9 February 2006

1. "Turkey denies Kurdish rebel leader has heart problems", jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is in good shape and reports that he has suffered a heart attack in prison are not true, Turkish officials said Thursday.

2. "Turkey's MIT tells Semdinli commission it knows nothing", National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Hakkari Director Cengiz Sisman told a parliamentary commission formed to investigate suspicious bombings in the region that his organization had received no information on 18 bombings that have occurred in the area.

3. "Turkey's PM: We have to define the limitations of freedom", Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on the Al Jazeera television channel yesterday evening, delivered a strongly worded message regarding what the caricature crisis coming out of Denmark may have in store for certain freedoms.

4. "Turkish court blocks govt education", Turkey’s top administrative court suspended yesterday a government decree aimed at facilitating university access for religious school graduates, criticised as “anti-secular” by academic authorities, officials said.

5. "A murder in Turkey, missionaries and Turkish-language books", since the murder of Italian Roman Catholic priest Fr Andrea Santoro, much discussion has taken place within Turkey as to why this happened.

6. "Self-Immolation Of Kurdish Women Brings Concern", the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization is expressing concern over the self-immolation of Kurdish women in Iran's Western Azerbaijan Province. The organization has published the name of more than 150 Kurdish women who have committed suicide in the past nine months, the majority of them by setting themselves on fire. Observers and activists say self-immolation of women is also happening in some other Western provinces of Iran that have large Kurdish populations, such as Ilam, Kermanshah, and Kurdistan. Domestic violence, social injustice, and discrimination are cited as the main reasons for self- immolation among women.

1. - AFP - "Turkey denies Kurdish rebel leader has heart problems":

ANKARA / 9 Februar 2006

Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is in good shape and reports that he has suffered a heart attack in prison are not true, Turkish officials said Thursday.
"Ocalan undergoes medical check-ups every day," a senior justice ministry official, Turker Tok, told AFP. "He has neither cardiological problems nor other serious health problems."

Ankara has informed the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture about the latest state of Ocalan's health, he said.

The prosecutor responsible for the prison island of Imrali in northwestern Turkey, where the 57-year-old Ocalan is the sole inmate, has also denied the reports, one of Ocalan's lawyers in Turkey said.

"The prosecutor assured us about his good health on behalf of the state, but we do not know what has happened," Irfan Dundar told AFP.

The prosecutor gave the lawyers a medical report on Ocalan's health dated February 7, the day he allegedly suffered the heart attack, which did not mention any cardiological problem, Dundar said.

"We know that he has been having respiratory difficulties for some time and that he also developed some dermatological problems recently," he said.

Three Italian lawyers of Ocalan said he was in serious condition after suffering a heart attack Tuesday, Italy's ANSA news agency reported Wednesday.

They appealed to the European Union and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to allow both them and his family to see Ocalan.

The rebel leader was condemned to death in 1999 for the armed campaign his outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has waged in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey.

The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2002 after Ankara abolished capital punishment as part of efforts to align with EU norms.

The PKK and its sympathizers have often denounced Ocalan's isolation and staged violent protests calling for his removal from solitary confinement.

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

2. - Turkish Daily News - "MIT tells Semdinli commission it knows nothing":

ANKARA / 9 February 2006

National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Hakkari Director Cengiz Sisman told a parliamentary commission formed to investigate suspicious bombings in the region that his organization had received no information on 18 bombings that have occurred in the area.

The commission met on Tuesday, chaired by Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Musa Sivacioglu, and interviewed Sisman on events in the region before the latest bombing on Nov. 9.

Sisman told the commission that five intelligence officials were currently based in the region, adding that since 2003 they had shared 500 pieces of intelligence information with the local police and gendarmerie.

It was reported that the commission will also call former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz regarding the Susurluk Report drafted by former Prime Ministry Inspection Councilor Kutlu Savas.

Savas had previously told the commission he had presented two reports to Yilmaz that resulted in many people filing complaints in court. He said since the time he resigned in 1998 he hasn't been involved in any such investigations.

Savas described the incidents in Hakkari as the result of some individuals working for the state perpetrating illegal acts, noting that if the people at the top turned a blind eye to what was happening, these transgressions will become even more pronounced and would start angering the public. Savas's 1998 report grew out of an investigation into state links with organized 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.

There has been considerable tension in the region since the Nov. 9 bombing in Semdinli, blamed by many on members of the security forces. One man was killed in the bomb attack on a bookstore owned by a former Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) member. Two members of the gendarmerie responsible for rural security and an informant were arrested in connection with the deadly blast. Six people were killed in related protests, sparking renewed concern about the troubled Southeast.

Six arrested for damaging property:

According to reports six of 10 people arrested for damaging property and a vehicle belonging to the gendarmerie during protests in the region after the November bombing were arrested on Wednesday by the Hakkari Criminal Court.

Officers charged:

A court has already formally charged two noncommissioned officers for involvement in the bomb attack on the bookstore as allegations of summary executions by state death squads resurface.

‘The ‘deep state':

The Nov. 9 bombing, allegedly carried out by members of the security services, has put Turkey's shadowy "deep state" into the spotlight again and raised questions as to whether the country's EU-inspired liberal reforms have really tamed these deep forces. Though there is no evidence suggesting the involvement of senior military personnel in the Semdinli bombing, diplomats and analysts say the government's ability to bring the bombers to justice will demonstrate just how much Turkey has broken free of the "deep state" and become a more open, transparent society. There have also been recent claims that security forces have engaged in violent operations to allegedly provoke a military response against the Kurds, such as the Nov. 20 grenade attack on a police station in Silopi that was initially blamed on the PKK. However, two government-paid, armed village guards who fought alongside Turkish troops against the PKK were arrested in connection with that attack.

3. - Hurriyet - "Turkey's PM: We have to define the limitations of freedom":

9 February 2006

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on the Al Jazeera television channel yesterday evening, delivered a strongly worded message regarding what the caricature crisis coming out of Denmark may have in store for certain freedoms. "Freedoms are not without some limitations, these first must be recognized," said Erdogan, who also noted that he was thinking about starting a process within Turkey of defining what the limitations are to certain freedoms, and ensuring that people and organizations respected them.

"I am of the mind to start this process in my country. There are limits to every area, and these must first be defined, they must be recognized, and people must stay within them," said Erdogan. On other fronts, Erdogan noted that while anti-semitism was counted as a human rights crime, "Islamaphobia" should also be counted as such, and that he wanted to work with the United Nations on this question.

Erdogan also underscored the importance of calm at this time throughout the Middle East, delivering a "Friday warning" to Al Jazeera audiences about how critical it was that Friday mosque prayers not be exploited for the purposes of crowd incitement.

4. - Gulf Times - "Turkish court blocks govt education":

ANKARA / 9 February 2006

Turkey’s top administrative court suspended yesterday a government decree aimed at facilitating university access for religious school graduates, criticised as “anti-secular” by academic authorities, officials said.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, a conservative movement with Islamist roots, has long sought to make it easier for graduates of Islamic high schools to obtain university degrees, but its efforts have been blocked by the secularist establishment.

The Higher Education Board (YOK), which oversees the universities, welcomed the suspension of the decree, seen as a first step before its cancellation.

“We expected this decision,” YOK deputy head Isa Esme told NTV television.

The ruling followed a YOK petition in December, which argued that the decree encouraged students to attend religious schools and thus breached “the principle of secularism outlined as one of the Republic’s unchangeable attributes in the constitution”.

Religious high schools in Turkey are tasked by law to raise preachers and other Muslim clergy, but many regard them as a breeding ground for Islamist political movements.

At present, the notoriously complicated university entrance system makes it almost impossible for graduates of such schools to gain a place at higher education institutions to study anything but divinity.

The measure was designed to effectively block Islamist-leaning Turks from obtaining university degrees essential to holding top public service jobs.

The government had initially tried to amend the system with a parliamentary bill last year, but it was vetoed by the president.

The reform is a pledge that Erdogan, himself a graduate of a religious school, made to his supporters in the 2002 polls that brought him to power.

Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party is the offshoot of a banned Islamist party, and although it has disowned its roots, it is often accused of harbouring secret ambitions to undermine Turkey’s secular system.

5. - Forum 18 - "A murder in Turkey, missionaries and Turkish-language books":

9 February 2006 / by Canon Ian Sherwood*

Since the murder of Italian Roman Catholic priest Fr Andrea Santoro, much discussion has taken place within Turkey as to why this happened. This mainly centred on the controversy over the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and on Fr Andrea's work helping Russian women caught up in organised prostitution. But some discussion focused on the presence of Christian literature, in Turkish, at the back of Fr Andrea's church, notes Canon Ian Sherwood, an Irish priest who has been Anglican Chaplain in Istanbul since 1989 http://www.anglicanistanbul.com, in this personal commentary for Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org. Even "liberal" voices see any attempt to express or commend Christianity in Turkish as suspiciously criminal, or at least intellectually unacceptable, and the liberty to distribute non-Islamic texts has been seen as unacceptable in Turkey for centuries. Canon Sherwood asks whether the time has now come to shed this misplaced suspicion and fear of a reasonable liberty.

In the days that followed the 5 February murder of Italian Roman Catholic priest Fr Andrea Santoro in his church in the Turkish Black Sea port of Trabzon, much discussion has taken place within the country as to why he was murdered.

This focused mainly on the controversy over the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and on the work Fr Andrea had done in helping Russian women caught up in organised prostitution in Trabzon. More curiously, some discussion highlighted the fact that there was Christian literature, in Turkish, at the back of Fr Andrea's church.

Clearly the murderer – who was soon arrested - was influenced by his own religious convictions and an identity with extremist Islam. He shouted a religious slogan to justify his deed, and made a confession to the police that indicated the religious significance of the murder.

Listening to "liberal" voices within Turkey, it is quite clear that any attempt by foreigners to express or commend Christianity in Turkish is regarded as "missionary" and therefore unacceptable. Many conscientious Christians, simply by reason of their baptismal faith, would be seen as "missionary" in the Turkish understanding of the word.

Haberturk, a newspaper regarded as one of the liberal voices, interviewed Savas Ay of Sabah newspaper, who was in Trabzon investigating the crime, about whether the claims of "missionary activity" might be true.

Ay replied that locals had told him that the priest had not engaged in missionary activity. But he then commented that when he had entered the church he had seen New Testaments and Christian publications in Turkish, which suggested to Ay that the priest had been a missionary. Presumably he meant publications of a catechetical nature.

For centuries the liberty to distribute Christian or other non-Islamic texts has been unacceptable in Turkey. In recent years people have been detained and even deported for such activity.

It is one thing for Fr Andrea to have been murdered by an individual influenced by the current "religious" riots that have done so much damage and led to various deaths and fear. It is quite another for Turkey's intelligentsia to think that the simple practice of having literature about one's own faith, printed in a language understood by local people, is a questionable activity suggesting criminal behaviour.

Were this simply to be the musings of a journalist, one would count it as just another sound bite. Alas! The idea that Christian literature in Turkish, distributed by faithful Christians, is suspiciously criminal, or at least intellectually unacceptable, prevails among senior army officers, university professors, Islamicist politicians, lawyers, doctors, journalists and many others.

Fr Andrea Santoro died on his knees witnessing to the God of Love whom he believed to be incarnate in Jesus Christ. He may have displayed literature about that love in a language that Turks could understand. He, against all the odds, bravely worked and prayed in a provincial Turkish city, simply for the love of the people around him.

Has the time come for Turkey to shed her misplaced antique suspicion and fear of a reasonable liberty? Should Turkey now draw on the industry and experience of her wonderful expatriates around the world who have dynamically proved the potential of Turkey in art, commerce, cuisine, diplomacy, academia, the law, and indeed every kind of labour abroad in freer climates? Should Turkey draw on the great breadth of her history and open herself up to the reasonable norms – as expressed in the European Convention on Human Rights - of the societies whose friendship she now espouses? (END)

* Canon Ian Sherwood, Anglican Chaplain in Istanbul http://www.anglicanistanbul.com, contributed this commentary to Forum 18 News Service. Commentaries are personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of F18News or Forum 18.

6. - RFE/RL - "Self-Immolation Of Kurdish Women Brings Concern":

The Kurdistan Human Rights Organization is expressing concern over the self-immolation of Kurdish women in Iran's Western Azerbaijan Province. The organization has published the name of more than 150 Kurdish women who have committed suicide in the past nine months, the majority of them by setting themselves on fire. Observers and activists say self-immolation of women is also happening in some other Western provinces of Iran that have large Kurdish populations, such as Ilam, Kermanshah, and Kurdistan. Domestic violence, social injustice, and discrimination are cited as the main reasons for self- immolation among women.

PRAGUE / 8 February 2006 / by Golnaz Esfandiari

Nasrin Mohammadi is a member of a women's NGO in Marivan in Iran's western province of Kurdistan. She says the number of women who attempt to kill themselves through self-immolation is growing in her city.

One of the recent cases involves a woman who set herself on fire to protest her husband's decision to marry another woman.
"I know this woman who is illiterate; her husband became very rich in a very short time and he forced his wife to sign a letter of consent so he could marry another woman," she said. "She didn't know what she was signing. Since then she has attempted to commit suicide by self-immolation; 80 percent of her body is burned and considering her condition I think she will die [soon]."

"We should at least boost the women's morale; we should give them some hope for the future so that they don't feel that they are totally alone and defenseless."

Traditional Life

Mohammadi tells RFE/RL that due to conservative traditions and social restrictions, women in her region have little hope in life and often a grim future.

"Desperation is the main reason for the self-immolation [of women]," she continued. "Women face more pressure in a traditional society and in our region because of deprivations and the rule of [old] traditions this pressure has become much stronger. Women in our region are seen as 'second class' citizens. The economic situation of women is a main factor; they are totally dependent on men and also the laws of our country are such that the courts never protect women."

The Kurdistan Human Rights Organization has said that for many women in the region, burning oneself is an outcry against the "patriarchal system" that rules the society and also against the abuse of their basic rights.

Mohammad Sadegh Kabudvand says violence against women is one of the main reasons for suicide among Kurdish women.

Subjected To Violence

"It is certain that pressure and domestic violence and religious prejudice is causing this problem," he said. "In the Kurdish regions men have more [rights] at home and in the society and women are considered inferior."

Kabudvand told RFE/RL that all the documented cases of self-immolation of women in Iran's Western Azerbaijan Province involve young women -- between the ages of 14 to 30 years old -- with little education. He says his organization is planning to document cases of self-immolation in other provinces such as Ilam and Kermanshah where self-immolation is reportedly common.

Mohsen Janghorbani is a professor of epidemiology at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences who has done some research on attempted suicides in Ilam. He believes easy access to flammable materials such as petrol makes self-immolation the most common method of suicide in Ilam. Professor Janghorbani told RFE/RL that self-immolation is not just a way to end life, but also a way to send a message to their families and to the society.

"I think that women do not want to really commit suicide but they want, in fact, to make their cry for help to be heard and say that they are facing injustice," he said. "They use this means, [even though] it is the worst form of suicide. Most of them are young women who are suffering in forced marriages or have some other family-related problems."

Education Needed

He believes better protection of women's rights and economic development in the region could help tackle the problem. He adds that a woman's access to a better education would make them more aware of their rights and help them express their despair in other ways.

Nasrin Mohammadi from the Cultural Society of Marivan's women agrees. "Laws should be changed in a way that they will protect women," she said. "[The mentality] of the families should change and also the culture of the society [should change]. It needs a long time. Currently we can't do much but we should at least boost the women's morale; we should give them some hope for the future so that they don't feel that they are totally alone and defenseless."

Experts believe the availability of family mental-health centers and psychological programs may reduce the rate of self- immolation in the region.

The Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan has called on media and NGOs to help raise people's awareness about women's issues in an effort to help change social and cultural patterns relating to men's behavior. The organization has also called on the Iranian government to join international agreements and conventions that guarantee equal rights for women such as the UN "Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Violence Against Women."