when rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) opened automatic weapons fire on a police station in the town of Genc, in Bingol province.

The attack followed a wave of violence that claimed 15 lives over the past week as police clashed with Kurdish protestors in a week of riots here and in nearby towns in mainly Kurdish-populated southeast Turkey.

Police opened fire to disperse the demonstrators, many of them in their teens, who torched banks and public buildings, vandalized shops and threw molotov cocktails.

The Turkish government has accused the PKK of orchestrating the unrest that first erupted on March 28 in Diyarbakir, the biggest city of the region, after the funerals of PKK militants killed in clashes with the army.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms for self-rule in southeastern Turkey.

5. - Pravda - "Five Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with Kurdish rebels":

5 April 2006

Suspected Kurdish rebels have killed five Turkish soldiers in fighting in a mountainous area of southeastern Turkey , a television report said Wednesday. The five were killed in fighting with suspected guerillas from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in the Gabar mountains in Sirnak province, close to the borders of Syria and Iraq , NTV television said.

Officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Earlier, a Turkish policeman seriously wounded in a gun attack by suspected PKK rebels died in a hospital in southeastern Turkey , the hospital said. Policeman Cihan Bayik, 33, was standing watch late Tuesday outside the police station in the town of Genc , in Bingol province, when suspected rebels opened fire, Gov. Vehbi Avuc said.

He died early Wednesday, the hospital in nearby Elazig said. The attacks follow a week of Kurdish rioting that spread from southeastern Turkey to Istanbul in the west and left 15 people dead. The riots started after the funerals of four PKK guerrillas late last month.

Fighting with the guerrillas has left 37,000 dead since 1984. The fighting largely ended after the 1999 capture of guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan, but began to flare up after the guerrillas declared an end to their unilateral cease-fire in 2004.

6. - Reuters - "Kurdish TV Says Into Journalism Not Propaganda":

COPENHAGEN / 4 April 2004 / by James Kilner

A Denmark-based Kurdish television station denied on Tuesday Turkish accusations it was stoking street violence in the southeast of the country and said it sought only to give voice to people Ankara refused to heed.

Roj TV head Manouchehr Tahsili Zonoozi said he planned to set up a 24-hour Kurdish language news station -- a proposal likely to further anger Ankara which deems the satellite broadcaster a tool of the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Sixteen people have died in a week of street violence triggered by the funeral of 14 PKK fighters killed in a clash with Turkish troops. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says the unrest is engineered by those wishing to split Turkey.

Zonoozi, sitting before a map showing borders of a projected independent Kurdish state embracing parts of southeast Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, told Reuters he had no links to the PKK though its members had contacted the station during phone-ins.

"We give voice to people they (the Turkish government) don't want to hear," he said in an interview at his office in the centre of the Danish capital.

"They say we are fully responsible for driving people on to the street, they think of us as the enemy."

Turkey, seeking European Union entry, has lifted a ban on Kurdish language broadcasting; but in practice tight limitations on television and radio remain, presenting Roj with its market.

The area also suffers, partly because of the past violence, from high unemployment and economic backwardness.

Turkish media, linking the station to Kurdish guerrilla violence that has killed over 30,000 since 1984, have compared Roj TV to an al Qaeda channel.

KIDNAP

Zonoozi says his channel, a mix of news, culture and entertainment with a Kurdish theme, provided objective uncensored journalism. Denmark had effectively backed this, he said, in turning down Turkey's demands to shut the broadcaster.

"We don't support either one side, but it's all happening to the Kurds," the slim, grey-haired 47-year-old said.

Last year Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan boycotted a joint press conference with the Danish Prime Minister because a journalist from Roj TV was present.

An ornament of the Kurdish flag -- orange, white and green horizontal stripes behind a golden sun -- stood above a fireplace in Zonoozi's office.

With an estimated 25 to 30 million people the Kurds are one of the world's biggest ethnic groups without their own country.

Although the violence dwindled after the arrest of former leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999 -- Zonoozi described it as a kidnap -- it has increased again in recent months.

"We do not interfere in politics but we are giving the chance to human rights organisations and the people," Zonoozi, from the Iranian city of Tabriz near the Turkish border, said.

He said it was only a matter of time before he added a 24-hour news channel to his media outlets, which include a radio station and music TV channel.

Wealthy Kurds and advertising pay the 35 million euro bill.

He said the Danish government had already given him the licence and he just has to find the extra cash.