Kurdisches Frauenbüro für Frieden – Cenî
Kurdish Women’s Office for Peace - Ceni
Corneliusstr.125, D-40215 Düsseldorf
tel. +49 (0) 211 59 89 251, fax: +49 (0) 211 59 49 253
Email : Ceni_Frauen@gmx.de, www.ceni-kurdistan.org
Call for support for Kurdish prisoners on hunger strike: Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan and all political prisoners!
On the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Turkey, a new hunger strike was started by political prisoners in Turkish jails, which has spread day by day and reached a critical level.
Since 12th September 2012, 380 members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Free Women's Party (PAJK) in 39 jails have found themselves on an indefinite hunger strike. The health of the strikers is getting severely worse. Amongst the hunger strikers there are jailed mothers of 60, journalists and minors. Although the hunger strike has reached a life-threatening stage, the Turkish AKP government remains silent. In response, spokespeople for the prisoners have insisted that the hunger strike will continue and that, from the 15th October 2012, all members of the PKK and PAJK that are political prisoners in jails in Turkey and Kurdistan will join the strike. So thousands of political prisoners will now be on hunger strike.
In a declaration by the PAJK prisoners from Diyarbakir prison, the following was stated: “Since July of last year, Mr Ocalan has been exposed to extraordinary conditions of isolation; both the civilian population and the guerrilla forces have been victims of destructive operations; politicians have been attacked through the 'KCK trials'. Roboski was no accident. It was a planned massacre and also the signal for the physical genocide of the Kurdish people.”
The prisoners emphasised in a letter to the public that the hunger strike will continue until their demands are met. Their central demands read: “The lifting of the isolation of Abdullah Ocalan, the guarantee of his health, security and freedom, as well as the full recognition of the Kurdish language – including the right to teaching in the Kurdish language and the lifting of the assimilations policies against Kurds.
The prisoners on hunger strike are not alone!
Ceni – Kurdish Women's Office for Peace – supports the demands of the striking prisoners and calls for solidarity with them. In Europe too we have to listen to the hunger strikers. The war and repression against the Kurdish population in Turkey, but also the growing resistance against the inhuman policies of the AKP government, have reached a level which has shown the urgency of a political resolution to the Kurdish question stronger than ever before. To this effect we support the demand for Abdullah Ocalan's and all political prisoners' freedom in Turkey, which has been raised by the prisoners on hunger strike, as well as the people of all four regions of Kurdistan and by the human rights defenders through the international “Freedom for Ocalan” petition campaign. We are of the opinion that Ocalan's freedom would represent a breakthrough for the democratisation of Turkey and for a peace process in Kurdistan and the Middle East.
Finally, you can make your contribution towards peace and human rights and commit to supporting the lives and health of the political prisoners in Turkey. Through letters and emails to the Turkish Ministry of Interior and Justice Ministry you can demand that the Turkish government listens to the legitimate demands of the hunger strikers.
· Ministry of Interior–Minister of Interior Idris Naim Sahin
T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı, Bakanlıklar / ANKARA
gsekreter@icisleri.gov.tr; mustesarlik@icisleri.gov.tr
· Justice Ministry – Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin
T.C. Adalet Bakanligi, 06659 Kizilay / ANKARA
info@adalet.gov.tr <mailto:info@adalet.gov.tr> ; Department for prisoners: cigm@adalet.gov.tr <mailto:cigm@adalet.gov.tr>
Furthermore, you can support the international “Freedom for Ocalan” petition campaign, which began on 1st September 2012 and is currently supported by a bus tour through Europe. http://www.freeocalan.org <http://www.freeocalan.org/> .
„Solidarität ist die Zärtlichkeit der Völker“ – Freiheit für alle politischen Gefangenen!
Solidarity is the tenderness of peoples – Freedom for all political prisoners!
Tuesday 23 October 2012
Monday 22 October 2012
EUTCC CALLS FOR THE RELEASE OF ADEM UZUN TO FURTHER PEACE!
EU Turkey Civic Commission
19 October, 2012
Press Release: For immediate release
EUTCC CALLS FOR THE RELEASE OF ADEM UZUN TO FURTHER PEACE!
The EUTCC calls upon the French authorities for the immediate release of Adem Uzun, a leading official of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) headquartered in Brussels. His arrest is clearly a political attempt to curry favor with the Turkish authorities who had just complained that France and Germany were not supporting Turkey’s campaign against the PKK and its so-called terrorism in Europe. Far from being a terrorist, Adem Uzun was arrested in Paris where he was preparing to attend a peaceful conference on the Kurdish situation in Syria.
The detention of Adem Uzun comes at a most inappropriate time as he was actively campaigning to renew negotiations with Turkey to help solve the long-running Kurdish problem in that state. Indeed Adem Uzun’s arrest appears all the more unfortunate because he was one of the Kurdish officials who earlier had met in Oslo with Turkish officials from 2009 to 2011 in an attempt to start negotiations for peace. Adem Uzun has been working untiring and constructively in the search for a peaceful settlement based on justice and respect for everyone’s rights inside Turkey. Turkish authorities should value theses diplomatic efforts for peace and honour him instead of incarcerating him. Turkey’s negative response and France’s unfortunate support of it has dealt a blow to this initiative for peace and should be immediately corrected. The Kurdish problem in Turkey cannot be solved by arresting and detaining its peace negotiators.
Kariane Westrheim Michael Gunter Hans Brancheidt Judge Essa Moosa
Chair of EUTCC Secretary general Board of Directors Board of Directors
Kariane Westrheim, Kariane.westrheim@gmail.com <mailto:Kariane.westrheim@gmail.com> , +47 976 42 088
19 October, 2012
Press Release: For immediate release
EUTCC CALLS FOR THE RELEASE OF ADEM UZUN TO FURTHER PEACE!
The EUTCC calls upon the French authorities for the immediate release of Adem Uzun, a leading official of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) headquartered in Brussels. His arrest is clearly a political attempt to curry favor with the Turkish authorities who had just complained that France and Germany were not supporting Turkey’s campaign against the PKK and its so-called terrorism in Europe. Far from being a terrorist, Adem Uzun was arrested in Paris where he was preparing to attend a peaceful conference on the Kurdish situation in Syria.
The detention of Adem Uzun comes at a most inappropriate time as he was actively campaigning to renew negotiations with Turkey to help solve the long-running Kurdish problem in that state. Indeed Adem Uzun’s arrest appears all the more unfortunate because he was one of the Kurdish officials who earlier had met in Oslo with Turkish officials from 2009 to 2011 in an attempt to start negotiations for peace. Adem Uzun has been working untiring and constructively in the search for a peaceful settlement based on justice and respect for everyone’s rights inside Turkey. Turkish authorities should value theses diplomatic efforts for peace and honour him instead of incarcerating him. Turkey’s negative response and France’s unfortunate support of it has dealt a blow to this initiative for peace and should be immediately corrected. The Kurdish problem in Turkey cannot be solved by arresting and detaining its peace negotiators.
Kariane Westrheim Michael Gunter Hans Brancheidt Judge Essa Moosa
Chair of EUTCC Secretary general Board of Directors Board of Directors
Kariane Westrheim, Kariane.westrheim@gmail.com <mailto:Kariane.westrheim@gmail.com> , +47 976 42 088
Press Release FOR AWARENESS TO THE INDEFINITE HUNGER STRIKES
CALL FOR AWARENESS TO THE INDEFINITE HUNGER STRIKES IN TURKEY
Press Release on Wednesday 24th October 2012 at Downing Street (Prime Minister Office) at 12PM.
AKP Government’s ongoing pressures such as arrestment operations against Kurds and democrats have created a deep political trauma. Kurdish politicians including MPs, mayors and members of city councils, journalists, trade unionists and many other activists from the NGOs have been imprisoned. Majority of them are in hunger strike since 12 September 2012. The hunger strike started in 7 prisons with 63 people. 50 of them are men and 13 of them are women. However, the number of strikers is rapidly rising. More than 600 arrestees and prisoners have attended to the indefinite and irreversible hunger strikes.
Strikers started to the action for the following demands:
1- Education in mother tongue, defense in trials,
2- Respect to Kurdish people’s democratic rights,
3- Freedom for leader of the Kurdish People, Mr. Abdullah Öcalan.
Since 14 October totally 324 captives/prisoners are in the hunger strike without B1 vitamin. 283 of them men and 41 of them are women. It is urgent that, the strikers’ health situation is going worse. AKP government did not make any statement about hunger strike for 41 days. Although all of these insensitivity captives declared that; since Monday 15th October all of captives have started to the indefinite and irreversible hunger strike.
We, as Kurdish Ferderation in Britain, Kurdish Comunity Centre, Halkevi, Roj-Women, Gik-Der, expect awareness and solidarity from our friends, community and the international public opinion about this urgent event.
Press Release on Wednesday 24th October 2012 at Downing Street (Prime Minister Office) at 12PM.
AKP Government’s ongoing pressures such as arrestment operations against Kurds and democrats have created a deep political trauma. Kurdish politicians including MPs, mayors and members of city councils, journalists, trade unionists and many other activists from the NGOs have been imprisoned. Majority of them are in hunger strike since 12 September 2012. The hunger strike started in 7 prisons with 63 people. 50 of them are men and 13 of them are women. However, the number of strikers is rapidly rising. More than 600 arrestees and prisoners have attended to the indefinite and irreversible hunger strikes.
Strikers started to the action for the following demands:
1- Education in mother tongue, defense in trials,
2- Respect to Kurdish people’s democratic rights,
3- Freedom for leader of the Kurdish People, Mr. Abdullah Öcalan.
Since 14 October totally 324 captives/prisoners are in the hunger strike without B1 vitamin. 283 of them men and 41 of them are women. It is urgent that, the strikers’ health situation is going worse. AKP government did not make any statement about hunger strike for 41 days. Although all of these insensitivity captives declared that; since Monday 15th October all of captives have started to the indefinite and irreversible hunger strike.
We, as Kurdish Ferderation in Britain, Kurdish Comunity Centre, Halkevi, Roj-Women, Gik-Der, expect awareness and solidarity from our friends, community and the international public opinion about this urgent event.
Release Kurdish political campaigner Adem Uzun! Press statement
Press statement, 20 October 2012
We unreservedly support members of the Kurdish community who are protesting outside the French parliament today. They are protesting against the unjust and provocative arrest of Kurdish political campaigner and strategist, Mr Adem Uzun, on 6th October and the intensification of the French state’s arrest and detention operations against Kurds. According to the reports of the ANF News Agency, over 200 Kurdish asylum seekers have been taken into custody by French police for political reasons since 2007. The Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Centre in Paris has been closed by a Paris criminal court.
Adem Uzun, a leading official of the Kurdish National Congress (KNK), was on a peace mission to attend a conference in the French parliament to discuss the future of Kurds in Syria. He was arrested following Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s comments in an interview on 27 September that ‘some main European countries such as Germany and France allowed "terrorist leaders" to freely live in their countries,’ (ANF, 17 October).
It is scandalous to see political campaigners who are striving to find peaceful diplomatic solutions to desperate situations that the Kurds face in countries, such as Syria and Turkey, subjected to arrest as ‘terrorists’ as a result of pressure from the US and Turkish governments. Adem’s statement in the European Parliament on 29 January 2009 remains as relevant today as it was then, given that the ruling AKP party in Turkey has intensified its assault against the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and human rights campaigners, journalists, lawyers, trade unionists and civil society activists in the name of the “anti-KCK ‘terrorist’ operations”:
“It is unfortunate that those profiting from the war in Turkey are being allowed to continue escalating it. There is no limit and boundary for these actions. As much as 80% of incidents that are taking place in Kurdistan do not get reported in the press. There is bombardment in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) every day. Dust and smoke raised by US and Turkish planes reach the sky, where it joins with that raised by Iranian cannon fire. All civilian Kurdish people in the region are forced to live in fear and panic. What we have here is a grand-scale brutality and intra-state terrorism. Secret meetings to liquidate the Kurdish freedom movement are continuously being held. This approach will not only fail to solve the problem, but it will also shed more blood. Unfortunately, the EU countries do not act on this matter [positively]”.
Instead, politicians like Adem – who are seeking to halt the influence of war profiteers and seeking to find a peaceful resolution to the oppressive situation in Turkey and Syria - find themselves unjustly criminalised and targeted on the absurd grounds of “suspicion of being involved in the purchase of anti-tank missiles,” (Reuters, 12 October). Adem’s targeting in France follows the shameful ‘guidance’ provided by the US Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which earlier had, equally shamefully, sought to criminalise him, this time on the grounds of ‘drug trafficking’.
As the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) had commented on the matter at the time: “These outrageous, unproven accusations are just a new way of trying to criminalise well known Kurdish personalities and limiting their legitimate political activities … The new name appearing on the list is Mr Adem Uzun. Mr Uzun has been working politically on the Kurdish question for years. His impressive diplomatic capability and the way he represents the Kurdish issue and the Kurds on an international level, and particularly within the EU sphere, has helped pave the way toward promoting peaceful Kurdish diplomacy in Europe. It is obvious that the reason for the US officials’ accusations is not drug-trafficking but rather to inhibit the successful and effectual diplomatic representation of the Kurds in Europe, the US and elsewhere. Well-known Kurdish diplomats are being criminalised and efforts made to compel Interpol to hunt them. In this way the USA and Turkey” – and now, clearly, the French government – “are trying to stop the peace process in Turkey, to which Kurdish politicians in Turkey and Europe contribute the most.
‘’The fanciful unproven accusations by the US OFAC are simply made to stop well-known and acknowledged Kurdish politicians and spokespersons from travelling abroad and thereby hinder their further contact with the international media and legal institutions, particularly within the Schengen area”.
We reiterate the solidarity call that the EUTCC made when Adem Uzun was criminalised by the US OFAC: “We call on political bodies, parliamentarian co-operation partners and NGOs in Europe – who work with these named Kurdish politicians (particularly Mr Adem Uzun) for a transparent political and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey – to send out a letter of confidence and support which takes a stand against these unproven accusations”.
We call for Adem Uzun’s immediate and unconditional release.
We unreservedly support members of the Kurdish community who are protesting outside the French parliament today. They are protesting against the unjust and provocative arrest of Kurdish political campaigner and strategist, Mr Adem Uzun, on 6th October and the intensification of the French state’s arrest and detention operations against Kurds. According to the reports of the ANF News Agency, over 200 Kurdish asylum seekers have been taken into custody by French police for political reasons since 2007. The Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Centre in Paris has been closed by a Paris criminal court.
Adem Uzun, a leading official of the Kurdish National Congress (KNK), was on a peace mission to attend a conference in the French parliament to discuss the future of Kurds in Syria. He was arrested following Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s comments in an interview on 27 September that ‘some main European countries such as Germany and France allowed "terrorist leaders" to freely live in their countries,’ (ANF, 17 October).
It is scandalous to see political campaigners who are striving to find peaceful diplomatic solutions to desperate situations that the Kurds face in countries, such as Syria and Turkey, subjected to arrest as ‘terrorists’ as a result of pressure from the US and Turkish governments. Adem’s statement in the European Parliament on 29 January 2009 remains as relevant today as it was then, given that the ruling AKP party in Turkey has intensified its assault against the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and human rights campaigners, journalists, lawyers, trade unionists and civil society activists in the name of the “anti-KCK ‘terrorist’ operations”:
“It is unfortunate that those profiting from the war in Turkey are being allowed to continue escalating it. There is no limit and boundary for these actions. As much as 80% of incidents that are taking place in Kurdistan do not get reported in the press. There is bombardment in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) every day. Dust and smoke raised by US and Turkish planes reach the sky, where it joins with that raised by Iranian cannon fire. All civilian Kurdish people in the region are forced to live in fear and panic. What we have here is a grand-scale brutality and intra-state terrorism. Secret meetings to liquidate the Kurdish freedom movement are continuously being held. This approach will not only fail to solve the problem, but it will also shed more blood. Unfortunately, the EU countries do not act on this matter [positively]”.
Instead, politicians like Adem – who are seeking to halt the influence of war profiteers and seeking to find a peaceful resolution to the oppressive situation in Turkey and Syria - find themselves unjustly criminalised and targeted on the absurd grounds of “suspicion of being involved in the purchase of anti-tank missiles,” (Reuters, 12 October). Adem’s targeting in France follows the shameful ‘guidance’ provided by the US Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which earlier had, equally shamefully, sought to criminalise him, this time on the grounds of ‘drug trafficking’.
As the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) had commented on the matter at the time: “These outrageous, unproven accusations are just a new way of trying to criminalise well known Kurdish personalities and limiting their legitimate political activities … The new name appearing on the list is Mr Adem Uzun. Mr Uzun has been working politically on the Kurdish question for years. His impressive diplomatic capability and the way he represents the Kurdish issue and the Kurds on an international level, and particularly within the EU sphere, has helped pave the way toward promoting peaceful Kurdish diplomacy in Europe. It is obvious that the reason for the US officials’ accusations is not drug-trafficking but rather to inhibit the successful and effectual diplomatic representation of the Kurds in Europe, the US and elsewhere. Well-known Kurdish diplomats are being criminalised and efforts made to compel Interpol to hunt them. In this way the USA and Turkey” – and now, clearly, the French government – “are trying to stop the peace process in Turkey, to which Kurdish politicians in Turkey and Europe contribute the most.
‘’The fanciful unproven accusations by the US OFAC are simply made to stop well-known and acknowledged Kurdish politicians and spokespersons from travelling abroad and thereby hinder their further contact with the international media and legal institutions, particularly within the Schengen area”.
We reiterate the solidarity call that the EUTCC made when Adem Uzun was criminalised by the US OFAC: “We call on political bodies, parliamentarian co-operation partners and NGOs in Europe – who work with these named Kurdish politicians (particularly Mr Adem Uzun) for a transparent political and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey – to send out a letter of confidence and support which takes a stand against these unproven accusations”.
We call for Adem Uzun’s immediate and unconditional release.
Friday 19 October 2012
KURDISH NEWS WEEKLY BRIEFING, 12 - 18 October 2012
1. All PKK and PAJK prisoners on hunger strike
15 October 2012 / ANF
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Kurdistan Women’s Liberation Party (PAJK) prisoners in all Turkish prisons have started an indefinite and non-alternate hunger strike on Monday. The strike of 380 political prisoners in 39 prisons which has been going on since September 12 has been joined by all PKK and PAJK prisoners as of October 15, as had been announced by Deniz Kaya on behalf of all PKK and PAJK prisoners yesterday. The statement by Kaya underlined that they will take no steps backward and added; “We will not hear the voice of any power other than our leader and the movement”, referring to Mr. Öcalan and the PKK.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5231 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5231>
2. Turkey: Hundreds of Kurdish political prisoners go on hunger strike
17 October 2012 / Global Voices
Hundreds of Kurdish political prisoners have entered an indefinite hunger strike, challenging Turkey's treatment of Kurdish political prisoners. Through their protest, some are demanding re-trials and language rights while others want to raise international attention about Turkey's treatment of Kurdish political prisoners. Despite their hunger strike, which is nearing six weeks, international media outlets have largely remained silent. This is not particularly surprising, since domestic media outlets in Turkey have both ignored the hunger strikes, and refused to report on them.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/10/17/turkey-hundreds-of-kurdish-political-prisoners-go-on-hunger-strike/
3. Father on hunger strike, children on school boycott
17 October 2012 / Dicle
Staying in Diyarbakır D Type Closed Prison Mehmet Cagirici is on the hunger strike, which was begun on 12 September to force the government to "instantly and without condition" provide the circumstances of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) Leader Abdullah Ocalan's freedom, health and security, lift the bans and obstacles over mother tongue. His children supported him by began to boycott the schools. The children are boycotting the schools with the demand of education in mother tongue.
http://www.diclehaber.com/2/22/viewNews/326297
5. 419 years in prison for 45 KCK suspects in Adana
17 October 2012 / ANF
Forty five suspects of KCK (Kurdish Communities Union) case in the southern province of Adana were sentenced to a total of 419 years and two months in prison for alleged “membership and leadership of an illegal organization”, “spreading propaganda for an illegal organization” and “holding explosive substances”. Including two press workers and former chair of closed Kurdish party DTP (Democratic Society Party) Adana organization, 47 people, with 14 arrested, have been tried in the scope of so-called “KCK” operation which was carried out in Adana in December of 2009.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5239
6. VIDEO: Talk to Al Jazeera - Murat Karayilan: Hoping for a Kurdish Spring
13 October 2012 / Al Jazeera
The chief of the PKK's armed wing explains the Kurdish role in Syria and the impact of the Arab Spring on the region.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ts32xjzSLE
7. US envoy reveals secret assistance offer to Turkey in PKK fight
18 October 2012 / Press TV
The US ambassador to Turkey has revealed that Washington secretly offered Ankara to have an “anti-bin Laden” type of joint operation against a number of military leaders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). On Tuesday, Francis Ricciardone revealed to Turkish journalists that the US had offered Turkey its military technology to hunt down the PKK leaders. However, the Turkish government turned down the offer, saying it would continue battling with the PKK “on the basis of its laws and experiences.”
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/18/267356/us-secret-offer-to-turkey-revealed/
8. Turkey's Bid to Revamp Constitution Falters
16 October 2012 / Wall Street Journal
Political wrangling at home and mounting risks abroad are jeopardizing Turkey's bid to overhaul its constitution, analysts and politicians say. Despite unanimous agreement last October from parliamentary parties to replace the current charter—written during a two-year military junta government in September 1980—efforts to draft an inclusive document that started with a high-profile meeting of Turkish lawmakers a year ago have slowed to a crawl. The country is grappling with the rising threat of conflict with neighboring Syria and the bloodiest year of fighting since the 1990s between the military and Kurdish guerrillas, who have been emboldened by a power vacuum in the southeast.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443624204578060642031643344.html <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443624204578060642031643344.html>
9. The Third Judicial Reform Package Proves Insufficient
15 October 2012 / Bianet
Only 12 journalists were released as a result of the Third Judicial Reform Package, which introduces a conditional pardon for certain media and opinion offences. The journalists took the streets again during this period to demand the release of their imprisoned colleagues and went to courts asking for a fair trial. A total of 15 journalists were laid off for questionable reasons. This proves that there is an increase in self-censorship. A total of 72 journalists and 35 distributors welcomed the month of September in prison. Fifty-one out of the 72 journalists and all 35 distributors were from the Kurdish media. In the three-month period, three people, including one journalist and one distributor, were sentenced to a total of 20 years, seven months and 15 days in prison for violating the Anti-Terror Law (TMK).
http://www.bianet.org/english/other/141458-the-third-judicial-reform-package-proves-insufficient
10. ‘Roj baş!’ Kurdish books set for class
13 October 2012 / Hurriyet
Turkey’s Education Ministry has announced the completion of a textbook for Kurdish elective classes that entered the school curriculum for the first time this year as part of the “Living Languages and Dialects” section. The book for fifth-grade Kurdish classes will be different for the two main dialects of the language, Kurmanji and Zazaki, the ministry said, adding that it would publish the information on its website on Oct. 13. The books on the list will then be distributed to schools after they have been printed.
The cover of the teacher’s guide for the Kurdish classes bears the lyrics of a Kurdish song that says: “Ornate and beautiful/Pleasing and cute is the Kurdish language/A beautiful sound/Coy and gentle is the Kurdish language.”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/roj-bas-kurdish-books-set-for-class.aspx?pageID=238&nID=32335&NewsCatID=339
11. VIDEO: Turkish-Kurdish conflict- what you should know
12 October 2012 / The TollundWoman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktz36er3xA8&feature=share&list=UUi7KfPKVbSyNvsQjhO7pl-g
12. Syrian Conflict Raises Kurdish Specter For Turkey
16 October 2012 / Spiegel Online
Necdet Özel, the chief of the Turkish General Staff, pulled his visor cap deep down over his face and placed his right hand on his holster. In Akçakale, where a Syrian shell killed five civilians in early October, and which has come under more artillery fire from the neighboring country since then, the commander of the Turkish army threated to strike back with "full force" if the shelling from Syria didn't stop. "We are here," he said, "and we are standing tall." Several tank groups rumbled up to a few meters from the border, and at least 25 additional fighter jets landed at the Diyarbakir air base. Özel's message was that Turkey, whose army of 612,000 troops is the largest in the Middle East, is preparing for war with Syria.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/tensions-between-turkey-and-syria-at-nato-border-escalates-a-861396.html
13. VIDEO: Turkey Beats War Drums as Kurds Mobilize at Syria Border
9 October 2012 / Russia Today
Mortar shells landing in Turkey may be coming from weapons that Ankara itself provided to Syrian rebels fighting Bashar al Assad, according to a Turkish newspaper. This together with suggestions that Kurdish separatists are mobilizing inside Syria, threatens to leave Turkey in an awkward diplomatic position. RT's Middle East correspondent Paula Slier has the latest.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32696.htm <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32696.htm>
14. PKK vow 'reprisal' if Turkey attacks Syrian Kurds
17 October 2012 / Google News (AFP)
Turkey's Kurdish rebels will retaliate to any Turkish attacks on Kurds in war-torn Syria, the second in command of the outlawed PKK said in an interview published Wednesday.
"Turkey should stay out of this conflict and stop its scheming," Murat Karayilan, who heads the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the absence of its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, told Swiss daily Le Temps. "The PKK feels solidarity with all Kurds and we will support the Syrian Kurds. If the Turkish army attacks them... we will carry out very violent reprisals on Turkish territory," said Karayilan, who was interviewed in a PKK sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan mountains near the Iranian border.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iyTfxIY4cVRiJ_wN0bg1AqsFFUNw?docId=CNG.2dd52800f2a70596277a63f643bc2251.261
15. Diplomats see Kurds, not Assad, as likely target of Turkish border buildup
16 October 2012 / Kansas City Star
Turkish tanks are deployed on hilltops overlooking Syria and additional combat aircraft have been moved to bases close to that war-torn country in an escalation that began Oct. 3, when a Syrian artillery round landed in the border town of Akcakale, killing five Turkish civilians. But while the developments have all the appearance of two countries heading for a major clash, the Turkish government’s moves may relate not so much to the civil war now raging across Syria, but to what is for Turkey a far deadlier conflict: The long-running war against militant Kurdish separatists, whom the Turkish government sees as a threat to the existence of the state itself.
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/16/3870189/diplomats-see-kurds-not-assad.html <http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/16/3870189/diplomats-see-kurds-not-assad.html>
16. Leaked Files: Kurdish Leader Mishaal Tamo was killed by Direct Order from Assad
17 October 2012 / Rudaw
Oct. 7, 2011 is an unforgettable date for Syrian Kurds; it is the day Mishaal Tamo was assassinated in Qamishli, in northeastern Syria. Tamo was a prominent Kurdish politician and leader of the Kurdish Future Movement. He had been released after three and a half years from one of the Syrian regime’s prisons. A leading member of the Syrian National Council (SNC), Tamo was considered an inspirational figure for Kurdish revolutionary youth. According to observers, this was one of the main reasons why he was assassinated. Tamo’s home in was broken into by four gunmen and he was killed. His son Marcel and a fellow activist were injured in the incident. The assassination was condemned by the U.S., who considered it a clear escalation of the regime’s tactics. The French called the assassination a “shock.”
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/5323.html
17. Sunni religious activists sentenced to long prison terms
17 October 2012 / Iranian.com
A local source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that on September 29, several Sunni Kurds who have been inside Evin and Rajaee Shahr Prisons in a state of limbo for a number of years, were put on trial at Branch 28 of Tehran Revolutionary Court, under Judge Moghisseh, without a chance to choose a lawyer, and were all sentenced to long prison terms.
http://www.iranian.com/main/2012/oct/kurdish-ativists-prisoners-day
18. Kurdish Group Slams France After Arrest of Member
14 October 2012 / Rudaw
Adem Uzun, a senior member of Kurdish National Congress (KNK), was arrested on Oct. 9 by French police. Uzun was in France to attend a conference about the future of Kurds in Syria. The event was held at the French Parliament and included prominent Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian Kurds. The leadership council of the KNK has strongly condemned Uzun’s arrest and warned France about its actions. In a statement, the KNK said: "Since 1998, we have taken the path of protest and struggle to fight the international conspiracy against the Kurds," referring to jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan. The KNK said that over the past 14 years, they have proven that no one can stop their struggle to free Ocalan.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/world/5313.html
19. EU Progress Report: Kurdish Issue Key Challenge for Turkey’s Democracy
17 October 2012 / Rudaw
The EU Commission’s 2012 Progress Report on Turkey notes “there was a considerable debate on the Kurdish issue but no progress towards a solution.”
According to the report, the “Kurdish issue remains a key challenge for Turkey’s democracy; the 2009 democratic opening, aimed at addressing the Kurdish issue, amongst others, was not followed through on.” The report notes that the local government in the southeast suffered from a number of politicians being detained, a major complaint of Kurdish politicians from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).
However, the report also calls actions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) “terrorist attacks.” This addresses concerns of Turkey, who often accuses EU states of not doing enough to combat the PKK.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/turkey/5324.html
20. Set journalists free in Turkey: EFJ Campaign update
18 October 2012 / Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
The latest news update from the Set journalists free in Turkey campaign, organised by the European Federation of Journalists.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/set-journalists-free-in-turkey-efj-campaign-update-2/
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
21. Q&A: Yavuz Baydar on Turkey's press freedom climate
16 October 2012 / Committee to Protection Journalists
For the past several months, CPJ staff has been researching pervasive press freedom problems in Turkey, including the criminal prosecution of journalists, the use of governmental pressure to engender self-censorship, and the presence of a repressive legal structure. This month, CPJ will release an in-depth report on Turkey's press freedom crisis. In advance of our report, we are publishing this illuminating interview with Yavuz Baydar, ombudsman for the Turkish newspaper Sabah and columnist for Today's Zaman. The interview was conducted via email.
http://www.cpj.org/blog/2012/10/qa-yavuz-baydar-on-turkeys-press-freedom-climate.php
22. The 33rd Day!
14 October 2012 / Apogeeculture
On 12th September 2012, nine women prisoners in Diyarbakir E type prison began an indefinite hunger-strike. In the statement they made via lawyers they highlighted two demands: the right to use their Kurdish mother tongue in the public sphere, including court and the removal of obstacles preventing imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan from negotiating in peace talks with the Turkish state. Soon after, many other inmates, men and women, from prisons in every corner of Turkey began joining the hunger-strike; sometimes in groups and in certain prisons individually. Now there are 380 prisoners in 39 prisons who are on what has surpassed a hunger-strike and become a ‘death fast.’ This is their 33rd day.
http://apogeeculture.blogspot.co.uk/
23. ‘Innocence’ or ‘Schadenfreude’
16 October 2012 / Kurdistan Tribune
As the explosive power of the film trailer, “Innocence of Muslims,” ricocheted across the Middle East—violently sparking its own grim trail of fire, blood and death—I became weary of part of the title: “Innocence.” I began looking for its hidden meaning, its sinister part, as it were. Even before the toxic dust settled on the barbaric bloodbath—dozens assassinated, including at least four Americans, with the U.S. ambassador to Libya, murdered and dragged through the streets like a dog and allegedly sodomized—I found it.
http://kurdistantribune.com/2012/innocence-or-schadenfreude/ <http://kurdistantribune.com/2012/innocence-or-schadenfreude/>
24. Erdogan May Be Shifting Policy Toward Kurds
12 October 2012 / Al Monitor
After 14 months of isolation, the Turkish authorities allowed Mehmet Ocalan to visit his brother Abdullah Ocalan, who was being held in solitary confinement on the Island of Imrali located near Istanbul. During a talk-show appearance on the eve of the general conference of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the Kurdish leader will be moved out of solitary confinement.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/10/kurdish-syria-turkey-pkk-ocalan.html
25. Turks, Cease Fire!
11 October 2012 / Dissident Voice
In the Middle Eastern corrida, the moment of truth is approaching fast. Assad’s Syria is running around the arena like a wounded bull, fraught and worn down by a year of cruel strife. Banderillas of mujaheeds stick out of his broken hide. The public, the Europeans, the Americans, the Gulf rulers call: Kill him! And the Turkish matador steps forward, pulling out his sword. His cannons rain death on Syrian slopes; fire and lead storm consumes the hills. Erdogan is preparing to deal last blow to his exhausted neighbour.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/10/turks-cease-fire/#more-46084 <http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/10/turks-cease-fire/#more-46084>
26. Why (and How) Syria's Conflict Could Get Worse
10 October 2012 / Huffington Post
Syria's continuing carnage and chaos have led to tens of thousands of people (mostly non-combatants) being killed and maimed. Many more have become refugees, within their homeland, or in neighboring countries. With things already so horrific, it's hard to imagine them getting worse. But the regime of Bashar al-Assad is steely cruel. Besides, we don't have to think hard, or far back in time, to find examples of how pitiless wars within and among nations can be.
So we must, realistically, consider a possible deterioration--and one that affects not just Syria but other countries besides.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajan-menon/why-syrias-conflict-could_b_1962166.html
27. World Kurdish Congress: A Lost Opportunity
16 October 2012 / Rudaw
A world congress could have been a beacon of hope to a developing nation in the midst of transformation. After decades of political challenges and confrontations, a period of stability in the Kurdistan Region is almost like living in a dream -- a phase where the power of the pen is stronger than that of the bullet. Holding an international Kurdish Congress is one of the best investments the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) could make in securing its future. Simply having the event on its own is an excellent idea; a great achievement for an oppressed nation. However, there are a lot of things to consider when putting together a world congress. As the name implies, it has to be a world-class event. This is especially true when it comes to organizing and managing a world congress.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/science/columnists/5319.html
Yavuz Baydar on Turkey's press freedom climate
Q&A: Yavuz Baydar on Turkey's press freedom climate
By Nina Ognianova/CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator <http://www.cpj.org/blog/author/nina-ognianova>
Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government, Turkey has been one of the world's top jailer of journalists. (AFP/Burhan Ozbilici)
For the past several months, CPJ staff has been researching pervasive press freedom problems in Turkey, including the criminal prosecution of journalists, the use of governmental pressure to engender self-censorship, and the presence of a repressive legal structure. This month, CPJ will release an in-depth report on Turkey's press freedom crisis. In advance of our report, we are publishing this illuminating interview with Yavuz Baydar, ombudsman for the Turkish newspaper Sabah and columnist for Today's Zaman. The interview was conducted via email.
Nina Ognianova: In recent years, under the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has been one of the world's top jailers of journalists in various press freedom rankings. Compared to pressures on journalists in Turkey's past, how does the current wave of arrests and other forms of pressure on the media fare? Is this an unprecedented crackdown?
Yavuz Baydar: First and foremost, this is not unprecedented, and it is not a crackdown on Turkish media in general. Let me explain.
Turkish media was not truly independent until the mid-1980s. The worst was experienced in the early '70s and after the military coup in 1980, during which newspapers were strictly subordinated to the emergency rule commands and hundreds of journalists were in detention or frightened. So although I would describe the current situation as utterly worrisome and fully unacceptable, I would be cautious as not to overdramatize.
If there is a crackdown--and there is--it is much more about the Kurdish colleagues, activist-publishers, and Kurdish publications. Out of approximately 95 people whose cases constitute the base for domestic and international attention, around 75 to 80 are Kurds. Most of their cases fall under the category of crackdown, because Turkish authorities interpret the problematic Anti-Terror Law to obstruct freedom of expression. The law in its vagueness gives all the possibilities to arrest people with other accusations than the practice of freedom of opinion and information, which makes it tough for us all to distinguish whether or not accused people are militants or journalists. This is, of course, all linked to the bleeding Kurdish issue and PKK warfare in Turkey.
But regardless of all such, this makes the case of Turkey's suppression of press freedom more of a case of freedom of expression--and almost entirely a Kurdish one.
Then we have a group of people, accused of co-conspiring for a coup with top officers and others against the elected government and parliament. Mustafa Balbay, Tuncay Özkan, and others in the context of Odatv fall into this category. This section is an entirely different category, where the accusations are so substantiated that almost all the applications of the suspected colleagues, claiming that they were indicted and jailed because they are journalists, were rejected by ECHR [the European Court of Human Rights] in Strasbourg. Do I agree with ECHR on this? Yes. Do I also agree with ECHR that they were held for far too long in jail? Absolutely.
But coup is a very serious crime.
I think, therefore, that these people--a dozen or so--should be tried while on free foot; there is far too strong evidence to keep the public suspicions alive that their cases be dropped altogether. Crime is a crime: If no colleagues of decency in Britain claim that their colleagues involved in phone-hacking case not stand trial at all, so would we claim that they should be given freedom until a fast and fair verdict.
NO: What has the effect of the recent pressures on the media been on the press corps in Turkey? Is coverage in Turkey chilled? Have journalists started to self-censor? Are there any taboo topics that journalists and their editors/media owners are afraid to touch?
YB: First, the Kurdish media feel enormous heat. They have been operating under the Sword of Damocles. But despite hardships, they continue to give voice to the debate. Their disturbing flaw being, of course, too tied to the PKK and praising its violence and glorifying its illegal existence. This will continue to cause problems.
Also, Turkish media's coverage of the Kurdish issue and PKK's acts and role have been increasingly limited. Here I refer to the mass-circulation dailies in the so-called "center," be it pro-government or not. (There are, of course, others, such as daily Taraf, Yurt, Birgün, weekly Aksiyon, and minors.) I refer also to the private news channels such as CNN Turk, NTV, Bugün TV, TV24, and almost all others, which impose stiff editorial filtering.
It is all because of the media owners of these outlets acting as "the coalition of the willing" that openly act submissively to the government and security bureaucracy. I can only refer to a key meeting between the PM and all the media proprietors last autumn, during which media owners went as far as proposing themselves to the PM that they can build a "censor commission" among themselves, to be chaired by a cabinet minister. The PM declined the offer, but the message was taken well. In the case of Uludere, where 34 Kurdish smugglers were bombed to death due to a tragic mistake, there was a full blackout in that media for 17 hours while the news flow was instant and heavy in social media. This pattern of blocking is now the norm.
NO: What has motivated the government to go after journalists at this particular time? Why the mass arrests now?
YB: As I explained, the main cause is the bleeding Kurdish issue and terror. An overwhelming bulk of the detained are Kurds.
There are no mass arrests of journalists; have not been. If we speak about the KCK case (linked with PKK's local-regional networks), we may use this term. Otherwise, it would be misleading.
NO: Some observers have connected the recent crackdown on the press with the prime minister's personality, which they have described as confrontational. What is your take on that?
YB: One elderly colleague described the situation as the "tall shadow of the Prime Minister over the media, growing ever taller" type of metaphor, which explains it.
Yes, there is a character factor. Mr. Erdoğan has become increasingly tense, uneasy, defensive, and downright furious with dissent and criticism by the media and many columnists, also reporters. He has become louder, and gone into an "angry teacher" mode, mocking the "pupils" and telling them how to report or comment. This has led, he discovered, to his increased popularity in a country where the media have always ranked low due to past sins.
But "heavy presence" is not equal to crackdown. Jailed journalists are mainly Kurds, and the rest accused of coup plotting; the real consequences of his "long shadow" are felt on media outlets through volunteering media owners acting as lackeys/sycophants day by day imposing censorship in the newsrooms. So what the Turkish journalist (as opposed to the Kurdish one) today fears is not jail, but being unemployed.
Some examples of this were seen in cases where a popular columnist or a TV anchor suddenly, with no apparent reason, was told to go.
The problem is there is no voice that stands up to the PM, to make sense, that it is self-destructive to try to create a monolithic press landscape in a country where a tradition of diversity and pluralism and competition is far too strong; fear of jail is far too little.
No government in Turkey could control a media with 40 daily national newspapers, 250-plus private TV channels, 1,300 radio stations, and Internet where at least 11 news portals are operative.
In conclusion, there is no crackdown on the media here, but growing control, decreasing (if any left) editorial independence in the center, and a climate of self-censorship not imposed by the political power but by the economic power (owners) who act in their own financial interests.
The worst and critical part is that, at the moment, there is no media owner in the "center" who cares or stands up for the decent conduct of the profession. Not long ago, lashing out at some columnists, the PM addressed the media owners as "shopkeepers." Not a single word of protest came from those humiliated; yet abroad they were very keen on repeating that "media freedom in Turkey is in danger." Instead, they hire and fire people, with attention to the "sensitivities in Ankara." (None of the media outlets allow trade union activities in their territory.)
NO: Turkey's press is quite partisan. Why is that? Where does this partisan nature come from? Could you give a little context to that?
YB: It is true. You could say the press was, for decades, under the spell of Kemalism, the official ideology, rather than Journalism. This was comparable--to an extent--to Soviet press practices. Although the climate changed after World War II, as Turkey entered NATO and applied pluralism, Kemalism remained an internalized guide in journalism. It respected all its taboos, acted as parrots in nationally sensitive issues, and remained as an extended part of the regime based on a military-led tutelage.
This also meant that as much as it glorified the military, it was as cynical and disrespectful of democratic mechanisms, free vote, etc. Overall, it backed all the undemocratic moves by the army, coups, or undue interventions into civilian politics. The state traditionally penetrated into the newsrooms, with people linked with secret services, and there are very strong rumors that some key opinion writers were even on the state's payroll.
Kemalism is still internalized in the center, Atatürk remaining a taboo. Even the Islamist/post-Islamist press has Kemalist features, as it publishes front pages full of Soviet-style pictures and clichés on national holidays and commemorations year after year.
Yet partisanship has other faces, too: There is a strong press tradition in the left and in the conservative right. This has played out to the extreme when the AKP unleashed a reform process, which meant breaking one taboo after another, and the Kemalist core of the press is now in either retreat or dissolution.
This has been very painful. Also, the cases of journalists jailed in the Ergenekon type of contexts are interesting, because they showed through evidence presented to courts (such as genuine diaries, etc.) how far some people in the Turkish media could go to battle a party they did not like.
NO: How long can media diversity and vibrancy last if the pressure on the media in Turkey continues with its current pace?
YB: This is a very important question. The future of independent, efficient, strong press for Turkey looks bleak at the moment. The gloom has some reasons: The continuation of AKP (which has done, doubtlessly, a lot of good things for keeping Turkish perestroika alive) as a single, massive, unchallenged force leads to a media that is forced to increasing submission because of the lack of a strong main opposition. The CHP, in main opposition, cares even less about media freedom and free speech than the AKP, which poisons the climate.
Then the worrisome pattern goes on: While the rules of the game in the media landscape remain unchanged, unreformed, what changes are the actors, new proprietors. Turkey's media owners are--like drug addicts--dependent on the powers in Ankara because they are in all sorts of businesses, need approvals for growth and investments, etc., and therefore keep their media outlets either as weapons for extortion or, at best, at the service of governments.
For any progress, we need steps in several dimensions:
Around 40 articles in various laws (Anti-Terror Law, Internet Law, the Penal Code, Radio-TV Law, and Press Law) must be amended in favor of freedoms.
New rules on limitations of media ownership must be brought in.
Media owners who are in other businesses than publishing must be banned from entering public tenders.
Cross-ownership must be severely restricted or banned.
New Trade Union Law must be passed to enhance job security (thus editorial independence) in the media.
The public broadcaster, TRT, still goes on in Cold War style, strictly controlled by the government. It must be reformed to be given autonomy or independence.
Media proprietors must be made aware of the specific nature and social role of journalism, and act as bravely as their employees.
NO: The Turkish authorities have recently proposed amendments to legislation that affect the press, including amendments to Turkey's anti-terror and criminal laws. But many domestic and international critics consider those amendments only cosmetic. How do you assess the amendments? What has prompted the government to propose them?
YB: We still have not seen any progress on the issue. It will remain to be seen whether the so-called Fourth Package will ease the tensions. I remain skeptical until it happens. Until it happens, we will be operating in a suffocating atmosphere. In conclusion, let me say this: The outside observers tend to make believe that this is all about jailed journalists. While the urgency and priority of the issue is clear, no one should ever believe that once all of them are released, Turkey's media freedom issues will be resolved. No. They will all remain, in effect, as threatened and frustrated as they are.
Nina Ognianova is coordinator of CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program <http://cpj.org/europe/> . A native of Bulgaria, Ognianova has led CPJ advocacy missions to Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.
By Nina Ognianova/CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator <http://www.cpj.org/blog/author/nina-ognianova>
Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government, Turkey has been one of the world's top jailer of journalists. (AFP/Burhan Ozbilici)
For the past several months, CPJ staff has been researching pervasive press freedom problems in Turkey, including the criminal prosecution of journalists, the use of governmental pressure to engender self-censorship, and the presence of a repressive legal structure. This month, CPJ will release an in-depth report on Turkey's press freedom crisis. In advance of our report, we are publishing this illuminating interview with Yavuz Baydar, ombudsman for the Turkish newspaper Sabah and columnist for Today's Zaman. The interview was conducted via email.
Nina Ognianova: In recent years, under the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has been one of the world's top jailers of journalists in various press freedom rankings. Compared to pressures on journalists in Turkey's past, how does the current wave of arrests and other forms of pressure on the media fare? Is this an unprecedented crackdown?
Yavuz Baydar: First and foremost, this is not unprecedented, and it is not a crackdown on Turkish media in general. Let me explain.
Turkish media was not truly independent until the mid-1980s. The worst was experienced in the early '70s and after the military coup in 1980, during which newspapers were strictly subordinated to the emergency rule commands and hundreds of journalists were in detention or frightened. So although I would describe the current situation as utterly worrisome and fully unacceptable, I would be cautious as not to overdramatize.
If there is a crackdown--and there is--it is much more about the Kurdish colleagues, activist-publishers, and Kurdish publications. Out of approximately 95 people whose cases constitute the base for domestic and international attention, around 75 to 80 are Kurds. Most of their cases fall under the category of crackdown, because Turkish authorities interpret the problematic Anti-Terror Law to obstruct freedom of expression. The law in its vagueness gives all the possibilities to arrest people with other accusations than the practice of freedom of opinion and information, which makes it tough for us all to distinguish whether or not accused people are militants or journalists. This is, of course, all linked to the bleeding Kurdish issue and PKK warfare in Turkey.
But regardless of all such, this makes the case of Turkey's suppression of press freedom more of a case of freedom of expression--and almost entirely a Kurdish one.
Then we have a group of people, accused of co-conspiring for a coup with top officers and others against the elected government and parliament. Mustafa Balbay, Tuncay Özkan, and others in the context of Odatv fall into this category. This section is an entirely different category, where the accusations are so substantiated that almost all the applications of the suspected colleagues, claiming that they were indicted and jailed because they are journalists, were rejected by ECHR [the European Court of Human Rights] in Strasbourg. Do I agree with ECHR on this? Yes. Do I also agree with ECHR that they were held for far too long in jail? Absolutely.
But coup is a very serious crime.
I think, therefore, that these people--a dozen or so--should be tried while on free foot; there is far too strong evidence to keep the public suspicions alive that their cases be dropped altogether. Crime is a crime: If no colleagues of decency in Britain claim that their colleagues involved in phone-hacking case not stand trial at all, so would we claim that they should be given freedom until a fast and fair verdict.
NO: What has the effect of the recent pressures on the media been on the press corps in Turkey? Is coverage in Turkey chilled? Have journalists started to self-censor? Are there any taboo topics that journalists and their editors/media owners are afraid to touch?
YB: First, the Kurdish media feel enormous heat. They have been operating under the Sword of Damocles. But despite hardships, they continue to give voice to the debate. Their disturbing flaw being, of course, too tied to the PKK and praising its violence and glorifying its illegal existence. This will continue to cause problems.
Also, Turkish media's coverage of the Kurdish issue and PKK's acts and role have been increasingly limited. Here I refer to the mass-circulation dailies in the so-called "center," be it pro-government or not. (There are, of course, others, such as daily Taraf, Yurt, Birgün, weekly Aksiyon, and minors.) I refer also to the private news channels such as CNN Turk, NTV, Bugün TV, TV24, and almost all others, which impose stiff editorial filtering.
It is all because of the media owners of these outlets acting as "the coalition of the willing" that openly act submissively to the government and security bureaucracy. I can only refer to a key meeting between the PM and all the media proprietors last autumn, during which media owners went as far as proposing themselves to the PM that they can build a "censor commission" among themselves, to be chaired by a cabinet minister. The PM declined the offer, but the message was taken well. In the case of Uludere, where 34 Kurdish smugglers were bombed to death due to a tragic mistake, there was a full blackout in that media for 17 hours while the news flow was instant and heavy in social media. This pattern of blocking is now the norm.
NO: What has motivated the government to go after journalists at this particular time? Why the mass arrests now?
YB: As I explained, the main cause is the bleeding Kurdish issue and terror. An overwhelming bulk of the detained are Kurds.
There are no mass arrests of journalists; have not been. If we speak about the KCK case (linked with PKK's local-regional networks), we may use this term. Otherwise, it would be misleading.
NO: Some observers have connected the recent crackdown on the press with the prime minister's personality, which they have described as confrontational. What is your take on that?
YB: One elderly colleague described the situation as the "tall shadow of the Prime Minister over the media, growing ever taller" type of metaphor, which explains it.
Yes, there is a character factor. Mr. Erdoğan has become increasingly tense, uneasy, defensive, and downright furious with dissent and criticism by the media and many columnists, also reporters. He has become louder, and gone into an "angry teacher" mode, mocking the "pupils" and telling them how to report or comment. This has led, he discovered, to his increased popularity in a country where the media have always ranked low due to past sins.
But "heavy presence" is not equal to crackdown. Jailed journalists are mainly Kurds, and the rest accused of coup plotting; the real consequences of his "long shadow" are felt on media outlets through volunteering media owners acting as lackeys/sycophants day by day imposing censorship in the newsrooms. So what the Turkish journalist (as opposed to the Kurdish one) today fears is not jail, but being unemployed.
Some examples of this were seen in cases where a popular columnist or a TV anchor suddenly, with no apparent reason, was told to go.
The problem is there is no voice that stands up to the PM, to make sense, that it is self-destructive to try to create a monolithic press landscape in a country where a tradition of diversity and pluralism and competition is far too strong; fear of jail is far too little.
No government in Turkey could control a media with 40 daily national newspapers, 250-plus private TV channels, 1,300 radio stations, and Internet where at least 11 news portals are operative.
In conclusion, there is no crackdown on the media here, but growing control, decreasing (if any left) editorial independence in the center, and a climate of self-censorship not imposed by the political power but by the economic power (owners) who act in their own financial interests.
The worst and critical part is that, at the moment, there is no media owner in the "center" who cares or stands up for the decent conduct of the profession. Not long ago, lashing out at some columnists, the PM addressed the media owners as "shopkeepers." Not a single word of protest came from those humiliated; yet abroad they were very keen on repeating that "media freedom in Turkey is in danger." Instead, they hire and fire people, with attention to the "sensitivities in Ankara." (None of the media outlets allow trade union activities in their territory.)
NO: Turkey's press is quite partisan. Why is that? Where does this partisan nature come from? Could you give a little context to that?
YB: It is true. You could say the press was, for decades, under the spell of Kemalism, the official ideology, rather than Journalism. This was comparable--to an extent--to Soviet press practices. Although the climate changed after World War II, as Turkey entered NATO and applied pluralism, Kemalism remained an internalized guide in journalism. It respected all its taboos, acted as parrots in nationally sensitive issues, and remained as an extended part of the regime based on a military-led tutelage.
This also meant that as much as it glorified the military, it was as cynical and disrespectful of democratic mechanisms, free vote, etc. Overall, it backed all the undemocratic moves by the army, coups, or undue interventions into civilian politics. The state traditionally penetrated into the newsrooms, with people linked with secret services, and there are very strong rumors that some key opinion writers were even on the state's payroll.
Kemalism is still internalized in the center, Atatürk remaining a taboo. Even the Islamist/post-Islamist press has Kemalist features, as it publishes front pages full of Soviet-style pictures and clichés on national holidays and commemorations year after year.
Yet partisanship has other faces, too: There is a strong press tradition in the left and in the conservative right. This has played out to the extreme when the AKP unleashed a reform process, which meant breaking one taboo after another, and the Kemalist core of the press is now in either retreat or dissolution.
This has been very painful. Also, the cases of journalists jailed in the Ergenekon type of contexts are interesting, because they showed through evidence presented to courts (such as genuine diaries, etc.) how far some people in the Turkish media could go to battle a party they did not like.
NO: How long can media diversity and vibrancy last if the pressure on the media in Turkey continues with its current pace?
YB: This is a very important question. The future of independent, efficient, strong press for Turkey looks bleak at the moment. The gloom has some reasons: The continuation of AKP (which has done, doubtlessly, a lot of good things for keeping Turkish perestroika alive) as a single, massive, unchallenged force leads to a media that is forced to increasing submission because of the lack of a strong main opposition. The CHP, in main opposition, cares even less about media freedom and free speech than the AKP, which poisons the climate.
Then the worrisome pattern goes on: While the rules of the game in the media landscape remain unchanged, unreformed, what changes are the actors, new proprietors. Turkey's media owners are--like drug addicts--dependent on the powers in Ankara because they are in all sorts of businesses, need approvals for growth and investments, etc., and therefore keep their media outlets either as weapons for extortion or, at best, at the service of governments.
For any progress, we need steps in several dimensions:
Around 40 articles in various laws (Anti-Terror Law, Internet Law, the Penal Code, Radio-TV Law, and Press Law) must be amended in favor of freedoms.
New rules on limitations of media ownership must be brought in.
Media owners who are in other businesses than publishing must be banned from entering public tenders.
Cross-ownership must be severely restricted or banned.
New Trade Union Law must be passed to enhance job security (thus editorial independence) in the media.
The public broadcaster, TRT, still goes on in Cold War style, strictly controlled by the government. It must be reformed to be given autonomy or independence.
Media proprietors must be made aware of the specific nature and social role of journalism, and act as bravely as their employees.
NO: The Turkish authorities have recently proposed amendments to legislation that affect the press, including amendments to Turkey's anti-terror and criminal laws. But many domestic and international critics consider those amendments only cosmetic. How do you assess the amendments? What has prompted the government to propose them?
YB: We still have not seen any progress on the issue. It will remain to be seen whether the so-called Fourth Package will ease the tensions. I remain skeptical until it happens. Until it happens, we will be operating in a suffocating atmosphere. In conclusion, let me say this: The outside observers tend to make believe that this is all about jailed journalists. While the urgency and priority of the issue is clear, no one should ever believe that once all of them are released, Turkey's media freedom issues will be resolved. No. They will all remain, in effect, as threatened and frustrated as they are.
Nina Ognianova is coordinator of CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program <http://cpj.org/europe/> . A native of Bulgaria, Ognianova has led CPJ advocacy missions to Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.
Please sign the petition on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people during Saddam Hussein¹s regime
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Please join us to support British MP Nadhim Zahawi’s petition on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Sign it here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31014
Background
Article 2 of United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
The Kurds have been subjected to“ the deliberate and systematic destruction” in the 20th century due to their ethnic and but also religious (Kurdish Alevis and Ezidis) backgrounds. The genocide perpetrated over decades against the Kurdish people in Iraq and 24 years ago, the people of Halabja were subjected to a barbaric crime when the Dictator Saddam Hussein’s aircraft bombed the city of Halabja with chemical gas. Leo Casey descried the chemical gas attack on Halabja in his article “Questioning Halabja” with following words:
Heavy, dark yellow clouds formed close to the ground, and overwhelming smells, a mixture of sweet apples and garlic, followed by an odor of rotten eggs, pervaded the air. Birds and animals began to expire, and as the clouds gradually permeated the shelters, people became ill, some vomiting, some finding it hard to breathe, others experiencing skin burns and sharp, stabbing pains as their eyes and noses began to bleed. In panic, with many already dying and others blinded or paralyzed, the people of Halabja fled their city. Behind them lay thousands of dead. Many who escaped bear grim physical injuries from that day: blindness and major respiratory and skin diseases, cancers, and, in the next generation, congenitally malformed infants.
As a result of the chemical gas attack more than 5,000 people have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. 68 per cent of them were children and women. Thousands of people of Halabja are still suffering and looking for justice. The international communities e.g. UN, EU and the League of Arab States and national states have not paid attention to the voice of Kurdish families and survivors yet. The situation of statelessness of Kurds, the “national interests” of some nation states and their political hypocrisy are some key reasons that the genocide against Kurdish people has not been internationally recognized yet. However British MP Nadhim Zahawi has launched an electronic petition calling for a debate at British parliament for the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people. Several British MPs and peers from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have publicly pledged their support to this initiative as well.
We believe that “acknowledging genocide itself is a fundamental means of struggling against genocide. The acknowledgement is itself an affirmation of the right of a people under international law to a safeguarded existence" ( The preamble of the Verdict of the prestigious Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, April 16th, 1984). The recognition of the genocide against the Kurdish people is very important for the families of victims and the survivors. Recognition is a crucial acknowledgement of what Kurdish people in South Kurdistan (Kurdistan region in Iraq) suffered and continue to suffer. The international recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people will also make possible to prosecute those individuals and companies inside and outside Iraq who were responsible for the genocide or who supplied Saddam’s regime with weapons and chemicals. Therefore, we call upon everyone to sign the petition.
We believe that this petition will be one of the important steps to break the silence over one of humanity's greatest tragedies, also known as “Kurdish Hiroshima". 100,000 signatures are requested to trigger a debate in the British parliament on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people. In order to get the 100,000 signatures, your active participation and help is needed. We ask you to join us and encourage your friends and family members to sign the petition and to use your networks, connections and mailing lists to motivate your friends, networks, organizations and communities to do the same.
If you would like to participate actively in promoting the petition and collecting signatures, please contact us at
ksso.network@googlemail.com or info@londonKurdishinstitute.org
London Kurdish Institute
Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation
Kurdish GCSE Campaign Group
Kurdish Supplementary School in Islington
Please join us to support British MP Nadhim Zahawi’s petition on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Sign it here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31014
Background
Article 2 of United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
The Kurds have been subjected to“ the deliberate and systematic destruction” in the 20th century due to their ethnic and but also religious (Kurdish Alevis and Ezidis) backgrounds. The genocide perpetrated over decades against the Kurdish people in Iraq and 24 years ago, the people of Halabja were subjected to a barbaric crime when the Dictator Saddam Hussein’s aircraft bombed the city of Halabja with chemical gas. Leo Casey descried the chemical gas attack on Halabja in his article “Questioning Halabja” with following words:
Heavy, dark yellow clouds formed close to the ground, and overwhelming smells, a mixture of sweet apples and garlic, followed by an odor of rotten eggs, pervaded the air. Birds and animals began to expire, and as the clouds gradually permeated the shelters, people became ill, some vomiting, some finding it hard to breathe, others experiencing skin burns and sharp, stabbing pains as their eyes and noses began to bleed. In panic, with many already dying and others blinded or paralyzed, the people of Halabja fled their city. Behind them lay thousands of dead. Many who escaped bear grim physical injuries from that day: blindness and major respiratory and skin diseases, cancers, and, in the next generation, congenitally malformed infants.
As a result of the chemical gas attack more than 5,000 people have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. 68 per cent of them were children and women. Thousands of people of Halabja are still suffering and looking for justice. The international communities e.g. UN, EU and the League of Arab States and national states have not paid attention to the voice of Kurdish families and survivors yet. The situation of statelessness of Kurds, the “national interests” of some nation states and their political hypocrisy are some key reasons that the genocide against Kurdish people has not been internationally recognized yet. However British MP Nadhim Zahawi has launched an electronic petition calling for a debate at British parliament for the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people. Several British MPs and peers from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have publicly pledged their support to this initiative as well.
We believe that “acknowledging genocide itself is a fundamental means of struggling against genocide. The acknowledgement is itself an affirmation of the right of a people under international law to a safeguarded existence" ( The preamble of the Verdict of the prestigious Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, April 16th, 1984). The recognition of the genocide against the Kurdish people is very important for the families of victims and the survivors. Recognition is a crucial acknowledgement of what Kurdish people in South Kurdistan (Kurdistan region in Iraq) suffered and continue to suffer. The international recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people will also make possible to prosecute those individuals and companies inside and outside Iraq who were responsible for the genocide or who supplied Saddam’s regime with weapons and chemicals. Therefore, we call upon everyone to sign the petition.
We believe that this petition will be one of the important steps to break the silence over one of humanity's greatest tragedies, also known as “Kurdish Hiroshima". 100,000 signatures are requested to trigger a debate in the British parliament on the recognition of genocide against the Kurdish people. In order to get the 100,000 signatures, your active participation and help is needed. We ask you to join us and encourage your friends and family members to sign the petition and to use your networks, connections and mailing lists to motivate your friends, networks, organizations and communities to do the same.
If you would like to participate actively in promoting the petition and collecting signatures, please contact us at
ksso.network@googlemail.com or info@londonKurdishinstitute.org
London Kurdish Institute
Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation
Kurdish GCSE Campaign Group
Kurdish Supplementary School in Islington
Monday 15 October 2012
PiK Solidarity message to the BDP 2nd Extraordinary Congress
Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Solidarity message to the BDP 2nd Extraordinary Congress 14 October 2012
Your important Congress takes place at a crucial period for the future stability of Turkey and in the Middle East.
Turkey is increasingly drawn into the conflict raging across the border in neighbouring Syria which shows no signs of abating. Meanwhile, internal repression against Kurdish and other political activists by Turkey is being insistently stepped up.
Turkish military operations against the Kurds are also being launched with increased intensity; at the same time, the State carries out mass arrests of thousands of Kurdish activists and is holding what amounts to grotesque show trials where a whole swathe of opposition figures are in the dock facing erroneous charges of supporting terrorism.
By the use of these combined administrative and military measures, Turkey is clearly set on criminalising all effective independent Kurdish opposition.
These developments are all of great concern to us and we pledge to work with you to organise all legitimate democratic resistance and to raise the concerns of the Kurdish people internationally.
It is profoundly disconcerting that the scale of these attacks on the basic freedoms and democratic rights of Turkish citizens is failing to receive the international attention that it deserves.
Indeed, while Turkey is winning credit for its support for the Syrian resistance, few of those who heap praise on Ankara are prepared to point to the contradictions between its stand on Syria and in its attempts to silence democratic opposition voices within its own domestic politics.
The BDP as a party organisation and as individual members are facing severe repression from the Turkish government, whose onslaught has led to thousands of arrests, hundreds of prosecutions, threats to remove parliamentary immunity from its elected members and attempts to close down the party as occurred to its predecessors.
This level of repression is utterly intolerable and surely for the sake of peace and democracy in Turkey it cannot be allowed to continue.
The government of Prime Minister Erdogan remains ambiguous in its attitude to the necessity of genuine negotiations, unwilling to be clear about how, when, and with whom, talks can take place. It is absolutely essential, however, that Turkish leaders are brought to recognise the crucial role that the BDP can play in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.
The election last year of 36 BDP deputies to the National Assembly demonstrates the growing strength of support among the Kurdish people for your party’s policies of peace and social progress. This electoral success is all the more remarkable in that it has been achieved in the face of huge levels of political repression.
The BDP reflects the longing of the Kurdish people to achieve change through peaceful means and we believe that the continued existence of the party is an essential prerequisite for the true democratisation of Turkey.
We fully support your party in all your efforts to achieve political, linguistic, social and cultural rights for the Kurdish people, and for recognition of the Kurdish identity in a new Turkish constitution.
We will continue to demand the release of all elected BDP officials who have been unjustly imprisoned on trumped up charges of terrorism, simply for speaking up for the people who elected them.
Peace in Kurdistan remains steadfast in its campaign to advance the rights of the Kurdish people and is proud to work alongside its Kurdish friends to achieve the peaceful resolution of the conflict that we are all longing for.
We express our solidarity greetings to all delegates taking part in your Congress and wish you every success in your efforts to achieve justice and liberation for the Kurdish people.
Peace in Kurdistan Campaign Patrons and friends
Lord Avebury
Lord Rea
Lord Dholakia
Jill Evans MEP
Jean Lambert MEP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Hywel Williams MP
Elfyn Llwyd MP
John Austin, former MP
Gareth Peirce, human rights lawyer
Julie Christie
Noam Chomsky
John Berger
Edward Albee
Mark Thomas
Jim Shannon MP
Ronnie Campbell MP
Bruce Kent, Vice-President Pax Christi
Joe Ryan, Chair of Westminster Justice and Peace Commission
Dafydd Iwan, Past President, Plaid Cymru
Margaret Owen OBE, barrister
Hugo Charlton, barrister
Tony Fisher, solicitor
Jenny Jones, Leader of the Green Group, London Assembly, Green Party
Nick Hildyard, policy adviser
Prof Mary Davis
Tony Simpson, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Barry White, NUJ/EFJ personal capacity
Val Swain, Netpol
Les Levidow, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
Desmond Fernandes, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
David Morgan, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Melanie Sirinathsingh, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Estella Schmid, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Peace in Kurdistan
Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk <mailto:estella24@tiscali.co.uk>
www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com
Contacts Estella Schmid 020 7586 5892 & Melanie Sirinathsingh - Tel: 020 7272 7890
Fax: 020 7263 0596
Solidarity message to the BDP 2nd Extraordinary Congress 14 October 2012
Your important Congress takes place at a crucial period for the future stability of Turkey and in the Middle East.
Turkey is increasingly drawn into the conflict raging across the border in neighbouring Syria which shows no signs of abating. Meanwhile, internal repression against Kurdish and other political activists by Turkey is being insistently stepped up.
Turkish military operations against the Kurds are also being launched with increased intensity; at the same time, the State carries out mass arrests of thousands of Kurdish activists and is holding what amounts to grotesque show trials where a whole swathe of opposition figures are in the dock facing erroneous charges of supporting terrorism.
By the use of these combined administrative and military measures, Turkey is clearly set on criminalising all effective independent Kurdish opposition.
These developments are all of great concern to us and we pledge to work with you to organise all legitimate democratic resistance and to raise the concerns of the Kurdish people internationally.
It is profoundly disconcerting that the scale of these attacks on the basic freedoms and democratic rights of Turkish citizens is failing to receive the international attention that it deserves.
Indeed, while Turkey is winning credit for its support for the Syrian resistance, few of those who heap praise on Ankara are prepared to point to the contradictions between its stand on Syria and in its attempts to silence democratic opposition voices within its own domestic politics.
The BDP as a party organisation and as individual members are facing severe repression from the Turkish government, whose onslaught has led to thousands of arrests, hundreds of prosecutions, threats to remove parliamentary immunity from its elected members and attempts to close down the party as occurred to its predecessors.
This level of repression is utterly intolerable and surely for the sake of peace and democracy in Turkey it cannot be allowed to continue.
The government of Prime Minister Erdogan remains ambiguous in its attitude to the necessity of genuine negotiations, unwilling to be clear about how, when, and with whom, talks can take place. It is absolutely essential, however, that Turkish leaders are brought to recognise the crucial role that the BDP can play in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.
The election last year of 36 BDP deputies to the National Assembly demonstrates the growing strength of support among the Kurdish people for your party’s policies of peace and social progress. This electoral success is all the more remarkable in that it has been achieved in the face of huge levels of political repression.
The BDP reflects the longing of the Kurdish people to achieve change through peaceful means and we believe that the continued existence of the party is an essential prerequisite for the true democratisation of Turkey.
We fully support your party in all your efforts to achieve political, linguistic, social and cultural rights for the Kurdish people, and for recognition of the Kurdish identity in a new Turkish constitution.
We will continue to demand the release of all elected BDP officials who have been unjustly imprisoned on trumped up charges of terrorism, simply for speaking up for the people who elected them.
Peace in Kurdistan remains steadfast in its campaign to advance the rights of the Kurdish people and is proud to work alongside its Kurdish friends to achieve the peaceful resolution of the conflict that we are all longing for.
We express our solidarity greetings to all delegates taking part in your Congress and wish you every success in your efforts to achieve justice and liberation for the Kurdish people.
Peace in Kurdistan Campaign Patrons and friends
Lord Avebury
Lord Rea
Lord Dholakia
Jill Evans MEP
Jean Lambert MEP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Hywel Williams MP
Elfyn Llwyd MP
John Austin, former MP
Gareth Peirce, human rights lawyer
Julie Christie
Noam Chomsky
John Berger
Edward Albee
Mark Thomas
Jim Shannon MP
Ronnie Campbell MP
Bruce Kent, Vice-President Pax Christi
Joe Ryan, Chair of Westminster Justice and Peace Commission
Dafydd Iwan, Past President, Plaid Cymru
Margaret Owen OBE, barrister
Hugo Charlton, barrister
Tony Fisher, solicitor
Jenny Jones, Leader of the Green Group, London Assembly, Green Party
Nick Hildyard, policy adviser
Prof Mary Davis
Tony Simpson, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Barry White, NUJ/EFJ personal capacity
Val Swain, Netpol
Les Levidow, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
Desmond Fernandes, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
David Morgan, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Melanie Sirinathsingh, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Estella Schmid, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Peace in Kurdistan
Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk <mailto:estella24@tiscali.co.uk>
www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com
Contacts Estella Schmid 020 7586 5892 & Melanie Sirinathsingh - Tel: 020 7272 7890
Fax: 020 7263 0596
The 33rd day from hunger strike to "death fast"
On 12th September 2012, nine women prisoners in Diyarbakir E type prison began an indefinite hunger-strike. In the statement they made via lawyers they highlighted two demands: the right to use their Kurdish mother tongue in the public sphere, including court and the removal of obstacles preventing imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan from negotiating in peace talks with the Turkish state. Soon after, many other inmates, men and women, from prisons in every corner of Turkey began joining the hunger-strike; sometimes in groups and in certain prisons individually. Now there are 380 prisoners in 39 prisons who are on what has surpassed a hunger-strike and become a ‘death fast.’ This is their 33rd day.
12th September is an infamous day in Turkey’s history; the military coup that took place on this day in 1980 is representative of all that the ‘others’ of Turkey have had to suffer at the hands of the state. The 1980 military coup which opened the path for the Islamist cadres who now lead the AKP government, detained over a million people, imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands, carried out capital punishment on hundreds and pulled a black shroud over the whole of the country. Of course the victims of these inhumane practices were the Kurdish and Socialist Revolutionaries demanding national rights, democracy and independence – just like today.
The aim of the military coup was to silence the opposition and create a monolithic society in Turkey and Kurdistan using any means necessary; and the state was almost successful if it hadn’t been for the resistance of the Kurdish and Turkish cadres of the modern Kurdish Freedom Movement which in those days had recently been founded. It is an irony that these cadres were also imprisoned in Diyarbakir prison when on 14th July 1982 they began what is now termed as the ‘Great Death Fast Resistance’ in protest against the prevention of the right to defence, torture and inhumane prison conditions. The leaders of that ‘death fast’; Kemal Pir, M. Hayri Durmus, Ali Cicek and Akif Yilmaz all lost their lives. But this single event stoked the fire that had been lit by the likes of Mazlum Dogan. Necmi Oner, Ferhat Kurtay, Esref Anyik and Mahmut Zengin who had immolated themselves, and burnt to smithereens the shroud that had been pulled over the people, raising the Kurdish resistance against the Turkish state.
How similar it is today. The AKP regime, like its military counterpart has detained tens of thousands of Kurdish politicians, journalists, health-workers, lawyers, human rights activists and children, imprisoning almost ten thousand since 2009, when the witch-hunt known as the KCK (The Union of Communities in Kurdistan) trials began. It is ironic that almost all these people are members of the legal Peace & Democracy Party (BDP), the AKP’s most fierce and only opposition in the Kurdish areas of Turkey. And that not a single fire-arm, weapon or anything pertaining to terrorist activity was found or discovered about these people who have been in prison for almost four years without sentencing is further proof that the AKP is behind the ‘hostage’ situation. Because with only small changes in the constitution the AKP could bring an end to the unnecessary suffering of these people and their families. However while this grave injustice hangs over the nation like a dark cloud Turkey’s Prime Minister has made ‘one language, one state, one nation’ his favourite slogan, saying that there is no longer a Kurdish issue in Turkey. The AKP dominated Turkish media have followed suit and are not even reporting the clashes between the PKK and Turkish army anymore. Furthermore and to the utter horror of Kurds and democratic circles there is yet to be even a single news item about the ‘death fast’ on mainstream Turkish TV. There is a total black-out regarding all matters Kurdish.
Besime Konca, the chair of the BDP’s women parliament before her imprisonment, and one of the nine who began the ‘death fast’ in Diyarbakir prison has spent 16 of her 38 year life behind bars because of her political activities. In her last meeting with family she told them: ‘ Behind these cold walls we have nothing to sacrifice but our bodies, and we will not refrain from doing this for the freedom of our people and a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue. Our morale is soaring, we are strong and cannot be defeated by the enemies of democracy and an honourable life.’
As I write this, another statement has been made from prison by Deniz Kaya, the spokesman for prisoners sentenced in PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) and PAJK (Free Women’s Party of Kurdistan) cases. In it he says:
‘From 15th October onwards all PKK and PAJK inmates inTurkey and Kurdistan’s prisons will join in the indefinite hunger-strike. Rather than respond to the demands of people on hunger-strike, the AKP government has attacked prisoners with solitary confinement, disciplinary action and physical torture. There are prisoners who have internal bleeding and are being forced to treatment. If the AKP think they can deter us, they are mistaken, we will not give up our freedom. If there is a price to pay we will pay it, if there is torture we will persist, if there is suppression we will resist, if there is solitary confinement then so be it!
At a time time when our leader Abdullah Ocalan is in intensified solitary confinement and his life is under threat; when our people are attacked and tortured physically, politically and culturally by the racist regime’s military and police, all we have to protect them are our naked bodies. We will not hear the voices of anybody except our leader and movement. We will not heed any calls for us to end the hunger-strikes until our demands are met, the ban on Kurdish is lifted and the path to the freedom of our leader opened.
We are appealing to our people and all revolutionary and democratic public opinion to join in an indefinite act of solidarity and continual period of action to realise the freedom and democratic unity of our people. We are also calling on all sensitive political parties, MPs in parliament, non-governmental and human rights organisations: hear our cries. The people of Kurdistan are under the threat of genocide, our comrades in prison are on the threshold of death, our leader is under savage torture and Kurdistan has been turned into Vietnam.’
Millions of Kurds around the world today are hoping that these ‘death fasts’ do not end in loss. But their voices are going unheard outside Turkey and Kurdistan and Kurdish communities in Europe. Kurds need the support of all individuals, human rights and non-governmental organisations, professional circles, political parties and governments. Everyone can do something to stop these deaths.
What can you do?
source: http://apogeeculture.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-33rd-day.html
12th September is an infamous day in Turkey’s history; the military coup that took place on this day in 1980 is representative of all that the ‘others’ of Turkey have had to suffer at the hands of the state. The 1980 military coup which opened the path for the Islamist cadres who now lead the AKP government, detained over a million people, imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands, carried out capital punishment on hundreds and pulled a black shroud over the whole of the country. Of course the victims of these inhumane practices were the Kurdish and Socialist Revolutionaries demanding national rights, democracy and independence – just like today.
The aim of the military coup was to silence the opposition and create a monolithic society in Turkey and Kurdistan using any means necessary; and the state was almost successful if it hadn’t been for the resistance of the Kurdish and Turkish cadres of the modern Kurdish Freedom Movement which in those days had recently been founded. It is an irony that these cadres were also imprisoned in Diyarbakir prison when on 14th July 1982 they began what is now termed as the ‘Great Death Fast Resistance’ in protest against the prevention of the right to defence, torture and inhumane prison conditions. The leaders of that ‘death fast’; Kemal Pir, M. Hayri Durmus, Ali Cicek and Akif Yilmaz all lost their lives. But this single event stoked the fire that had been lit by the likes of Mazlum Dogan. Necmi Oner, Ferhat Kurtay, Esref Anyik and Mahmut Zengin who had immolated themselves, and burnt to smithereens the shroud that had been pulled over the people, raising the Kurdish resistance against the Turkish state.
How similar it is today. The AKP regime, like its military counterpart has detained tens of thousands of Kurdish politicians, journalists, health-workers, lawyers, human rights activists and children, imprisoning almost ten thousand since 2009, when the witch-hunt known as the KCK (The Union of Communities in Kurdistan) trials began. It is ironic that almost all these people are members of the legal Peace & Democracy Party (BDP), the AKP’s most fierce and only opposition in the Kurdish areas of Turkey. And that not a single fire-arm, weapon or anything pertaining to terrorist activity was found or discovered about these people who have been in prison for almost four years without sentencing is further proof that the AKP is behind the ‘hostage’ situation. Because with only small changes in the constitution the AKP could bring an end to the unnecessary suffering of these people and their families. However while this grave injustice hangs over the nation like a dark cloud Turkey’s Prime Minister has made ‘one language, one state, one nation’ his favourite slogan, saying that there is no longer a Kurdish issue in Turkey. The AKP dominated Turkish media have followed suit and are not even reporting the clashes between the PKK and Turkish army anymore. Furthermore and to the utter horror of Kurds and democratic circles there is yet to be even a single news item about the ‘death fast’ on mainstream Turkish TV. There is a total black-out regarding all matters Kurdish.
Besime Konca, the chair of the BDP’s women parliament before her imprisonment, and one of the nine who began the ‘death fast’ in Diyarbakir prison has spent 16 of her 38 year life behind bars because of her political activities. In her last meeting with family she told them: ‘ Behind these cold walls we have nothing to sacrifice but our bodies, and we will not refrain from doing this for the freedom of our people and a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue. Our morale is soaring, we are strong and cannot be defeated by the enemies of democracy and an honourable life.’
As I write this, another statement has been made from prison by Deniz Kaya, the spokesman for prisoners sentenced in PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) and PAJK (Free Women’s Party of Kurdistan) cases. In it he says:
‘From 15th October onwards all PKK and PAJK inmates inTurkey and Kurdistan’s prisons will join in the indefinite hunger-strike. Rather than respond to the demands of people on hunger-strike, the AKP government has attacked prisoners with solitary confinement, disciplinary action and physical torture. There are prisoners who have internal bleeding and are being forced to treatment. If the AKP think they can deter us, they are mistaken, we will not give up our freedom. If there is a price to pay we will pay it, if there is torture we will persist, if there is suppression we will resist, if there is solitary confinement then so be it!
At a time time when our leader Abdullah Ocalan is in intensified solitary confinement and his life is under threat; when our people are attacked and tortured physically, politically and culturally by the racist regime’s military and police, all we have to protect them are our naked bodies. We will not hear the voices of anybody except our leader and movement. We will not heed any calls for us to end the hunger-strikes until our demands are met, the ban on Kurdish is lifted and the path to the freedom of our leader opened.
We are appealing to our people and all revolutionary and democratic public opinion to join in an indefinite act of solidarity and continual period of action to realise the freedom and democratic unity of our people. We are also calling on all sensitive political parties, MPs in parliament, non-governmental and human rights organisations: hear our cries. The people of Kurdistan are under the threat of genocide, our comrades in prison are on the threshold of death, our leader is under savage torture and Kurdistan has been turned into Vietnam.’
Millions of Kurds around the world today are hoping that these ‘death fasts’ do not end in loss. But their voices are going unheard outside Turkey and Kurdistan and Kurdish communities in Europe. Kurds need the support of all individuals, human rights and non-governmental organisations, professional circles, political parties and governments. Everyone can do something to stop these deaths.
What can you do?
source: http://apogeeculture.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-33rd-day.html
Turkey's shame, by Mary Davis, Morning Star
Turkey's shame
by Mary Davis
The trial of 69 Kurdish trade union organisers which started yesterday should remind the world of the continued denial of democratic and national rights in Turkey. These trade unionists are being prosecuted under the country's anti-terrorist legislation for being leaders of the Kurdish Communities Union (KCM).
The government claims that the KCM has links with the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Their actual crimes consist of organising demonstrations and taking part in strikes.
Eight thousand people have been arrested under this legislation over the past four years. Almost 6,000 are still in detention - including many women.
Today around 20 million Kurds live within Turkey. They do so as a result of the arbitrary carve-up of the Middle East after the first world war by Britain and France.
The new states of Iraq (British), Syria (French) and a residual Turkey all contained sizeable Kurdish minorities, as did north-west Persia (modern Iran), another British dependency.
In drawing the boundaries Britain's negotiators paid a great deal of attention to the location of oil - but none at all to the national rights of Kurds who became the world's largest ethnic grouping denied the right of either statehood or regional autonomy.
By far the biggest proportion of Kurds lived in Turkey where governments have pursued a policy of "national" assimilation with varying degrees of ruthlessness for the past 90 years.
It remains an offence under the Turkish constitution for any official to refer to the entity of Kurdistan or for the Kurdish language to be used in any official document or transaction. State schools are not permitted to teach in Kurdish.
The Kurdish population has responded with a series of movements demanding independence or regional autonomy. For most of the past four decades there has been an intermittent armed struggle, periodically suspended in the hope of securing negotiations, to achieve some measure of autonomy and self-government.
The principal Kurdish organisation engaged in this struggle is the PKK. Its leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999 and sentenced to death - commuted to life imprisonment after international protest.
Ocalan's trial, his denial of access to lawyers and his detention in solitary confinement have been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights as violating three of the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Turkish authorities have responded to the Kurdish resistance with equally draconian military measures. By the mid-1990s, Human Rights Watch reports, 3,000 villages had been forcibly cleared and over 370,000 people moved. Aerial bombings were frequent. Targeted assassinations by the Turkish authorities ran into thousands.
Between 1999 and 2004 the PKK declared a ceasefire and in 2006 Ocalan initiated a bid for a dialogue with the government to secure limited autonomy for Kurds. By 2010 he declared this attempt at dialogue "meaningless."
Over the past two years resistance and repression have intensified. Aerial bombing has been resumed and extended across the border to Iraqi Kurdistan - on an almost daily basis. Turkish parliamentary approval for cross-border action against Syria means that the semi-autonomous Kurdish towns and cities of north-east Syria are within Turkish military sights.
Recent years have also seen attacks on any remaining civil rights. In 2009 the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) managed to elect 36 MPs to the Turkish parliament, securing a majority of votes in south-east Turkey. The BDP's political immunity is now under threat.
The arrest of trade unionists represents a continuation of this attempt to remove any civic leadership. Our delegation witnessed at first hand police brutality when they visited Diyarbakir on July 14 and saw the break-up of a BDP demonstration in which many people including MPs were injured.
Nor is it an accident that many of those arrested are women. Kurdish society is largely secular and one in which women have always played a leading role.
It has always seen itself as culturally and ideologically distinct from the strongly patriarchal traditions of Turkish society. Over the past decade this cultural divide has widened further as a result of the increasingly overt Islamic policies of the Freedom and Justice Party (AKP) government.
As Ocalan has said, "people are not just longing for democracy. They want a democratic society without sexism."
In Kurdistan we visited women's advice centres which offer support to women facing both domestic abuse and increasing state antagonism to "independent" women. We also visited women's press agency Jinha News, set up in March to ensure that women's perspectives were reported in Kurdistan and internationally.
The political perspectives of Ocalan, outlined most recently in his 2011 Road Map to the Democratisation of Turkey, stress the importance of separating issues of identity, religion and ethnicity from that of statehood.
He now advocates a confederal solution and the creation of a democratic Turkish state that is not tied to one national or religious identity. He has, as recently as last month, called for Syria to adopt a similar form of autonomy for its Kurdish areas. Further information is available at www.freeocalan.org.
Immediately, however, international solidarity is required to ensure that the 69 union leaders on trial do not join the thousands already detained.
- The International Trade Union Confederation has issued a statement calling for representations to be made to governments, especially Nato members. Labour Start has a petition on the 69 here.
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by Mary Davis
The trial of 69 Kurdish trade union organisers which started yesterday should remind the world of the continued denial of democratic and national rights in Turkey. These trade unionists are being prosecuted under the country's anti-terrorist legislation for being leaders of the Kurdish Communities Union (KCM).
The government claims that the KCM has links with the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Their actual crimes consist of organising demonstrations and taking part in strikes.
Eight thousand people have been arrested under this legislation over the past four years. Almost 6,000 are still in detention - including many women.
Today around 20 million Kurds live within Turkey. They do so as a result of the arbitrary carve-up of the Middle East after the first world war by Britain and France.
The new states of Iraq (British), Syria (French) and a residual Turkey all contained sizeable Kurdish minorities, as did north-west Persia (modern Iran), another British dependency.
In drawing the boundaries Britain's negotiators paid a great deal of attention to the location of oil - but none at all to the national rights of Kurds who became the world's largest ethnic grouping denied the right of either statehood or regional autonomy.
By far the biggest proportion of Kurds lived in Turkey where governments have pursued a policy of "national" assimilation with varying degrees of ruthlessness for the past 90 years.
It remains an offence under the Turkish constitution for any official to refer to the entity of Kurdistan or for the Kurdish language to be used in any official document or transaction. State schools are not permitted to teach in Kurdish.
The Kurdish population has responded with a series of movements demanding independence or regional autonomy. For most of the past four decades there has been an intermittent armed struggle, periodically suspended in the hope of securing negotiations, to achieve some measure of autonomy and self-government.
The principal Kurdish organisation engaged in this struggle is the PKK. Its leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999 and sentenced to death - commuted to life imprisonment after international protest.
Ocalan's trial, his denial of access to lawyers and his detention in solitary confinement have been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights as violating three of the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Turkish authorities have responded to the Kurdish resistance with equally draconian military measures. By the mid-1990s, Human Rights Watch reports, 3,000 villages had been forcibly cleared and over 370,000 people moved. Aerial bombings were frequent. Targeted assassinations by the Turkish authorities ran into thousands.
Between 1999 and 2004 the PKK declared a ceasefire and in 2006 Ocalan initiated a bid for a dialogue with the government to secure limited autonomy for Kurds. By 2010 he declared this attempt at dialogue "meaningless."
Over the past two years resistance and repression have intensified. Aerial bombing has been resumed and extended across the border to Iraqi Kurdistan - on an almost daily basis. Turkish parliamentary approval for cross-border action against Syria means that the semi-autonomous Kurdish towns and cities of north-east Syria are within Turkish military sights.
Recent years have also seen attacks on any remaining civil rights. In 2009 the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) managed to elect 36 MPs to the Turkish parliament, securing a majority of votes in south-east Turkey. The BDP's political immunity is now under threat.
The arrest of trade unionists represents a continuation of this attempt to remove any civic leadership. Our delegation witnessed at first hand police brutality when they visited Diyarbakir on July 14 and saw the break-up of a BDP demonstration in which many people including MPs were injured.
Nor is it an accident that many of those arrested are women. Kurdish society is largely secular and one in which women have always played a leading role.
It has always seen itself as culturally and ideologically distinct from the strongly patriarchal traditions of Turkish society. Over the past decade this cultural divide has widened further as a result of the increasingly overt Islamic policies of the Freedom and Justice Party (AKP) government.
As Ocalan has said, "people are not just longing for democracy. They want a democratic society without sexism."
In Kurdistan we visited women's advice centres which offer support to women facing both domestic abuse and increasing state antagonism to "independent" women. We also visited women's press agency Jinha News, set up in March to ensure that women's perspectives were reported in Kurdistan and internationally.
The political perspectives of Ocalan, outlined most recently in his 2011 Road Map to the Democratisation of Turkey, stress the importance of separating issues of identity, religion and ethnicity from that of statehood.
He now advocates a confederal solution and the creation of a democratic Turkish state that is not tied to one national or religious identity. He has, as recently as last month, called for Syria to adopt a similar form of autonomy for its Kurdish areas. Further information is available at www.freeocalan.org.
Immediately, however, international solidarity is required to ensure that the 69 union leaders on trial do not join the thousands already detained.
- The International Trade Union Confederation has issued a statement calling for representations to be made to governments, especially Nato members. Labour Start has a petition on the 69 here.
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Thursday 11 October 2012
KURDISH NEWS WEEKLY BRIEFING, 5 11 October 2012
1. Turkish court allows Kurdish defense
7 October 2012 / Hurriyet
A court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır has permitted Hatip Dicle, who was elected in the 2011 general elections before being stripped of his deputyship, to defend himself in Kurdish in the ongoing Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) trial. Dicle’s speech is being translated by his lawyer, Mehmet Emin Aktar. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç told reporters in Diyarbakır on Oct. 5 that it had become impossible to give rulings in the case caused by the “vicious circle” stemming from the defendants’ insistence on defending themselves in Kurdish and the courts’ refusal to permit them to do so.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-court-allows-kurdish-defense.aspx?pageID=238&nID=31827&NewsCatID=339
2. Turkish Parliament is an opportunity for Kurds, Barzani says
7 October 2012 / Hurriyet
Kurdish members of the Turkish Parliament now have an opportunity to make their influence felt, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Masoud Barzani has said while speaking out against ongoing violence in Turkey. “The opposition can be transformed into peaceful demonstrations in city streets, the Parliament and elsewhere. There is no need for violence. We have told the Kurdish political leaders that they should resolve the problem by peaceful means,” Barzani said in an interview with French media. “While it is true that Turkey has a problem with the Kurds, there must be a peaceful solution to the “Kurdish problem.”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-parliament-is-an-opportunity-for-kurds-barzani-says-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=31826&NewsCatID=338
3. Turkish jets strike Kurdish PKK rebel hideouts in Iraqi Kurdistan
8 October 2012 /eKurd
Turkish jets bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in Iraq's Kurdistan region overnight, Turkish military sources told AFP, but it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties. At least 12 F-16 fighter jets took off from the Diyarbakir base in the southeast and targeted four camps in the Turkish-Iraqi border area of Qandil Mountains and the surrounding area where the leadership of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) is believed to be hiding, the sources added. The latest operation comes after the Turkish government asked parliament last week to renew the mandate for its armed forces to attack Kurdish rebel bases in Iraq for another year, as the clashes sharply escalated between the two sides.
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/10/turkey4210.htm
4. BDP Baluken asks parliamentary inquiry on hunger strikes
9 October 2012 / ANF
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Group deputy chairman İdris Baluken asked for a Parliamentary Inquiry in order to investigate the ongoing indefinite and non-alternate hunger strikes staged in Turkish prisons in protest against the isolation imposed on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan for over 430 days now. BDP Group deputy chairman Baluken asked Speaker’s Office for a parliamentary investigation to determine the measures to be taken concerning the actions prisoners have staged in protest against the failure of resolution of problems in Turkish prisons and the fulfilment of their political demands.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5209
5. Don't Touch the BDP's Women Deputies
6 October 2012 / Bianet
After Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy Sebahat Tuncel got sentenced to 8 years and 9 months in prison for being a "member of an illegal organization", Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said "Are they women?", implying the BDP's women deputies. Women made a sit-down protest in Galatasaray, İstanbul against Arınç's statement. The protest was hold after the Saturday Mothers meeting. In the press statement it was claimed that Prime Minister Erdoğan and the AKP's deputies conflate their insults to Kurdish politicians with sexism and target the BDP's women deputies. It was stated that while the plan to lift the immunities of the BDP's deputies was on the agenda, the women deputies were subjected to sexist hostility; it was also underlined that the BDP's women deputies were exposed to physical violence.
http://www.bianet.org/english/women/141363-dont-touch-the-bdps-women-deputies
6. Kurds in Turkey protest against 9 October conspiracy
9 October 2012 / ANF
The Kurdish people in Turkey will be taking to the streets today in mass to protest against the 9 October 1998 international conspiracy against PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan. Protests at the fourteenth anniversary of the international conspiracy which ended up with Kurdish leader’s being expelled from Syria have started at early morning hours today as the people in all provinces and districts of North Kurdistan have closed their shops and are preparing for the mass demonstrations in the afternoon.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5212 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5212>
7. Police attacks BDP demonstration for Öcalan
8 October 2012 / ANF
Two members of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were injured and at least five others were taken into custody on Sunday at the sit-in BDP Istanbul organization staged at Taksim Square to condemn the 9 October conspiracy against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan and to call attention to the ongoing hunger strike of Kurdish political prisoners in Turkish prisons. The sit-in which lasted about half an hour was followed by a press statement by BDP Istanbul provincial co-chair Asiye Kolçak who remarked that the ruling AKP government is paving the way for conflict between peoples and destroying their will to live together in peace by subjecting Kurds to political, economic, cultural, historical and ecological genocide.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5207
8. Over 40 village guards lay down arms in Van
10 October 2012 / ANF
More than 40 village guards have collectively laid down arms today, refusing to join an operation in the village of Narlı (Xaviştan) in Van’s Çatak district. The village guards have submitted their resignation to the Governor’s office of Çatak on Wednesday morning after they were called for an operation by the police directorate in the village last night. A village guard, asking to be mentioned anonymous, said that a lieutenant had insulted them for not accepting to join the operation. “We will never take up arms again like all other village guards in our village”, he underlined.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5216
9. Tensions Mount on Syrian Border Following Artillery Exchange
5 October 2012 / Bianet
Following the deadly cross-border shelling in the southeastern province of Urfa on Wednesday, the Turkish Prime Ministry announced they had responded without delay by firing on army positions inside of Syria with artillery barrages.
"Our military units in the border area have responded in kind in accordance with the rules of engagement and struck with artillery fire against targets in Syria that were identified by radar," the Turkish Prime Ministry said, in reference to the new rules of engagement that came into force following the downing of a Turkish reconnaissance jet by Syria in June. The Syrian Ministry of Information also responded the same day by offering their condolences to the victims of the shelling and to the Turkish public, adding that they had initiated an investigation regarding the matter.
http://www.bianet.org/english/world/141292-tensions-mount-on-syrian-border-following-artillery-exchange
10. VIDEO: Turkey Unlikely to Push Confrontation with Syria
The Real News Network
Vijay Prashad: Turkey can't live up to its tough rhetoric on Syria as it faces Kurdish resistance and morale crisis in army after 300 officers convicted of treason.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8932 <http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8932>
11. Michel Temo assassinated on Assad’s direct order
11 October 2012 / Roj Helat
Al Arabiya news outlet published a security document belonging to Syrian regime establishing that one of the Kurdish leaders in West Kurdistan, Michel Temo, was assassinated on the order of Syrian authorities. One of the documents clearly illustrates that Michel Temo was assassinated on direct order of Syrian president Beshar Assad passed to the air forces for execution. A senior affiliate in the air forces was commanded by the chief of staff Saqar Manun to travel to Hasaka city and assassinate Michel Temo, the document notes. Another document also establishes that the assassination order came from Bashar Assad to Saqar Manun. The intention behind this assassination was to put pressure on the Turkish government, the document remarks.
http://rojhelat.info/en/?p=3960
12. Terrorist Group in Syria Names 2 Battalions after Saddam Hussein
7 October 2012 / Fars News Agency
The so-called Free Syrian Army, the main armed rebel group fighting President Bashar al-Assad's government, announced that it has set up two battalions called 'Martyr Saddam Hussein' in the cities of Idlib and Deir al-Zour in Syria. In a blatant act of defiance and in a move aimed at provoking the feelings of Kurds in general and Syrian Kurds in particular, the FSA formed the two battalions. Analysts believe that these acts, which are condemned and seen as worrisome by Kurds and all Syrians, might push the opponents to retract and backtrack on their moves against Bashar Assad's government. Naming the FSA battalions after Saddam Hussein was met with overwhelming outrage and condemnation by the Kurds.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107111202 <http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107111202>
13. 2012 World Kurdish Congress To Strengthen Global Network of Kurdish Scholars
7 October 2012 / Rudaw
In an interview with Rudaw, professor Alan Dilani, founder of the first World Kurdish Congress (WKC), said the group’s second conference will be held in Erbil on Oct. 11-15.
“The WKC has invited the highest level of Kurdish politicians, President Barzani, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and speaker of parliament Mr. Arsalan Baiz,” said Dilani.
Cabinet ministers, foreign ambassadors and European and Canadian MPs are expected to attend the conference.
“They are involved in this event and totally endorse its purpose,” said Dilani. “This event will engage hundreds of Kurdish scientists from all over the world in this crucial era of our history.”
http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/5295.htm <http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/5295.htm>
14. Leading Kurdish Activist Arrested in Paris
11 October 2012 / Peace in Kurdistan campaign
KNK (Kurdistan National Congress) member, Adem Uzun, has been remanded in custody in France after appearing court following his arrest in Paris.
The KNK condemned the action against Mr Uzun and explained in a statement that Uzun was in Paris to take part in the preparations for a conference on West Kurdistan (Syrian Kurdistan), which was scheduled to take place on 13 October.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/leading-kurdish-activist-arrested-in-paris/
15. KCK warns France
10 October 2012 / Roj Helat
After the arrest of Adem Uzun a member of Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) by French police, Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) released a statement warning the French authorities of taking responsive action if the anti-Kurdish policies of France were to persist. Pointing to the role France had played in division of Kurdistan in 1923 the KCK statement remarked; “When Kurdistan was divided into four parts, France played a significant role. Encountered with such an injustice ever since, the Kurds were faced with state terror in 19990s, to encounter such injustice they adopted a path to struggle. France has supported the occupiers, the looters and the mass-murderers [of the Kurds] and now targets the Kurdish politicians.”
http://rojhelat.info/en/?p=3953
16. Head of Danish-Kurdish academic association: ‘An unjust law is no law’
8 October 2012 / Alliance for Kurdish Rights
On September 18th the Danish police conducted a search in a Kurdish community center in Copenhagen in order to find evidence of money transactions between Kurds in Denmark and the Kurdish rebel group, PKK. 8 Kurds were arrested for having collected money for PKK that is recognized as a terrorist group by Denmark. The police says they suspect the 8 men have collected about 9 million Euro from 2009 to 2012 and conveyed more than 19 million Euro to PKK.
The arrested Kurds were all charged with supporting terrorism. One Kurds has been released and one of the lawyers for the now 7 arrested Kurds is Bjørn Elmquist who is also a lawyer for ROJ TV.
http://kurdishrights.org/2012/10/08/head-of-danish-kurdish-academic-association-%E2%80%9Can-unjust-law-is-no-law%E2%80%9D/
17. Kurds in Europe protest 9 October conspiracy against Öcalan
7 October 2012 /ANF
Kurds and their friends in Europe have once again taken to the streets this year to protest against the 9 October 1998 international conspiracy against PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan. The international conspiracy which ended up with Kurdish leader’s being expelled from Syria was protested in the German city of Kassel, Swedish city of Stockholm, Swiss capital city Bern as well as French cities of Marseille and Paris.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5205 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5205>
18. New Kurdistan Map by Eurominority
28 September 2012 / ANF
Stateless Nations and Minority Peoples in Europe (Eurominority) and Kurdish Institute of Paris (Institut kurde de Paris) just released a new map of Kurdistan which aims knowledge of the nation of Mount Ararat (Çiyayê Agiri). The bilingual map, in Kurdish and English, shows the main cities, mountains, rivers and lakes that form historical Kurdistan. Two additional maps also give a good point of view of the Kurdish provinces distributed Among the Turkish, Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi States. The poster also presents a simplified map of dialects of the Kurdish language, thus making the work one of the most synthetic maps of historical Kurdistan.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5174 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5174>
View the map here: http://www.eurominority.eu/version/eng/reports-detail.asp?id_actualite=1562
19. Scorsese teams up with Iranian director
6 October 2012 / UPI
Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi said Martin Scorsese will team up as executive producer for his next film, "60 Seconds of Us."
Ghobadi made the announcement at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, where his latest film, "Rhino Season" was screened, The Hollywood Reporter said Saturday. The two filmmakers are currently working on the script for "60 Seconds of Us," which will be about "the conflict between Iranians and Kurds," Ghobadi said. The film will be shot in southern Turkey because Ghobadi is deemed as persona non grata in Iran for his criticisms of the regime, THR reported.
http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Movies/2012/10/06/Scorsese-teams-up-with-Iranian-director/UPI-63861349545223/
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
20. Defiance in Turkey's Kurdish heartland
11 October 2012 / BBC News
Twelve-year-old Birhat Ciya and his 10-year-old brother Emrah spend the morning lying on the floor, watching cartoons on television. They jump up, looking a little guilty, when visitors enter the room. This is a school day, but the boys' family has decided to keep them at home. Their school's oath - which children across Turkey are meant to recite every morning - includes the words "I am a Turk". The Ciya family, who are Kurdish, refuse to say these words. The boys also insist that they be taught in Kurdish, not Turkish. "We want our own mother language," says Birhat. "They should make our classes in Kurdish - our mother language." His younger brother nods. The political statements done, the two jostle on the sofa and start to play computer games.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19904781
21. Kurdish autonomy in Syria troubling for rebels, Turkey
5 October 2012 / Los Angeles Times
This tranquil town in northwest Syria is a haven from the warfare convulsing much of the country, but the calm points to profound challenges facing the country — and the entire region — when the fighting ends. The laid-back guards at the checkpoints are Kurdish militiamen. The mustachioed man whose image greets visitors is Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in a Turkish prison for his leadership role in the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a group deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/05/world/la-fg-syria-kurds-20121006 <http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/05/world/la-fg-syria-kurds-20121006>
22. Turkey’s Policies At Crossroads: From Zero-Problems To Heap Of Trouble
9 October 2012 / Eurasia Review
It seems that media consensus has been conclusively reached: Turkey has been forced into a Middle Eastern mess not of its own making; the ‘Zero Problems with Neighbors’ notion, once the foreign policy centerpiece of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), is all but a romantic notion of no use in realpolitik. Turkey’s “policy’s goal – to build strong economic, political, and social ties with the country’s immediate neighbors while decreasing its dependency on the United States – seemed to be within sight,” wrote Sinan Ulgen nearly a year ago. “But the Arab Spring exposed the policy’s vulnerabilities, and Turkey must now seek a new guiding principle for regional engagement.”
http://www.eurasiareview.com/09102012-turkeys-policies-at-crossroads-from-zero-problems-to-heap-of-trouble-oped/ <http://www.eurasiareview.com/09102012-turkeys-policies-at-crossroads-from-zero-problems-to-heap-of-trouble-oped/>
23. Press Freedom in Turkey: An Interim Assessment and Avenues for Action
5 October 2012 / Carnegie Europe
What immediately strikes an observer of press freedom in Turkey is the sharp contrast in opinions on the matter. On one side, a substantial body of official and civil society reports converges toward a downbeat assessment of the situation. On the other, statements by government officials at the highest level imply that either there is no problem whatsoever or that the problem is misrepresented by the opposition, the media, or external actors. Recent developments and existing evidence and statements provide the opportunity for independent analysis and highlight some avenues for positive action.
http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=49609&lang=en <http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=49609&lang=en>
24. AUDIO: Turkey not threatened by Syria – expert
10 October 2012 / Voice of Russia
Yanrosh Keles of London Metropolitan University: “After the shelling of the Kurdish populated town in Kurdistan region in Turkey and the killing of two women and three children the Turkish Government has quickly jumped into the fray and saying that we will protect our citizens and our national security and also appealed to the UN Security Council. It is important I think to clarify that firstly – I do not believe that the Syrian Government has some intention to attack the border and kill people. Actually Syria is torn apart and there was a heavy fighting between the Syrian Government and the so called Free Syrian Army at the Tal Abyat border post which fell into the Syrian rebels’ hands last month…”
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_10_10/Turkey-not-threatened-by-Syria-expert/
25. The Syrian Crisis: The current state of affairs, by Prof. Michael M. Gunter
6 October 2012 / Mesop
The Syrian uprising that has been raging, growing, and morphing since it broke out in the southern city of Dara in March 2011, has enormous internal, regional, and international implications. Unlike Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Bashar al-Assad still has powerful friends in Iran, Russia, China, Iraq (but not the KRG!), and even Hezbollah in Lebanon to fall back upon. Thus, the United States, Turkey France, and their NATO allies along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now locked in proxy struggles with Assad’s friends over the future of Syria. For the time being, the result appears to be a stalemate. There are many different dimensions to this situation and any attempt to sort them out can quickly become confusing. This brief analysis will attempt to deal with some aspects of this situation.
http://www.mesop.de/2012/10/09/the-syrian-crisis-the-current-state-of-affairs/
26. Xalit Isa: "It Is Necessary to Promote a Political Solution to Help Syria"
10 October 2012 / Truthout
Pierre Barbancey interviews Xalit Isa, a leader of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change. One of the big opposition movements, NCCDC rallies secular, Leftist parties as well as the Kurdish block. In this interview with l'Humanité's correspondent, Xalit Isa analyses the reasons for the current impasse.
Huma: What's the situation really like on the home ground?
Isa: Within the governmental circles there is still a faction that absolutely refuses to seek a political solution, being heavily compromised in the blood crimes and corruption. ..
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12032-xalit-isa-it-is-necessary-to-promote-a-political-solution-to-help-syria
7 October 2012 / Hurriyet
A court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır has permitted Hatip Dicle, who was elected in the 2011 general elections before being stripped of his deputyship, to defend himself in Kurdish in the ongoing Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) trial. Dicle’s speech is being translated by his lawyer, Mehmet Emin Aktar. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç told reporters in Diyarbakır on Oct. 5 that it had become impossible to give rulings in the case caused by the “vicious circle” stemming from the defendants’ insistence on defending themselves in Kurdish and the courts’ refusal to permit them to do so.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-court-allows-kurdish-defense.aspx?pageID=238&nID=31827&NewsCatID=339
2. Turkish Parliament is an opportunity for Kurds, Barzani says
7 October 2012 / Hurriyet
Kurdish members of the Turkish Parliament now have an opportunity to make their influence felt, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Masoud Barzani has said while speaking out against ongoing violence in Turkey. “The opposition can be transformed into peaceful demonstrations in city streets, the Parliament and elsewhere. There is no need for violence. We have told the Kurdish political leaders that they should resolve the problem by peaceful means,” Barzani said in an interview with French media. “While it is true that Turkey has a problem with the Kurds, there must be a peaceful solution to the “Kurdish problem.”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-parliament-is-an-opportunity-for-kurds-barzani-says-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=31826&NewsCatID=338
3. Turkish jets strike Kurdish PKK rebel hideouts in Iraqi Kurdistan
8 October 2012 /eKurd
Turkish jets bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in Iraq's Kurdistan region overnight, Turkish military sources told AFP, but it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties. At least 12 F-16 fighter jets took off from the Diyarbakir base in the southeast and targeted four camps in the Turkish-Iraqi border area of Qandil Mountains and the surrounding area where the leadership of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) is believed to be hiding, the sources added. The latest operation comes after the Turkish government asked parliament last week to renew the mandate for its armed forces to attack Kurdish rebel bases in Iraq for another year, as the clashes sharply escalated between the two sides.
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/10/turkey4210.htm
4. BDP Baluken asks parliamentary inquiry on hunger strikes
9 October 2012 / ANF
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Group deputy chairman İdris Baluken asked for a Parliamentary Inquiry in order to investigate the ongoing indefinite and non-alternate hunger strikes staged in Turkish prisons in protest against the isolation imposed on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan for over 430 days now. BDP Group deputy chairman Baluken asked Speaker’s Office for a parliamentary investigation to determine the measures to be taken concerning the actions prisoners have staged in protest against the failure of resolution of problems in Turkish prisons and the fulfilment of their political demands.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5209
5. Don't Touch the BDP's Women Deputies
6 October 2012 / Bianet
After Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy Sebahat Tuncel got sentenced to 8 years and 9 months in prison for being a "member of an illegal organization", Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said "Are they women?", implying the BDP's women deputies. Women made a sit-down protest in Galatasaray, İstanbul against Arınç's statement. The protest was hold after the Saturday Mothers meeting. In the press statement it was claimed that Prime Minister Erdoğan and the AKP's deputies conflate their insults to Kurdish politicians with sexism and target the BDP's women deputies. It was stated that while the plan to lift the immunities of the BDP's deputies was on the agenda, the women deputies were subjected to sexist hostility; it was also underlined that the BDP's women deputies were exposed to physical violence.
http://www.bianet.org/english/women/141363-dont-touch-the-bdps-women-deputies
6. Kurds in Turkey protest against 9 October conspiracy
9 October 2012 / ANF
The Kurdish people in Turkey will be taking to the streets today in mass to protest against the 9 October 1998 international conspiracy against PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan. Protests at the fourteenth anniversary of the international conspiracy which ended up with Kurdish leader’s being expelled from Syria have started at early morning hours today as the people in all provinces and districts of North Kurdistan have closed their shops and are preparing for the mass demonstrations in the afternoon.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5212 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5212>
7. Police attacks BDP demonstration for Öcalan
8 October 2012 / ANF
Two members of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were injured and at least five others were taken into custody on Sunday at the sit-in BDP Istanbul organization staged at Taksim Square to condemn the 9 October conspiracy against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan and to call attention to the ongoing hunger strike of Kurdish political prisoners in Turkish prisons. The sit-in which lasted about half an hour was followed by a press statement by BDP Istanbul provincial co-chair Asiye Kolçak who remarked that the ruling AKP government is paving the way for conflict between peoples and destroying their will to live together in peace by subjecting Kurds to political, economic, cultural, historical and ecological genocide.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5207
8. Over 40 village guards lay down arms in Van
10 October 2012 / ANF
More than 40 village guards have collectively laid down arms today, refusing to join an operation in the village of Narlı (Xaviştan) in Van’s Çatak district. The village guards have submitted their resignation to the Governor’s office of Çatak on Wednesday morning after they were called for an operation by the police directorate in the village last night. A village guard, asking to be mentioned anonymous, said that a lieutenant had insulted them for not accepting to join the operation. “We will never take up arms again like all other village guards in our village”, he underlined.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5216
9. Tensions Mount on Syrian Border Following Artillery Exchange
5 October 2012 / Bianet
Following the deadly cross-border shelling in the southeastern province of Urfa on Wednesday, the Turkish Prime Ministry announced they had responded without delay by firing on army positions inside of Syria with artillery barrages.
"Our military units in the border area have responded in kind in accordance with the rules of engagement and struck with artillery fire against targets in Syria that were identified by radar," the Turkish Prime Ministry said, in reference to the new rules of engagement that came into force following the downing of a Turkish reconnaissance jet by Syria in June. The Syrian Ministry of Information also responded the same day by offering their condolences to the victims of the shelling and to the Turkish public, adding that they had initiated an investigation regarding the matter.
http://www.bianet.org/english/world/141292-tensions-mount-on-syrian-border-following-artillery-exchange
10. VIDEO: Turkey Unlikely to Push Confrontation with Syria
The Real News Network
Vijay Prashad: Turkey can't live up to its tough rhetoric on Syria as it faces Kurdish resistance and morale crisis in army after 300 officers convicted of treason.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8932 <http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8932>
11. Michel Temo assassinated on Assad’s direct order
11 October 2012 / Roj Helat
Al Arabiya news outlet published a security document belonging to Syrian regime establishing that one of the Kurdish leaders in West Kurdistan, Michel Temo, was assassinated on the order of Syrian authorities. One of the documents clearly illustrates that Michel Temo was assassinated on direct order of Syrian president Beshar Assad passed to the air forces for execution. A senior affiliate in the air forces was commanded by the chief of staff Saqar Manun to travel to Hasaka city and assassinate Michel Temo, the document notes. Another document also establishes that the assassination order came from Bashar Assad to Saqar Manun. The intention behind this assassination was to put pressure on the Turkish government, the document remarks.
http://rojhelat.info/en/?p=3960
12. Terrorist Group in Syria Names 2 Battalions after Saddam Hussein
7 October 2012 / Fars News Agency
The so-called Free Syrian Army, the main armed rebel group fighting President Bashar al-Assad's government, announced that it has set up two battalions called 'Martyr Saddam Hussein' in the cities of Idlib and Deir al-Zour in Syria. In a blatant act of defiance and in a move aimed at provoking the feelings of Kurds in general and Syrian Kurds in particular, the FSA formed the two battalions. Analysts believe that these acts, which are condemned and seen as worrisome by Kurds and all Syrians, might push the opponents to retract and backtrack on their moves against Bashar Assad's government. Naming the FSA battalions after Saddam Hussein was met with overwhelming outrage and condemnation by the Kurds.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107111202 <http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107111202>
13. 2012 World Kurdish Congress To Strengthen Global Network of Kurdish Scholars
7 October 2012 / Rudaw
In an interview with Rudaw, professor Alan Dilani, founder of the first World Kurdish Congress (WKC), said the group’s second conference will be held in Erbil on Oct. 11-15.
“The WKC has invited the highest level of Kurdish politicians, President Barzani, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and speaker of parliament Mr. Arsalan Baiz,” said Dilani.
Cabinet ministers, foreign ambassadors and European and Canadian MPs are expected to attend the conference.
“They are involved in this event and totally endorse its purpose,” said Dilani. “This event will engage hundreds of Kurdish scientists from all over the world in this crucial era of our history.”
http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/5295.htm <http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/5295.htm>
14. Leading Kurdish Activist Arrested in Paris
11 October 2012 / Peace in Kurdistan campaign
KNK (Kurdistan National Congress) member, Adem Uzun, has been remanded in custody in France after appearing court following his arrest in Paris.
The KNK condemned the action against Mr Uzun and explained in a statement that Uzun was in Paris to take part in the preparations for a conference on West Kurdistan (Syrian Kurdistan), which was scheduled to take place on 13 October.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/leading-kurdish-activist-arrested-in-paris/
15. KCK warns France
10 October 2012 / Roj Helat
After the arrest of Adem Uzun a member of Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) by French police, Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) released a statement warning the French authorities of taking responsive action if the anti-Kurdish policies of France were to persist. Pointing to the role France had played in division of Kurdistan in 1923 the KCK statement remarked; “When Kurdistan was divided into four parts, France played a significant role. Encountered with such an injustice ever since, the Kurds were faced with state terror in 19990s, to encounter such injustice they adopted a path to struggle. France has supported the occupiers, the looters and the mass-murderers [of the Kurds] and now targets the Kurdish politicians.”
http://rojhelat.info/en/?p=3953
16. Head of Danish-Kurdish academic association: ‘An unjust law is no law’
8 October 2012 / Alliance for Kurdish Rights
On September 18th the Danish police conducted a search in a Kurdish community center in Copenhagen in order to find evidence of money transactions between Kurds in Denmark and the Kurdish rebel group, PKK. 8 Kurds were arrested for having collected money for PKK that is recognized as a terrorist group by Denmark. The police says they suspect the 8 men have collected about 9 million Euro from 2009 to 2012 and conveyed more than 19 million Euro to PKK.
The arrested Kurds were all charged with supporting terrorism. One Kurds has been released and one of the lawyers for the now 7 arrested Kurds is Bjørn Elmquist who is also a lawyer for ROJ TV.
http://kurdishrights.org/2012/10/08/head-of-danish-kurdish-academic-association-%E2%80%9Can-unjust-law-is-no-law%E2%80%9D/
17. Kurds in Europe protest 9 October conspiracy against Öcalan
7 October 2012 /ANF
Kurds and their friends in Europe have once again taken to the streets this year to protest against the 9 October 1998 international conspiracy against PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) leader Abdullah Öcalan. The international conspiracy which ended up with Kurdish leader’s being expelled from Syria was protested in the German city of Kassel, Swedish city of Stockholm, Swiss capital city Bern as well as French cities of Marseille and Paris.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5205 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5205>
18. New Kurdistan Map by Eurominority
28 September 2012 / ANF
Stateless Nations and Minority Peoples in Europe (Eurominority) and Kurdish Institute of Paris (Institut kurde de Paris) just released a new map of Kurdistan which aims knowledge of the nation of Mount Ararat (Çiyayê Agiri). The bilingual map, in Kurdish and English, shows the main cities, mountains, rivers and lakes that form historical Kurdistan. Two additional maps also give a good point of view of the Kurdish provinces distributed Among the Turkish, Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi States. The poster also presents a simplified map of dialects of the Kurdish language, thus making the work one of the most synthetic maps of historical Kurdistan.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5174 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5174>
View the map here: http://www.eurominority.eu/version/eng/reports-detail.asp?id_actualite=1562
19. Scorsese teams up with Iranian director
6 October 2012 / UPI
Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi said Martin Scorsese will team up as executive producer for his next film, "60 Seconds of Us."
Ghobadi made the announcement at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, where his latest film, "Rhino Season" was screened, The Hollywood Reporter said Saturday. The two filmmakers are currently working on the script for "60 Seconds of Us," which will be about "the conflict between Iranians and Kurds," Ghobadi said. The film will be shot in southern Turkey because Ghobadi is deemed as persona non grata in Iran for his criticisms of the regime, THR reported.
http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Movies/2012/10/06/Scorsese-teams-up-with-Iranian-director/UPI-63861349545223/
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
20. Defiance in Turkey's Kurdish heartland
11 October 2012 / BBC News
Twelve-year-old Birhat Ciya and his 10-year-old brother Emrah spend the morning lying on the floor, watching cartoons on television. They jump up, looking a little guilty, when visitors enter the room. This is a school day, but the boys' family has decided to keep them at home. Their school's oath - which children across Turkey are meant to recite every morning - includes the words "I am a Turk". The Ciya family, who are Kurdish, refuse to say these words. The boys also insist that they be taught in Kurdish, not Turkish. "We want our own mother language," says Birhat. "They should make our classes in Kurdish - our mother language." His younger brother nods. The political statements done, the two jostle on the sofa and start to play computer games.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19904781
21. Kurdish autonomy in Syria troubling for rebels, Turkey
5 October 2012 / Los Angeles Times
This tranquil town in northwest Syria is a haven from the warfare convulsing much of the country, but the calm points to profound challenges facing the country — and the entire region — when the fighting ends. The laid-back guards at the checkpoints are Kurdish militiamen. The mustachioed man whose image greets visitors is Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in a Turkish prison for his leadership role in the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a group deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/05/world/la-fg-syria-kurds-20121006 <http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/05/world/la-fg-syria-kurds-20121006>
22. Turkey’s Policies At Crossroads: From Zero-Problems To Heap Of Trouble
9 October 2012 / Eurasia Review
It seems that media consensus has been conclusively reached: Turkey has been forced into a Middle Eastern mess not of its own making; the ‘Zero Problems with Neighbors’ notion, once the foreign policy centerpiece of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), is all but a romantic notion of no use in realpolitik. Turkey’s “policy’s goal – to build strong economic, political, and social ties with the country’s immediate neighbors while decreasing its dependency on the United States – seemed to be within sight,” wrote Sinan Ulgen nearly a year ago. “But the Arab Spring exposed the policy’s vulnerabilities, and Turkey must now seek a new guiding principle for regional engagement.”
http://www.eurasiareview.com/09102012-turkeys-policies-at-crossroads-from-zero-problems-to-heap-of-trouble-oped/ <http://www.eurasiareview.com/09102012-turkeys-policies-at-crossroads-from-zero-problems-to-heap-of-trouble-oped/>
23. Press Freedom in Turkey: An Interim Assessment and Avenues for Action
5 October 2012 / Carnegie Europe
What immediately strikes an observer of press freedom in Turkey is the sharp contrast in opinions on the matter. On one side, a substantial body of official and civil society reports converges toward a downbeat assessment of the situation. On the other, statements by government officials at the highest level imply that either there is no problem whatsoever or that the problem is misrepresented by the opposition, the media, or external actors. Recent developments and existing evidence and statements provide the opportunity for independent analysis and highlight some avenues for positive action.
http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=49609&lang=en <http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=49609&lang=en>
24. AUDIO: Turkey not threatened by Syria – expert
10 October 2012 / Voice of Russia
Yanrosh Keles of London Metropolitan University: “After the shelling of the Kurdish populated town in Kurdistan region in Turkey and the killing of two women and three children the Turkish Government has quickly jumped into the fray and saying that we will protect our citizens and our national security and also appealed to the UN Security Council. It is important I think to clarify that firstly – I do not believe that the Syrian Government has some intention to attack the border and kill people. Actually Syria is torn apart and there was a heavy fighting between the Syrian Government and the so called Free Syrian Army at the Tal Abyat border post which fell into the Syrian rebels’ hands last month…”
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_10_10/Turkey-not-threatened-by-Syria-expert/
25. The Syrian Crisis: The current state of affairs, by Prof. Michael M. Gunter
6 October 2012 / Mesop
The Syrian uprising that has been raging, growing, and morphing since it broke out in the southern city of Dara in March 2011, has enormous internal, regional, and international implications. Unlike Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Bashar al-Assad still has powerful friends in Iran, Russia, China, Iraq (but not the KRG!), and even Hezbollah in Lebanon to fall back upon. Thus, the United States, Turkey France, and their NATO allies along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now locked in proxy struggles with Assad’s friends over the future of Syria. For the time being, the result appears to be a stalemate. There are many different dimensions to this situation and any attempt to sort them out can quickly become confusing. This brief analysis will attempt to deal with some aspects of this situation.
http://www.mesop.de/2012/10/09/the-syrian-crisis-the-current-state-of-affairs/
26. Xalit Isa: "It Is Necessary to Promote a Political Solution to Help Syria"
10 October 2012 / Truthout
Pierre Barbancey interviews Xalit Isa, a leader of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change. One of the big opposition movements, NCCDC rallies secular, Leftist parties as well as the Kurdish block. In this interview with l'Humanité's correspondent, Xalit Isa analyses the reasons for the current impasse.
Huma: What's the situation really like on the home ground?
Isa: Within the governmental circles there is still a faction that absolutely refuses to seek a political solution, being heavily compromised in the blood crimes and corruption. ..
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12032-xalit-isa-it-is-necessary-to-promote-a-political-solution-to-help-syria
Defiance in Turkey's Kurdish heartland By James Reynolds BBC News
Defiance in Turkey's Kurdish heartland
By James Reynolds BBC News, Yuksekova, eastern Turkey
Twelve-year-old Birhat Ciya and his 10-year-old brother Emrah spend the morning lying on the floor, watching cartoons on television.
They jump up, looking a little guilty, when visitors enter the room.
This is a school day, but the boys' family has decided to keep them at home.
Their school's oath - which children across Turkey are meant to recite every morning - includes the words "I am a Turk".
The Ciya family, who are Kurdish, refuse to say these words. The boys also insist that they be taught in Kurdish, not Turkish.
"We want our own mother language," says Birhat. "They should make our classes in Kurdish - our mother language."
His younger brother nods. The political statements done, the two jostle on the sofa and start to play computer games.
Their younger brother, who appears to disapprove of all visitors, sits outside in the yard and solemnly watches the chickens.
Their mother changes from the cartoon channel to a Kurdish TV station, which broadcasts from Europe.
Surviving son
The boys' grandmother, Naciye Ike, is one of the most well-known Kurdish activists in the town of Yuksekova.
In 1990, her 15-year-old son, Emrah, joined the Kurdish rebel group, the PKK.
Two years later, he was killed. His body has never been found.
In 2003, another son, Ali Ihsan, joined the organisation. He, too, was killed. Naciye has one surviving son, Jihat. She has banned him from signing up, so he now works as an accountant.
"I'm very worried about my grandchildren," she says. "Not only for them, I am worried for everyone. We still want peace [with Turkey], but they ignore us, they don't accept us.
"This is our country. I have always wanted peace but I look at the situation - and maybe I'm wrong - but it's not possible any more. We can't get along. We don't understand each other."
Kurds make up around 15-20% of Turkey's population. In the Middle East as a whole, they number around 25-30 million.
Stateless nation
The Kurds are often described as the world's largest nation without a state. Their heartland is in the mountains of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Iran.
In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers Party - or PKK - in Turkey's eastern Kurdish region.
Since then, the PKK's armed conflict with the Turkish state has cost an estimated 30,000 - 40,000 lives.
The PKK says that it no longer wants independence from Turkey.
Instead, it calls for democratic autonomy within the Turkish state. But reduced aims have not been matched by a lessening of violence.
In the past 15 months alone, more than 700 people have been killed.
The PKK has attacked military checkpoints and convoys.
The Turkish army has attacked the PKK in the movement's mountain strongholds and detained many of the movement's suspected supporters.
This has become the worst period of violence since the capture of Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.
In Yuksekova, hundreds of Kurds march to the town's cemetery to bury a PKK fighter, Orhan Akdohan.
Mourners hold up pictures of their imprisoned leader. The PKK appears to count on plenty of local support, a fact that will make it hard for the Turkish military to defeat the organisation by force alone.
"There have been many deaths in this country," says Serkan Dari, one of the mourners. "And there may be more. That's what the prime minister's language signals."
Some of the town's boys and teenagers wanted to show that they, too, could take on the Turkish state. They put on face masks and threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at the easiest target they can find - the Gazi primary school.
It teaches in Turkish not Kurdish. After much effort, the boys manage to set fire to a classroom. Turkish police officers in an armoured jeep fire tear gas to break up the young arsonists.
An hour's drive from Yuksekova is the town of Semdinli, which lies close to Turkey's borders with both Iraq and Iran. The town's mayor, Sedat Tore, is from the pro-Kurdish Peace & Development Party (which says it has no ties with the PKK.)
Over a glass of melon juice in the town's main street he talks of his worries about the conflict.
"Whenever [Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan gives numbers on death tolls and says that the Kurdish problem is finished, he sends another 100 young people to the PKK," the mayor says, gesturing to the mountains.
"Maybe he doesn't know it, but we are seeing it here. Every time he says there's no Kurdish problem he devastates hopes of the young people, wipes out their plans for the future and sends them to the PKK front."
The PKK has several thousand fighters. The movement's main base is over the border in northern Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds run their own region.
>From northern Iraq, the organisation's acting leader, Murat Karayilan, told a BBC team that the PKK was not ready to stop fighting.
"You mean lay down arms without any conditions?" Mr Karayilan asks. "No, I don't agree with that. There must be a plan that addresses all of our questions.
"Turkey, as a democratic country, should solve the Kurdish problem and then we will abandon our arms. Until the European Union and the United States recognise the existence of the Kurds in the Middle East and until the Kurdish problem is solved, peace, stability and democracy will not progress in the region."
Multi-dimensional approach
But that message does not impress the Turkish heartland in Ankara. Public opinion broadly supports tough measures against Kurdish rebels.
At the end of September, thousands gathered to watch Mr Erdogan address his ruling AK Party congress.
"Our party is the only power in the region that competes against the separatist terror organisation and its branches," Mr Erdogan told the crowd to cheers. "Does this discourage us? No. If one dies, thousands will take their place."
Mr Erdogan's government offers Turkey's Kurdish region money and investment but not self-rule. For a number of years, his administration held peace talks in Oslo with the PKK.
But those negotiations failed and violence has increased.
"We are fighting against terrorist groups, terrorist actions in a very multi-dimensional approach," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu tells the BBC.
"Security measures are one of them. But the rest will continue to be implemented in Turkey - democratic and economic development as the main political instruments for the future of Turkey."
But promises of development will not tempt PKK rebels down from the mountains.
The Turkish state may rule its Kurdish region but, around the Kurdish town of Yuksekova, Turkey's soldiers have to drive in armoured jeeps.
They wear their ammunition belts across their chests - where everyone can see them.
By James Reynolds BBC News, Yuksekova, eastern Turkey
Twelve-year-old Birhat Ciya and his 10-year-old brother Emrah spend the morning lying on the floor, watching cartoons on television.
They jump up, looking a little guilty, when visitors enter the room.
This is a school day, but the boys' family has decided to keep them at home.
Their school's oath - which children across Turkey are meant to recite every morning - includes the words "I am a Turk".
The Ciya family, who are Kurdish, refuse to say these words. The boys also insist that they be taught in Kurdish, not Turkish.
"We want our own mother language," says Birhat. "They should make our classes in Kurdish - our mother language."
His younger brother nods. The political statements done, the two jostle on the sofa and start to play computer games.
Their younger brother, who appears to disapprove of all visitors, sits outside in the yard and solemnly watches the chickens.
Their mother changes from the cartoon channel to a Kurdish TV station, which broadcasts from Europe.
Surviving son
The boys' grandmother, Naciye Ike, is one of the most well-known Kurdish activists in the town of Yuksekova.
In 1990, her 15-year-old son, Emrah, joined the Kurdish rebel group, the PKK.
Two years later, he was killed. His body has never been found.
In 2003, another son, Ali Ihsan, joined the organisation. He, too, was killed. Naciye has one surviving son, Jihat. She has banned him from signing up, so he now works as an accountant.
"I'm very worried about my grandchildren," she says. "Not only for them, I am worried for everyone. We still want peace [with Turkey], but they ignore us, they don't accept us.
"This is our country. I have always wanted peace but I look at the situation - and maybe I'm wrong - but it's not possible any more. We can't get along. We don't understand each other."
Kurds make up around 15-20% of Turkey's population. In the Middle East as a whole, they number around 25-30 million.
Stateless nation
The Kurds are often described as the world's largest nation without a state. Their heartland is in the mountains of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Iran.
In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers Party - or PKK - in Turkey's eastern Kurdish region.
Since then, the PKK's armed conflict with the Turkish state has cost an estimated 30,000 - 40,000 lives.
The PKK says that it no longer wants independence from Turkey.
Instead, it calls for democratic autonomy within the Turkish state. But reduced aims have not been matched by a lessening of violence.
In the past 15 months alone, more than 700 people have been killed.
The PKK has attacked military checkpoints and convoys.
The Turkish army has attacked the PKK in the movement's mountain strongholds and detained many of the movement's suspected supporters.
This has become the worst period of violence since the capture of Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.
In Yuksekova, hundreds of Kurds march to the town's cemetery to bury a PKK fighter, Orhan Akdohan.
Mourners hold up pictures of their imprisoned leader. The PKK appears to count on plenty of local support, a fact that will make it hard for the Turkish military to defeat the organisation by force alone.
"There have been many deaths in this country," says Serkan Dari, one of the mourners. "And there may be more. That's what the prime minister's language signals."
Some of the town's boys and teenagers wanted to show that they, too, could take on the Turkish state. They put on face masks and threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at the easiest target they can find - the Gazi primary school.
It teaches in Turkish not Kurdish. After much effort, the boys manage to set fire to a classroom. Turkish police officers in an armoured jeep fire tear gas to break up the young arsonists.
An hour's drive from Yuksekova is the town of Semdinli, which lies close to Turkey's borders with both Iraq and Iran. The town's mayor, Sedat Tore, is from the pro-Kurdish Peace & Development Party (which says it has no ties with the PKK.)
Over a glass of melon juice in the town's main street he talks of his worries about the conflict.
"Whenever [Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan gives numbers on death tolls and says that the Kurdish problem is finished, he sends another 100 young people to the PKK," the mayor says, gesturing to the mountains.
"Maybe he doesn't know it, but we are seeing it here. Every time he says there's no Kurdish problem he devastates hopes of the young people, wipes out their plans for the future and sends them to the PKK front."
The PKK has several thousand fighters. The movement's main base is over the border in northern Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds run their own region.
>From northern Iraq, the organisation's acting leader, Murat Karayilan, told a BBC team that the PKK was not ready to stop fighting.
"You mean lay down arms without any conditions?" Mr Karayilan asks. "No, I don't agree with that. There must be a plan that addresses all of our questions.
"Turkey, as a democratic country, should solve the Kurdish problem and then we will abandon our arms. Until the European Union and the United States recognise the existence of the Kurds in the Middle East and until the Kurdish problem is solved, peace, stability and democracy will not progress in the region."
Multi-dimensional approach
But that message does not impress the Turkish heartland in Ankara. Public opinion broadly supports tough measures against Kurdish rebels.
At the end of September, thousands gathered to watch Mr Erdogan address his ruling AK Party congress.
"Our party is the only power in the region that competes against the separatist terror organisation and its branches," Mr Erdogan told the crowd to cheers. "Does this discourage us? No. If one dies, thousands will take their place."
Mr Erdogan's government offers Turkey's Kurdish region money and investment but not self-rule. For a number of years, his administration held peace talks in Oslo with the PKK.
But those negotiations failed and violence has increased.
"We are fighting against terrorist groups, terrorist actions in a very multi-dimensional approach," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu tells the BBC.
"Security measures are one of them. But the rest will continue to be implemented in Turkey - democratic and economic development as the main political instruments for the future of Turkey."
But promises of development will not tempt PKK rebels down from the mountains.
The Turkish state may rule its Kurdish region but, around the Kurdish town of Yuksekova, Turkey's soldiers have to drive in armoured jeeps.
They wear their ammunition belts across their chests - where everyone can see them.
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