1. Police Raid İHD Offices, Detain Nearly 40 People
25 September 2012 / Bianet
Law enforcement officials launched simultaneous raids in five cities across Turkey including the southern provinces of Adana and Mersin and the southeastern province of Diyarbakır this morning, taking nearly 40 people under custody as part of their operations against the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK.)
Officers from the Mersin Police Headquarters also raided the offices of the Human Rights Association (İHD) and seized a number of documents and computers, İHD officials in Mersin told bianet.
http://bianet.org/english/human-rights/141066-police-raid-ihd-offices-detain-nearly-40-people
2. Aydar: We are ready for new talks with Turkish government
24 September 2012 / ANF
Speaking to BBC Turkish service on talks held in Oslo between the MIT (National Intelligence Organization) and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council member Zübeyir Aydar indicated the AKP government is responsible for the deadlock in the talks. Aydar, who took part in the meetings in Norway’s capital city Oslo, said that they wanted negotiations to continue and added that; “The Turkish government didn’t fulfill its promises in the period of negotiations which the Turkish officials ended without us knowing it.”
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5159
3. Turkey pro-Kurd party urges talks to end Kurdish conflict
24 September 2012 / Reuters
The head of Turkey's main Kurdish party has called for talks between the government and Kurdish militants to prevent a further escalation of violence which she said could undermine efforts to draw up a new, more liberal constitution.
More than 700 people have been killed since elections in June 2011, according to the International Crisis Group, the highest toll in a 15-month period since Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) chief Abdullah Ocalan was captured and jailed in 1999.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/24/turkey-kurds-idUSL5E8KN24P20120924 <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/24/turkey-kurds-idUSL5E8KN24P20120924>
4. Kışanak: New Constitution needs peace
22 September 2012 / ANF
Making the opening speech at the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) workshop on “public participation in constitution making process” which has started in Istanbul on Saturday, BDP co-chair Gültan Kışanak underlined that a democratic constitution in Turkey wouldn’t be possible without the creation of a peace environment in the entire country. Kışanak pointed out that the Parliament cannot remain unconcerned with people’s common demand for a democratic and libertarian constitution and added; “There is a basic need for a peaceful constitution which should offer a solution for not only the Kurdish problem but also for other main problems of the country such as the freedom of press, freedom of faith and rights of laborers. The originally pluralist society in Turkey will not be freed from conflicts unless the Turkish legal structure ensures and preserves a pluralist approach.”
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5151 <http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5151>
5. CHP's Oslo protocol revelation bogus, Bozdağ says
20 September 2012 / Today’s Zaman
The alleged text of a protocol signed between officials representing the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 2011 in Oslo, which was publicly disclosed by a senior Republican People’s Party (CHP) official on Tuesday, is not an authentic document, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ has said. Bozdağ, who attended a meeting in Beyoğlu on the problems faced by the Roma, responded to questions from the press after the event. In response to a question regarding the text of the protocol allegedly signed by the PKK and government representatives and made public by CHP Deputy Chairman Haluk Koç on Tuesday, he said: “This shows the style of the CHP. For one, it is a fact that the text Koç presented to the public is not a real document. Earlier this year similar stories came up in the press in February and they were all refuted by the prime minister.” He said Koç’s announcement was a “fiasco.”
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-292825-chps-oslo-protocol-revelation-bogus-bozdag-says.html <http://www.todayszaman.com/news-292825-chps-oslo-protocol-revelation-bogus-bozdag-says.html>
6. Turkey to extend mandate for ground incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan
25 September 2012 / eKurd
Turkey’s Cabinet sought approval from parliament to extend a mandate for ground troops to be sent into Iraq to fight Kurdish PKK militants, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said. Parliament will reconvene from its summer holiday on Oct. 1 and is expected to give priority to a one-year extension of the mandate, for cross-border attacks, which expires on Oct. 17, Arinc told reporters in Ankara late yesterday. Militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, who are based in Turkey-northern Iraq border regions have stepped up their attacks in recent months.
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/9/turkey4174.htm <http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/9/turkey4174.htm>
7. Turkey’s PM signals Kurdish rebel talks
27 September 2012 / Financial Times
Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan signalled that new talks between the state and Kurdish militants might be possible as his government faces an upsurge in separatist violence in the country’s south-east. Turkish intelligence officials have maintained contact with senior figures from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in recent years to try to end a conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives, but discussions have broken down. “Regarding Imrali, there could be more talks,” Mr Erdogan said in a televised interview with broadcaster Kanal 7 late on Wednesday, referring to the island south of Istanbul where PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is imprisoned.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f247fa34-0873-11e2-b37e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27gQu2Byh
8. Syrian Kurds move to rule themselves as Assad’s grip loosens
24 September 2012 / Al-Arabiya
Pictures of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar, the current president, are still visible in the northeastern city of Qamishli, which the Kurds of Syria consider as their capital. But the images are no longer an indication of how influential the regime is still is in the city. In predominantly Kurdish areas, the regime is theoretically still in charge, but lacks the ability and the potential to perform, thereby leaving the Kurds to administer their affairs. The type of control the regime exercises in Kurdish areas varies from one city to another, said Faisal Yusuf, head of the National Kurdish Council.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/24/239892.html <http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/24/239892.html>
9. Trials and Tribulations in Turkey
25 September 2012 / Peace in Kurdistan campaign
Turkey’s lamentable human rights record and, in particular its attempts to intimidate independent Kurdish organisations through mass show trials, was the theme of an important seminar held by Peace in Kurdistan on 18 September in Garden Court Chambers. The briefing brought together leading legal experts, media professionals and human rights activists who had all been taking a close interest in the trials of fellow lawyers, journalists, academics and trade unionists taking place in Turkey over recent months.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/trials-and-tribulations-in-turkey/ <http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/trials-and-tribulations-in-turkey/>
10. Public meeting condemns show trials in Turkey and plans action
20 September 2012 / The Spark
A well attended meeting in London sponsored by the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers held on 18 September condemned the recent trials of lawyers and journalists in Turkey and decided to set up a co-coordinating group to build a stronger solidarity campaign. I joined a panel of speakers including Margaret Owen, barrister and member of the Bar Human Rights Committee, Ali Has solicitor, who attended the lawyers’ trial in Turkey in July and Tony Simpson, a member of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and editor of ‘The Spokesman’. The meeting was chaired by Professor Bill Bowing from Birbeck College and President of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights. What follows is my speech to the meeting.
http://www.thespark.me.uk/?p=458 <http://www.thespark.me.uk/?p=458>
11. Message to New York Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine
24 September 2012 / Russell Tribunal on Palestine
Bertrand Russell died on 2 February 1970, in his 98th year. Two days earlier he had composed a message to the International Conference of Parliamentarians, who were about to meet in Cairo whilst Israeli air raids reached deep into Egyptian territory. Russell’s message was read to the assembled parliamentarians on the day after his sudden death. He had remarked that: ‘The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign Power to another people for the creation of a new State. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers have increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?”
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/2866/message-to-new-york-session-of-the-russell-tribunal-on-palestine
12. Kurdish Woman Runs for Swiss Regional Parliament
24 September 2012 / Rudaw
The Swiss region of Basel is bracing itself for parliamentary elections due to be held at the end of this month. A candidate for these elections is a Kurdish woman named Edibe Golgeli. Golgeli who aims to secure a seat in the regional parliament was born and raised in Basel. Her parents migrated to Switzerland from central Anatolia. Golgeli studied economics and she now works at a telephone company in Basel. She is also a member of the Swiss Social Democratic party and the local municipality.
Part of Gugeli’s agenda as candidate is to help new immigrants in her region. “Our region has now become like the other parts of Switzerland and becoming a citizen is quite difficult,” she told Rudaw. “The main requirement now is that an immigrant should know the language here and that may be difficult for some.”
http://www.rudaw.net/english/world/5239.html <http://www.rudaw.net/english/world/5239.html>
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
13. Ismail Beşikçi: This is the Century of the Kurds
22 September 2012 / Rudaw
Turkish sociologist and author Ismail Beşikçi spent 17 years in Turkish prison for his scientific research and opinions on the Kurdish issue. In this interview with Rudaw, Beşikçi says that, while they will probably not gain independence, “the 21st century is the century of the Kurds.” Beşikçi believes it is very important for the Kurds to preserve and strengthen their unity. On the international level, he feels Kurds have to provoke their issue. “Why should Luxemburg, with a population of 30,000, have an independent state, while 40 million Kurds don’t have one?” he says. Beşikçi completed his military service in Turkish Kurdistan. After 38 years, he returned to Diyarbakir where he met with Rudaw.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/interview/5251.html <http://www.rudaw.net/english/interview/5251.html>
14. The New Constitution and the Freedom of Expression
12 September 2012 / Turkish Constitution Watch
Freedom of expression and freedom of the press were discussed under the heading of “basic rights and freedoms” in the summer round of discussions on the new constitution, run by the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission under the supervision of parliament. Of the 41 articles listed as dealing with basic rights and freedoms, 21 were drafted, but only seven of these were resolved to the complete satisfaction of all parties. The article dealing with press freedom was one in which much text remained in brackets, denoting “further discussion necessary”. Left in brackets were the Justice and Development Party’s [AKP] proposal to restrict freedom of the press on the basis of public order and general morality as well as the Nationalist Movement Party’s [MHP] proposal to include restrictions on the basis of national security. The Republican People’s Party [CHP] and the Peace and Democracy Party [BDP] objected to any and all limits on press freedom in the article.
http://turkeyconstitutionwatch.org/2012/09/12/the-new-constitution-and-the-freedom-of-expression-levent-piskin/ <http://turkeyconstitutionwatch.org/2012/09/12/the-new-constitution-and-the-freedom-of-expression-levent-piskin/>
15. The Closing of Turkey’s Kurdish Opening
20 September 2012 / Columbia Journal of International Affairs
During the summer and fall of 2009, the continuing and often violent Kurdish problem in Turkey seemed on the verge of a solution when the ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi [Justice and Development Party] or AK Party (AKP) government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul announced a Kurdish Opening or Initiative (aka as the Democratic Opening/Initiative). Gul declared, “the biggest problem of Turkey is the Kurdish question” and that “there is an opportunity [to solve it] and it should not be missed.” … Even the insurgent Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan (PKK) or Kurdistan Workers Party, still led ultimately by its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, itself briefly took Turkey’s Kurdish Opening seriously. For a fleeting moment, optimism ran rampant. What happened?
http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/closing-turkey%E2%80%99s-kurdish-opening
16. Turkish verdict means it's time for new issues
23 September 2012 / The National
Friday's sentencing of more than 300 Turkish officers for plotting a coup against the government almost a decade ago, is a welcome victory for civilian rule and law and order. But it is also a signal that Turkey can now move on to other issues. The case, dubbed "Sledgehammer", reads like the plot of one of Turkey's soap operas: a military cabal plotted in 2002-03 to bomb two mosques and to shoot down a fighter jet and blame Greece, creating a crisis in which they could seize power. Starting with the formation of the republic in the 1920s, the army made itself the bulwark of the country's secular "Kemalist" constitution. At least four times, most recently in 1997, the military has pushed a civilian government from office.
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/editorial/turkish-verdict-means-its-time-for-new-issues
17. Turkey's Sledgehammer Coup verdict: justice or Soviet-style show trial?
25 September 2012 / Guardian
The jailing of hundreds of army officers accused of plotting a coup against the government of prime minister Tayyip Erdogan marks a low-point for Turkey's military, which for decades exercised shadowy control over the country with scant regard for democratic values. But the outcome of the so-called Sledgehammer (Balyoz) case highlights a new worry: that Erdogan, in power since 2002 and with his eye on a revamped, executive presidency, is becoming just as authoritarian and over-bearing as the generals once were.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/25/turkey-sledgehammer-coup-trial-verdict?newsfeed=true
18. Turkey’s miscarriage of justice
22 September 2012 / Washington Post
After a patently sham trial, a Turkish court on Friday handed down lengthy jail sentences to more than 300 military officers convicted of planning a coup, code-named Sledgehammer, in 2003. Turkey’s courts have been working overtime to throw government opponents of all political stripes behind bars. Since 2007, the government has run a series of trials against an alleged ultra-nationalist terrorist organization called Ergenekon, charging lawyers, politicians, academics, journalists and military officers with plotting to overthrow the government. In separate cases, thousands of Kurdish politicians and activists are on trial — nearly 1,000 among them detained — for alleged links with terrorist activities. Turkey holds more journalists in jail than China and Iran combined.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/turkeys-miscarriage-of-justice/2012/09/21/e2125276-033d-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_story.html
19. Lally Weymouth interviews Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
20 September 2012 / Washington Post
Not long after the Arab Spring began, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, then an ally, that he had to reform. After months, as the Syrian revolution continued and there was no sign of reform, Erdogan called for Assad to step down. Erdogan has allowed the Syrian opposition to make its base in Turkey and has remained in the forefront of the fight for regime change. The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth spoke with Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lally-weymouth-interviews-turkish-prime-minister-recep-tayyip-erdogan/2012/09/20/a837da66-01c7-11e2-b260-32f4a8db9b7e_story.html <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lally-weymouth-interviews-turkish-prime-minister-recep-tayyip-erdogan/2012/09/20/a837da66-01c7-11e2-b260-32f4a8db9b7e_story.html>
20. Turkey: Meet the 12-Year-Old Girl Who Risked Prison to Revive Her People's Language
21 June 2012 / Pulitzer Centre
On a hot day in mid-June, 12-year-old Medya Ormek and her family gathered together, sitting on pallets or plastic lawn chairs, to watch Kurdish news and music videos on a small television. To cope with the temperature, they have moved the contents of their sitting room into the shady entrance to their three-story Diyarbakir home, where a breeze from the open door and the rickety ceiling fan make the midday bearable. One of Medya's sisters serves hot tea and the conversation turns, as it always seems to in this urban heart of Turkey's Kurdish southeast, to politics. That day, they were discussing the recent announcement by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that schools in Turkey would now offer the once-banned Kurdish language as an optional lesson. In the media, it was heralded as an "historic step," but Medya and her family disagreed.
http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/turkey-kurdish-language-education-schools-assimilation-erdogan <http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/turkey-kurdish-language-education-schools-assimilation-erdogan>
21. The Fight for Kurdistan
22 September 2012 / The New Yorker
Like the Syrian refugees in Turkey, whom I wrote about in April, those in Iraqi Kurdistan have fled a violent war. Often, they have left behind family or friends; certainly they have left behind possessions, which they imagine now lying vulnerable, in the path of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless army. They hate Assad. Refugee camps in both Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey expand depending on specific battles, so that whole blocks of newly erected tents might hold fragments of particular Syrian neighborhoods, or entire families. But unlike in Turkey, where Syrian refugees are wary of the host government even as they remain grateful to it, the refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Domiz camp feel they have left their home, but not their homeland. This simple distinction—what, exactly, Syria’s Kurds want to fight for—goes a long way toward explaining the role of Kurds in Syria.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/09/the-fight-for-kurdistan.html
22. Looking for Friends in the Middle East: Try the Kurds
25 September 2012 / Huffington Post
Angry mobs recently attacked U.S. diplomatic facilities in dozens of countries, but not everyone in the Muslim world hates America. More than 25 million Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey are largely secular and pro-Western. Kurds understand that democracy and individual rights are compatible with Islamic values. The United States should take steps to consolidate friendly relations with the Kurds. U.S.-Kurdish rapprochement would serve as a counter-weight to political demagogy and Islamist extremism. It can also leverage reforms in countries where Kurds reside.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/iraqi-kurds_b_1912568.html
23. The Kurdish question in Syria: a litmus test
23 September 2012 / Counterfire
Thus far, the Kurdish question has attracted little western media interest for two reasons. The first is that the Kurdish regions have been relatively quiet and have not sent the levels of violence that have marked the struggle elsewhere in the country. Second, as popular mobilisations have become secondary to armed insurgency and civil war, the Kurdish question does not fit the narrative that is being developed for the uprising, by forces both inside and outside the country. That narrative is one of a struggle which is mainly sectarian and confessional, of “orthodox” Sunnis against the heterodox Alawis (who are mainstay of the Assad regime ) and allied minority religious groups such as the Druze and Christians.
http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/international/16052-the-kurdish-question-in-syria-a-lithmus-test
24 .FIFA Decision On Kosovo Likely To Spur Kurdish National Aspirations
23 September 2012 / Eurasia Review
The Kosovo Football Federation (KFF) and soccer-crazy Kosovars are not the only ones in anxious anticipation of this coming Friday’s executive committee meeting of world soccer body FIFA that is expected to decide the terms on which Kosovo will be allowed to play international friendlies. So will the Kurdistan Football Association and equally soccer-mad Kurds.Kosovo and Catalonia, which already has been granted permission by FIFA to play international friendlies, are models for Kurdistan to whom soccer is also an important tool in achieving recognition as a nation and statehood.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/23092012-fifa-decision-on-kosovo-likely-to-spur-kurdish-national-aspirations-analysis/ <http://www.eurasiareview.com/23092012-fifa-decision-on-kosovo-likely-to-spur-kurdish-national-aspirations-analysis/>
25. They're following me': chilling words of girl who was 'honour killing' victim
22 September 2012 / The Observer
On police videotape, a 19-year-old girl named those she believed had intended to kill her. They would try again, she said. "People are following me, still they are following me. At any time, if anything happens to me, it's them," she told the officers calmly. "Now I have given my statement," she asked an officer, "what can you do for me?" The answer was very little. Banaz Mahmod went back to her family in Mitcham, south London. Three months later she disappeared. It was several months before her raped and strangled body was found and four years before all those responsible for killing her were tracked down and jailed. Her father and uncle planned her death because the teenager had first walked out of a violent and sexually abusive arranged marriage, and later had fallen in love with someone else.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/22/banaz-mahmod-honour-killing <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/22/banaz-mahmod-honour-killing>
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