6 Fabruary 2006

1. "Kurdish rebel leader demands retrial in Turkey", jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan has formally asked to be retried in Turkey after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled last year that his trial was unfair, one of his lawyers said Tuesday.

2. "Campaign Against Article 301 Gathers Thousand", nearly 4,000 people, including writer Coskun Ak and others tried under freedom of expression laws, have added their signatures to the campaign that a group of intellectuals started last month to remove articles 301 and 305 from the Penal Code.

3. "Crime Announcement With CD To The Torture In Van", the torture to some youngs who shouted slogans after the pres statement made by People’ Initiative by the police caused reactions. The civil society organizations in Van made crime announcement about the polices in the Office of the public prosecutor.

4. "Turkey's rights record may draw fire again as five go on trial", Turkey, which drew the ire of the European Union for putting author Orhan Pamuk on trial for his public remarks on the Armenian issue, prepares to draw fire again as it tries five prominent journalists on Tuesday for their written articles on the same subject.

5. "A new assessment of the Kurdish issue", 2006 will be the definitive year for Turkey in bringing lucidity to its understanding of the Kurdish problem.

6. "Do the Kurds Hold the Key to Peace?", it is possible that the key to the multiple crises of anarchy and civil war in Iraq, potential nuclear weapons in Iran, and the promotion of Islamic terrorism by many Middle Eastern states lies with the Kurds.

1. - AFP - "Kurdish rebel leader demands retrial in Turkey":

ISTANBUL / 31 January 2006

Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan has formally asked to be retried in Turkey after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled last year that his trial was unfair, one of his lawyers said Tuesday.
Ocalan, 57, who launched a Kurdish 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 democracy norms.

Ocalan's demand poses a legal challenge to the government because current laws do not allow for his retrial, but Ankara is under pressure to comply with the rulings of the ECHR, lawyer Ibrahim Bilmez said.

"They will have to amend the laws," he told AFP.

Recommending a retrial, the ECHR ruled in May that the Turkish court that convicted Ocalan was not impartial because it included a military judge during part of the trial and because Ocalan and his lawyers were denied the required time and facilities to prepare their defense.

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

Officials have said a possible retrial will seek to correct procedural flaws but that it would not result in a lighter verdict for Ocalan, whose Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara, the EU and the United States.

A possible retrial could unleash fierce public anger in Turkey, where the rebel leader is still a figure of hate for many.

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.

Ocalan told his lawyers he had sent an application for a retrial to an Ankara court when they last met him on January 18 at the prison island of Imrali, northwestern Turkey, where the PKK leader is the sole inmate, Bilmez said.

2. - Bianet - "Campaign Against Article 301 Gathers Thousand":

Nearly 4,000 people, including writer Coskun Ak and others tried under freedom of expression laws, have added their signatures to the campaign that a group of intellectuals started last month to remove articles 301 and 305 from the Penal Code.

ISTANBUL / 3 February 2006

Since the campaign that 169 intellectuals started to call for the repeal of articles 301 and 305 of the Turkish Penal Code was launched on 26 December, nearly 4,000 people have added their names to the campaign's website.

Among those who orginally signed the "301 times No! No Limits on Freedom of Thought" campaign, hosted at the website www.301hayir.net, are Prof. Dr. Ali Nesin, Prof. Dr. Gülay Toksöz, Prof. Dr. Kadir Erdin, Prof. Dr. Turgut Tarhanli, Prof. Dr. Baskin Oran, Doç. Dr. Mithat Sancar, journalist and writer Seyhmus Diken, journalists Sinan Kara, Adnan Gerger, and Bahattin Ari, authors Nihat Ziyalan and Ayse Günaysu and musician and free speech activist Sanar Yurdatapan. Many other prominent academics, writers, journalists, and human rights activists have signed onto the campaign.

The intellectuals, reacting to the trial of writer Orhan Pamuk and these other cases, have expressed their fears that these trials are signs of a grave struggle against the democratization process. The statement also censures Justice Minister Cemal Çiçek, and Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu, asking why these freedom of expression cases have been opened and criticizing them for encouraging the aggressors with their words.

Some of the writers who have been charged under Article 301, which came into effect hwith the new Penal Code, or the older Article 159, are journalists Emin Karaca and Hrant Dink, writer Zülküf Kisanak, publisher Fatih Tas, Çagri magazine owner Aziz Özer and the magazine's reader Erkan Akhay. In another case, the writer Rahmi Yildirim was acquitted for the articles he wrote on the website sansursuz.com.

The signatories include other artists and thinkers from intellectual and professional backgrounds, such as Yasar Kemal, Çetin Altan, Adalet Agaoglu, Arif Damar, Müjde Ar, Yilmaz Erdogan, Nilüfer Göle, Fazil Say, Süleyman Çelebi, Mehmet Ali Birand, Yasar Seyman, Halil Ergün, Cüneyt Ülsever, Murat Belge and Toktamis Ates.

Coskun Ak, who was tried and later acquitted under article 159, the predecessor of Article 301, for publishing an internet article about human rights violations while he was editor of the Superonline.net forum, has also extended his support the campaign.

3. - DIHA - "Crime Announcement With CD To The Torture In Van":

VAN / 4 February 2006 / by Siddik Guler

The torture to some youngs who shouted slogans after the pres statement made by People’ Initiative by the police caused reactions. The civil society organizations in Van made crime announcement about the polices in the Office of the public prosecutor.

In spite of the statements of the government as ‘ Zero tolerans to the torture’ the violent attitude of the police to the citizens had taken reactions.

Kicking the some youngs, who shouted slogans after the pres statement to protest isolation imposed on Kurdish peoples leader Abdullah Ocalan, by lying them on the ice by the police in the Sanat street had caused reactions in civil society organizations and political parties in Van.

After the incident the defenders of human rights had made crime announcement with a CD which has a pictures of the torture.

CHD: The police deviates from the laws

The chairman of the Van branch of the Modern Jurists the lawyer Murat Timur said that the statement by government as ‘ Zero tolerance to the torture’ is an empty statement which is proved by last incidence in Van. Timur said that by looking to the last incidences it emerges that all laws are pronunciations.

Especially when looking at the last incidences two days ago the pres statement in the scope of expression freedon was not let. Neither in the constitution nor in the penal code there is such thing about taking permission for the press statement. Making a pres statement without taking permission is a democratic right.

On the one hand the violation of freedom of thought and the practises which are not compatible with the laws. After the police paralyses the person he caught he should tell his legal rights. However the police kicks the faces of the person instead of telling them their legal rights. It was obvious here that the security forces had exercised violence to the people. Our expectation is a start of legal and executive procedure about charged officials, he said.

DTP: Democratic demands had been answered with lynche

Democratic Society Party Van city chairman Hasan Ciftci who stated that the police even does not let people to come to the party said that:

‘None of the practise exercised by the police is within legal context. It is not let to express democratic rights which are a part of freedoms of man. Democratic demands had been answered with lynche in the middle of the street.

This is not practised even in the third world countries. The laws enacted within the scope of the laws of accordance with the EU were violated when the people of the region is at issue. But inspite of the all oppressions we will Express our democratic reactions in legal grounds, we will apply to legal ways about authorities.’

4. - Turkish Daily News - "Turkey's rights record may draw fire again as five go on trial":

ISTANBUL / 6 January 2006

Turkey, which drew the ire of the European Union for putting author Orhan Pamuk on trial for his public remarks on the Armenian issue, prepares to draw fire again as it tries five prominent journalists on Tuesday for their written articles on the same subject.

The five are accused of insulting the judiciary and attempting to influence the course of justice in articles they wrote criticizing a court decision in September to ban a conference on Armenian genocide allegations.

The gathering, organized by academics who question the official Turkish version of events in the dying years of the Ottoman Empire, had the tacit support of the government, which is eager to improve Turkey's rights record as it negotiates Turkey's entry into the EU.

It was in fact thanks to the government pointing to a loophole in the court ruling that the conference took place only a day later, but at a different venue, than originally planned.

Still, Ismet Berkan, Erol Katircioglu, Haluk Sahin and Murat Belge of Radikal, and Hasan Cemal of Milliyet, both liberal newspapers, face six months to 10 years in jail if found guilty.

"I did nothing but enjoy my right to freedom of expression by saying that the... conference was necessary and that the court was hampering the proper functioning of democracy," Cemal told AFP.

The veteran journalist called on the government to encourage "a change of mentality" in the judiciary by instructing judges to follow guidelines set forth by the European Court of Human Rights in rendering their judgments.

He also called for a reform of the new Turkish Penal Code's (TCK) controversial Article 301, which deals with "insulting state institutions" and under which he and many other Turkish intellectuals are being tried.

The most visible trial under the article, which came into effect in June 2005, involved Pamuk, Turkey's best-known and most widely published author, for remarks in a February 2004 interview with a Swiss magazine.

"One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed on these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it," the author of "My Name is Red" and "Snow" told Das Magazin.

The Istanbul court trying Pamuk for "denigrating the Turkish national identity" dropped the charges in January, but not before creating a huge uproar in the EU, with which Turkey began membership talks on Oct. 4, as well as liberal circles in Turkey and abroad.

It also put the spotlight on Article 301 under which, according to the BIA, a non-government body monitoring freedom of expression and journalists' rights, 29 writers or editors are currently being tried.

The death of Armenians between 1915 and 1917, when the Ottoman Empire was engaged in the First World War that eventually led to its demise, has long been a taboo subject in Turkey and has started to be openly discussed only recently.

Armenians say the killings constituted "genocide," a label also adopted by many Western countries, but which Turkey rejects, arguing that the deaths occurred during mass deportations conducted because the Armenians were collaborating with Turkey's wartime enemy Russia.

5. - Turkish Daily News - "A new assessment of the Kurdish issue":

6 February 2006 / by Dogu ERGIL

2006 will be the definitive year for Turkey in bringing lucidity to its understanding of the 'Kurdish problem.' Either this will be dealt with as it was before -- namely, a security problem emanating from "terrorism", spearheaded by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party -- or a mental breakthrough, call it a paradigm shift, will take place and the matter will be conceived of as a structural problem that has its roots in the social, political, cultural and economic fabric of the wider society. If this mental transformation can’t be accomplished, Turkey’s capacity to transform itself into a full-fledged democracy and affluent country will be squandered on security concerns that are basically of its own making.

The stark truth of the “Kurdish question,” which I discovered after a comprehensive study of the matter in mid 1990s, was that we Turks really know nothing about this issue because we have never asked the Kurds what their problem was. Yet we punished them for their unruly behavior until the imbroglio reached the dimensions of an unnamed civil war, waged between 1884 and 1999, that has not yet ended, although its flame has subsided. The veteran journalist Stephen Kinzer has new insights on the evolution of the problem: “I visited the mayor of Diyarbakir … who … has become a leading spokesman for the rising generation of Kurds in Turkey. He told me that although the emergence of a quasi-independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq has thrilled most people here, they are not eager to join it. Instead, he said, they want to remain citizens of Turkey -- assuming that Turkey changes its attitude toward them. Nearly all of the Kurds I met told me the same thing. The prospect of remaining part of a large country that's associated with Europe, and has Istanbul among its many attractions, appeals to them more than the abstract satisfaction of living under a Kurdish flag in an isolated, landlocked Mesopotamian entity.”

In the last few years, the Turkish state has granted many rights to the Kurds in lieu of upgrading its legal and political standards to fit that of the European Union. These were found to be too late and too little by Kurds but dangerously generous by many Turks that favored the status quo. The legalized Kurdish-language television broadcasting is still very limited. Private schools are allowed to offer classes in Kurdish, but most Kurds can only afford to send their children to public schools. Kurdish is not a language of curriculum in these schools, nor is it in the universities. It may never be. But when in August 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a speech in Diyarbakir and promised to “resolve every issue with more democracy” and added that “the Kurdish issue does not belong to a part of our nation [only to the Kurds] ... We accept it as real and are ready to face it ...” thereby distinguishing the security problem from the “Kurdish” one and associating the latter with democracy, he impressed the Kurds but infuriated the nationalists and a greater part of the bureaucratic establishment.

Yet the prime minister later did not offer any concrete suggestion. In fact, Mr. Erdogan does not differ from the security bureaucracy in maintaining that as long as the PKK goes on with its violent politics, little can be done in terms of further reforms. The global jargon of the “war on terror” legitimizes the reluctance of the Turkish establishment. However, that's where the rub is.

Turks (especially the “establishment”) accuse the Kurds of following the lead of a organization in expressing their grievances and consider this an act of disloyalty, if not treason altogether. Yet the officialdom can offer no creative solution as long as it defines the problem as merely "terrorism" and a security matter. On the other hand, a large part of the Kurdish population is caught between the PKK, which forces them to accept its violent tactics in return for representation and acknowledgement in a system where their cultural identity has been denied. This is quite a dilemma for the Kurds who live in the traditional Kurdish majority provinces in the Southeast, unlike those who moved to national metropolises and intermingled to create a non-political multicultural society. Looking at it from the other angle, accepting the official policy of “there are only Turks in Turkey,” they would not be harassed, although this would be a regime less than a full-fledged democracy, rule of law and prosperity that Turkey could never provide for the majority of its citizens due to its bureaucratic and opaque administration.

The resemblance may not be the same, but just as the Palestinians favored Hamas over al Fatah, which delivered neither peace nor affluence, Turkey's Kurds, if the matter is reduced solely to a dialectic of force between warring factions, may prefer to support their own, the PKK, albeit reluctantly.

Mr. Kinzer has captured this relationship in the words of a local businessman. After stating that the PKK is still a force to be reckoned with in the Kurdish regions, he said: "If we're going to have real peace here, the PKK needs to adjust itself to the new world situation. The Turkish state is becoming more democratic. The PKK needs to do the same. It should give up the idea of armed struggle, and open respectful dialogue with Kurds who think differently. It also needs to renovate its leadership. This organization was formed with a cold war mentality. It needs to evolve."

Mr. Kinzer has also picked up the general feeling that “Kurds in southeastern Turkey have a boundless, almost childlike hope that the EU will lead them out of their situation. They believe in the transforming power of the EU. The mere prospect of joining the EU has already changed Turkey. What actual membership could do -- and whether it will ever materialize -- remains tantalizingly uncertain.”

Now it's up to the peoples and leaders of both Turkey and the EU to decide on how to solve one of the major regional conflicts at the doorsteps of Europe -- one with the capacity to undermine the Middle Eastern peace process. Will they satisfy the people's hopes for freedom and prosperity? Or will they spoil it in the name of religious or cultural particularism? Can Europeanism survive against the heat of hate and fury generated by the denial of human needs of others than the Europeans? Can anyone dare to test it against reality?

6. - actualitydog.blogspot.com - "Do the Kurds Hold the Key to Peace?":

4 February 2006 / by William Tally

It is possible that the key to the multiple crises of anarchy and civil war in Iraq, potential nuclear weapons in Iran, and the promotion of Islamic terrorism by many Middle Eastern states lies with the Kurds.

To explain this idea further it is necessary to consider some (brief) history. Since being conquered in the 7th century by the Ottoman Empire the Kurds have had no place to call their own. The global struggles that shaped the Middle East and Africa from colonialism through World War I resulted the in allocation of old Kurdish lands to the four modern countries of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.

Many failed uprisings later, the Kurds are trapped as pawns in the game of nation-states not their own. These states use the Kurdish desire for independence against one another, knowing how to raise hopes just enough to spurn an uprising here or a riot there. But there is no intention of seeing it through.

In reality each of the states involved thinks there is much to loose from the realization of an independent Kurdistan in their midst. It is indeed one of the things that the governments of all four fear the most. This is why spawning Kurdish uprisings is such an effective tool to be used against one another.

Enter the United States (and allies) who dove headlong into the Middle East without fully understanding it. The would-be “liberators” are now faced with an unraveling equilibrium and a loss of strategic initiative that threatens to unleash regional war.

An independent Kurdish state as a close ally of the United States would begin a new equilibrium. The U.S. and the Kurds could reclaim the initiative by aligning the heroic efforts of American troops with a people who share the same vision. The Kurds do not want an all-powerful theocracy. They do not want to dominate the Middle East. And, most importantly, the scourge of Islamic terrorism has not infected their society. They only want a safe place to call home; a place where they are free. If the U.S. could help create such a place, it would earn an ally as loyal as Kuwait, as powerful as Israel, and as strategically important as S. Korea.

In Iraq, the insurgency would loose steam as the focus shifts from American “occupation” to Kurdish independence. Iran would find its Kurds, the largest minority population, empowered to follow their dream. The youthful Iranian majority might soon follow suit, wanting some liberty of their own. Strategic leverage gained against Syria might finally be enough to force that government to renounce terrorism and join the modern world—with a new Kurdistan as its main trading partner.

This idea is not without potentially grave risks. For example, Turkey would be severely alienated by any move to establish a Kurdish state. Also, the Kurds themselves may not be capable of uniting so quickly. However, a bold new approach is needed. Perhaps this is the vision that leads to long-term resolution in the Middle East.