15
May 2006
2. "Turkey's Detente With Kurds Wavers", repression of the minority was reduced as the nation sought to woo the EU, but a wave of nationalism is holding back reform efforts.
3. "Turkey’s Kurdish clashes grow, threaten European Union entry", escalating ethnic tensions and bomb attacks in the region this year have damaged tourism and may threaten Turkey's bid to join the European Union. The 25-nation bloc has called on Turkey to strengthen democracy for the Kurds, including allowing them the right to stage protests. The Muslim Kurds are the dominant ethnic group in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran.
4. "Cumhuriyet Daily Third Time Bombed", grenade hurled at Istanbul headoffice of daily for 3 times in a week. No casualties reported in Thursday's blast where a percussion bomb was used. Editor-in-Chief Yildiz says "Attack against democracy and press freedom".
5. "A Fourth Case Against Anti-War Reporter", reporter Ozbaris faces fourth court case for "discouraging people from military service" for reports and interviews published by pro-Kurdish Gundem daily. Journalist faces 12 years jail for publishing statement by conscientious objector Halil Savda.
6. "Turkey bombs Christian village in Kurdistan", Turkey bombed villages around Amedi, in southern Kurdistan, reported online Peyamner.com on Saturday.
1. - AFP - "Kurdish rebel threatens to step up
armed campaign in Turkey":
ANKARA / 13 May 2006
The jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan threatened to "intensify" the armed struggle of his Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey, the pro-PKK Firsat news agency reported Saturday.
"The PKK cannot be eliminated by violence, it will strengthen its numbers, the fight will intensify. We are warning you," the agency quoted Ocalan as telling his lawyers at the jail where he is held in Imrali, northwestern Turkey.
The PKK leader also called on Ankara to implement a "democratic plan", apparently referring to autonomy demanded by the PKK for Turkey's Kurdish population concentrated mainly in the southeast, Firsat reported.
Ocalan said that rebels could be convinced to withdraw from Turkey and eventually disarm if their demands for self-rule were met by the Turkish government.
Ocalan was jailed for life in 1999 after a death sentence for treason was commuted following the abolition of capital punishment.
His comments followed reports by security forces that four Turkish soldiers and a PKK fighter were killed in clashes late Friday near Kupelidag in southeastern Sirnak province, close to the Iraqi border.
Turkey has been massing troops along the Iraqi border in recent weeks to prevent PKK fighters entering Turkey from several bases in northern Iraq.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000
lives since the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the southeast in 1984.
The PKK has stepped up its attacks since a 1999 ceasefire broke down
in 2004. 
2. - The Los Angeles Times - "Turkey's Detente With Kurds Wavers":
Repression of the minority was reduced as the nation sought to woo the EU, but a wave of nationalism is holding back reform efforts.
DIYARBAKIR / 14 May 2006 / By Tracy Wilkinson
When the Turkish government lifted its ban on the letter "w," it seemed like a breakthrough.
After decades of repression of Kurdish ethnic identity and a deadly war with Kurdish rebels, the government has made moves toward democratic reform in recent years, part of Turkey's bid to improve its chances of joining the European Union.
Letters that appear in the Kurdish alphabet but not the Turkish one were no longer banned from print. Emergency military rule was lifted. The death penalty was abolished. Arrests and reports of torture declined.
But the tide began to turn, many Kurds say, even before violent clashes between police and Kurdish protesters in late March left 13 civilians dead in the region's worst violence in more than a decade.
"Being Kurdish means you are a terrorist. That is how Turks see us," said Cemal Ceylan, 24, an unemployed Kurd with a third-grade education. He spoke over small glasses of tea at a coffeehouse in this rough city in southeast Turkey, his bitterness echoed by the young men around him.
Few of the men had jobs, they said as they slammed domino-like tiles against a metal table, absorbed in a game that helps them while away their empty afternoons. Most live in cramped apartments in the slums that ring Diyarbakir.
The city has seen its population more than double in the last 15 years with the influx of rural Kurds, driven from their homes by the government's war with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, or by military reprisals. Youths have been reared on stories of the flight, memories of burning villages and decades of abuse and repression.
"There is a high percentage who have always felt themselves to be harassed and isolated. No money, no land, no luck," said Reyhan Yalcindag, an official with the local Human Rights Assn. "People are reliving the trauma of the '90s and wondering now if it will be the same."
Their anger exploded in the March protests. The resulting violence, and a renewed campaign by the Kurdish guerrillas, is testing the Turkish government's commitment to reform.
A moderate Muslim nation, U.S. ally and member of NATO, Turkey has pledged greater democracy and respect for human rights to meet EU standards. But a rising tide of Turkish nationalism and the growing influence of Islamic conservatives in government have jeopardized the reforms and the EU bid.
The Kurdish question is widely seen as an important barometer for Turkey's performance. Eight months ago, Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to this city and gave a landmark speech, acknowledging past "mistakes" committed by Turkish authorities against the Kurdish minority.
But after the March clashes, which left an elderly man and four children dead, Erdogan vowed to crush Kurdish protests, warning darkly that Turkish security forces would "intervene against the pawns of terrorism, no matter if they are children or women."
By most accounts, there was provocation on all sides and plenty of blame to go around. What is clear is the sense that the region has lost ground and hurtled backward.
Erdogan now refuses to talk to politicians from legally recognized Kurdish parties, and his government plans to toughen a terrorism law in ways that some fear will impinge on civil liberties.
In April, a veteran researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, in southeast Turkey to investigate claims of police abuse against Kurds, was detained by police and deported. Authorities contended that the researcher, a British national, did not have the proper visa, even though it was the same type of document he had used in 20 years of human rights work in Turkey.
Days later, a Turkish prosecutor investigating the role of the military in fomenting unrest in Kurdish areas was fired after he issued an indictment implicating one of the army's top commanders.
"In the end, those who do not want calm in the region, who want conflict, they have been successful," said Diyarbakir's Kurdish mayor, Osman Baydemir. "The target was the Kurds, but also the EU reform process, the government democratization, the return to civilian life."
Baydemir said he was deeply disillusioned by the reversals and saw a powder keg of discontent in the city he governed, primed to explode again — or to swell the ranks of the guerrillas.
Angry, dejected young men languish at dozens of ragged coffeehouses throughout the slums like the one where Ceylan and others played cards, smoked and swapped rumors. They vary on whether they want an independent Kurdish state — a subversive goal, as far as Ankara is concerned — or simply more recognition of their heritage. To Ankara's horror, some see the Kurds in neighboring Iraq, who enjoy relative autonomy, as a model and future partner.
"I have a car and a job," said Mehmet Sirin,
22, a butcher and one of the few who work. "I pay taxes to the
government. But when it comes to my language, it's nonexistent. Why
deny my identity when I pay taxes?"
3. - Bloomberg - "Turkey’s Kurdish clashes
grow, threaten European Union entry":
12 May 2006
Sakine Arat hasn't seen her son since he left their hometown in southeast Turkey 13 years ago and joined Kurdish rebels doing battle with the army.
``I sometimes catch a glimpse of a young man who looks like Murat, in a crowd in front of me or on the other side of the road,'' Arat, 71, said in Diyarbakir, 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Syrian border. ``But of course, it's never him.''
Murat is one of 7,000 armed Kurds fighting Turkish soldiers in the southeastern mountains in a conflict that has escalated since his Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, ended a five-year cease-fire in June 2004. The PKK is demanding political rights and better living standards for Turkey's 12 million Kurds. The government says it's a terrorist organization.
Escalating ethnic tensions and bomb attacks in the region this year have damaged tourism and may threaten Turkey's bid to join the European Union. The 25-nation bloc has called on Turkey to strengthen democracy for the Kurds, including allowing them the right to stage protests. The Muslim Kurds are the dominant ethnic group in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 52, says he won't negotiate with the rebels, and has criticized the EU for failing to curb the organization's financing and political support from Kurdish exiles in Europe.
``The EU must be looking rather negatively at Turkey right now, because the government had told them it is widening rights for Kurds and tackling the military, but now all we seem to be seeing is violence and bloodshed,'' said Amanda Akcakoca, a policy analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.
Violent Clashes
The PKK ended its cease-fire after the Turkish army refused to stop attacks against its members. At least 75 militants and Turkish security personnel have died in clashes since November, according to government reports. Forty people were killed in April alone.
Turkish police fired on demonstrators in Diyarbakir, killing at least 10 people, after thousands rampaged through the city throwing stones and setting fire to buildings during a March 28 funeral procession for four members of the PKK. Among 300 people arrested were 10 regional chiefs of the Democratic Society, or DTP, Turkey's biggest pro-Kurdish party.
At least 21 people, including 11 children, were wounded when a bomb exploded in the town of Hakkari, less than 50 kilometers from Iran and Iraq, on May 3.
Kurdish groups have threatened to attack tourist resorts on Turkey's Mediterranean coastline this year. The number of visitors slumped 12 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. Turkey is relying on revenue from tourism to help narrow a current-account deficit that widened to a record $23 billion last year.
EU Negotiations
Turkey began EU membership talks in October, hoping to attract investment by foreign companies, boost incomes and create jobs for a working-age population that's growing by half a million each year. The country won't be able to join before 2014 at the earliest, the EU says.
Plans by the Turkish government for tougher anti-terrorism laws to tackle the PKK, now before parliament, have been criticized by the EU, which says the measure threatens to setback democratic reforms in the Kurdish region.
``We call upon all parties to exercise restraint, to remain committed to peaceful means and to show respect for democracy and the rule of law,'' said Krisztina Nagy, a spokeswoman for EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, in an e-mailed statement.
PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, 58, was sentenced to be executed by a Turkish court in 1999. The government commuted his punishment to life imprisonment and dropped the death penalty three years later under pressure from the EU. Ocalan is the sole prisoner on an island jail off Turkey's western coast.
Village Murders
The Turkish parliament in the past five years has passed laws allowing Kurdish TV and radio broadcasts and now allows Kurdish adults to study in their own language. Kurdish activists including Leyla Zana, released in July 2004 after a 10-year jail term, say the steps don't go far enough.
Kurdish discontent is evident in Diyarbakir, where the unemployment rate is 40 percent, or almost twice government estimates, according to Sahismail Bedirhanoglu, head of the city's largest business group. A government plan to inject cash into the southeast's economy won't work unless taxes are lowered for companies, he said in an interview April 13.
In Dogancay, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Turkey's border with Syria, villagers are mourning the murder of Ferho Akgul, 85, and his wife Fatma, 80, who were attacked in their home on March 2. The two are the parents of Derwish Ferho, chairman of the Kurdish Institute of Brussels, a group that campaigns against what it says are violations of Kurds' human rights.
`Show Courage'
``It appears that the murders were politically motivated, but none of us have any idea who killed them,'' said Ferman Akgul, 18, a relative of the dead couple, in an interview.
Sakine Arat hopes pressure from the EU will end the violence and bring home her son Murat, who's now 37. Tarcettin, another of her five sons, died at the age of 34 fighting the Turkish army last year, she said.
``All I want is peace and my son back by my side, just
like any other mother or father would do,'' she said. ``The government
must show courage and announce an amnesty for all those fighting in
the mountains, to help put an end to all this bloodshed.''
4. - Bianet - "Cumhuriyet Daily Third Time Bombed":
Grenade hurled at Istanbul headoffice of daily for 3 times in a week. No casualties reported in Thursday's blast where a percussion bomb was used. Editor-in-Chief Yildiz says "Attack against democracy and press freedom".
ISTANBUL / 12 May 2006 / by Erol Onderoglu
The headquarters of Turkey's independent radical republican Cumhuriyet newspaper premises in the Sisli district of Istanbul was target of bomb attack for the third time in a week on Thursday, despite security personnel now surrounding the building and reinforced private security throughout the compound. No casualties were reported in the blast.
It is believed a percussion grenade was used in the attack staged by two assailants who escaped on foot after throwing the hand bomb into the building's alley.
Witnesses said the culprits ran as private security guards opened fire in the air and they were chased, unsuccessfully, by the police too. The two were heard shouting aloud the Islamic takbir "Allahu Akbar" or "God is The Greatest” during the incident.
Newspaper columnist Hikmet Cetinkaya said that windows of the building were shattered during the blast and several vehicles in front were also damaged. He said the developments were extremely concerning and stated that the attack had taken place despite heavy security measures.
Thursday's bombing follows what appear to be two warning attacks over the past week. Last Friday, May 5, assailants threw an unarmed grenade into the garden of the building which was found with its detonation pin still intact.
On Wednesday night, another grenade wrapped in white cloth was hurled into the newspaper's garden again, this time with its detonation pin removed but police said it had failed to explode possibly due to a failure in its detonation mechanism.
"This attack has been committed against democracy and the freedom of press" said the daily's Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Yildiz commenting on Thursday's explosion in an interview with the NTV television, stressing that they were working under very tense conditions.
Editor Mehmet Sucu told Bianet after Wednesday's abortive attack that the assailants were trying to intimidate those working in the newspaper and added "we will continue our publication even with more strength, according to our views... For years we have been targets of attacks and we have also given martyrs".
Reactions to bombing
Press Council deputy chair Dogan Heper said Thursday's attack on Cumhuriyet was "crude and primitive" and described the attack against the freedom of communication being saddening. "We want the culprits to be captured immediately and for measures to be put in place to prevent such attacks in the future" he said.
The Human Rights Association (IHD) issued a statement in which it said the attacks on Cumhuriyet were attacks on the right to gather news and described them as "violence aimed to create security concerns".
The statement said "On one hand there are attempts to restrict the freedom of press with the Anti-Terror Law and on the other hand, forces against freedoms and democracy are increasing violence by the day".
Revolutionary Workers Unions Confederation (DISK) chairman Suleyman Celebi said the attack carried out against Cumhuriyet targeted the values that it represented and to those believing in these values after describing the daily's role in reflecting the need for a secular and democratic society.
"What is more important" Celebi said, "is
that whoever is really behind this attack, the target is to create a
social chaos".
5. - Bianet - "A Fourth Case Against Anti-War Reporter":
Reporter Ozbaris faces fourth court case for "discouraging people from military service" for reports and interviews published by pro-Kurdish Gundem daily. Journalist faces 12 years jail for publishing statement by conscientious objector Halil Savda.
ISTANBUL / 12 May 2006 / by Erol Onderoglu
Visiting the city Justice Hall on May 10 Wednesday in relation to three cases against her for "discouraging people from military service", pro-Kurdish Ulkede Ozgur Gundem (Free Agenda in the Country) newspaper reporter Birgul Ozbaris was informed she now faced a fourth case on the same charges.
The journalist who pleaded to be excused from court on the three previous cases due to change of judges, gave a statement to Republic Prosecutor Nihat Erdem in relation to the fourth case that was launched after a complaint from the military.
Ozbaris had published a news report related to a statement by conscientious objector Halil Savda in an April 9 dated article titled "Do not go for military service" where she claimed that reaction to the killings in Southeast Turkey had also effected those who individually refused to serve in the army.
She quoted Savda calling on youth not to serve in the military and saying, "we must intervene in this painful, in this bloody situation and say stop. I have done this as an individual. Now I ask this from everyone; Listen to the sound of peace, extend your hand to it".
Savda was quoted saying, in Osbaris's report, "Let us say stop to this. Until the human resources of war are dried up, lasting peace cannot exist. We can start from ourselves".
"Serving Peace"
In her statement to the prosecution this week, the journalist said she had made a news report out of Savda's views that he had made public and prepared the report under the scope of freedom of expression.
She also argued that another investigation in relation to the same report was being conducted at the Beyoglu prosecutor's office.
Ozbaris faced 9 years imprisonment on three separate court cases relating to her May 15, 2005 series "Neither military service, nor war" and "If Turkey plays its role" article; her September 24, 2005 "Anti-war meeting" news report and her October 19, 2005 "Objectors have a message to EU" interview as well as "Conscientious objectors want compulsory military service debated in EU accession talks"..
With the new case against her she will be tried under Penal Code article 318 and faces 12 years imprisonment if found guilty of the charges.
Article 318 rules six months to two years imprisonment
for those who encourage or suggest in a way that will discourage the
people from military service and increasing the sentence by half if
the offence is committed through the press.
6. - Kurdish Media - "Turkey bombs Christian village
in Kurdistan":
LONNDON / 13 May 2006
Turkey bombed villages around Amedi, in southern Kurdistan, reported online Peyamner.com on Saturday.
Turkey bombed the village of Dore west of Kanimasi areas of Amedi district. A Kurdish official told Peyamner.com that this was not the first time that Turkey bombs southern Kurdistan.
Dore is a Kurdish Christian village that currently a number of Iraqi Christian families living in, after they were forced out by Islamic fundamentals in Arab parts of Iraq.
Although no casualties were resulted in the bombardment, the village population fears of further Turkish atrocities.
As usual, no official statement from Kurdistan Cabinet
was made.