2 January 2006

1. "Telling truths in Turkey", Turkey's best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, faces criminal charges and the prospect of time in jail. His crime? Publicly insulting Turkish identity. Pamuk, in an interview published in February, said that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares talk about it."

2. "Turkish appeals court overturns fine for cartoon satirizing prime minister", a caricature depicting Turkey's prime minister as a horse being ridden by one of his advisers did not violate the leader's rights, an appeals court has ruled, overturning a fine against the newspaper that published the cartoon, the newspaper said Friday.

3. "Semdinli Case and Track Records on Individuals Busied Turkey", Turkey's foreign and domestic topics on its 2005 agenda were intermixed once again. The movement towards the European Union (EU) membership gained Turkey the right to being negotiations as well as economic growth.

4. "Kurd beer brews storm in Turkey", even before the bloody head of a sheep turned up on the brewery doorstep, the makers of Roj beer had reason to suspect that their light, malty lager might not be to everyone's taste.

5. "Islam V.S. Secularism In Turkish Education", Turkey's High Education Committee has decided to turn to the Court of Appeals, following the government's new law which allows students of religious schools to study in universities, reports the Moroccan daily A-Tajdid.

6. "Turkish Cabinet discusses novelist 'insults' case", Turkey’s Cabinet was today discussing whether to drop charges against novelist Orhan Pamuk – a case the European Union has criticised as a threat to freedom of expression.

7. "Kurds Enjoying Thaw With Turkey", in early December, a private Turkish commercial airline, Fly Air, quietly began direct flights to Irbil, the regional capital of Iraq's Kurds.

8. "Kurdish Prisoners Revolt Over Inmate Hangings", amid rising tension in Iranian Kurdistan, prisoners in Urumieh prison in western Iran are rioting over the imminent hanging of one of their fellow detainees - a Kurd named Massoud Shokkehi - and the hanging in recent days of another Kurd being held in Sagghez prison, also in Iranian Kurdistan. A total 51 Kurdish militants have been summoned to appear before the Revolutionary court in Sanandaj, accused of sedition. They face the death penalty if convicted.

1. - Chicago Tribune - "Telling truths in Turkey":

31 December 2005

Turkey's best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, faces criminal charges and the prospect of time in jail. His crime? Publicly insulting Turkish identity. Pamuk, in an interview published in February, said that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares talk about it."

Those words constitute a criminal violation of Article 301 of Turkey's penal code. The charges that have landed Pamuk in court highlight a fast-approaching day of reckoning for Turkey. The nation has been unwilling and unable to confront its past and that clouds its future. Turkey wants to join the European Union, but the prospects for that are jeopardized by its failure to allow freedom of expression.

Pamuk's published remarks refer to two painful incidents in Turkey's past. One is recent--the violent suppression of Kurdish separatists in Turkey's southeast region in the 1980s and 1990s. The other was long ago.

More than 1 million ethnic Armenians died during and after World War I as a result of mass deportations organized by Turkey. The deaths occurred in the chaos of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. Armenia has charged that Turkey committed genocide. The Turks insist the Armenians were casualties of war, as were about half a million Turks at the hands of Armenians during that time. The truth about what happened has for decades been shrouded in silence in Turkey.

Pamuk sought to end the silence. "From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see," he wrote in his latest book, "Istanbul: Memories and the City." It's a book suffused with melancholy about a city filled with ambiguities and still struggling with the loss of its past greatness.

Turkey became a republic in the 1920s and its visionary leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, forced wrenching change on the country, banning Islamic symbols and practices and institutionalizing democracy. These days the tensions between Turkey's secular democracy and Islam are never far from the surface. But the charges against Pamuk, like similar charges against some 60 Turkish intellectuals over the years, don't stem from affronts to Islam. Rather they come from alleged affronts to a fervent Turkish nationalism that apparently can't tolerate truth.

In a TV interview broadcast last week, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended the country's criminalization of speech. "Freedoms are not limitless," he said. But Turkey must realize how damaging its behavior is to its own psyche, as well as to its prospects for joining Europe. Painful national secrets don't vanish just because those in power forbid public discussion of them.

The judge in Pamuk's case has delayed his trial on procedural grounds. The government has until Feb. 7 to decide whether to proceed with this case. Pamuk is unlikely to serve jail time. A journalist convicted last week under the same law was sentenced to 5 months in jail, but the sentence was immediately converted to a $2,200 fine.

Pamuk's case, though, should never have been brought. Speaking truth to power is at the heart of free speech and it is an essential component for modern democratic societies. The most courageous course of action for Turkey is to empower its artists and scholars to find the truth. Speak about it. Write about it. Argue about it. That will help to free Turkey from its past and give it a vigorous future.

2. - AP - "Turkish appeals court overturns fine for cartoon satirizing prime minister":

ANKARA / 30 December 2005 / by Suzan Fraser

A caricature depicting Turkey's prime minister as a horse being ridden by one of his advisers did not violate the leader's rights, an appeals court has ruled, overturning a fine against the newspaper that published the cartoon, the newspaper said Friday.

The decision is a partial victory for freedom of expression in Turkey, which has come under criticism for laws restricting free speech as it seeks to join the European Union.

EU officials have criticized Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan for suing cartoonists and have called on the country to change laws that have been used to charge Turkey's best known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, and dozens of other people for expressing opinions.

On Wednesday, the government acknowledged that charges brought against Pamuk had tarnished the country's image and said laws that limit freedom of expression may be changed.

Erdogan sued the leftist newspaper Evrensel after it published the cartoon in April 2004, saying it had offended him. A court in Ankara last year ruled in favor of Erdogan and ordered the paper to pay $8,000 in compensation.

The appeals court, however, decided in a recent ruling that the caricature had made a point "in a striking way to draw attention and by adding humor," but said this did not constitute "an attack on the personal rights" of the premier, said Sahin Bayar, a manager at Evrensel.

The ruling said the local court in Ankara, which will now have to review the case, should drop the lawsuit, Bayar said.

There was no immediate comment from Erdogan, who is also suing the owner of satirical magazine Penguen for publishing drawings of the premier's head attached to the bodies of animals. The premier has also successfully sued the cartoonist Musa Kart of the daily Cumhuriyet, who drew him as a cat entangled in a ball of wool. An appeals court decision is pending.

Pamuk, the novelist, is being tried on charges that he insulted "Turkishness" for having told a Swiss newspaper in February that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it." That trial was halted by the judge earlier this month and awaits a Justice Ministry ruling on whether it can continue.

The remarks highlighted two of the most painful episodes in Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during World War I -- which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide -- and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.

On Thursday, prosecutors decided not to file separate charges against Pamuk for allegedly insulting the military for reportedly telling a German newspaper in October that the military threatened and prevented democratization in Turkey.

Prosecutors are, however, considering charges against a Dutch member of the European Parliament, Joost Lagendijk, for allegedly insulting Turkey's armed forces, a move that could further strain relations with the EU. Lagendijk reportedly said the Turkish military was provoking clashes with Kurdish rebels because it made the military look important.

Turkey started EU membership negotiations in October. Talks could last a decade and some EU officials have warned that membership is not guaranteed.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul acknowledged Wednesday that laws that limit freedom of expression may be changed -- the first time the government had indicated it might amend laws making it a crime to insult Turkey and its institutions. Erdogan also said laws could be changed if there were serious flaws.

The government, however, said it would rather wait and see the outcome of charges brought against Pamuk and dozens of other people before moving to amend them.

3. - Zaman - "Semdinli Case and Track Records on Individuals Busied Turkey":

ISTANBUL / 1 January 2006

Turkey's foreign and domestic topics on its 2005 agenda were intermixed once again. The movement towards the European Union (EU) membership gained Turkey the right to being negotiations as well as economic growth.

The bomb attacks Hakkari district of Semdinli was subjected to and the events following left their marks in the sands of 2005. The arrest of two non-commissioned military officers created a tremendous effect on the public opinion.

The Turkish Criminal Code (TCK), prepared as part of the adaptation to the EU regulations, came into effect after a long period of discussions. The draft Counter-Terrorism Act (CAT) was also among the hot debates of the year. The draft provoked serious reaction from various circles of jurists. The media's treatment of the CAT was reflected in the following headlines: "Any crime to be Deemed as Terror-driven," "141, 142 and 163 to Revive," "Measures to be Implemented that did not Exist even in Emergency" and "Travel Freedom to be Restricted". Yucel Askin, the rector of Van Yuzuncuyil University (VYU), was arrested and tried for forming organizations, which caused much unrest in late 2005.

New TCK in act

The year 2005 was marked for the most part by the renewal of the TCK for its adaptation to the European Union regulations. While the media was focused on the provisions related to adultery, the parliament had already passed the new regulations threatening the freedoms of press and speech. The TCK would be put into force on 1 April 2005 with new regulations to handcuff journalists. The Turkish Journalists' Association, among other media organizations, realized how threatening the new provisions of the TCK were for the Turkish media only a couple of days before the enactment of the Act. The execution of the new criminal code was postponed to 1 June 2005 to amend the relative provisions. There were also some provisions restricting the freedoms of education. Those provisions were revised and improved after a series of talks in the Justice Commission of the Parliament and at the General Meetings.

Orhan Pamuk Syndrome

Renowned Turkish author Orhan Pamuk spent his days in 2005 hectic in a way that the year could be considered a "year of Orhan Pamuk". Including the Nobel Prize in Literature, his name was uttered for many awards. He became the second Turkish novelist after Yasar Kemal who won the Peace Price German Publishers Association granted. Pamuk went through many troubles in the same year as well. He faced several legal actions. He told a Swiss newspaper, "In these lands, 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed," triggering a series of legal suits against him. Sisli Public Prosecutor filed a case against Pamuk on the grounds of "vilifying Turkishness" and asked his imprisonment for six months to three years. The Pamuk case was supposed to be held on December 16; however, the Prosecutor's Office sent his file to Justice Ministry just three days before the court day. Since the anticipated respond of the Ministry came on the day of the trial, the case was postponed to 7 February 2006. Protests took place outside the court building and the author faced an egg attack outside.

Keeping Track Records for faculty members

Turkey entered the second half of 2005 with a new scandal. This time, the scandal's address was Van Yuzuncu Yil University (VYU). The incidents that resulted in the arrest of the university rector Askin started on July 13. Several historical works were found in the search made in the rector's former house in the university lodgings and in his office in the Fine Arts Faculty. The rector was arrested on October 14 within the scope of an investigation on charges of forgery and corruption in the tender for the purchase of medical equipment for the Faculty of the Medicine Research Hospital. Computer files of about 300 academic staff of the university where the political views and affiliation to religious currents of the teaching staff was noted was found in Askin's steel safe that he refused to give the password of but opened with the order of the public prosecutor's office. In the track records, the faculty members and staff were noted under the columns of "tendency" with expressions such as "Nakshibendi", "A radical affiliate of National View", "Nurdju". It was also claimed that Askin overlooked a staffing supporter of the PKK. VYU Deputy Secretary General Enver Arpali under arrest in Van Closed Prison committed suicide. Following the incident, the rector became sick and was hospitalized. Askin was acquitted from the charge of "historical work smuggling" on December 14. In the trial held on December 29, Rector Askin was released to be tried on probation for the charges of "forming an organization in order to obtain unjust economic benefit, causing corruption in the tender and forgery in official documents."

4. - The Washington Post - "Kurd beer brews storm in Turkey":

ISTANBUL / 31 December 2005 / by Karl Vick

Even before the bloody head of a sheep turned up on the brewery doorstep, the makers of Roj beer had reason to suspect that their light, malty lager might not be to everyone's taste.

There was the hate mail, a virulent torrent of insults invoking mothers, sisters, dogs, blood and "dreamers like you."

There was the knock on the door of the brewer's Istanbul representative, who was taken from his house one evening in late September by Turkish security officers and interrogated till dawn.

And there was the remarkably long time Turkish officials were taking to consider the request to allow Roj into their country.

Brewed in Vienna, Roj is proudly identified on its cans as "Kurdish beer." And Turkey, which fought a bloody civil war against Kurdish separatists, is a country where such an expression of ethnic identity until recently might have resulted in arrest and apparently still carries a certain risk.

"My life is in danger, I think," said the company's managing director, N. Keske, so spooked by threats that he asked that his full name not be published. "This is your last warning," read the note under the sheep's head.

Bringing Roj to Turkey makes sound business sense. No one knows for certain how many Kurds live in Turkey — the question is too sensitive to include on a census — but with estimates running from 10 million to 15 million, it's easily more than in any other country.

Yet what the import effort has tapped so far is the reservoir of mistrust accumulated over decades of conflict between the Turkish state and its largest minority.

The mistrust erupted into civil war in the 1990s, when Kurdish guerrillas battled to separate the country's eastern reaches from a central government that denied the right to give babies Kurdish names, much less "a sip of freedom," the slogan on a bottle of Roj.

Today, the fighting is sharply reduced, and Turkey's elected government has taken official steps to accommodate a Kurdish identity, largely because of pressure from the European Union, which Turkey is attempting to join.

But that doesn't mean Roj will be sold in Turkey.

"I wouldn't advise it," Filiz Telli said as he shared a Turkish brew with a co-worker in an Istanbul bar. "And I think a lot of people think like me."

For the brewers of Roj, the problem is compounded by the name. In Kurdish, Roj means sun, but the name is also used by a Kurdish-language satellite TV station that broadcasts from Denmark.

Roj TV is accused of supporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. In November, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to attend a news conference in Copenhagen because a Roj TV reporter was present.

Keske insisted that his beer, a light lager that finishes clean, has no political ingredients.

"Others are trying to politicize us," he said. "We just want to sell beer." And because anyone might buy it, he added, "it could be a unifying factor."

Yet Roj also reflects Kurdish aspirations. The "sip of freedom" slogan suggests the Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, which many Kurds see as a first step to gaining the nationhood they were briefly promised after World War I. A drawing on the brewer's Web site, rojbeer.com, shows a man chained by his wrists to a wall in one frame and in the next enjoying a cold Roj, the chains broken.

"Well, actually, that was a present from a friend of ours who's a Serbian," said Keske, whose wife is a Serb. "He knew the sufferings of the Kurdish people."

Turkish trade officials declined to explain why Roj's import application is pending after 18 months, three times the normal processing time. But a November EU report singled out "the alcohol beverages sector" for limiting access to the Turkish market. One company, Efes, has 70 percent of Turkey's beer sales.

"It's not a unique problem with this beer," EU spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said of Roj.

There are, however, some people in Turkey quite open to a Kurdish beer.

"Especially if it's a little bit cheaper," said Cesur Polat, 20, sipping a tall Efes on a curb in Istanbul's Aksaray neighborhood. He gestured to the empties under a parked car and laughed. "If there was Kurdish beer, we would drink even more!"

5. - The Media Line - "Islam V.S. Secularism In Turkish Education":

2 January 2006

Turkey's High Education Committee has decided to turn to the Court of Appeals, following the government's new law which allows students of religious schools to study in universities, reports the Moroccan daily A-Tajdid.

Until now graduates of high schools for clerics and preachers were not allowed to study in the country's universities, unless they went to the departments of religion. Minister of Education Hussein Shilik criticized the committee's decision, saying it should not search for a "hidden agenda" in each and every law the government issues.

Since the 1920s Turkey has been a secular country. In the past few years the government has been headed by the Islamic Justice and Development Party, and from time to time conflicts erupt when the state secularism seems to be in jeopardy.

The High Education Committee stressed that if graduates of religious schools are allowed into universities, this would threaten the secularist nature of the country. The new law, it said, will enable these students to spread within the state apparatus, instead of keeping them in mosques.

The conflicts between Islamists and secularists in Turkey have also been seen lately, when local authorities headed by members of the Justice and Development Party prohibited the selling of alcohol, while building many new mosques.

6. - Evening Echo - "Turkish Cabinet discusses novelist 'insults' case":

2 January 2006

Turkey’s Cabinet was today discussing whether to drop charges against novelist Orhan Pamuk – a case the European Union has criticised as a threat to freedom of expression.

Pamuk was charged under a law which makes insulting Turkey a crime after a Swiss newspaper in February quoted him as saying: “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it.”

The Justice Ministry – which has the final say in whether to proceed with a trial – said it would invite discussion of the case during the weekly Cabinet meeting.

European officials have demanded Turkey drop the case against Pamuk and do more to protect freedom of expression.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul acknowledged the case had tarnished the country’s image abroad, and said that laws limiting freedom of expression may be changed.

The trial was halted by a judge on December 16, the day it began.

Pamuk’s remarks referred to two of the most painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during the First World War, which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide, and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey’s overwhelmingly Kurdish south-east.

Many Turkish nationalists found Pamuk’s remarks especially upsetting because they were made to a foreign newspaper.

7. - BBC - "Kurds Enjoying Thaw With Turkey":

31 December 2005 / by Pam O'Toole

In early December, a private Turkish commercial airline, Fly Air, quietly began direct flights to Irbil, the regional capital of Iraq's Kurds.

It is not the first foreign carrier to fly directly to the region - a number of other airlines have already launched direct services to Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq from Europe and the Middle East.

But, in the case of Turkey, it also reflects a rapidly changing relationship with Iraq's Kurds, fuelled by expanding trade ties.

Irbil is currently an economic boomtown.

There are plans for new ministry and university buildings, a huge new airport terminal, housing projects and a massive luxury development called Dream City, complete with villas, swimming pools, shopping and entertainment complexes.

Turkish ties

Douglas Layton, Irbil director of the Kurdistan Development Corporation, says "billions and billions of dollars" of work needs to be done.

The region's relative safety is drawing in foreign businesses interested in relocating from other, less secure, areas of Iraq.

Much of this construction work is being done by Turkish firms. Ilnur Cevik, president of the Turkish construction firm told me his company has secured about a quarter of the estimated $800m worth of contracts awarded to Turkish contractors in the region.

"We are exporting so many of our products here," he said. "Not only for construction, but trading. Everything you see here is Turkish-labelled.

"So I think if Turkey can overcome some of its mental blocks and start getting more involved in this region, the area will be completely linked to Turkey in many senses. And that will be very healthy for them - and for us."

'Soured relations'

When he speaks of "mental blocks" one of the things he means is Ankara's long-running concern about the effect the virtually autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region might have on the aspirations of its own restive Kurds.

There is also the fact that members of Turkey's own armed Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, are still hiding out in northern Iraq.

Those two issues have soured relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurdish region since the West established a safe haven for the Kurds in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. During the 1990s, Turkey regularly sent troops across the border in pursuit of the PKK.

In recent years, it has threatened military intervention if the Kurds tried to declare independence, or annexe the ethnically mixed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk into their region.

But recently, such threats have become less frequent and the long-running distrust between Turkey and Iraq's Kurds is finally starting to dissolve.

Strengthened neighbour

That is partly because of political realities on the ground. Over the past year, the Kurds have become a force to be reckoned within the Baghdad government and the autonomy of their region - now known as Iraqi Kurdistan - is enshrined in the constitution.

However, analysts believe that the massive trade between the two is also playing a major part in improving diplomatic relations. Nevertheless, Turkey continues to watch the region closely.

Hamit Bozarslan, a Paris-based Turkish-Kurdish academic, says he suspects that Ankara was quite uneasy.

"Turkey knows that without trans-border commerce and activity, the Kurdish region in Turkey will be in a very poor shape and that would produce more violence," he says.

"At the same time, Turkey knows that it is not only goods which are being transported - there are also ideas, models and images."

Kurds from Turkey's relatively impoverished south east are among those crossing into northern Iraq in search of work.

Some analysts say the increased contact between Iraq's Kurds and Kurds from neighbouring countries, like Turkey, Iran and Syria, are causing a renaissance in Kurdish culture and could be stoking dreams of a wider Kurdish state in the future.

Mustafa, a Turkish Kurd currently working in Irbil, told me he considered northern Iraq to be "a dream country" for all Kurds who wanted to live free lives in a free nation.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders have tried to allay the fears of their neighbours, saying repeatedly that they have no plans to secede from Iraq or meddle in neighbouring states' affairs.

Adnan Mufti, speaker of the Kurds' regional parliament, pointed out that the Iraqi Kurds had to co-exist peacefully in the region with Arabs, Turks and Iranians.

However, he added, "We need them to accept us like were are, not like they want us to be. We are Kurds, we will stay in Kurdistan. But we have the right to ask for our rights and they must accept that."

8. - AKI - "Kurdish Prisoners Revolt Over Inmate Hangings":

THERAN / 30 December 2005

Amid rising tension in Iranian Kurdistan, prisoners in Urumieh prison in western Iran are rioting over the imminent hanging of one of their fellow detainees - a Kurd named Massoud Shokkehi - and the hanging in recent days of another Kurd being held in Sagghez prison, also in Iranian Kurdistan. A total 51 Kurdish militants have been summoned to appear before the Revolutionary court in Sanandaj, accused of sedition. They face the death penalty if convicted.

On Thursday, violent protests broke out when police officers came to take Shokkehi away for execution, together with another Kurdish prisoner, Salah Mohammadi Guylani, being held in another prison. Shokkehi had been in Urumieh for nine years.

A young Iranian Kurd was hanged in Sagghez on Wednesday. Farhad Salehpour, 19, was arrested some 12 months ago and sentenced to death for killing a Islamist militiaman. A member of a separatist Kurdish group, Salepour spent eleven months in Sagghez on death row before being executed. Also on Wednesday, four more Kurds who allegedly took part in unrest earlier this year were re-arrested. They had been released conditionally earlier this month.

There have been violent protests in many cities in Iranian Kurdistan in recent months, and the situation remains tense.