28
March 2006
1. "Eren Keskin to Serve in Prison", Human rights activist Keskin has been sentenced to prison for "publicly insulting the army" for her allegations about rape. Although the sentence is converted to a fine, Eren announced that instead of paying it she is planning to go to prison.
2. "Amnesty International ready to campaign against Article 301", a leading human rights group is readying to launch a 10-day campaign around the world to protest a controversial article of the new Turkish Penal Code (TCK) under which several journalists, writers and academics have been prosecuted for the vaguely defined crime of “insulting Turkishness.”
3. "Civil Disobedience Against Penal Code", a new civil disobedience action against the anti-democratic articles of the new Penal Code will start on March 28, 2006 Tuesday, at 10:00 AM. A press statement by the first signatories will be made in front of Besiktas Justice House in Istanbul.
4. "'Unclean' Stray Dogs in Turkey Killed And Tortured by Muslim Councils", or Kafka is greeting!
5. "Remembering the massacre in Hassake", thirteen years ago, on 24.3.1993 the Syrian regime put the central prison in Hassake in Al-Jazira on fire, say Kurdish political parties. This prison was inhabited by mainly political Kurdish prisoners.
6. "Syria Arrests 100 Kurds After New Year Clashes", more than 100 people were arrested last week in northern Syria when a demonstration by thousands of Kurds celebrating their New Year turned violent, a human rights activist said Monday.
1. - Bianet - "Eren Keskin to Serve in Prison":
Human rights activist Keskin has been sentenced to prison for "publicly insulting the army" for her allegations about rape. Although the sentence is converted to a fine, Eren announced that instead of paying it she is planning to go to prison.
ISTANBUL / 23 March 2006 / by Ayse Durukan
Lawyer Eren Keskin, the founder of the "Legal Aid For Victims of Sexual Harassment and Rape Under Detention Project", has been sentenced to 10 months in prison on grounds of article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).
The court convicted Keskin for insulting the Turkish armed forces (TSK) and then converted the prison sentence to a fine of 6,000 New Turkish liras (USD 4,500). Keskin said she would not be able to pay that fine. That is she will have to serve the 10 months in prison.
Keskin had a press conference on the issue on March 22 at the Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD).
Legal complaint by TSK and Arat
The case dates back to lawyer Keskin's address at a meeting on "Women's Rights Equal Human Rights" organized by the Alavite Unions' Federation in Cologne in Germany in 2002. Upon media coverage of Keskin's speech the Turkish Armed Forces and Professor Necla Arat had filed a legal complaint against the lawyer. Keskin was then indicted.
Fatih Altayli to pay damages
Fatih Altayli, who commented on newspaper reports on private TV channel Kanal D, had said, "I am a coward if I do not sexually harass this woman when I come across her."
As a result of intensive campaigning and support by the women in the general assembly and the women's organizations in 2002, a complaint about Fatih Altayli had been filed at the Press Council.
Fatih Altayli had been condemned by the Press Council.
He had also been penalised in the case brought against him by the IHD,
and had to pay damages in the case brought against him by Keskin. 
2. - Turkish Daily News - "Amnesty International ready to campaign against Article 301":
ANKARA / 28 March 2006
A leading human rights group is readying to launch a 10-day campaign around the world to protest a controversial article of the new Turkish Penal Code (TCK) under which several journalists, writers and academics have been prosecuted for the vaguely defined crime of “insulting Turkishness.”
On April 1-10, 2006, Amnesty International (AI) groups around the world will be asking members of the public to sign postcards urging Turkish authorities to abolish Article 301 of the TCK.
AI has asserted that Article 301 “poses a threat to the fundamental right to freedom of expression.”
“Individuals including human rights defenders, publishers, prominent writers and journalists are being prosecuted because they have dared to discuss publicly the ‘official' version of the country's history or the role of the army, or have caricatured state officials,” said the group, while announcing the campaign against the article.
The new TCK went into effect in June; Article 301 of this code covers the offense of denigrating the Turkish identity.
The high-profile trial of internationally acclaimed novelist Orhan Pamuk under Article 301 drew sharp criticism from the European Union, which warned Ankara over its reform efforts and said it should resolve persistent problems in the areas of freedoms and human rights without delay.
A Turkish court eventually dropped its charges against the acclaimed novelist, ending a trial that put Turkey at odds with the EU over freedom of speech.
Noting that the charges against Pamuk had been dropped, AI, nevertheless, said: “However, this is too small a step on the road to freedom of expression. AI members are appealing to members of the public to put pressure on the Turkish authorities to immediately stop prosecutions against individuals under the article and to abolish it in its entirety.”
Concerning the same issue, Turkish diplomats recently said what was more important than changing one particular article was forming of an interpretation of that article.
“What matters is not the writing of the law, but is the spirit of the law,” diplomatic sources said without elaborating, apparently throwing the ball into the court of the judicial system concerning the implementation of certain laws.
Turkey opened accession negotiations with the EU on Oct.
3, and its reform efforts are now under the close scrutiny of the 25-nation
bloc and will remain so for at least the decade during which the negotiations
will continue.
3. - Bianet / info-turk.be - "Civil Disobedience Against Penal Code":
A new civil disobedience action against the anti-democratic articles of the new Penal Code will start on March 28, 2006 Tuesday, at 10:00 AM. A press statement by the first signatories will be made in front of Besiktas Justice House in Istanbul.
ISTANBUL / 27 March 2006
Civil rights activists who are opposed to 31 paragraphs and 22 articles of the recently amended Turkish Penal Code will launch a new civil disobedience action for amending these articles alongside the guidelines of state-of-law and democracy.
10 representatives out of the list of "First Volunteers" are expected to visit the public prosecutor Tuesday to submit a petition informing themselves and invite the prosecutor open a case against all.
The activists are planning to call in the first hearing the court judges bring the articles in question before the Constitutional Court for annulment. These articles and paragraphs of articles contradict with the European Human Rights Convention by way of Article 90 of the Turkish Constitution, which declares the supremacy of international conventions undersigned by Turkey over the domestic law the activists believe.
In case the activists are indicted upon their own confession and the court will not accept their demand then each of the activists should theoretically be sentenced to prison sentences from 15 to 62 years and a fine of 15.000 to 155.000 YTL.
Among the First Volunteers are Abdurrahman Dilipak (Journalist,
writer), Cevat Ozkaya (President of Mazlumder/ Organization of Human
Rights & Solidarity for Oppressed People), Dogan Ozguden (Journalist,
Info-Turk in Brussels), Ece Temelkuran (Journalist, Milliyet), Fikret
Baskaya (Ass. Prof. Dr., Free University, Ankara), Gulden Sonmez (Lawyer,
Human Rights Activist), Kazim Genç (Lawyer, President of Pir
Sultan Abdal Association), Mahir Gunsiray (Actor, director), Mehmet
Bekaroglu (Prof. Dr., Psychiatrist), Mustafa Sutlas (Patients Rights
Activist), Noyan Ozkan (Lawyer, former president of Izmir Bar Association),
Oya Baydar (Sociologist, writer), Perihan Magden (Journalist, writer),
Pinar Selek (Sociologist, writer, journalist), Ragip Zarakolu (Writer,
publisher, journalist), Sema Kaygusuz (Writer), Sanar Yurdatapan (Composer),
Seyhmus Diken (Writer), Tolga Yarman (Prof. Dr., Nuclear Engineer),
Yusuf Alatas (Lawyer, president of IHD/ Human Rights Association.
4. - The Daily Telegraph - "'Unclean' Stray Dogs in Turkey Killed And Tortured by Muslim Councils":
ANKARA / 27 March 2006 / by Amberin Zaman
Islamic municipalities in Turkey are killing stray dogs, animal rights groups claim.
Municipal workers are hunting, torturing, and killing the animals by the hundreds, the campaigners say.
The allegations surfaced when Burcu Isikalp, a young veterinary surgeon, went searching for seven strays she had been caring for near her home in the capital, Ankara. Witnesses told her that municipal workers had taken them away. She went to Ankara's largest refuse dump, Mamak, where she found one of the strays with hundreds of other dogs. "They were all dead, stacked in large pits," she said. "We also found 10 dead puppies in a bound plastic bag. There is a myth among pious Muslims that dogs are unclean."
Animal rights campaigners who accompanied Miss Isikalp last week said that at least two of the dogs had been sexually abused.
The mayor of Mamak, Gazi Sahin, of the ruling pro-Islamic
Justice and Development Party, has denied responsibility.
5. - Kurdish Media - "Remembering the massacre
in Hassake":
27 March 2006 / by Vladimir van Wilgenburg
Thirteen years ago, on 24.3.1993 the Syrian regime put the central prison in Hassake in Al-Jazira on fire, say Kurdish political parties. This prison was inhabited by mainly political Kurdish prisoners.
According to the Kurdish Yekiti party, the Syrian regime organised this incident to kill Kurdish political prisoners. The Syrian Baath regime put all Kurds of this prison in one chamber on 23 March. On 24 March 1993 the chamber was put on fire by unknown perpetrators. As a result 61 Kurds were killed and 14 prisoners were wounded seriously.
The authorities said it was an accident and that they didn’t know what happened nor who put the chamber on fire. The Yekiti party declared that this version of the story cannot be trusted.
According to their research, the fire had a political racist background, because no one helped the dying and wounded prisoners afterwards. There were no efforts made to extinguish the fire. The Yekiti party demands, that the background of this incident is investigated by an independent commission, which can decide what really happened.
The Syrian Minister of Domestic Affairs Muhammed Harba portrayed people, who brought this incident into the spotlight as “traitors“. “Among the casualties are only 34 Syrian civilians. The rest are foreigners,” said the minister in 1993. According to him those foreigners are Kurds. The five remaining Kurdish survivors were put back in prison.
The Yekiti party asked the German government, human rights organisations and democratic parties to demand the truth from the Syrian government and to put the responsible offenders and culprits in prison.
The Syrian regime committed massacres against the Kurdish people in West-Kurdistan and Syria before. According to the Kurdish activist Marwan Othman thousands of people were killed in the Hamma in 1982. In March 2004, 44 Kurds were killed by Syrian security forces and Arab supporters of the Syrian state, after riots broke out. The riots were caused by Arabic football supporters, which insulted the Kurdish people and leaders of Kurdish political parties in a football match between a Kurdish and a Syrian Arab team. According to Mariwan, the Kurds were sick of the Syrian oppression and rose up against the Syrian regime. Afterwards thousands of Kurds were arrested.
In June 2005 the Kurdish religious leader Sheikh Muhammed Ma’shooq Khaznawi was abducted by state officials reported the Syrian Human Rights Committee. He died due to extreme torture. He first was transported to a military hospital on 31st of May and then was brought to an unknown location.
Until today still hundreds of Kurds are tortured and imprisoned.
According to Amnesty International there are still 150.000 stateless
Kurds in Syria and Kurds are discriminated.
6. - AFP - "Syria Arrests 100 Kurds After New Year Clashes":
DAMASCUS / 27 March 2006
More than 100 people were arrested last week in northern Syria when a demonstration by thousands of Kurds celebrating their New Year turned violent, a human rights activist said Monday.
"Cases are being brought against 36 of the people arrested including some minors," said lawyer Mustapha Suleiman, who witnessed last week's ill-fated protest in Aleppo.
"They are accused of attacking the public interest, inciting confessionalism and violently resisting (Syrian security forces)," he said in a statement.
Last Monday, about 3,000 Kurds had gathered in Aleppo to celebrate Newroz, carrying candles and Kurdish flags, when police fired tear-gas and demonstrators hurled stones.
In March 2004, bloody clashes initially sparked by a riot between rival football fans pitted mainly Kurdish protestors against security forces and Arab tribesmen in Aleppo and Qameshli, another northern town.
Forty people were killed in several days of violence, according to Kurdish sources, although Syrian authorities said 25 people died.
According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, Syria's Kurdish minority, which makes up an estimated 10 percent of a population of 18.1 million people, is regularly discriminated against.
Around 120,000 Syrian Kurds were stripped of their citizenship
after the country's 1962 census and have never regained it.