1. Turkish PM seeks talk with jailed Kurdish leader
20 November 2012 / AFP
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was not opposed to talks between the state and the jailed Kurdish leader in a bid to bring an end to the insurgency, media reported Tuesday. The National Intelligence Organisation "can do the talks, we see nothing wrong in that," Erdogan was quoted as telling reporters who asked about such talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. "The goal is to solve the problem," he said on his way back to Turkey from Egypt on Monday, according to Hurriyet daily. Erdogan's comments came after hundreds of Kurdish prisoners ended a 68-day hunger strike on Sunday, following an appeal by Ocalan, who said the action had achieved its goal.
http://tinyurl.com/bllfhfp
2. What Abdullah Öcalan told his brother
20 November 2012 / ANF
Mehmet Öcalan had said that he had been taken to Imrali Island by ferry, the same ferry which has been defined as 'not working' for over a year. The message the Kurdish leader gave to his brother was this, as reported by DIHA news agency, "I'm calling from here to ask you to end the hunger strikes now. This action has achieved its goals. Abdullah Öcalan's brother said: "I met my brother, who hasn't been allowed to see his lawyers for more than 15 months, for about 45 minutes. It was a face to face meeting and we obviously talked about the hunger strike. Everyone knows that only leader Apo can end the hunger strike". said. Öcalan has repeated to his brother that "the hunger strike has achieved its goals. This action is very meaningful for me. And because it was carried out in prison it is even more meaningful for me".
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5392
3. Turkey says it will hold talks with Kurdish militants
19 November 2012 / Reuters
Turkey opened the door to talks with Kurdish militants it brands terrorists on Monday, raising hopes of a push to end a conflict which has killed tens of thousands of people and stunted development in its mainly Kurdish southeast.
Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said talks would be held with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, Turkey's main domestic security threat, which took up arms almost three decades ago and seeks Kurdish autonomy.
"These talks have been held as and when deemed necessary in the past, and will be held in the future," Ergin told reporters in Ankara. He did not elaborate. Talks between the Turkish state and the PKK were unthinkable until only a few years ago and more recent contacts have proved highly controversial, with parts of the nationalist opposition strongly condemning any suggestion of negotiations.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/19/uk-turkey-kurds-talks-idUKBRE8AI0J420121119
4. Indication of Peace Talks Following End of Hunger Strike in Turkey
19 November 2012 / Rudaw
Kurdish prisoners ended their 67-day hunger strike on Sunday. Deniz Kaya, a spokesperson for the strikers, said that the prisoners received a call from Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan who asked them from his prison on Imrali Island to end their strike. A Turkish newspaper attributed the end of the hunger strike to the possible resumption of negotiations between Turkish Intelligence (MIT) and Ocalan. Meanwhile, Ocalan’s brother, Mehmet Ocalan, said that realizing that only Ocalan could end the hunger strike, the Turkish government has been holding talks with him for several days. Seven hundred Kurdish prisoners went on a hunger strike in prisons across Turkey, demanding the ability to use the Kurdish language in court and better conditions for Ocalan. As the days went by, Turkish authorities were concerned about the worsening health of the prisoners and feared their imminent deaths.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/turkey/5441.html
5. Ocalan wants end to Turkey hunger strike
17 November 2012 / Info-Turk
Jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called for an end to a hunger strike by hundreds of his supporters in prisons across Turkey on Saturday, raising hopes of a push to end a decades-old conflict. The hunger strike by at least 1,700 people to demand an end to Ocalan's isolation is in its 67th day and doctors have said prisoners could soon die. The protest has posed a growing challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and risked fuelling tension in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. "Today I went to see my brother Abdullah Ocalan face-to-face in Imrali prison," Ocalan's brother Mehmet said in a statement. "He wants me to share immediately with the public his call about the hunger strikes .... This action has achieved its goal. Without any hesitation, they should end the hunger strike."
http://www.info-turk.be/411.htm#Ocalan
6. Hunger Striker Journalist Emphasizes on Dialogue
20 November 2012 / Bianet
On Monday, representatives from Turkey's two main media associations visited Temel in a Diyarbakir Province hospital. Ercan İpekçi, head of Turkish Journalists' Union, told bianet that while Temel's general health is improving, he is still suffering from fatigue, sensitivity to certain sounds and difficulty in speaking, walking and reading. Hunger striker inmates in Diyarbakir Prison with grave after effects will remain in the hospital for another ten days, İpekçi said. There are currently 49 inmates from Diyarbakir prison, who suffer from after effects and remain in hospital care. Most inmates refused to take solid food for a period of 68 days until PKK leader Ocalan made an appeal to end hunger strikes. İpekçi and Yaşar, along with other members from Turkish Jornalists Association, have scheduled appointments with two female hunger striker journalists, Fatma Koçak from DIHA and Ayşe Oyman from Özgür Gündem.
http://www.bianet.org/english/other/142220-hunger-striker-journalist-emphasizes-on-dialogue
7. Set journalists free in Turkey: EFJ campaign update
19 November 2012 / Peace in Kurdistan campaign
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) launched an international campaign to set free all journalists in Turkey. Here is the latest update.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/set-journalists-free-in-turkey-efj-campaign-update-6/
8. Kurd militants end hunger strike in Turkey, deal seen
18 November 2012 / Reuters
Hundreds of Kurdish militants ended a hunger strike in jails across Turkey on Sunday in response to an appeal from their leader, fuelling hopes a deal had been struck that could revive talks to end a decades-old conflict.
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his supporters to end their protest after holding a series of discussions with Turkish MIT intelligence agency officials, according to one media report.
Top MIT officials have held secret meetings with senior PKK representatives in Oslo in recent years and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in September more talks were possible.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/18/us-turkey-hungerstrikes-idUSBRE8AH0F020121118
9. Kurdish issue in Turkey and the idea of a united Kurdistan
18 November 2012 / Globalia Magazine
Interior Minister Besir Atalay recently announced details of the government's long-awaited plan to give more rights to the Kurdish minority. The blueprint includes establishing an independent authority to investigate cases of alleged torture against Kurds, as well as measures to ease current restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language. The cabinet of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already taken measures to expand the cultural rights of the Kurdish community through the launch of a state television channel that broadcasts in Kurdish. In addition, Kurd-dominated towns and cities will be allowed to reclaim their former Kurdish names. The main opposition parties oppose the reforms, arguing they undermine national unity.
http://www.globaliamagazine.com/?id=1369
10. Syrian Kurdish leader rejects new opposition coalition
20 November 2012 / Ma’an News Agency
A party that controls much of Syria's Kurdish region on Tuesday rejected the new opposition coalition, highlighting the deep divisions still remaining between the many Syrian armed groups 20 months into the uprising against President Bashar Assad. Saleh Muslim, head of the Democratic Union Party, said he had not been invited to talks in Doha this month in which the Syrian National Coalition was formed, and he labelled the group a proxy of Turkey and Qatar. The coalition, led by moderate Sunni Muslim cleric Mouaz Alkhatib, was meant to unify Syria's myriad opposition groups in a bid to secure Western backing in their efforts to topple Assad, and has been endorsed in the West by Britain and France.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=540375
11. US Pushes Syrian Kurds to Join Rebellion
16 November 2012 / Voice of America
As the Obama administration pushes to solidify Syria's political opposition, it also is working to improve ties between Syrian Kurds and groups battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Concentrating control in their own areas of northwest Syria, Kurdish leaders have been slow to join the broader rebellion against Assad, preferring to seek greater regional autonomy with Kurds in neighboring Iraq and Turkey. Before the rebellion accelerated, Assad granted new political freedoms to Syrian Kurds who have long sought greater autonomy inside and outside of Syria.
http://www.voanews.com/content/us-pushes-syrian-kurds-to-join-rebellion/1547710.html
12. Turkish Army bombs Syrian Kurds
20 November 2012 / KNK statement, MESOP
Since 8th November 2012, armed groups infiltrated by Turkey entered Serekani (Ras al-Ain), the city of Syria. These armed groups affiliated with and are being supported by Turkey. The Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians have been living in Serekani, which is the border city with Turkey. Armed groups first entered into Arab districts. As well as Arabs, Kurds and Assyrians have been affected by the clashes between Syrian regime and armed groups. The president of Serekani Kurdish Council Abid Xelil and another person who went to discuss the conflict with the armed groups this morning (19th November 2012), were attacked by the mentioned group and died. Five Kurdish were also injured. The clashes, then, have started between People’s Defense Units (YPG) and these armed groups.
http://www.mesop.de/2012/11/20/knk-statement-turkish-army-bombs-syrian-kurds/
13. Dozens dead after clashes in Syrian border town
21 November 2012 / CNN
A flashpoint Syrian border town recently captured by rebels was reeling Tuesday after deadly clashes erupted between Syrian rebels and a Kurdish militia.
The battle left dozens of fighters from both sides dead, including one prominent ethnic Kurdish leader. "Today it is quiet. I hope in my heart that there will be no more fighting between Kurds and Arabs because we are all brothers," said a Kurdish activist and resident of Ras Al Ain, who asked only to be named "Baran" for his safety. "But I am sure there will be more fighting," he predicted, adding that both the Syrian rebels and Kurdish fighters were calling for reinforcements.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/20/world/europe/turkey-syria-violence/
14. Dozens die as Kurds, rebels clash in north
20 November 2012 / The Australian
FRESH fighting between Kurdish militiamen and Syrian rebels has erupted in the northern Syria town of Ras al-Ain, where dozens have died since the new front in Syria's complex civil war opened last week.
Elsewhere in northern Syria, several rebel battalions went on the offensive on Tuesday and attacked the Sheikh Suleiman air defence battalion west of Aleppo city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The clashes came less than two days after rebels, armed with at least five tanks according to a military source, took full control of the sprawling Base 46 in the same province. The Britain-based Observatory said that at least 29 people had died in clashes in Ras al-Ain, near the Turkey border, over the past 24 hours.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/eu-recognises-new-syrian-coalition/story-fn3dxix6-1226520039128
15. On Syrian border, mixed feelings for rebel ‘liberators’
17 November 2012 / First Post
From a park on the outskirts of Turkey’s Ceylanpinar, Farhad watches with unease as his would-be liberators, guns slung across their backs, roam through his town just over the border in Syria. “I don’t want the rebels in my town,” the 25-year-old Kurdish man laments. “Why would I want Assad’s planes to come and bomb us? I don’t want Assad, nor do I want the rebels.” His is a familiar sentiment among refugees from Ras al-Ain, a mixed Arab and Kurdish town on Syria’s border with Turkey that was dragged into Syria’s civil war last week with the arrival of rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
http://www.firstpost.com/world/on-syrian-border-mixed-feelings-for-rebel-liberators-526521.html
16. Public Protest Against Iran's Decision to Execute 27 Kurdish Prisoners
16 November 2012 / Rudaw
Activists in Iranian Kurdistan have called on people to stage a public strike to protest the death sentence on 27 Kurdish prisoners in Iranian jails.
A group of human rights activists encourage Iranian people to not report to work starting Saturday, November 17, to boycott classes and close the markets.
In open letters published on the Internet, the activists have urged people to visit the families of the prisoners on this day in solidarity with their plight.
Part of a letter published on Kurdpa, a Kurdish website, says that Kurds everywhere and in every position should object to this anti-human right action.
According to the International Campaign for Human Right in Iran 28 Kurds are on death row in Iran in five different prisons of Sanandaj, Uromieh, Semnan, Rajai shahr and Saghez.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/iran/5429.html
17. Kurdish commander warns of battle against Iraq
20 November 2012 / Yahoo News
The commander of Kurdish Peshmerga forces warned Tuesday that his troops might attack Iraqi government soldiers at "any minute" after the central government sent tanks and armored vehicles toward the disputed city of Kirkuk.
The threat was the latest sign of increasing tension between the autonomous Kurdish region and Baghdad after the central government sent forces last month to the area, including disputed sites in a new military command.
Already poor relations between the central government and Kurds worsened after an Iraqi government decision last month to set up a new military command there. The force also oversees disputed areas claimed by Iraqi Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds, in particular the areas surrounding Mosul and Kirkuk.
http://news.yahoo.com/kurdish-commander-warns-battle-against-iraq-110008335.html
18. Iranian Kurds Fight Discrimination, Hope for Change
19 November 2012 / Voice of America
The Kurdish minority in Iran has for decades suffered discrimination and many Kurds have been thrown into prison and executed for seeking equal rights from the Islamic government in Tehran. But "Arab Spring" uprisings in the Middle East and threats of military attacks to stop Iran’s nuclear program have given some Iranian Kurds hope for change. An estimated 12 million Kurds live in Iran, mostly in the northwest of the country bordering Kurdish-majority areas of Iraq and Turkey. Tehran says it has generally improved living conditions and education for Iran's Kurds and they are integrated into the political process. But Kurds say they have lesser rights and a rebel group, known as PJAK - the Free Life Party of Kurdistan - has been waging an insurgency based in the Qandil Mountains.
http://www.voanews.com/content/iranian-kurds-fight-discrimination-hope-for-change/1549125.html
19. Rapprochement in Turkey, by Michael M Gunter
16 November 2012 / Encompassing Crescent
During the summer and fall of 2009, the continuing and at times still violent Kurdish problem in Turkeyseemed 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. Gul declared that “the biggest problem of Turkey is the Kurdish question” and that “there is an opportunity [to solve it] and it should not be missed.” Erdogan asked: “If Turkey had not spent its energy, budget, peace and young people on [combating] terrorism, if Turkey had not spent the last 25 years in conflict, where would we be today?” 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. Why did this hopeful Opening fail?
http://encompassingcrescent.com/2012/11/rapprochement-in-turkey-by-michael-m-gunter/
20. The Power of the Hunger Strike
19 November 2012 / Counterpunch
The hunger strike has a long political pedigree. It combines sensationalism with moral anger, but it also minimizes harm to others who are not directly involved in the conflict. “Collateral damage”, the military argot’s most vicious euphemism, is avoided – at least in principle. Instead, harm comes to the person initiating the strike. Privations are made public. The demise is gradual. There is no spectacular image of a man set on fire, or the instantaneous moment of bomb blast. The hunger strike enables a narrative to be fashioned by the protester. That said any political weapon has its limits. Measuring the success of the hunger strike is no different. Illusion can be as convincing as fact. Legends are easily born – and a legend, claimed the habitually acerbic H. L. Mencken, is often a lie that has merely attained the dignity of age.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/19/the-power-of-the-hunger-strike/
21. A gritty bite of Turkish delight
17 November 2012 / Irish Times
Mention the name Tarlabasi to any Istanbul resident and their reaction will put you off going there forever. “Tarlabasi is dirty,” they say. “Tarlabasi is dangerous!”
Looking for an affordable place to live, I had no choice but to at least consider an area where the rents are low. With Istanbul’s most famous main shopping avenue, Istiklal, only yards away, I also found myself drawn by the fact that you could not get any closer to the commercial and cultural heart of Istanbul. A feeling only emboldened by passing landmarks on the way such as the Grand Hotel De Londres – where it is said Agatha Christie wrote Murder on The Orient Express – and the even grander British Consulate nearby.
The only thing I could think of as I crossed the single, busy highway that conveniently amputates Tarlabasi from the next-door tourist meccas of Istanbul was: how bad can it really be?
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/travel/2012/1117/1224326544227.html
22. Turkey's Kurds Want More Freedoms, Autonomy
20 November 2012 / Voice of America
Tensions in heavily Kurdish areas of Turkey are highlighting how the nation's decades-old "Kurdish question" remains unresolved. Turkey's prime minister says the government has given Turkey's Kurds unprecedented freedoms. But most Kurds say they continue to suffer discrimination and alienation. And there are increasing skirmishes between Turkish forces and Kurdish insurgents, causing an outcry among Turks and harsh crackdown rhetoric from Ankara. At the Tigris-Euphrates Cultural Center in Diyarbakir, inside the walls of the Old City, Kurds are trying to revive traditional Kurdish culture, which has been under threat since the creation of the Turkish Republic nearly 90 years ago.
http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-kurds-want-more-freedoms-autonomy/1549871.html
23. Report from visit to Turkey 15-17 November
20 November 2012 / The Spark
As part of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) campaign in support of journalists held in prisons in Turkey, or under threat of imprisonment, I visited the country as an EFJ observer between 15 and 17 November. Other members of the EFJ’s governing board have also attended trials and will continue to do so in acts of solidarity.
Friday 16 November saw the reconvening of the OdaTV trial at the Judgement Palace in Istanbul. This was the 14th hearing. Together with representatives from the TGS, we arrived early to see meet defendants and their supporters outside the courts. My first (and brief) meeting was with Mr. İlhan Cihaner, a Member of Parliament from the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Before taking his seat in parliament, Mr. Cihaner was a prosecutor in the provinces of Adana and Erzincan. However, during his tenure in Erzincan, circumstances surrounding his investigations into İsmail Ağa and Fethullah Gülen groups led to his arrest and he was held prison being accused of being connected to the Ergenekon terrorist organisation.
http://www.thespark.me.uk/?p=475
24. Inter-Kurdish tensions mounting against FSA
20 November 2012 / Daily Star
Unwilling to fight alongside the Syrian Army while they targeted civilians, young Kurdish conscript Novin defected, fleeing his hometown of Qamishli to Iraqi Kurdistan, where he ended up in the Diwan refugee camp. Now, he proudly wears a crisp new uniform of a different kind – with the Kurdistan flag, with its yellow sun – sewn on the sleeve. Novin, one of two new officers of the so-called “Syrian Peshmerga,” spoke to The Daily Star from the outskirts of one of the new training camps established by the president of semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, in the northern Duhok region bordering Syria. Barzani confirmed his government has provided training to Syrian Kurds to protect Kurdish areas in the event of a security vacuum in Syria. There have been conflicting reports, however, as to the number of recruits and whether any have yet entered Syria.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Nov-20/195610-inter-kurdish-tensions-mounting-against-fsa.ashx#axzz2Cnk7vqO2
25. Kurds oust Syrian forces from northern towns
19 November 2012 / Al Jazeera
"Assad is gone! I am very happy. Until now, we didn't even have ID cards," says Abdi Karim, 56, with a tired but big smile. Karim is a fighter in the People's Defence Units (YPG) in Derik, a city in Syria's Kurdish area in the northeast near the borders of Turkey and Iraq. The YPG is an armed militia that has been publicly active in this region for at least the last four months. Recently, the YPG and residents of Derik - known as al-Malkia in Arabic - forced the last of the regime's troops and police to leave the city. "We have the rifles to protect the people here, just to protect," Karim said pointing at his old AK-47 and talking in the building where President Bashar al-Assad's intelligence services once had their base in Derik.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/11/2012111984841162626.html
26. Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan Moving Closer
20 November 2012 / Middle East Online
Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minster recently visited Iran. He met with Iran’s top officials. The talks included a wide range of issues. The visit is important given serious internal and regional developments. The bilateral relations have deteriorated and, of special importance, the visit would improve relations and the two would cooperate on an amalgam of issues including political, security and economic. Domestic and regional developments deteriorated the relations between Iran and Kurdistan Region. In a series of reports, Iranian officials and media attacked Iraqi Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party in particular. Throughout them, sensitive cases were used. The Kurds were tried to be portrayed as pro-Israel, pro-Sunni and anti-Shiite.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=55620
Friday 23 November 2012
Kurdish News Emergency Update, 19 November 2012
Turkey says it will hold talks with Kurdish militants
19 November 2012 / Reuters
Turkey opened the door to talks with Kurdish militants it brands terrorists on Monday, raising hopes of a push to end a conflict which has killed tens of thousands of people and stunted development in its mainly Kurdish southeast.
Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said talks would be held with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, Turkey's main domestic security threat, which took up arms almost three decades ago and seeks Kurdish autonomy.
"These talks have been held as and when deemed necessary in the past, and will be held in the future," Ergin told reporters in Ankara. He did not elaborate.
Talks between the Turkish state and the PKK were unthinkable until only a few years ago and more recent contacts have proved highly controversial, with parts of the nationalist opposition strongly condemning any suggestion of negotiations.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/19/uk-turkey-kurds-talks-idUKBRE8AI0J420121119
Ocalan wants end to Turkey hunger strike
17 November 2012 / Info-Turk
Jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called for an end to a hunger strike by hundreds of his supporters in prisons across Turkey on Saturday, raising hopes of a push to end a decades-old conflict. The hunger strike by at least 1,700 people to demand an end to Ocalan's isolation is in its 67th day and doctors have said prisoners could soon die. The protest has posed a growing challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and risked fuelling tension in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. "Today I went to see my brother Abdullah Ocalan face-to-face in Imrali prison," Ocalan's brother Mehmet said in a statement. "He wants me to share immediately with the public his call about the hunger strikes .... This action has achieved its goal. Without any hesitation, they should end the hunger strike."
http://www.info-turk.be/411.htm#Ocalan
Kurd militants end hunger strike in Turkey, deal seen
18 November 2012 / Reuters
Hundreds of Kurdish militants ended a hunger strike in jails across Turkey on Sunday in response to an appeal from their leader, fuelling hopes a deal had been struck that could revive talks to end a decades-old conflict.
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his supporters to end their protest after holding a series of discussions with Turkish MIT intelligence agency officials, according to one media report.
Top MIT officials have held secret meetings with senior PKK representatives in Oslo in recent years and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in September more talks were possible.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/18/us-turkey-hungerstrikes-idUSBRE8AH0F020121118
The Kurdish issue in Turkey and the idea of a united Kurdistan
18 November 2012 / Globalia Magazine
Interior Minister Besir Atalay recently announced details of the government's long-awaited plan to give more rights to the Kurdish minority. The blueprint includes establishing an independent authority to investigate cases of alleged torture against Kurds, as well as measures to ease current restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language. The cabinet of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already taken measures to expand the cultural rights of the Kurdish community through the launch of a state television channel that broadcasts in Kurdish. In addition, Kurd-dominated towns and cities will be allowed to reclaim their former Kurdish names. The main opposition parties oppose the reforms, arguing they undermine national unity.
http://www.globaliamagazine.com/?id=1369
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
The Power of the Hunger Strike
19 November 2012 / Counterpunch
The hunger strike has a long political pedigree. It combines sensationalism with moral anger, but it also minimizes harm to others who are not directly involved in the conflict. “Collateral damage”, the military argot’s most vicious euphemism, is avoided – at least in principle. Instead, harm comes to the person initiating the strike. Privations are made public. The demise is gradual. There is no spectacular image of a man set on fire, or the instantaneous moment of bomb blast. The hunger strike enables a narrative to be fashioned by the protester. That said any political weapon has its limits. Measuring the success of the hunger strike is no different. Illusion can be as convincing as fact. Legends are easily born – and a legend, claimed the habitually acerbic H. L. Mencken, is often a lie that has merely attained the dignity of age.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/19/the-power-of-the-hunger-strike/
19 November 2012 / Reuters
Turkey opened the door to talks with Kurdish militants it brands terrorists on Monday, raising hopes of a push to end a conflict which has killed tens of thousands of people and stunted development in its mainly Kurdish southeast.
Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said talks would be held with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, Turkey's main domestic security threat, which took up arms almost three decades ago and seeks Kurdish autonomy.
"These talks have been held as and when deemed necessary in the past, and will be held in the future," Ergin told reporters in Ankara. He did not elaborate.
Talks between the Turkish state and the PKK were unthinkable until only a few years ago and more recent contacts have proved highly controversial, with parts of the nationalist opposition strongly condemning any suggestion of negotiations.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/19/uk-turkey-kurds-talks-idUKBRE8AI0J420121119
Ocalan wants end to Turkey hunger strike
17 November 2012 / Info-Turk
Jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called for an end to a hunger strike by hundreds of his supporters in prisons across Turkey on Saturday, raising hopes of a push to end a decades-old conflict. The hunger strike by at least 1,700 people to demand an end to Ocalan's isolation is in its 67th day and doctors have said prisoners could soon die. The protest has posed a growing challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and risked fuelling tension in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. "Today I went to see my brother Abdullah Ocalan face-to-face in Imrali prison," Ocalan's brother Mehmet said in a statement. "He wants me to share immediately with the public his call about the hunger strikes .... This action has achieved its goal. Without any hesitation, they should end the hunger strike."
http://www.info-turk.be/411.htm#Ocalan
Kurd militants end hunger strike in Turkey, deal seen
18 November 2012 / Reuters
Hundreds of Kurdish militants ended a hunger strike in jails across Turkey on Sunday in response to an appeal from their leader, fuelling hopes a deal had been struck that could revive talks to end a decades-old conflict.
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his supporters to end their protest after holding a series of discussions with Turkish MIT intelligence agency officials, according to one media report.
Top MIT officials have held secret meetings with senior PKK representatives in Oslo in recent years and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in September more talks were possible.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/18/us-turkey-hungerstrikes-idUSBRE8AH0F020121118
The Kurdish issue in Turkey and the idea of a united Kurdistan
18 November 2012 / Globalia Magazine
Interior Minister Besir Atalay recently announced details of the government's long-awaited plan to give more rights to the Kurdish minority. The blueprint includes establishing an independent authority to investigate cases of alleged torture against Kurds, as well as measures to ease current restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language. The cabinet of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already taken measures to expand the cultural rights of the Kurdish community through the launch of a state television channel that broadcasts in Kurdish. In addition, Kurd-dominated towns and cities will be allowed to reclaim their former Kurdish names. The main opposition parties oppose the reforms, arguing they undermine national unity.
http://www.globaliamagazine.com/?id=1369
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
The Power of the Hunger Strike
19 November 2012 / Counterpunch
The hunger strike has a long political pedigree. It combines sensationalism with moral anger, but it also minimizes harm to others who are not directly involved in the conflict. “Collateral damage”, the military argot’s most vicious euphemism, is avoided – at least in principle. Instead, harm comes to the person initiating the strike. Privations are made public. The demise is gradual. There is no spectacular image of a man set on fire, or the instantaneous moment of bomb blast. The hunger strike enables a narrative to be fashioned by the protester. That said any political weapon has its limits. Measuring the success of the hunger strike is no different. Illusion can be as convincing as fact. Legends are easily born – and a legend, claimed the habitually acerbic H. L. Mencken, is often a lie that has merely attained the dignity of age.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/19/the-power-of-the-hunger-strike/
Friday 16 November 2012
Kurdish News Weekly Briefing, 9 - 15 November 2012
1. Leyla Zana MP on hunger strike
15 November 2012 / ANF
Democratic Society Congress (DTK) co-chair Ahmet Türk held a press conference on Wednesday to announce that Diyarbakır independent deputy Leyla Zana has started indefinite-irreversible hunger strike at her office in the Parliament in Ankara. At the press conference which was also attended by Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputies İbrahim Bilici and Altan Tan, DTK co-chair Ahmet Türk said that Zana has started her action in her office to give a message to the public with an aim to pave the way for a dialogue environment. Türk noted that they respected Zana’s determination to take part in the protest despite the health problems she is facing at present.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5370
2. Journalists leave hearing room
12 November 2012 / ANF
The hearing of the trial against Kurdish journalists arrested in the scope of so-called KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) operation on 20 December 2011 has started at Silivri Prison Complex on Monday. Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission co-chair French Helene Flautre and Commission members as well as Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputies are also attending the trial in Istanbul. The hearing of journalists has once again witnessed protests as journalists on trial left the hearing room when the court board denied journalist Kenan Kırkaya permission to speak about the ongoing hunger strike by Kurdish political prisoners.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5356
3. Second day of trial against journalists
13 November 2012 / ANF
Second day of the hearing of journalists tried in the scope of the so-called KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) at Silivri Prison Complex in Istanbul after yesterday’s hearing was held without defendants, lawyers and audience. 44 Kurdish journalists (36 of them have been in detention since December 2011) are being accused and charged for the news they wrote which are considered evidence of their ties with the KCK organization. Lawyer Sinan Zincir demanded the rereading of the indictment during today’s hearing as journalists and lawyers left the hearing room yesterday when the court board denied journalist Kenan Kırkaya permission to speak about the ongoing hunger strike by Kurdish political prisoners. The court board rejected lawyer Zincir’s demand, defending that it would be unnecessary to do that as journalists and lawyers protested and disagreed to attend the trial yesterday at their own request.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5361
4. Turkish President tells PEN free speech violations cast shadow over Turkey’s progress
13 November 2012 / English PEN
In a meeting today with a PEN International delegation including English PEN director Jo Glanville, President Abdullah Gül expressed his personal commitment to free speech. Responding to PEN’s concerns over a rising number of writers, journalists and publishers in prison or on trial in Turkey, the president assured the delegation that he has been following the cases closely. “There are many good things unfolding in Turkey, but these concerns cast a shadow over the progress we are achieving,” the president told PEN. “They also have international repercussions. These developments deeply sadden me, and as President, I more than anyone else want to see that they are resolved and no longer on the country’s agenda.”
http://www.englishpen.org/turkey-president-tells-pen-international-free-speech-violations-cast-shadow-over-turkeys-progress/
5. KCK: We will increase our resistance
13 November 2012 / ANF
Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) executive council presidency has released a statement on the ongoing irreversible-indefinite hunger strike in Turkey prions and called on all parties and establishments in Kurdistan to enhance resistance and struggle. KCK pointed out that “Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan has paved way to deaths in prisons by giving no answer to the constructive efforts given for the fulfillment of the fair demands highlighted by Kurdish political prisoners”. "Erdoğan himself will be responsible for deaths in and outside prisons in this critical time", KCK underlined and added that "resistance is the only choice in the face of the fact that all constructive efforts have remained inconclusive due to the government’s attitude towards the Kurdish people and their demands".
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5363
6. Kurdish politicians join militants' hunger strike in Turkey
10 November 2012 / Reuters
Six of Turkey's leading Kurdish politicians have joined hundreds of jailed militants and activists in a hunger strike now in its 60th day to call for a rebel leader to be allowed to see lawyers, one of them said. Osman Baydemir, mayor of Diyarbakir in predominantly Kurdish south-eastern Turkey, said in a statement on Saturday that he had stopped eating. Five Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament, named as Sirri Sureyya Onder, co-chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Gultan Kisanak, Aysel Tugluk, Adil Kurt, Sabahat Tuncer, were also on hunger strike, he said.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/10/uk-turkey-kurds-idUKBRE8A90AT20121110
7. Government moves to end hunger strike
13 November 2012 / UPI
Turkey's government has submitted a proposal to Parliament that would allow Kurds to address courts in their mother tongue, a government spokesman said.
The move is aimed at ending a hunger strike in Turkish prisons in which some 700 Kurds are participating, Today's Zaman reported Tuesday.
In addition to the language change, the government is proposing to improve inmate conditions by allowing conjugal visits from spouses every three months and permitting inmates with serious diseases to apply for temporary release from prison.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/11/13/Government-moves-to-end-hunger-strike/UPI-20621352823531/ <http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/11/13/Government-moves-to-end-hunger-strike/UPI-20621352823531/>
8. Turkey should consider return of death penalty, says Erdogan
12 November 2012 / The Guardian
Political commentators accused the Turkish prime minister of populism ahead of the 2014 presidential election in which he is widely expected to run.His comments, in a speech on Sunday, follow an increase in violence over Kurdish militancy which has increased pressure on Ankara to act over a 28-year conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. "In the face of deaths, murders, if necessary the death penalty should be brought back to the table [for discussion]," he said. Turkey ended the death penalty in peacetime in 2002 under reforms aimed at joining the EU, abolishing entirely in 2004 during Erdogan's first term. Abolition of the death penalty is a pre-condition for EU entry. But Turkey's progress towards membership has ground to halt in recent years amid opposition from France and Germany and Erdogan has become increasingly dismissive of the EU, focusing instead on Turkey's role as a regional power.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/turkey-return-death-penalty-erdogan
9. Fatal Turkish bombing prompts call to defend Kurdish civilians
8 November 2012 / CPT Net
Turkish air strikes in northern Iraqi Kurdistan on 7 November killed two civilian men and injured two others. About 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 7 November, Turkish military jets attacked a group of Kurdish men while they were resting during their journey, transporting goods over the mountains between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. The CPT Iraqi Kurdistan team met with one of the survivors, Rebaz Ahmed Ismail, and his family at a hospital in Sulaimani on 8 November. Rebaz told CPT that he and his group had been traveling this specific road into Iran for at least three years. He stressed that neither he nor any of his group were armed. Rebaz lost one leg in this attack; the other was seriously injured. Two of Rebaz’s friends were killed and another was seriously wounded. A large number of jet planes were observed flying over the mountain region in the two days prior to the attack.
http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2012/11/08/iraqi-kurdistan-fatal-turkish-bombing-prompts-call-defend-kurdish-civilians
10. Kurdish militia seizes key Syrian city
13 November 2012 / Daily Star
There were scenes of wild jubilation in this northeastern Kurdish city after Democratic Union Party (PYD) forces overran Syrian intelligence and military institutions, driving out regime personnel in a sign that Kurds say are strengthening their position in the region. Residents of Malikieh, known in Kurdish as Derik, cheered and chanted as the PYD militia, known as the Popular Protection Committees (YPG), stormed the central political intelligence and municipal headquarters.
A brief exchange of gunfire was reported before Syrian intelligence officers were escorted from the building, to chants of “down with Assad” and “YPG, YPG.”
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Nov-13/194848-syrian-regime-withdraws-from-malikieh.ashx#axzz2CEYvOtrG
11. Kurds seize 'three towns in Syria's northeast'
12 November 2012 / AFP
Kurdish residents have taken control of three towns in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey after convincing pro-government forces to leave, a watchdog said on Saturday. The region's Hasakeh province has seen heavy fighting in recent days between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels, with 46 combatants killed in two days as the opposition seized the border town of Ras al-Ain on Friday.
The Kurds took control of the towns of Derbassiye and Tall Tamr late on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. They were backed by militia from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has links with Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), it said. The residents and militiamen surrounded government and security offices in both towns and convinced pro-government forces to abandon their posts, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and residents on the ground.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hOnzsIp1RTppdAU4cr4Y3figxpKQ?docId=CNG.18fa42eee640092a698458ccdc1aebfc.191
12. Syrian Air Force Kills Many in Kurdish Town of Sere Kaniye
13 November 2012 / Rudaw
The town of Ras al-Ayn -- known in Kurdish as Sere Kaniye -- was bombed by fighter jets and helicopters on Monday. News agencies reported that more than 18 people were killed; six of them Kurdish. Kurds have suspicions that Turkey is supporting the takeover of Ras al-Ayn by Syrian rebels. Faruq Hadji, a journalist based in Kobane, told Rudaw that two Kurdish houses were targeted. “The house of Mele Derwish and the house of Azadi (Kurdistan Freedom Party) member Eli Mela were bombed,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that dozens of civilians were injured, some severely, by the aerial bombardment on the Kurdish neighborhood al-Houranieh in Ras al-Ayn. Twelve were killed, including seven from the Nusra front, a paramilitary group with ties to al-Qaeda. At least 40 people were injured when a bomb was dropped on a building in the neighborhood of al-Mahata.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/5416.html
13. Syria Kurds flee regime shelling in terror
11 November 2012 / AFP
Thousands of Kurds have fled Syrian army attacks on the strategic town of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border, running for their lives after their homes were shelled and the corpses of fighters left strewn on the streets. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, grandparents, women and children rushed to the border and, when their numbers turned to thousands, Turkish soldiers opened the gates and offered them refuge. Ras al-Ain is one of just two Turkish border crossings still controlled by the Syrian army. Rebels fighting to bring down President Bashar al-Assad have captured four others while a seventh is controlled by Kurdish militia.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hIJy587H-azGqKe09uvdG2PCi6aQ?docId=CNG.8a35fecef96cc935c74ef0a23b7a7587.2b1
14. Tension Between Syrian Groups Threatens Factional War
9 November 2012 / Rudaw
Clashes between the Salahaddin Ayubi brigade of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and armed units of People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Aleppo last week signaled the threat of a possible Kurdish-Arab war. Tensions also flared when the YPG – an arm of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) -- raided bases in the Kurdish city of Kobane. Kurdish parties say the PYD violated the Erbil Agreement by removing Syrian revolution flags in Kobane. Muhammad Salih Muslim, co-leader of the PYD, said that these Kurdish parties "did not react" to last week’s events in Aleppo and that reports of the incidents in Kobane were “distorted." Meanwhile, the leader of the Salahaddin Ayubi brigade criticized the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), saying that they are “carrying out the agenda of the Syrian regime" -- referring to the YPG and PYD, affiliates of the PKK.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/5400.html
15. 2,000 march in support of Kurdish hunger strikers
12 November 2012 / Peace in Kurdistan campaign
On Sunday, 11th November, more than 2,000 Kurds marched five miles across North London in solidarity with the Kurdish hunger strikes in Turkish prisons, which have reached their 61st day. The hunger strikes are reaching a critical stage, and some hunger strikers may be near death. The 680 hunger strikers include elected representatives who have been jailed under the repressive policies of Turkish Prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They are demanding Kurdish language rights, and the end of the isolation in jail of Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), to help to negotiate a political settlement to the Kurdish Question. Other Kurds have joined the strike by refusing food in solidarity, including MPs belonging to the pro-Kurdish BDP (peace and democracy) party.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/2000-march-in-support-of-kurdish-hunger-strikers/
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
16. Behind the Kurdish Hunger Strike in Turkey
8 November 2012 / Middle East Research and Information Project
To hear Mazlum Tekdağ’s story is enough to understand why 700 Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Turkey. His father was murdered by the state in front of his Diyarbakır pastry shop in 1993, when Mazlum was just nine years old. His uncle Ali was kidnapped by an army-backed death squad known as JİTEM (the acronym for the Turkish phrase translating, roughly, as Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit) two years later. Mazlum never saw his uncle again, but a former JİTEM agent later claimed they tortured him for six months before killing him and burning his body by the side of a road in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır. Such experiences have moved thousands of Kurds in Turkey to join the armed rebellion of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, which has been outlawed since its inception. But Mazlum, along with thousands of others, chose to fight for his people’s rights through the non-violent means of pro-Kurdish political parties, a succession of which have been allowed to operate by the Turkish state before then being shut down. http://merip.org/mero/mero110812
17. Video: Kurds Have New Hopes Amid Mideast Changes
13 November 2012 / Voice of America
The upheaval from the "Arab Spring" across the Middle East has given the 30 million Kurds, who live mostly in parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran, new hopes of their long-held dream of independence. In a series of stories, VOA correspondents in the Middle East and Washington found that Kurdish aspirations are met by a complicated reality on the ground.
http://www.voanews.com/content/kurds-have-new-hopes-amid-mideast-changes/1544853.html
18. Hunger and thirst
15 November 2012 / The Economist
WHAT happens if they start dying? The question weighs ever more heavily as hundreds of Kurds in prisons across Turkey continue the hunger strike they launched on September 12th. Human-rights activists are saying that many have reached “a critical threshold.” The hunger strikers, surviving on sugar water and vitamins, vow to keep up their fast until the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party meets their demands for greater linguistic rights and better prison conditions for the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has responded with threats to reintroduce capital punishment, to which Mr Ocalan was sentenced after his capture in 1999 (and which AK abolished when it took office in 2002, in line with European Union demands.)
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21566666-hunger-strike-causes-new-tension-between-turkey-and-its-kurds-hunger-and-thirst
19. After quiet revolt, power struggle looms for Syria's Kurds
7 November 2012 / Reuters
In the northeast corner of Syria a power struggle is developing over the promise of oil riches in the remote Kurdish region, threatening to drag Kurdish rivals, Arab rebels and Turkey into a messy new front in an already complex civil war.
Quietly and with little of the bloodshed seen elsewhere in Syria's 19-month popular revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, the Kurdish minority is grabbing the chance to secure self-rule and the rights denied them for decades.
With Syrian forces and Arab rebels entangled in fighting to their west, a Syrian Kurdish party tied to Turkish Kurd separatists has exploited a vacuum to start Kurdish schools, cultural centers, police stations and armed militias.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/07/us-syria-crisis-kurds-idUSBRE8A619520121107
15 November 2012 / ANF
Democratic Society Congress (DTK) co-chair Ahmet Türk held a press conference on Wednesday to announce that Diyarbakır independent deputy Leyla Zana has started indefinite-irreversible hunger strike at her office in the Parliament in Ankara. At the press conference which was also attended by Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputies İbrahim Bilici and Altan Tan, DTK co-chair Ahmet Türk said that Zana has started her action in her office to give a message to the public with an aim to pave the way for a dialogue environment. Türk noted that they respected Zana’s determination to take part in the protest despite the health problems she is facing at present.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5370
2. Journalists leave hearing room
12 November 2012 / ANF
The hearing of the trial against Kurdish journalists arrested in the scope of so-called KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) operation on 20 December 2011 has started at Silivri Prison Complex on Monday. Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission co-chair French Helene Flautre and Commission members as well as Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputies are also attending the trial in Istanbul. The hearing of journalists has once again witnessed protests as journalists on trial left the hearing room when the court board denied journalist Kenan Kırkaya permission to speak about the ongoing hunger strike by Kurdish political prisoners.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5356
3. Second day of trial against journalists
13 November 2012 / ANF
Second day of the hearing of journalists tried in the scope of the so-called KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) at Silivri Prison Complex in Istanbul after yesterday’s hearing was held without defendants, lawyers and audience. 44 Kurdish journalists (36 of them have been in detention since December 2011) are being accused and charged for the news they wrote which are considered evidence of their ties with the KCK organization. Lawyer Sinan Zincir demanded the rereading of the indictment during today’s hearing as journalists and lawyers left the hearing room yesterday when the court board denied journalist Kenan Kırkaya permission to speak about the ongoing hunger strike by Kurdish political prisoners. The court board rejected lawyer Zincir’s demand, defending that it would be unnecessary to do that as journalists and lawyers protested and disagreed to attend the trial yesterday at their own request.
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5361
4. Turkish President tells PEN free speech violations cast shadow over Turkey’s progress
13 November 2012 / English PEN
In a meeting today with a PEN International delegation including English PEN director Jo Glanville, President Abdullah Gül expressed his personal commitment to free speech. Responding to PEN’s concerns over a rising number of writers, journalists and publishers in prison or on trial in Turkey, the president assured the delegation that he has been following the cases closely. “There are many good things unfolding in Turkey, but these concerns cast a shadow over the progress we are achieving,” the president told PEN. “They also have international repercussions. These developments deeply sadden me, and as President, I more than anyone else want to see that they are resolved and no longer on the country’s agenda.”
http://www.englishpen.org/turkey-president-tells-pen-international-free-speech-violations-cast-shadow-over-turkeys-progress/
5. KCK: We will increase our resistance
13 November 2012 / ANF
Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) executive council presidency has released a statement on the ongoing irreversible-indefinite hunger strike in Turkey prions and called on all parties and establishments in Kurdistan to enhance resistance and struggle. KCK pointed out that “Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan has paved way to deaths in prisons by giving no answer to the constructive efforts given for the fulfillment of the fair demands highlighted by Kurdish political prisoners”. "Erdoğan himself will be responsible for deaths in and outside prisons in this critical time", KCK underlined and added that "resistance is the only choice in the face of the fact that all constructive efforts have remained inconclusive due to the government’s attitude towards the Kurdish people and their demands".
http://en.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=article&nuceID=5363
6. Kurdish politicians join militants' hunger strike in Turkey
10 November 2012 / Reuters
Six of Turkey's leading Kurdish politicians have joined hundreds of jailed militants and activists in a hunger strike now in its 60th day to call for a rebel leader to be allowed to see lawyers, one of them said. Osman Baydemir, mayor of Diyarbakir in predominantly Kurdish south-eastern Turkey, said in a statement on Saturday that he had stopped eating. Five Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament, named as Sirri Sureyya Onder, co-chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Gultan Kisanak, Aysel Tugluk, Adil Kurt, Sabahat Tuncer, were also on hunger strike, he said.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/10/uk-turkey-kurds-idUKBRE8A90AT20121110
7. Government moves to end hunger strike
13 November 2012 / UPI
Turkey's government has submitted a proposal to Parliament that would allow Kurds to address courts in their mother tongue, a government spokesman said.
The move is aimed at ending a hunger strike in Turkish prisons in which some 700 Kurds are participating, Today's Zaman reported Tuesday.
In addition to the language change, the government is proposing to improve inmate conditions by allowing conjugal visits from spouses every three months and permitting inmates with serious diseases to apply for temporary release from prison.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/11/13/Government-moves-to-end-hunger-strike/UPI-20621352823531/ <http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/11/13/Government-moves-to-end-hunger-strike/UPI-20621352823531/>
8. Turkey should consider return of death penalty, says Erdogan
12 November 2012 / The Guardian
Political commentators accused the Turkish prime minister of populism ahead of the 2014 presidential election in which he is widely expected to run.His comments, in a speech on Sunday, follow an increase in violence over Kurdish militancy which has increased pressure on Ankara to act over a 28-year conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. "In the face of deaths, murders, if necessary the death penalty should be brought back to the table [for discussion]," he said. Turkey ended the death penalty in peacetime in 2002 under reforms aimed at joining the EU, abolishing entirely in 2004 during Erdogan's first term. Abolition of the death penalty is a pre-condition for EU entry. But Turkey's progress towards membership has ground to halt in recent years amid opposition from France and Germany and Erdogan has become increasingly dismissive of the EU, focusing instead on Turkey's role as a regional power.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/turkey-return-death-penalty-erdogan
9. Fatal Turkish bombing prompts call to defend Kurdish civilians
8 November 2012 / CPT Net
Turkish air strikes in northern Iraqi Kurdistan on 7 November killed two civilian men and injured two others. About 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 7 November, Turkish military jets attacked a group of Kurdish men while they were resting during their journey, transporting goods over the mountains between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. The CPT Iraqi Kurdistan team met with one of the survivors, Rebaz Ahmed Ismail, and his family at a hospital in Sulaimani on 8 November. Rebaz told CPT that he and his group had been traveling this specific road into Iran for at least three years. He stressed that neither he nor any of his group were armed. Rebaz lost one leg in this attack; the other was seriously injured. Two of Rebaz’s friends were killed and another was seriously wounded. A large number of jet planes were observed flying over the mountain region in the two days prior to the attack.
http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2012/11/08/iraqi-kurdistan-fatal-turkish-bombing-prompts-call-defend-kurdish-civilians
10. Kurdish militia seizes key Syrian city
13 November 2012 / Daily Star
There were scenes of wild jubilation in this northeastern Kurdish city after Democratic Union Party (PYD) forces overran Syrian intelligence and military institutions, driving out regime personnel in a sign that Kurds say are strengthening their position in the region. Residents of Malikieh, known in Kurdish as Derik, cheered and chanted as the PYD militia, known as the Popular Protection Committees (YPG), stormed the central political intelligence and municipal headquarters.
A brief exchange of gunfire was reported before Syrian intelligence officers were escorted from the building, to chants of “down with Assad” and “YPG, YPG.”
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Nov-13/194848-syrian-regime-withdraws-from-malikieh.ashx#axzz2CEYvOtrG
11. Kurds seize 'three towns in Syria's northeast'
12 November 2012 / AFP
Kurdish residents have taken control of three towns in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey after convincing pro-government forces to leave, a watchdog said on Saturday. The region's Hasakeh province has seen heavy fighting in recent days between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels, with 46 combatants killed in two days as the opposition seized the border town of Ras al-Ain on Friday.
The Kurds took control of the towns of Derbassiye and Tall Tamr late on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. They were backed by militia from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has links with Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), it said. The residents and militiamen surrounded government and security offices in both towns and convinced pro-government forces to abandon their posts, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and residents on the ground.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hOnzsIp1RTppdAU4cr4Y3figxpKQ?docId=CNG.18fa42eee640092a698458ccdc1aebfc.191
12. Syrian Air Force Kills Many in Kurdish Town of Sere Kaniye
13 November 2012 / Rudaw
The town of Ras al-Ayn -- known in Kurdish as Sere Kaniye -- was bombed by fighter jets and helicopters on Monday. News agencies reported that more than 18 people were killed; six of them Kurdish. Kurds have suspicions that Turkey is supporting the takeover of Ras al-Ayn by Syrian rebels. Faruq Hadji, a journalist based in Kobane, told Rudaw that two Kurdish houses were targeted. “The house of Mele Derwish and the house of Azadi (Kurdistan Freedom Party) member Eli Mela were bombed,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that dozens of civilians were injured, some severely, by the aerial bombardment on the Kurdish neighborhood al-Houranieh in Ras al-Ayn. Twelve were killed, including seven from the Nusra front, a paramilitary group with ties to al-Qaeda. At least 40 people were injured when a bomb was dropped on a building in the neighborhood of al-Mahata.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/5416.html
13. Syria Kurds flee regime shelling in terror
11 November 2012 / AFP
Thousands of Kurds have fled Syrian army attacks on the strategic town of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border, running for their lives after their homes were shelled and the corpses of fighters left strewn on the streets. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, grandparents, women and children rushed to the border and, when their numbers turned to thousands, Turkish soldiers opened the gates and offered them refuge. Ras al-Ain is one of just two Turkish border crossings still controlled by the Syrian army. Rebels fighting to bring down President Bashar al-Assad have captured four others while a seventh is controlled by Kurdish militia.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hIJy587H-azGqKe09uvdG2PCi6aQ?docId=CNG.8a35fecef96cc935c74ef0a23b7a7587.2b1
14. Tension Between Syrian Groups Threatens Factional War
9 November 2012 / Rudaw
Clashes between the Salahaddin Ayubi brigade of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and armed units of People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Aleppo last week signaled the threat of a possible Kurdish-Arab war. Tensions also flared when the YPG – an arm of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) -- raided bases in the Kurdish city of Kobane. Kurdish parties say the PYD violated the Erbil Agreement by removing Syrian revolution flags in Kobane. Muhammad Salih Muslim, co-leader of the PYD, said that these Kurdish parties "did not react" to last week’s events in Aleppo and that reports of the incidents in Kobane were “distorted." Meanwhile, the leader of the Salahaddin Ayubi brigade criticized the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), saying that they are “carrying out the agenda of the Syrian regime" -- referring to the YPG and PYD, affiliates of the PKK.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/5400.html
15. 2,000 march in support of Kurdish hunger strikers
12 November 2012 / Peace in Kurdistan campaign
On Sunday, 11th November, more than 2,000 Kurds marched five miles across North London in solidarity with the Kurdish hunger strikes in Turkish prisons, which have reached their 61st day. The hunger strikes are reaching a critical stage, and some hunger strikers may be near death. The 680 hunger strikers include elected representatives who have been jailed under the repressive policies of Turkish Prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They are demanding Kurdish language rights, and the end of the isolation in jail of Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), to help to negotiate a political settlement to the Kurdish Question. Other Kurds have joined the strike by refusing food in solidarity, including MPs belonging to the pro-Kurdish BDP (peace and democracy) party.
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/2000-march-in-support-of-kurdish-hunger-strikers/
COMMENT, OPINION AND ANALYSIS
16. Behind the Kurdish Hunger Strike in Turkey
8 November 2012 / Middle East Research and Information Project
To hear Mazlum Tekdağ’s story is enough to understand why 700 Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Turkey. His father was murdered by the state in front of his Diyarbakır pastry shop in 1993, when Mazlum was just nine years old. His uncle Ali was kidnapped by an army-backed death squad known as JİTEM (the acronym for the Turkish phrase translating, roughly, as Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit) two years later. Mazlum never saw his uncle again, but a former JİTEM agent later claimed they tortured him for six months before killing him and burning his body by the side of a road in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır. Such experiences have moved thousands of Kurds in Turkey to join the armed rebellion of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, which has been outlawed since its inception. But Mazlum, along with thousands of others, chose to fight for his people’s rights through the non-violent means of pro-Kurdish political parties, a succession of which have been allowed to operate by the Turkish state before then being shut down. http://merip.org/mero/mero110812
17. Video: Kurds Have New Hopes Amid Mideast Changes
13 November 2012 / Voice of America
The upheaval from the "Arab Spring" across the Middle East has given the 30 million Kurds, who live mostly in parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran, new hopes of their long-held dream of independence. In a series of stories, VOA correspondents in the Middle East and Washington found that Kurdish aspirations are met by a complicated reality on the ground.
http://www.voanews.com/content/kurds-have-new-hopes-amid-mideast-changes/1544853.html
18. Hunger and thirst
15 November 2012 / The Economist
WHAT happens if they start dying? The question weighs ever more heavily as hundreds of Kurds in prisons across Turkey continue the hunger strike they launched on September 12th. Human-rights activists are saying that many have reached “a critical threshold.” The hunger strikers, surviving on sugar water and vitamins, vow to keep up their fast until the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party meets their demands for greater linguistic rights and better prison conditions for the leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has responded with threats to reintroduce capital punishment, to which Mr Ocalan was sentenced after his capture in 1999 (and which AK abolished when it took office in 2002, in line with European Union demands.)
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21566666-hunger-strike-causes-new-tension-between-turkey-and-its-kurds-hunger-and-thirst
19. After quiet revolt, power struggle looms for Syria's Kurds
7 November 2012 / Reuters
In the northeast corner of Syria a power struggle is developing over the promise of oil riches in the remote Kurdish region, threatening to drag Kurdish rivals, Arab rebels and Turkey into a messy new front in an already complex civil war.
Quietly and with little of the bloodshed seen elsewhere in Syria's 19-month popular revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, the Kurdish minority is grabbing the chance to secure self-rule and the rights denied them for decades.
With Syrian forces and Arab rebels entangled in fighting to their west, a Syrian Kurdish party tied to Turkish Kurd separatists has exploited a vacuum to start Kurdish schools, cultural centers, police stations and armed militias.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/07/us-syria-crisis-kurds-idUSBRE8A619520121107
Write to your MP about EDM 724!
Dear friends,
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO WRITE TO MP REGARDING EDM 724. You can find out who you’re MP is here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
A new Early Day Motion (EDM) has been tabled in Parliament entitled Media Freedom in Turkey (see below).
Turkey’s media crackdown and the disproportionate targeting of Kurdish or pro-Kurdish media has been receiving more and more attention from international NGO’s and activists. In particular, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) recently published a damning report on Turkey’s press freedom crisis, and this week, representatives of English PEN met with President Abdullah Gul to also pressure him on this issue.
Nonetheless, over 70 journalists remain locked in prison, and mass trials to prosecute them are on-going. We must encourage our MPs in parliament to pressure the government of Turkey to release all journalists imprisoned during the course of their work.
What can you do?
Contact your MP and urge them to sign the motion! Your local MP can be found here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com and you can write to them via this website: http://www.writetothem.com/
If you have time, why not arrange to visit your MP at their constituency office and discuss it with them in person? This is often the most effective!
EDM’s are a very useful way of gathering support in Parliament. When an MP signs an EDM, they are registering their support for a specific issue. On rare occasions, when an EDM has enough signatories, it is also debated on the floor of the House of Commons. In this way, it is a mechanism to get an issue that is often overlooked discussed in Parliament.
For background information on this EDM and other Parliamentary lobbying, the BDP, the ongoing KCK trials and other news and politics from Turkey, visit: www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com
Thank you,
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
Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, John Austin, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Mark Thomas
--------
EDM 724: Media Freedom In Turkey
That this House condemns the continued imprisonment of approximately 76 journalists in Turkey, the highest number in the world, on what appear to be politically motivated terror charges; expresses alarm over the arbitrary nature of these prosecutions and the lack of due process or fair treatment in the courts received by these journalists; holds deep concerns that a number of journalists in prison are on indefinite hunger strike; expresses apprehension over the deterioration in media freedom in Turkey, in particular the Kurdish media and those who are critical of government policy; and echoes the call of the European Federation of Journalists that Turkey should make urgent reforms to protect press freedom and drop charges against journalists being prosecuted under anti-terror and anti-state laws.
Sponsors: Mitchell, Austin / Clark, Katy / Corbyn, Jeremy / Lavery, Ian / McDonnell, John / Russell, Bob
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/724
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO WRITE TO MP REGARDING EDM 724. You can find out who you’re MP is here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
A new Early Day Motion (EDM) has been tabled in Parliament entitled Media Freedom in Turkey (see below).
Turkey’s media crackdown and the disproportionate targeting of Kurdish or pro-Kurdish media has been receiving more and more attention from international NGO’s and activists. In particular, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) recently published a damning report on Turkey’s press freedom crisis, and this week, representatives of English PEN met with President Abdullah Gul to also pressure him on this issue.
Nonetheless, over 70 journalists remain locked in prison, and mass trials to prosecute them are on-going. We must encourage our MPs in parliament to pressure the government of Turkey to release all journalists imprisoned during the course of their work.
What can you do?
Contact your MP and urge them to sign the motion! Your local MP can be found here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com and you can write to them via this website: http://www.writetothem.com/
If you have time, why not arrange to visit your MP at their constituency office and discuss it with them in person? This is often the most effective!
EDM’s are a very useful way of gathering support in Parliament. When an MP signs an EDM, they are registering their support for a specific issue. On rare occasions, when an EDM has enough signatories, it is also debated on the floor of the House of Commons. In this way, it is a mechanism to get an issue that is often overlooked discussed in Parliament.
For background information on this EDM and other Parliamentary lobbying, the BDP, the ongoing KCK trials and other news and politics from Turkey, visit: www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com
Thank you,
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
Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, John Austin, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Mark Thomas
--------
EDM 724: Media Freedom In Turkey
That this House condemns the continued imprisonment of approximately 76 journalists in Turkey, the highest number in the world, on what appear to be politically motivated terror charges; expresses alarm over the arbitrary nature of these prosecutions and the lack of due process or fair treatment in the courts received by these journalists; holds deep concerns that a number of journalists in prison are on indefinite hunger strike; expresses apprehension over the deterioration in media freedom in Turkey, in particular the Kurdish media and those who are critical of government policy; and echoes the call of the European Federation of Journalists that Turkey should make urgent reforms to protect press freedom and drop charges against journalists being prosecuted under anti-terror and anti-state laws.
Sponsors: Mitchell, Austin / Clark, Katy / Corbyn, Jeremy / Lavery, Ian / McDonnell, John / Russell, Bob
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/724
PYD vision on the situations in Syria
Dear friends,
Below, we provide a text by the co-president of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Saleh Muslim, giving the party’s perspective on the situation in Syria.
Peace in Kurdistan campaign is very concerned about the current crisis in Western Kurdistan and we will do our best to keep you informed about the latest developments. However, you can also keep up with the latest by checking the PYD website (Kurdish and English) and the Support Kurds in Syria website, which is updated daily with news from Syria and beyond.
http://www.pydrojava.net/en/index.php
http://supportkurds.org/
In solidarity,
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
Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, John Austin, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Mark Thomas
PYD vision on the situation in Syria
It is accepted that Syrian revolution has started in 2011, but we the Kurdish people believe that our revolution has already started on 12th of March 2004 when Qamishlo uprising has united Kurdish people in Western Kurdistan against the Bathiest repressive regime. The resistance of Kurdish people never stopped since that date through original resists in Syrian intelligence cellars and prisons, ‘’ Nazli Kajal’’ was arrested in April 2004 and we still don’t know anything about her , comrade ‘’Ahmad Husain Husain’’ ( Abu Jodi) has become a martyr in military intelligence cellars ,comrade ‘’Shilan Kobani’’ and more four comrades became martyrs by the Syrian intelligence hands, and also the former MP, comrade ‘’Osman Suliman’’ and all Nawroz festival events like resists and arrests as in Nawroz-2008 and Raqa city Nawroz - 2010, where thousands of Kurdish nationalists exposed to arrest and torture, for instance, in March 2011 (when Syrian revolution was initiated), 1500 detainees from our supporters in Syrian intelligence prisons and dungeons.
Due to these, when Syrian people revolution started for the freedom, democracy and dignity, we as Kurdish people were the most in need people to that, so we were the earliest joiners beside our brothers in the Syrian homeland. When we have analysed the situations, we have concluded a common conviction with our Kurdish brothers and Arabic democratic organisations that have been resisting this regime for long time back. This conclusion was that the Syrian revolution should remain peaceful and we will take our rights by democratic means with preservation of public self-defence up to we reach into comprehensive civil disobedience, and we have to avoid the revolution arming whatever the circumstances are; because we know very well how brutal is the regime, and how stronghold is the regime with the authority. We have concluded above visions into work frame via joining ‘’ The Syrian National Coordinating Body for Democratic Change Forces’’ and we still are an active member party and adhered to its principle and strategies.
Depending on the aforementioned facts, we have to organize our people and prepare for the future on one hand, and to continue in participating in the revolution on the other hand. So we started to organize the Kurdish masses in our project which we believe is the best suited project to solve the Kurdish issue in western Kurdistan and Syria, we called it: "Democratic Self-governing", which was adopted in our third conference in 2007, and we continued moving our people masses toward the revolution as well. However, our Arab partners were not able to organize the masses in the right way and couldn’t control the Arab street, and by the efforts which made by the existing regime, and foreign interventions, the Syrian revolution were taken out of its peaceful route and got armed, and the result is: what we see today of killing hundreds of people a day in the cycle of mutual violence between regime forces and armed groups that supported from outside parties who are seeking to serve their own interests and objectives, without any regard for the fate of the Syrian people.
We, as a Kurdish forces, could organize the ranks of our people including all other Syrian components stationed in the Kurdish areas such as Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians and Armenians, under the same roof of the Democratic Society Movement " (TEVGERA CIVAKA DEMOQRATIK), which includes many civil society organizations as " Star Union" for women and "Youth Union" , " Families of the martyrs Foundation " and professionals associations as a doctors, engineers, craftsmen and others, in addition to that, formation of local and regional councils and communes in the villages and countryside. Along with "Civil Protection Committees," which were distributed in almost region of western Kurdistan, in case of any security gap occurs in the Kurdish areas because of armed clashes that take place in Syria nearby the Kurdish areas.
As a result of these measures from our part ,we have achieved a safe Kurdish areas without armed clashes, as in many other Syrian areas which caused a flood of displaced Syrians , approximately half a million from displaced Kurds and Arabs came to the Kurdish areas escaping from the hell of clashes taking place between regime's army and the armed groups fighting under the name of "Free Syrian Army". For this, we started facing difficulties in meeting living requirements as food and medicine in the Kurdish areas, on one hand the transportation difficulty with other parts of Syria, and on other hand closing the border with Turkey and Kurdistan (North Iraq) region depending on the political mood.
As for the Free Army, we are dealing / coordinating with the groups that broke away from the Syrian Army in order to protect civilians, and we understand each other. But there are other groups that are related to foreign parties and are working to achieve their agendas. Some of these groups that are related to Turkey work on tensing Kurdish Areas as they don’t recognize any of the democratic rights of Kurdish people in Western Kurdistan. Due to the existing of Kurdish phobia by Turkish regime and during the period of good relationship between Syrian regime and Turkish regime, the Turkish regime were able to recruit many of Turkman people and weak people in its favor and is using them now. Those people are disrupting the atmosphere in Kurdish Areas in addition to the forces of chauvinism regime that does not accept any of Kurds rights. On the other hand, the Free Army is not homogeneous unified organization, but consists of several heads/bodies and has no unified leadership. Some of them are linked to Saudi Arabia, other to Qatar and other to Al-Qaeda. But most of those groups are fundamentalist religious and are not represented by the Syrian National Council. This means that they don’t have an unified political representation which does not allow us to dialogue with them. Although the western powers worked hard to find a political representative for those groups which embodied in the Syrian National Council but they haven’t succeed so far.
According to Kurdish forces and people organization, we as a Democratic Union Party could organize the ranks of our people in the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) as mentioned above as well. Through semi-democratic Election, we elect people councils for Western Kurdistan which is represented by the court of the council and a co-presidency of a man and a woman. We as a political party are representing this configuration and council. In addition we commit ourselves to the decisions of the People's Council. On the other hand, the Syrian Kurdish Parties met each other which are sixteen parties in the Syrian Kurdish National Council.
Recently and over long lasted deliberations and dialogues between the Parliament of Western Kurdistan and the Syrian Kurdish National Council, we could establish a Supreme Kurdish Council representing the overall Kurdish Forces operating in Western Kurdistan and Syria, in the Erbil Convention, which was signed on 11 July 2012. All units, institutions and protection units which were formed formerly are now related to the Supreme Kurdish Council as a result of this convention. The Supreme Kurdish Council consists of ten members from the above mentioned councils and has formed all sub-committees, local councils and protections units in almost Kurdish areas and towns, and also there is People Protection Units which came also under the command of the Supreme Kurdish Council.
One of our advantages which derived from the Kurdish community, there are no religious extremist organizations in our society. Kurdish community itself includes Yazidis and Alevis as well as Muslims. Moreover, in our Community we live with Assyrian, Chaldeans and Armenians for thousands of years. In addition to other social aspects, for example women’s participation in all activities including protection units by 40 percent. And the presidential system of PYD and Parliament of Western Kurdistan is co-presidency of a man and woman. In short, the Kurdish community of Western Kurdistan could be a model for the whole Syrian society in terms of democracy, institutions, participatory and co-existence of all the components.
We as PYD and Parliament of Western Kurdistan had our project, which we called ‘’ Democratic Self-governing’’ and was decided in our third conference of the party in 2007. This project were also been adopted by the Parliament of Western Kurdistan when it was established. This project was a little creative and had no text in the existing forms, as well as at rapprochement with the Kurdish parties that had different projects, ranging from the cultural rights and federal of the Kurdish People. So we found that the label is not as important as the content, therefore we decided that the following points should be included for solving the Kurdish Issue:
• Constitutional recognition of Kurdish people existence within the unity of the Syrian country, in a secular pluralistic and democratic system.
• Providing the necessary constitutional guarantees of Kurds democratic rights, which include cultural, social, political, economic aspects and Self-protection.
We also believe that Democracy is not achievable without solving the Kurdish issue in Syria; the Kurdish movement in Syria is not separatism and doesn’t look forward to division or fragmentation of Syria as it doesn’t form any danger to any of the neighboring countries at all.
Reasons of Kurdish areas survival and sustained safe and quiet so far relay on the following points / factors:
• Our ability to organize the ranks of our people and there are parties who represent Kurds and is getting support and respect from the majority of the Kurdish People.
• As we mentioned before, no extremist currents in our community.
• The Syrian regime is aware that the countries which support armed groups currently will not support Kurds and their rights especially Turkey.
• The Syrian regime doesn’t assume an open fighting against Kurds because they were experienced in Qamishlo uprising in 2004.
• Adding to all of that, Kurds are demanding their right to exist and their democratic rights which should be protected regardless whoever runs the country.
01.11.2012
Co-President of the Democratic Union Party
Saleh Muslim
Below, we provide a text by the co-president of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Saleh Muslim, giving the party’s perspective on the situation in Syria.
Peace in Kurdistan campaign is very concerned about the current crisis in Western Kurdistan and we will do our best to keep you informed about the latest developments. However, you can also keep up with the latest by checking the PYD website (Kurdish and English) and the Support Kurds in Syria website, which is updated daily with news from Syria and beyond.
http://www.pydrojava.net/en/index.php
http://supportkurds.org/
In solidarity,
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
Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, John Austin, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Mark Thomas
PYD vision on the situation in Syria
It is accepted that Syrian revolution has started in 2011, but we the Kurdish people believe that our revolution has already started on 12th of March 2004 when Qamishlo uprising has united Kurdish people in Western Kurdistan against the Bathiest repressive regime. The resistance of Kurdish people never stopped since that date through original resists in Syrian intelligence cellars and prisons, ‘’ Nazli Kajal’’ was arrested in April 2004 and we still don’t know anything about her , comrade ‘’Ahmad Husain Husain’’ ( Abu Jodi) has become a martyr in military intelligence cellars ,comrade ‘’Shilan Kobani’’ and more four comrades became martyrs by the Syrian intelligence hands, and also the former MP, comrade ‘’Osman Suliman’’ and all Nawroz festival events like resists and arrests as in Nawroz-2008 and Raqa city Nawroz - 2010, where thousands of Kurdish nationalists exposed to arrest and torture, for instance, in March 2011 (when Syrian revolution was initiated), 1500 detainees from our supporters in Syrian intelligence prisons and dungeons.
Due to these, when Syrian people revolution started for the freedom, democracy and dignity, we as Kurdish people were the most in need people to that, so we were the earliest joiners beside our brothers in the Syrian homeland. When we have analysed the situations, we have concluded a common conviction with our Kurdish brothers and Arabic democratic organisations that have been resisting this regime for long time back. This conclusion was that the Syrian revolution should remain peaceful and we will take our rights by democratic means with preservation of public self-defence up to we reach into comprehensive civil disobedience, and we have to avoid the revolution arming whatever the circumstances are; because we know very well how brutal is the regime, and how stronghold is the regime with the authority. We have concluded above visions into work frame via joining ‘’ The Syrian National Coordinating Body for Democratic Change Forces’’ and we still are an active member party and adhered to its principle and strategies.
Depending on the aforementioned facts, we have to organize our people and prepare for the future on one hand, and to continue in participating in the revolution on the other hand. So we started to organize the Kurdish masses in our project which we believe is the best suited project to solve the Kurdish issue in western Kurdistan and Syria, we called it: "Democratic Self-governing", which was adopted in our third conference in 2007, and we continued moving our people masses toward the revolution as well. However, our Arab partners were not able to organize the masses in the right way and couldn’t control the Arab street, and by the efforts which made by the existing regime, and foreign interventions, the Syrian revolution were taken out of its peaceful route and got armed, and the result is: what we see today of killing hundreds of people a day in the cycle of mutual violence between regime forces and armed groups that supported from outside parties who are seeking to serve their own interests and objectives, without any regard for the fate of the Syrian people.
We, as a Kurdish forces, could organize the ranks of our people including all other Syrian components stationed in the Kurdish areas such as Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians and Armenians, under the same roof of the Democratic Society Movement " (TEVGERA CIVAKA DEMOQRATIK), which includes many civil society organizations as " Star Union" for women and "Youth Union" , " Families of the martyrs Foundation " and professionals associations as a doctors, engineers, craftsmen and others, in addition to that, formation of local and regional councils and communes in the villages and countryside. Along with "Civil Protection Committees," which were distributed in almost region of western Kurdistan, in case of any security gap occurs in the Kurdish areas because of armed clashes that take place in Syria nearby the Kurdish areas.
As a result of these measures from our part ,we have achieved a safe Kurdish areas without armed clashes, as in many other Syrian areas which caused a flood of displaced Syrians , approximately half a million from displaced Kurds and Arabs came to the Kurdish areas escaping from the hell of clashes taking place between regime's army and the armed groups fighting under the name of "Free Syrian Army". For this, we started facing difficulties in meeting living requirements as food and medicine in the Kurdish areas, on one hand the transportation difficulty with other parts of Syria, and on other hand closing the border with Turkey and Kurdistan (North Iraq) region depending on the political mood.
As for the Free Army, we are dealing / coordinating with the groups that broke away from the Syrian Army in order to protect civilians, and we understand each other. But there are other groups that are related to foreign parties and are working to achieve their agendas. Some of these groups that are related to Turkey work on tensing Kurdish Areas as they don’t recognize any of the democratic rights of Kurdish people in Western Kurdistan. Due to the existing of Kurdish phobia by Turkish regime and during the period of good relationship between Syrian regime and Turkish regime, the Turkish regime were able to recruit many of Turkman people and weak people in its favor and is using them now. Those people are disrupting the atmosphere in Kurdish Areas in addition to the forces of chauvinism regime that does not accept any of Kurds rights. On the other hand, the Free Army is not homogeneous unified organization, but consists of several heads/bodies and has no unified leadership. Some of them are linked to Saudi Arabia, other to Qatar and other to Al-Qaeda. But most of those groups are fundamentalist religious and are not represented by the Syrian National Council. This means that they don’t have an unified political representation which does not allow us to dialogue with them. Although the western powers worked hard to find a political representative for those groups which embodied in the Syrian National Council but they haven’t succeed so far.
According to Kurdish forces and people organization, we as a Democratic Union Party could organize the ranks of our people in the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) as mentioned above as well. Through semi-democratic Election, we elect people councils for Western Kurdistan which is represented by the court of the council and a co-presidency of a man and a woman. We as a political party are representing this configuration and council. In addition we commit ourselves to the decisions of the People's Council. On the other hand, the Syrian Kurdish Parties met each other which are sixteen parties in the Syrian Kurdish National Council.
Recently and over long lasted deliberations and dialogues between the Parliament of Western Kurdistan and the Syrian Kurdish National Council, we could establish a Supreme Kurdish Council representing the overall Kurdish Forces operating in Western Kurdistan and Syria, in the Erbil Convention, which was signed on 11 July 2012. All units, institutions and protection units which were formed formerly are now related to the Supreme Kurdish Council as a result of this convention. The Supreme Kurdish Council consists of ten members from the above mentioned councils and has formed all sub-committees, local councils and protections units in almost Kurdish areas and towns, and also there is People Protection Units which came also under the command of the Supreme Kurdish Council.
One of our advantages which derived from the Kurdish community, there are no religious extremist organizations in our society. Kurdish community itself includes Yazidis and Alevis as well as Muslims. Moreover, in our Community we live with Assyrian, Chaldeans and Armenians for thousands of years. In addition to other social aspects, for example women’s participation in all activities including protection units by 40 percent. And the presidential system of PYD and Parliament of Western Kurdistan is co-presidency of a man and woman. In short, the Kurdish community of Western Kurdistan could be a model for the whole Syrian society in terms of democracy, institutions, participatory and co-existence of all the components.
We as PYD and Parliament of Western Kurdistan had our project, which we called ‘’ Democratic Self-governing’’ and was decided in our third conference of the party in 2007. This project were also been adopted by the Parliament of Western Kurdistan when it was established. This project was a little creative and had no text in the existing forms, as well as at rapprochement with the Kurdish parties that had different projects, ranging from the cultural rights and federal of the Kurdish People. So we found that the label is not as important as the content, therefore we decided that the following points should be included for solving the Kurdish Issue:
• Constitutional recognition of Kurdish people existence within the unity of the Syrian country, in a secular pluralistic and democratic system.
• Providing the necessary constitutional guarantees of Kurds democratic rights, which include cultural, social, political, economic aspects and Self-protection.
We also believe that Democracy is not achievable without solving the Kurdish issue in Syria; the Kurdish movement in Syria is not separatism and doesn’t look forward to division or fragmentation of Syria as it doesn’t form any danger to any of the neighboring countries at all.
Reasons of Kurdish areas survival and sustained safe and quiet so far relay on the following points / factors:
• Our ability to organize the ranks of our people and there are parties who represent Kurds and is getting support and respect from the majority of the Kurdish People.
• As we mentioned before, no extremist currents in our community.
• The Syrian regime is aware that the countries which support armed groups currently will not support Kurds and their rights especially Turkey.
• The Syrian regime doesn’t assume an open fighting against Kurds because they were experienced in Qamishlo uprising in 2004.
• Adding to all of that, Kurds are demanding their right to exist and their democratic rights which should be protected regardless whoever runs the country.
01.11.2012
Co-President of the Democratic Union Party
Saleh Muslim
Schulz on the situation of hunger strikers in Turkey
Schulz on the situation of hunger strikers in Turkey
Brussels - 13 November 2012
The President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz has written a letter to Turkey Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin expressing his concern for the critical conditions of hunger strikers in Turkish prisons. President Schulz stated:
"I follow with concern the hunger strike of jailed Kurdish prisoners, among them elected officials, and of Members of Parliament in Turkey.
My immediate concern is for the health of those undertaking this desperate non-violent action. I am confident that Turkish authorities are doing their utmost to provide the best medical assistance to all the inmates and protesters.
I call on hunger strikers to put an end to an action which is putting their life in peril and to revert to political dialogue as a way to advance their requests.
I call on the Turkish authorities to address the concerns of the protesters. In this respect, I welcome the government's proposed legislation amending the Code of Criminal Procedure to allow the use of mother tongue during courts proceeding. I hope this will be implemented swiftly and fully."
For further information:
Armin Machmer
Spokesperson
Mobile: +32 479 97 11 98
Giacomo Fassina
Mobile: +32 498 98 33 10
All the news < http://www.europarl.europa.eu/the-president/en/press/press_release_speeches.html?_mfb=##data##>
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/the-president> <http://www.facebook.com/martinschulz.ep> <http://twitter.com/martinschulz>
Brussels - 13 November 2012
The President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz has written a letter to Turkey Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin expressing his concern for the critical conditions of hunger strikers in Turkish prisons. President Schulz stated:
"I follow with concern the hunger strike of jailed Kurdish prisoners, among them elected officials, and of Members of Parliament in Turkey.
My immediate concern is for the health of those undertaking this desperate non-violent action. I am confident that Turkish authorities are doing their utmost to provide the best medical assistance to all the inmates and protesters.
I call on hunger strikers to put an end to an action which is putting their life in peril and to revert to political dialogue as a way to advance their requests.
I call on the Turkish authorities to address the concerns of the protesters. In this respect, I welcome the government's proposed legislation amending the Code of Criminal Procedure to allow the use of mother tongue during courts proceeding. I hope this will be implemented swiftly and fully."
For further information:
Armin Machmer
Spokesperson
Mobile: +32 479 97 11 98
Giacomo Fassina
Mobile: +32 498 98 33 10
All the news < http://www.europarl.europa.eu/the-president/en/press/press_release_speeches.html?_mfb=##data##>
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/the-president> <http://www.facebook.com/martinschulz.ep> <http://twitter.com/martinschulz>
Press statement - from the BDP's elected mayors to the public
PRESS STATEMENT
11 November 2012
Call from the Peace and Democracy Party’s elected mayors to the public in relation the non-alternate and indefinite hunger strike, which is in its 60th day (11/10/2012)
Dear Press Members,
We, as the members of the Peace and Democracy Party and as those elected by people’s free will, would like to announce that our society has come to a decisive crossroads. This is a result of the fact that public conscience has not responded to the urgent call made by Kurdish politicians in prison.
These hunger strikes, which have come to a very critical point, cannot be evaluated separately from Kurdish people’s demands of freedom and the resolution of the Kurdish issue with peaceful means.
Since 2009 under the rubric of KCK operations –which are in fact attacks against the Peace and Democracy Party – more than 9 thousand politicians, NGO workers, activists, lawyers, journalists, elected mayors, city councilors, provincial assembly members, parliamentarians and students; in short, men, women, children, elderly and people from all walks of life, have been put in prison. These arrests are aimed at disenfranchising Kurds from legal politics and have caused great suffering among our people.
By arresting elected members of the Kurdish opposition and escalating military operations the government has opted once again for 90 year-old state policies of security and destruction. This goes entirely against the Kurdish people’s expectations of a fair solution to the Kurdish question based on the principles of justice and freedom. Turkish government has further intensified its strategy of conflict over negotiation by holding Mr. Abdullah Öcalan in solitary confinement for 16 months on İmralı Island.
Turkish government’s policy of exclusion, isolation and conflict has claimed the lives of at least a thousand people since last year. It is in such an atmosphere that thousands of unjustly and unlawfully imprisoned political hostages have laid down their bodies to death on the condition of three basic demands.
We would like to announce to the public that the demands prisoners are voicing belong to all of us. These demands are that Abdullah Öcalan’s isolation be removed so that peace negotiations can be resumed and that the right of education and defense in Kurdish be officially recognized.
Isolation is against domestic and international law and it is essentially a legal violation. Therefore, the fact that Öcalan has not been allowed to see anyone in the last 16 months is a crime. Additionally, this strategy aims to intensify the conflict and is part of a military logic. The only consequence of this policy is conflict and death. It is the architects and executors of the isolation policy who are primarily responsible for the suspension of negotiations, resumption of military clashes and increased number of deaths.
The Kurdish problem stems from the fact that the Kurdish people as a nation are not able to use their linguistic or cultural rights, nor is their identity and status recognised. Education and legal defense in mother-tongue, and living and developing the Kurdish language in every aspect of life, are the most natural rights of Kurdish people. The denial, usurpation and even negotiation of this right can only be explained by the racism and fascism of the existing government. A Kurd values his/her language and identity as much as a Turk, a Persian, an Arab, a French or a German does. We are neither asking for more than these other nations have nor settling for less.
To put it more clearly, the only reason that people have laid their bodies to death in prisons and died in combat outside of prison is that the government keeps repressing Kurdish people’s demands for freedom, and uses the conventional 90-years old policies of denial, conflict and destruction.
Turkish and Kurdish people should be well aware that people, who are in prison and who are laying their bodies to death, are doing so in order to prevent further lives from being lost in combat and so that the channels for negotiation will re-open. The position taken by the Turkish public, primarily that of the government, suggests that the conscience of people is blunted and our society has come to a crossroad. The public should also be aware that the position the government takes from now on, and the way in which it resolves the hunger strikes will be crucial for our future.
Here is our call to Mr. Prime Minister, the government and the Turkish people: any provocative, derogatory and contemptuous statement and position is an invitation to death. We do not have one second to lose in our struggle to achieve an equal and free life, to open the doors to the solution of our problems through negotiations and in a conflict-free manner.
We are worried that the loss of a single life amongst our people who are on hunger strike will be the start of an irreparable rupture and a deepened conflict. As such, the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan must be removed and the negotiations should start immediately. We would like to declare to the public that in order to achieve our common goals, we, as elected mayors and provincial general assembly presidents together with our assemblies, are ready for all kinds of duties and contributions, asked from us by the BDP Head Office.
With our kindest regards.
Mehmet ÇALĞAN Adıyaman – Çelikhan - Pınarbaşı Mayor
Yusuf YILMAZ – Ağrı – Patnos Mayor
Serhat TEMEL – Batman Deputy Mayor
Selahattin BULUT – Batman – Kozluk – Bekirhan Mayor
Esat ÖNER – Batman – Gercüş Mayor
Mehmet Raşit HAŞİMİ – Batman - Kozluk Mayor
Reşit ÖZEN – Bingöl – Karlıova Deputy Mayor
Mehmet Emin ÖZKAN – Bitlis – Güroymak Mayor
Lezgin BİNGÖL – Bitlis – Hizan – Kolludere Mayor
Mehmet DEMİR – Bitlis – Ahlat – Ovakışla Mayor
Abdullah OK – Bitlis – Tatvan Mayor
Metin DİNDAR – Diyarbakır – Kulp – Ağaçlı Mayor
Yüksel BARAN – Diyarbakır – Bağlar Mayor
Jamila EMİNOĞLU – Diyarbakir – Bismil Mayor
Osman BAYDEMİR – Diyarbakır Mayor
Ahmet CENGİZ – Diyarbakır – Çınar Mayor
Nusret AKBAŞ – Diyarbakır – Dicle Deputy Mayor
Petek Elyuse ÇAPANOĞLU – Diyarbakır – Eğil Mayor
Fesih YALÇIN – Diyarbakır – Ergani Mayor
Abdurrahman ZORLU – Diyarbakır – Hani Mayor
Mahmut DAĞ – Diyarbakır – Kayapınar Deputy Mayor
Mehmet SALIK – Diyarbakır – Kaygısız Mayor
Remzi ÇALİ – Diyarbakır – Kocaköy Mayor
M. Nesim ŞİMŞEK – Diyarbakır – Kulp Mayor
Seyit NARİN – Diyarbakir – Hani – Kuyular Mayor
Fikriye AYTİN – Diyarbakır – Lice Mayor
Fadıl ERDEDE – Diyarbakır – Silvan Mayor
Abdullah DEMİRBAŞ – Diyarbakir – Sur Mayor
Selim KURBANOĞLU – Diyarbakır – Yenişehir Mayor
Mehmet KANAR – Hakkari – Çukurca Mayor
Tacettin SAFALI – Hakkari – Yüksekova – Esendere Deputy Mayor
Fadıl BEDİRHANOĞLU – Hakkari Mayor
Sedat TÖRE – Hakkari – Şemdinli Mayor
Ercan BORA – Hakkari – Yüksekova Mayor V.
Ömer AKSU – Iğdır – Halfeli Mayor
Hüseyin MALK – Iğdır Deputy Mayor
Hüsnü ANCI – Kars – Digor – Dağpınar Deputy Mayor
Muzaffer KUTAY – Kars – Digor Mayor
Mehmet ALKAN – Kars – Kağızman Mayor
Lokman FINDIK – Mardin – Nusaybin – Akarsu Mayor
Süleyman ASAN – Mardin – Dargeçit Mayor
Doğan ÖZBAHÇECİ – Mardin – Derik Deputy Mayor
Zeki KAVAK – Mardin – Nusaybin – Duruca Mayor
Ömer ALTUN – Mardin – Nusaybin – Girmeli Mayor
Ahmet İNCİ – Mardin – Dargeçit – Kılavuz Mayor
Haşim BADAY – Mardin – Kızıltepe Deputy Mayor
Hasip AKTAŞ – Mardin – Mazıdağı Mayor
Ayse GÖKKAN – Mardin – Nusaybin Mayor
Abdülkadir DAĞ – Mardin – Savur – Pınardere Mayor
Fikri ÖKMEN – Mardin – Savur – Sürgücü Mayor
Abdulkerim ADAM – Mardin – Yalım Mayor
Gülbeyaz GÜNEŞ – Mardin – Savur – Yeşilalan Mayor
Bahattin BAHADIR – Muş – Korkut – Altınova Mayor
Ziya AKKAYA – Muş – Bulanık Mayor
Mustafa ORHAN – Muş – Bulanık – Elmakaya Mayor
Mehmet YAŞIK – Muş – Bulanık – Erentepe Mayor
Kemal ÇETİN – Muş – Malazgirt – Konakkuran Mayor
Nuri BALCI – Muş – Malazgirt Mayor
Mashar YILMAZ – Muş – Bulanık – Mollakent Mayor
Resul YÜCA- Muş – Malazgirt – Rüstemgedik Mayor
Cemil YÜNAÇTI – Muş – Bulanık – Sarıpınar Mayor
Gülşen DEĞER – Muş – Varto Mayor
A. Haydar AYDIN – Muş – Bulanık – Yemişen Mayor
M. Melih OKTAY – Siirt – Eruh Mayor
Necdet YILMAZ – Siirt – Kurtalan Mayor
Selim SADAK – Siirt Mayor
İsmail ARSLAN – Şanlıurfa – Ceylanpınar Mayor
İbrahim PARILDAR – Şanlıurfa – Suruç – Onbirnisan Mayor
Ethem ŞAHİN – Şanlıurfa – Suruç Mayor
Leyla GÜVEN – Şanlıurfa – Viranşehir Mayor
Bazo YILMAZ – Şanlıurfa – Halfeti – Yükarı Göklü Mayor
Abdulrezzak YILMAZ – Şırnak – Balveren Mayor
Sinan UYSAL – Şırnak – Silopi – Başverimli Mayor
Yusuf TEMEL – Şırnak – Beytüşşebap Mayor
Mustafa GÜNGÖR – Şırnak – Cizre Mayor
Resul SADAK – Şırnak – İdil Mayor
Abid DURAK – Şırnak – Kumçatı Mayor
Nuri AKMAN – Şırnak – İdil – Sırtköy Mayor
Emin TOĞURLU – Şırnak – Silopi Mayor
Şükran SİNCAR – Şırnak – Uludere Mayor
Ali BAYRAM – Şırnak – Uludere – Uzungeçit Mayor
Faik SALTAN – Şırnak Deputy Mayor
Edibe ŞAHİN – Tunceli Mayor
Bekir KAYA – Van Mayor
İhsan GÜLER – Van – Başkale Mayor
Nezahat ERGÜNEŞ – Van – Bostaniçi Mayor
Veysel KESER – Van – Erciş – Çelebibağ Mayor
İzzet ÇELİK – Van – Muradiye Mayor
Murat DURMAZ- Van – Özalp Mayor
Fazıl TÜRK – Mersin – Akdeniz Mayor
Muzaffer YÖNDEMLİ – Aydın – Ovaeymir Mayor
Ahmet ÖLÇER – Aydın Söke Savuca Mayor
Molla Ali ŞİMŞEK – Konya Cihanbeyli Gölyazı Mayor
Semra AZİZOĞLU – Diyarbakır Provincial General Assembly President
Leyla BİRLİK – Şırnak Provincial General Assembly President
Serdar ERDOGAN – Tunceli Provincial General Assembly President
Semire VARLI – Van Provincial General Assembly President
Abdulbaki ALP – Muş Provincial General Assembly President
Ferzende YILMAZ – Hakkari Provincial General Assembly President
Idris AKKUŞ – Iğdır Provincial General Assembly President
Salih AKTAN – Batman Provincial General Assembly President
Mesut GÜMÜŞ – Mardin Provincial General Assembly President
For further details contact the BDP Commission of Foreign Affairs:
COMMISSION OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
PEACE AND DEMOCRACY PARTY
Tel: 0090 312 220 1950
Fax: 0090 312 220 1977
Email: diplo.bdp@hotmail.com
11 November 2012
Call from the Peace and Democracy Party’s elected mayors to the public in relation the non-alternate and indefinite hunger strike, which is in its 60th day (11/10/2012)
Dear Press Members,
We, as the members of the Peace and Democracy Party and as those elected by people’s free will, would like to announce that our society has come to a decisive crossroads. This is a result of the fact that public conscience has not responded to the urgent call made by Kurdish politicians in prison.
These hunger strikes, which have come to a very critical point, cannot be evaluated separately from Kurdish people’s demands of freedom and the resolution of the Kurdish issue with peaceful means.
Since 2009 under the rubric of KCK operations –which are in fact attacks against the Peace and Democracy Party – more than 9 thousand politicians, NGO workers, activists, lawyers, journalists, elected mayors, city councilors, provincial assembly members, parliamentarians and students; in short, men, women, children, elderly and people from all walks of life, have been put in prison. These arrests are aimed at disenfranchising Kurds from legal politics and have caused great suffering among our people.
By arresting elected members of the Kurdish opposition and escalating military operations the government has opted once again for 90 year-old state policies of security and destruction. This goes entirely against the Kurdish people’s expectations of a fair solution to the Kurdish question based on the principles of justice and freedom. Turkish government has further intensified its strategy of conflict over negotiation by holding Mr. Abdullah Öcalan in solitary confinement for 16 months on İmralı Island.
Turkish government’s policy of exclusion, isolation and conflict has claimed the lives of at least a thousand people since last year. It is in such an atmosphere that thousands of unjustly and unlawfully imprisoned political hostages have laid down their bodies to death on the condition of three basic demands.
We would like to announce to the public that the demands prisoners are voicing belong to all of us. These demands are that Abdullah Öcalan’s isolation be removed so that peace negotiations can be resumed and that the right of education and defense in Kurdish be officially recognized.
Isolation is against domestic and international law and it is essentially a legal violation. Therefore, the fact that Öcalan has not been allowed to see anyone in the last 16 months is a crime. Additionally, this strategy aims to intensify the conflict and is part of a military logic. The only consequence of this policy is conflict and death. It is the architects and executors of the isolation policy who are primarily responsible for the suspension of negotiations, resumption of military clashes and increased number of deaths.
The Kurdish problem stems from the fact that the Kurdish people as a nation are not able to use their linguistic or cultural rights, nor is their identity and status recognised. Education and legal defense in mother-tongue, and living and developing the Kurdish language in every aspect of life, are the most natural rights of Kurdish people. The denial, usurpation and even negotiation of this right can only be explained by the racism and fascism of the existing government. A Kurd values his/her language and identity as much as a Turk, a Persian, an Arab, a French or a German does. We are neither asking for more than these other nations have nor settling for less.
To put it more clearly, the only reason that people have laid their bodies to death in prisons and died in combat outside of prison is that the government keeps repressing Kurdish people’s demands for freedom, and uses the conventional 90-years old policies of denial, conflict and destruction.
Turkish and Kurdish people should be well aware that people, who are in prison and who are laying their bodies to death, are doing so in order to prevent further lives from being lost in combat and so that the channels for negotiation will re-open. The position taken by the Turkish public, primarily that of the government, suggests that the conscience of people is blunted and our society has come to a crossroad. The public should also be aware that the position the government takes from now on, and the way in which it resolves the hunger strikes will be crucial for our future.
Here is our call to Mr. Prime Minister, the government and the Turkish people: any provocative, derogatory and contemptuous statement and position is an invitation to death. We do not have one second to lose in our struggle to achieve an equal and free life, to open the doors to the solution of our problems through negotiations and in a conflict-free manner.
We are worried that the loss of a single life amongst our people who are on hunger strike will be the start of an irreparable rupture and a deepened conflict. As such, the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan must be removed and the negotiations should start immediately. We would like to declare to the public that in order to achieve our common goals, we, as elected mayors and provincial general assembly presidents together with our assemblies, are ready for all kinds of duties and contributions, asked from us by the BDP Head Office.
With our kindest regards.
Mehmet ÇALĞAN Adıyaman – Çelikhan - Pınarbaşı Mayor
Yusuf YILMAZ – Ağrı – Patnos Mayor
Serhat TEMEL – Batman Deputy Mayor
Selahattin BULUT – Batman – Kozluk – Bekirhan Mayor
Esat ÖNER – Batman – Gercüş Mayor
Mehmet Raşit HAŞİMİ – Batman - Kozluk Mayor
Reşit ÖZEN – Bingöl – Karlıova Deputy Mayor
Mehmet Emin ÖZKAN – Bitlis – Güroymak Mayor
Lezgin BİNGÖL – Bitlis – Hizan – Kolludere Mayor
Mehmet DEMİR – Bitlis – Ahlat – Ovakışla Mayor
Abdullah OK – Bitlis – Tatvan Mayor
Metin DİNDAR – Diyarbakır – Kulp – Ağaçlı Mayor
Yüksel BARAN – Diyarbakır – Bağlar Mayor
Jamila EMİNOĞLU – Diyarbakir – Bismil Mayor
Osman BAYDEMİR – Diyarbakır Mayor
Ahmet CENGİZ – Diyarbakır – Çınar Mayor
Nusret AKBAŞ – Diyarbakır – Dicle Deputy Mayor
Petek Elyuse ÇAPANOĞLU – Diyarbakır – Eğil Mayor
Fesih YALÇIN – Diyarbakır – Ergani Mayor
Abdurrahman ZORLU – Diyarbakır – Hani Mayor
Mahmut DAĞ – Diyarbakır – Kayapınar Deputy Mayor
Mehmet SALIK – Diyarbakır – Kaygısız Mayor
Remzi ÇALİ – Diyarbakır – Kocaköy Mayor
M. Nesim ŞİMŞEK – Diyarbakır – Kulp Mayor
Seyit NARİN – Diyarbakir – Hani – Kuyular Mayor
Fikriye AYTİN – Diyarbakır – Lice Mayor
Fadıl ERDEDE – Diyarbakır – Silvan Mayor
Abdullah DEMİRBAŞ – Diyarbakir – Sur Mayor
Selim KURBANOĞLU – Diyarbakır – Yenişehir Mayor
Mehmet KANAR – Hakkari – Çukurca Mayor
Tacettin SAFALI – Hakkari – Yüksekova – Esendere Deputy Mayor
Fadıl BEDİRHANOĞLU – Hakkari Mayor
Sedat TÖRE – Hakkari – Şemdinli Mayor
Ercan BORA – Hakkari – Yüksekova Mayor V.
Ömer AKSU – Iğdır – Halfeli Mayor
Hüseyin MALK – Iğdır Deputy Mayor
Hüsnü ANCI – Kars – Digor – Dağpınar Deputy Mayor
Muzaffer KUTAY – Kars – Digor Mayor
Mehmet ALKAN – Kars – Kağızman Mayor
Lokman FINDIK – Mardin – Nusaybin – Akarsu Mayor
Süleyman ASAN – Mardin – Dargeçit Mayor
Doğan ÖZBAHÇECİ – Mardin – Derik Deputy Mayor
Zeki KAVAK – Mardin – Nusaybin – Duruca Mayor
Ömer ALTUN – Mardin – Nusaybin – Girmeli Mayor
Ahmet İNCİ – Mardin – Dargeçit – Kılavuz Mayor
Haşim BADAY – Mardin – Kızıltepe Deputy Mayor
Hasip AKTAŞ – Mardin – Mazıdağı Mayor
Ayse GÖKKAN – Mardin – Nusaybin Mayor
Abdülkadir DAĞ – Mardin – Savur – Pınardere Mayor
Fikri ÖKMEN – Mardin – Savur – Sürgücü Mayor
Abdulkerim ADAM – Mardin – Yalım Mayor
Gülbeyaz GÜNEŞ – Mardin – Savur – Yeşilalan Mayor
Bahattin BAHADIR – Muş – Korkut – Altınova Mayor
Ziya AKKAYA – Muş – Bulanık Mayor
Mustafa ORHAN – Muş – Bulanık – Elmakaya Mayor
Mehmet YAŞIK – Muş – Bulanık – Erentepe Mayor
Kemal ÇETİN – Muş – Malazgirt – Konakkuran Mayor
Nuri BALCI – Muş – Malazgirt Mayor
Mashar YILMAZ – Muş – Bulanık – Mollakent Mayor
Resul YÜCA- Muş – Malazgirt – Rüstemgedik Mayor
Cemil YÜNAÇTI – Muş – Bulanık – Sarıpınar Mayor
Gülşen DEĞER – Muş – Varto Mayor
A. Haydar AYDIN – Muş – Bulanık – Yemişen Mayor
M. Melih OKTAY – Siirt – Eruh Mayor
Necdet YILMAZ – Siirt – Kurtalan Mayor
Selim SADAK – Siirt Mayor
İsmail ARSLAN – Şanlıurfa – Ceylanpınar Mayor
İbrahim PARILDAR – Şanlıurfa – Suruç – Onbirnisan Mayor
Ethem ŞAHİN – Şanlıurfa – Suruç Mayor
Leyla GÜVEN – Şanlıurfa – Viranşehir Mayor
Bazo YILMAZ – Şanlıurfa – Halfeti – Yükarı Göklü Mayor
Abdulrezzak YILMAZ – Şırnak – Balveren Mayor
Sinan UYSAL – Şırnak – Silopi – Başverimli Mayor
Yusuf TEMEL – Şırnak – Beytüşşebap Mayor
Mustafa GÜNGÖR – Şırnak – Cizre Mayor
Resul SADAK – Şırnak – İdil Mayor
Abid DURAK – Şırnak – Kumçatı Mayor
Nuri AKMAN – Şırnak – İdil – Sırtköy Mayor
Emin TOĞURLU – Şırnak – Silopi Mayor
Şükran SİNCAR – Şırnak – Uludere Mayor
Ali BAYRAM – Şırnak – Uludere – Uzungeçit Mayor
Faik SALTAN – Şırnak Deputy Mayor
Edibe ŞAHİN – Tunceli Mayor
Bekir KAYA – Van Mayor
İhsan GÜLER – Van – Başkale Mayor
Nezahat ERGÜNEŞ – Van – Bostaniçi Mayor
Veysel KESER – Van – Erciş – Çelebibağ Mayor
İzzet ÇELİK – Van – Muradiye Mayor
Murat DURMAZ- Van – Özalp Mayor
Fazıl TÜRK – Mersin – Akdeniz Mayor
Muzaffer YÖNDEMLİ – Aydın – Ovaeymir Mayor
Ahmet ÖLÇER – Aydın Söke Savuca Mayor
Molla Ali ŞİMŞEK – Konya Cihanbeyli Gölyazı Mayor
Semra AZİZOĞLU – Diyarbakır Provincial General Assembly President
Leyla BİRLİK – Şırnak Provincial General Assembly President
Serdar ERDOGAN – Tunceli Provincial General Assembly President
Semire VARLI – Van Provincial General Assembly President
Abdulbaki ALP – Muş Provincial General Assembly President
Ferzende YILMAZ – Hakkari Provincial General Assembly President
Idris AKKUŞ – Iğdır Provincial General Assembly President
Salih AKTAN – Batman Provincial General Assembly President
Mesut GÜMÜŞ – Mardin Provincial General Assembly President
For further details contact the BDP Commission of Foreign Affairs:
COMMISSION OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
PEACE AND DEMOCRACY PARTY
Tel: 0090 312 220 1950
Fax: 0090 312 220 1977
Email: diplo.bdp@hotmail.com
KCK lawyers trial: Report by Melanie Gingell
12 November 2012
Dear friends
Please find below and attached the latest in a series of personal reports written by members of a recent UK delegation to Istanbul. The delegation observed the continuation of the lawyers KCK trial, and included solicitor Ali Has, human rights lawyer Margaret Owen OBE, the Law Society's Tony Fisher, and Bronwen Jones and Melanie Gingell, of Tooks Chambers, London. Here, Melanie Gingell gives her impressions of the trial and her concerns about how the trial is proceeding.
Tony Fisher, member of the Human Rights Committee of the Law Society, also participated in the delegation and wrote this report last week: http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/kck-lawyers-trial-report-by-tony-fisher/
We will bring you further reports in the coming weeks.
Kind regards,
Melanie Sirinathsingh
Estella Schmid
---
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
Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, John Austin, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Mark Thomas
----
KCK TRIALS ISTANBUL 6TH NOVEMBER 2012
In response to an invitation from a Kurdish solidarity campaign PIK, I attended the trial of 47 lawyers in Istanbul on 6th Nov 2012.
I was part of a 5 person delegation comprising 3 barristers and 2 solicitors from the UK. Legal delegations from France, Switzerland, Germany, Canada also attended the trial.
BACKGROUND
On the 5th November 2012 we attended a briefing meeting conducted by Istanbul Lawyers. They provided the following background to the case.
In November 2011, 47 Turkish and Kurdish lawyers were arrested and charged under anti-terrorist legislation with membership of a proscribed organization and of other related charges involving the communication of orders from jailed leaders. Thirty- eight of them have been held in custody awaiting trial. Nine have been granted bail with strict reporting conditions. They all deny the charges.
The common factor linking these lawyers is that each of them had at some time had dealings with cases involving Kurdish issues. Some of them had represented Ocalan the jailed leader of the PKK. Some of them had conducted cases before the ECHR. Others had been involved in asylum-based cases. There was a coordinated wave of arrests of these lawyers.
The prosecution evidence consists of the covert recordings of conferences between the lawyers and their clients. The lawyers’ houses and offices were subsequently searched and computers confiscated.
The prosecution of lawyers in Turkey requires the permission of the Ministry of Justice, which has not been obtained in this case.
**The full report is attached, or you can read the rest of the report online here: http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/kck-lawyers-trial-report-by-melanie-gingell/
Dear friends
Please find below and attached the latest in a series of personal reports written by members of a recent UK delegation to Istanbul. The delegation observed the continuation of the lawyers KCK trial, and included solicitor Ali Has, human rights lawyer Margaret Owen OBE, the Law Society's Tony Fisher, and Bronwen Jones and Melanie Gingell, of Tooks Chambers, London. Here, Melanie Gingell gives her impressions of the trial and her concerns about how the trial is proceeding.
Tony Fisher, member of the Human Rights Committee of the Law Society, also participated in the delegation and wrote this report last week: http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/kck-lawyers-trial-report-by-tony-fisher/
We will bring you further reports in the coming weeks.
Kind regards,
Melanie Sirinathsingh
Estella Schmid
---
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
Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jill Evans MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, John Austin, Bruce Kent, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, John Berger, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Prof Mary Davis, Mark Thomas
----
KCK TRIALS ISTANBUL 6TH NOVEMBER 2012
In response to an invitation from a Kurdish solidarity campaign PIK, I attended the trial of 47 lawyers in Istanbul on 6th Nov 2012.
I was part of a 5 person delegation comprising 3 barristers and 2 solicitors from the UK. Legal delegations from France, Switzerland, Germany, Canada also attended the trial.
BACKGROUND
On the 5th November 2012 we attended a briefing meeting conducted by Istanbul Lawyers. They provided the following background to the case.
In November 2011, 47 Turkish and Kurdish lawyers were arrested and charged under anti-terrorist legislation with membership of a proscribed organization and of other related charges involving the communication of orders from jailed leaders. Thirty- eight of them have been held in custody awaiting trial. Nine have been granted bail with strict reporting conditions. They all deny the charges.
The common factor linking these lawyers is that each of them had at some time had dealings with cases involving Kurdish issues. Some of them had represented Ocalan the jailed leader of the PKK. Some of them had conducted cases before the ECHR. Others had been involved in asylum-based cases. There was a coordinated wave of arrests of these lawyers.
The prosecution evidence consists of the covert recordings of conferences between the lawyers and their clients. The lawyers’ houses and offices were subsequently searched and computers confiscated.
The prosecution of lawyers in Turkey requires the permission of the Ministry of Justice, which has not been obtained in this case.
**The full report is attached, or you can read the rest of the report online here: http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/kck-lawyers-trial-report-by-melanie-gingell/
Behind the Kurdish Hunger Strike in Turkey by Jake Hess, MERIP
Behind the Kurdish Hunger Strike in Turkey
by Jake Hess <http://merip.org/author/jake-hess> | published November 8, 2012
For background on the BDP, see Jake Hess’ interview with Selahattin Demirtaş, “The AKP’s ‘New Kurdish Strategy’ Is Nothing of the Sort <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero050212> ,” Middle East Report Online, May 2, 2012.
For more on ties between Kurds in Syria and Turkey, see Denise Natali, “Syrian Kurdish Cards <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero032012> ,” Middle East Report Online, March 20, 2012.
For more on the 2010 referendum, see Aslı Bali, “Unpacking Turkey’s ‘Court-Packing’ Referendum <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero110510> ,” Middle East Report Online, November 5, 2010.
To hear Mazlum Tekdağ’s story is enough to understand why 700 Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Turkey. His father was murdered by the state in front of his Diyarbakır pastry shop in 1993, when Mazlum was just nine years old. His uncle Ali was kidnapped by an army-backed death squad known as JİTEM (the acronym for the Turkish phrase translating, roughly, as Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit) two years later. Mazlum never saw his uncle again, but a former JİTEM agent later claimed they tortured him for six months before killing him and burning his body by the side of a road in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır.
Such experiences have moved thousands of Kurds in Turkey to join the armed rebellion of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, which has been outlawed since its inception. But Mazlum, along with thousands of others, chose to fight for his people’s rights through the non-violent means of pro-Kurdish political parties, a succession of which have been allowed to operate by the Turkish state before then being shut down. He was first arrested in 2001, when he was 17. Now 28, Mazlum has been in jail for three and a half years, though he has not been convicted of a crime. His trial is deadlocked because Turkish courts refuse to let him or his fellow political prisoners offer their legal defenses in their native Kurdish language. All of them speak fluent Turkish; they are making a political point.
Since 2002, the Turkish state has taken cautious steps toward softening its overall stance vis-à-vis the demands of the Kurdish political movement in the country. Some Kurds have opted to agitate within the ruling Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish initials, AKP). Yet others essentially have two choices: to press their demands peacefully, and risk being thrown in prison like Mazlum, or to take up arms with the PKK. That is the fundamental reality behind his and the other Kurdish political prisoners’ hunger strike, launched on September 12 to demand the rights to get an education and offer a legal defense in Kurdish, as well as improvement in conditions for imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been barred from meeting his lawyers since July 2011.
“These are legitimate demands,” Vahap Coşkun, a law professor at Diyarbakır’s Dicle University, said in an interview. “A very large portion of Kurds support them. Kurds’ political preferences may vary, but on the issue of language rights, it can be said that there’s a large consensus.” In July, hundreds of Kurdish NGOs issued a joint declaration protesting Öcalan’s isolation, which Coşkun maintains has “no legal basis.” A notable feature of the current hunger strike is the number of Turkish NGOs and intellectuals, including many academics and writers, who have stood by the strikers and their demands. Solidarity demonstrations have occurred at Turkey’s top universities in Istanbul and Ankara.
Search for a Solution
Since the early 1990s, the Kurdish political movement in Turkey -- including the PKK, whose goals are constantly mischaracterized in the Western media as “separatist” -- has been calling for a negotiated solution to the Kurdish issue based on autonomy and expanded rights within Turkey’s borders. The PKK has declared scores of unilateral ceasefires to open a pathway to talks, but on each occasion the Turkish army has continued military operations against the group. The government, for its part, has ordinarily dismissed the ceasefires, repeating pledges to destroy the PKK.
Since 2009, some 8,000 Kurdish rights defenders, lawyers and journalists have been arrested in operations the Turkish police say are aimed at the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that includes the PKK, and thus is also illegal. In reality, most of the detainees are connected to the legal Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which shares a political base with the PKK and voices the same demands.
Secret parleys between the Turkish state and PKK occurred in the shadow of this renewed repression from 2009 to mid-2011. A simultaneous set of talks took place in Oslo and on İmralı island, where Öcalan is serving a life sentence. Little is known about what was discussed, but there is evidence that peace was within reach. In an audio recording from an Oslo meeting that was leaked in 2011, Hakan Fidan, a senior Turkish intelligence official, commented that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Öcalan were in accord in “90 to 95 percent” of their views. Murat Karayılan, the PKK’s lead commander since Öcalan’s 1999 capture, later said the two sides had come “very close” to a solution and that “conditions had ripened” for a settlement.
There is evidence, moreover, to suggest that Turkish society was ready for a peace agreement, although the PKK remains intensely unpopular among the majority of Turks. Although opposition parties have criticized Erdoğan for negotiating with the PKK at all, there was no large-scale, bottom-up backlash when the recording of Fidan’s remarks was released. Over the last decade, both sides have come to realize that the Kurdish question cannot be settled on the battlefield, prompting a public discussion of alternatives.
There is good reason to believe, then, that a historic opportunity was missed when the negotiations were abruptly halted around the time of the June 2011 parliamentary elections in Turkey. In a September 2012 television interview, Erdoğan admitted to having terminated the talks: “We cut off the meetings,” he said. “Why? Insincerity in communication. When that insincerity surfaced, we said ‘Let’s cut this off,’ whether we wanted to or not.” [1] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_1_>
The Turkish government’s decision to stop talking left the Kurdish side frustrated. “The Kurdish people have waited for a genuine step [toward a solution] for a long time,” said Hamdiye Çiftçi, a young Kurdish journalist who was imprisoned for two years after documenting repeated human rights abuses in the majority-Kurdish southeast. “Expectations for peace grew especially during the 2011 general elections, but the government showed its real face by not doing anything for dialogue and a lasting peace. No one trusts them.” It was the elections’ outcome, Çiftçi and others believe, that led Erdoğan to end the meetings. The unprecedented victory of 36 candidates allied to the BDP had shown that the government’s attempt to undermine the Kurdish movement through a combination of repression and political marginalization was not working. Instead of accepting the results, the government stepped up its police actions hounding the people it was supposed to be negotiating with; about half of the 8,000 detentions have occurred since mid-2011.
Military operations against the PKK escalated at the same time. “We had agreed on a protocol for an agreement with the Turkish delegation. Erdoğan needed to approve it, but he never answered,” Karayılan said in an interview with Fırat News Agency. “Instead, believing that they were powerful and that they could defeat us with weapons, they increased attacks on all fronts. We suffered severe losses in the winter. We reorganized ourselves in the spring and went on the offensive in the summer.”
The fighting in the southeast has now reached its most severe level since the 1990s, according to the International Crisis Group. The PKK redoubled its armed campaign to prove that its peace overtures were not born of weakness and that the Turkish government had manifestly failed to “pacify” the southeast after decades of trying. Whereas for years combat had been confined to the mountains, in areas that are mostly remote, the PKK increasingly mounted attacks on Turkish soldiers and installations in Kurdish cities. At the same time, they detained AKP officials, as well as teachers and others seen as working with the Turkish state.
No doubt the organization was spurred on by gains made by Kurds in Syria and eager to concentrate minds in Ankara on Turkey’s own Kurds instead of those across the border. Predictably, the Turkish government now accuses the PKK of backing the Asad regime, ignoring the fact that it was Ankara and Damascus that had cordial relations prior to the Syrian uprising that began in March 2011. Hafiz al-Asad, father of the current Syrian president, allowed the PKK to base fighters on Syrian territory from the 1980s until 1998, and also sheltered Öcalan. In 1998, however, Damascus expelled the PKK leader under pressure from Ankara. At present, the PKK and its sister group in Syria, the PYD, are at odds with the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition, which has failed to convey sufficient assurances as to Kurdish rights in a post-Asad Syria.
The hunger strikes are, in some regards, an extension of this renewed Kurdish resistance and a reflection of the urgent need for a comprehensive solution to the Kurdish issue. By drawing attention to key demands that will be indispensable for any such settlement, the hunger strikes aim to break the country’s political logjam and force the Turkish government back to the negotiating table. They have succeeded to an important extent, as public discourse in Turkey has once again focused on the government’s refusal to respect the basic rights of Kurdish citizens.
Erdoğan has hinted in the course of the autumn that he might resume the state-PKK negotiations “if necessary.” But given his history of raising expectations only to let them crash down -- from a ballyhooed 2005 speech in Diyarbakır, recognizing the need for a political solution, to the moribund 2009 “democratic opening,” which was supposed to deliver that solution, to the lack of progress on drafting a new constitution despite his pledges -- such intimations inspire little confidence. Besides, the prime minister has already announced that he will not accept education in Kurdish or autonomy, leaving Kurds to wonder what sort of “solution” he has in mind.
The AKP’s Kurdish Strategy
Since 2007, indeed, Erdoğan has appeared to vacillate himself, introducing a state-run Kurdish-language TV channel and elective Kurdish language courses, on the one hand, and sharpening the crackdown on legal activism for Kurdish rights, on the other. Far from being contradictory, however, these two approaches work in concert. By simultaneously offering limited reforms, making the occasional conciliatory statement and imprisoning Kurdish activists en masse, Erdoğan has sought to expand his base among Kurds who traditionally vote for conservative Turkish parties and to isolate and weaken the BDP and PKK to the point that they have no choice but to accept a version of the political settlement that is preferred by the Turkish state.
The Kurdish political prisoners now on hunger strike, many of whom have been incarcerated since 2009 due to the anti-KCK campaign, are basically hostages to this long-term project to demobilize the Kurdish movement. Faced with unending court proceedings and a government that has rejected their core demands, they have embraced a dramatic method that may yet embarrass the government into action.
The KCK arrests and hunger strikes are the outcome of developments stretching back more than a decade, particularly the political rivalry between Erdoğan’s AKP and the BDP. In its early years, the AKP was widely viewed as a coalition party that “formed a broad democratic platform appealing to a wide range of sectarian, ethnic, social and political forces hitherto marginalized by the Kemalist state,” [2] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_2_> including Islamists, Anatolian businessmen and Turkish liberals. Many Kurds were drawn to the AKP’s reformist image and religious roots. Thanks in part to these Kurdish supporters, the AKP became the largest party in Parliament in 2002, little more than a year after its founding.
The AKP’s arrival on the political scene temporarily stalled and then reversed the electoral growth of the BDP, whose predecessors’ share of the vote had increased in every election from 1995 to 2002. In 1995, the BDP (then HADEP) won 4.2 percent of the vote nationally, reaching 6.2 percent in 2002. But in 2004 its portion dropped to 5.1 percent, and in 2007 the BDP won just 4 percent, its worst showing ever. The BDP lost these votes to the AKP, which won 32.5 percent of votes in Kurdistan, or the majority-Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey, in the 2002 elections, a share jumping to 55 percent in 2007. [3] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_3_>
Indeed, the 2007 election, in which the AKP won its highest-ever number of Kurdish votes and the BDP its lowest ever, represented a key turning point in the AKP’s approach to the Kurds. Though its performance was impressive, the ruling party appears to have misread the election’s outcome in two critical ways, contributing to the repression and deadlock that prevails today.
First, having won more than half of the Kurdistan vote, the AKP seems to have decided that it could count on this bloc permanently. Party leaders frequently boasted that they had 75 Kurdish parliamentarians in their delegation, presenting themselves as the “real” representatives of the Kurds in Turkey. Erdoğan declared that he wanted to win in such traditional BDP strongholds as Diyarbakır and Batman in the 2009 elections, apparently believing this goal to be achievable.
But this AKP analysis neglected the extraordinary circumstances in which the 2007 vote took place. In April of that year, the Turkish army had threatened to intervene should Parliament elect an AKP member to the presidency, summoning memories of the “soft coup” that dislodged the AKP’s Islamist forerunners in 1997 and the long history of military subversion of Turkish democracy. Thus the 2007 election was, to some degree, a referendum on the military’s role in politics. The army’s warning accentuated the AKP’s early reputation as a coalition of forces excluded by the Kemalist republic, and many Kurds rallied to the party as a way to express their opposition to the generals’ meddling. At the same time, the AKP’s modest liberalizing reforms and promise to draft a new civilian constitution led some Kurds to conclude that the ruling party was their best chance for a political solution to the Kurdish issue. The votes in the 2007 election thus reflected the hope that the Kurdish movement’s core demands would be realized under the AKP, not a repudiation or a rethinking of these goals.
The AKP’s second major miscalculation grew out of the first. Having mistaken its electoral performance in Kurdistan as indicating support that could be taken for granted, the AKP anticipated another strong showing in 2009’s local elections and assumed it could settle the Kurdish question without the cooperation of the BDP. No doubt, another electoral cycle in which the BDP’s share of votes dropped would have left the Kurdish political movement weakened and vulnerable. The ruling party’s bet was that, with political momentum on its side, the Kurdish movement losing ground and thousands of Kurdish leaders in prison as bargaining chips, the AKP would be in a position to impose its own “solution” to Turkey’s most intractable problem.
The ruling party embarked on a strategy for undermining the Kurdish movement through a combination of sheer repression and political isolation. In 2007, the Diyarbakır prosecutor’s office began collecting the evidence it would use to justify the first wave of KCK arrests, which were eventually launched two weeks after the March 2009 local elections. In January 2009, the government opened the country’s first TV channel broadcasting exclusively in Kurdish. Weeks before the March balloting, Abdullah Gül hinted at the “democratic opening” when he said “good things” would happen on the Kurdish front, as the government announced plans for a state-run radio station that would broadcast in Kurdish. Meanwhile, a government-backed “Kurdish conference” in Iraqi Kurdistan -- the purpose of which was to sideline the PKK by having Kurdish figures friendly to Turkey call on the group to lay down its weapons -- was scheduled for April 2009, by which point the Islamists expected to have humiliated the BDP at the polls.
Even as it attempted to attract Kurdish voters through such cynical political maneuvers, the ruling party positioned itself to ride a wave of Turkish nationalism erupting in the country’s west. Military operations against the PKK intensified with renewed US backing. Erdoğan harkened back to the antiquated statist-nationalist approach to the Kurdish issue when, in a speech in the Kurdish city of Hakkari in November 2008, he said, “We said, ‘One nation, one flag, one motherland and one state.’ Those who oppose this have no place in Turkey and should leave.” At the same time, Erdoğan refused to meet with the BDP until it denounced the PKK as “terrorists” -- a policy that insulted the millions of Kurds who actively supported or at least respected the political movement. Small wonder, then, that Kurds increasingly saw the AKP as the party of the state, rather than an anti-state party.
In the end, the government could not have it both ways. Instead of the expected victory, the AKP suffered a major setback in the 2009 elections, with the BDP nearly doubling the number of municipalities under its control to 100. The “Kurdish conference” was unceremoniously canceled, apparently at the request of AKP Interior Minister Beşir Atalay. [4] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_4_> Kurds celebrated the BDP’s historic victory at the party’s building in Diyarbakır.
The government nevertheless pushed ahead with the doomed “democratic opening,” which was sold as a plan to resolve the Kurdish issue and demobilize the PKK. Erdoğan’s decision to openly discuss the possibility of a political solution was rightly seen as historic. But instead of a genuine negotiated settlement, the policy’s overarching goal was to isolate both the BDP and PKK by promising modest reforms even as the government arrested thousands of Kurdish activists. Hüseyin Çelik, vice president of the AKP at the time, seemed to admit as much when he told Zaman, the daily sympathetic to the Islamists, that the BDP (and the ultra-nationalist MHP) would become a “marginal” party if the initiative succeeded. [5] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_5_>
In August 2009, Öcalan instructed the PKK to send a “peace team” of its members to Turkey to symbolize the organization’s commitment to a political solution. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds welcomed the group with festive gatherings, hoping that peace might be near. But some seized on the opportunity to claim that Erdoğan’s approach was emboldening “terrorists,” and the initial euphoria of the movement dissipated as the BDP’s predecessor party, the DTP, was closed by the constitutional court in December. Court cases against members of the PKK delegation were soon filed, and those who were not arrested returned to the group’s bases in northern Iraq in July 2010.
The September 2010 referendum on two dozen amendments to the country’s constitution, drawn up after the 1980 military coup, briefly sparked optimism that the “democratic opening” could be revived. The package was approved by an overwhelming margin, but most Kurds in the southeast backed the BDP’s call for a boycott on the grounds that the amendments focused more on consolidating the ruling party’s hold over the state than on reviving democratic reforms. Since then, the BDP has continued to emphasize the importance of drafting a new civilian constitution for a solution to the Kurdish issue. Notwithstanding the ruling party’s constant pledge to do so, the parliament’s constitutional committee has made little progress.
The secret state-PKK talks occurred parallel to all these events in the public eye, only to be closed down by Ankara after the BDP’s strong performance in the June 2011 parliamentary elections.
The KCK Operations
The “democratic opening” and state-PKK talks occurred in the shadow of the KCK operations, which began two weeks after the BDP’s 2009 election victory, and just one day after the PKK had announced a new ceasefire. In the short term, the arrests offered the Turkish government thousands of bargaining chips and strong leverage in its dealings with the Kurdish movement. In the long run, they aimed to break up a new class of Kurdish leaders that rapidly emerged after 1999, the watershed year when the BDP’s ancestor HADEP entered local government for the first time, Turkey became a candidate for EU membership and the PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire that lasted for five years.
During the 1990s, at least 112 members of pro-Kurdish political parties were assassinated by the Turkish state, along with scores of journalists and human rights defenders. But in the sanguine and comparatively peaceful period that followed 1999, these extrajudicial killings all but ceased as the state made tentative gestures at allowing expressions of Kurdish identity, again as part of Turkey’s EU membership bid. Provisions for limited broadcasting in Kurdish were introduced, the country’s first private Kurdish-language courses were opened and the hated “state of emergency” regime in the southeast was lifted.
The BDP seized the opportunity to consolidate its ranks, especially its youth and women’s branches. Kurdish politicians drew on the resources and platforms afforded by the municipalities they now controlled to develop their political identity and gain experience in self-rule. [6] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_6_> Like many future BDP leaders, Kurdish intellectuals like Selahattin Demirtaş (who went on to be elected to Parliament and head the party) and Osman Baydemir (who would become mayor of Diyarbakır) were also deeply involved in civil society initiatives, especially the Human Rights Association, during this period. These activist roots show up in the BDP’s unique political style, which mixes agitation in the streets with deliberations in Parliament.
“The State Created This Resolve”
Young activists arrested under the KCK operations have taken a leadership role in the hunger strike. About half of the nine women prisoners who began refusing food on September 12 -- the thirtieth anniversary of the 1980 military coup -- were in their early thirties or younger at the time of their arrest. These women are representatives of the much discussed “new generation” of Kurds who, like Mazlum Tekdağ, came of age during the darkest days of the 1990s war and have barely known a day of true peace in their lives.
Some commentators have, predictably, accused the PKK of forcing its followers to starve themselves, an accusation the organization and its affiliates flatly reject. “This is a decision the strikers took based on their own thoughts, will and desire. As the KCK, we had no involvement in this whatsoever,” KCK spokesman Roj Welat said in an e-mail.
Kurdish journalist Murat Çiftçi (no relation to Hamdiye), himself a member of the “new generation,” spent three months in prison earlier in 2012 for an article he wrote. He was later sentenced to almost nine years in prison; he is currently free pending appeal. He says that anyone who wants to understand the hunger strike should simply look at the Turkish government’s policies: “It’s the state that created this resolve, in my opinion. Because thousands of people are in prison for no reason. Everyone feels like I do: These sentences are given because we’re Kurds, not because we’re good PKK activists. The goal is to scare and suppress us with prisons, but this has had the exact opposite effect.”
Murat and other released Kurdish political prisoners say activists in each jail have their own mechanisms for organizing protests, and that authorization from the outside PKK leadership would not be required to undertake a hunger strike. There is coordination among prisoners in different facilities, but according to Murat, no one is forced to join any protests. “There’s a separate formation in the prisons that can make decisions in the name of Kurdish prisoners. Those who want to participate, say, in a hunger strike, volunteer their own names,” he said. “This happened when I was there -- 20 people decided to start one, and there were soon 350 volunteers. I wanted to participate for a limited time, but they didn’t let me because I was ill. In other words, no one’s forced to join. It’s completely voluntary, and sometimes they don’t even accept certain volunteers.”
The hunger strike is not the first of its kind. A similar action with similar demands occurred earlier in 2012. On the fiftieth day, the KCK effectively terminated the strike by issuing a statement through its media channels. “In line with [Abdullah Öcalan’s] call that there should be no deaths in the course of resistance, the correct position is for the actions in all prisons to be ended for now,” the communiqué said. But they added a qualification: “The protest had developed solely with the activists’ initiative. This hunger strike is a warning. If there’s no improvement in [Öcalan’s] situation in the days ahead, new types of actions will be developed in a more comprehensive way, including hunger strikes.” KCK spokesman Welat said the current hunger strike is “certainly” a follow-up to the previous one. “The strikes will only stop if the hunger strikers’ just and legitimate demands are fulfilled by the Turkish government. They have declared as much to the public. We’ve tried very hard for a political, democratic and peaceful solution,” he said.
The hunger strikes in the fall have achieved far more success in mobilizing the public and generating debate than those in the spring, meaning it may prove more difficult to bring the action to an end before strikers start dying. Many Kurds have heeded the strikers’ call for serhildan -- the Kurdish equivalent of intifada -- with solidarity actions occurring on a daily basis across the southeast. “Everyone aged 7 to 70 has broken their silence. Even Kurds who stayed out of these sorts of things before are mobilized and demanding their basic rights,” Hamdiye Çiftçi said. “Life stopped in the region on October 30,” Murat Çiftçi said in reference to a special day of action coinciding with the strike’s fiftieth day. “The popular rebellion is growing daily.”
As the strike approaches its sixtieth day, all eyes are on Erdoğan. One of his first responses was to deny that the hunger strike even existed, claiming that one person, not hundreds, was refusing food. He also referred to a months-old picture of BDP leaders dining on lamb kebab, accusing them of hypocrisy. The prisoners have again underlined their refusal to end the strike unless their demands are met, pledging to increase their numbers by the thousands in the days ahead.
In a press conference following a cabinet meeting on November 5, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç reported that Erdoğan had ordered the Justice Ministry to make the necessary arrangements to allow suspects to offer their legal defenses in Kurdish during court proceedings. He also said that Öcalan could meet with his lawyers if he applied to the Justice Ministry for permission. (His lawyers’ subsequent application was declined, on the grounds that the ferry to his island prison is “out of service” -- as officials have claimed since July 2011.) But Arınç left mother tongue education -- the third area of the hunger strike’s focus -- untouched in his comments. These are signs that a solution may be imminent. Meanwhile, the clock continues to tick on the hunger strikers.
“By melting our bodies, we’re trying to intervene in the situation, to shape our future,” Tekdağ wrote in an October letter from Diyarbakır prison that was circulated in the Turkish media. “Between these four walls, there’s nothing else we can do in the face of tyrannical repression.”
Endnotes
[1] Milliyet, September 27, 2012.
[2] M. Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. xi.
[3] Taraf, August 18, 2009.
[4] Today’s Zaman, April 19, 2009.
[5] Zaman, January 4, 2010.
[6] For more on the history of pro-Kurdish political parties in Turkey, see Nicole Watts, Activists in Office (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010).
by Jake Hess <http://merip.org/author/jake-hess> | published November 8, 2012
For background on the BDP, see Jake Hess’ interview with Selahattin Demirtaş, “The AKP’s ‘New Kurdish Strategy’ Is Nothing of the Sort <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero050212> ,” Middle East Report Online, May 2, 2012.
For more on ties between Kurds in Syria and Turkey, see Denise Natali, “Syrian Kurdish Cards <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero032012> ,” Middle East Report Online, March 20, 2012.
For more on the 2010 referendum, see Aslı Bali, “Unpacking Turkey’s ‘Court-Packing’ Referendum <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero110510> ,” Middle East Report Online, November 5, 2010.
To hear Mazlum Tekdağ’s story is enough to understand why 700 Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Turkey. His father was murdered by the state in front of his Diyarbakır pastry shop in 1993, when Mazlum was just nine years old. His uncle Ali was kidnapped by an army-backed death squad known as JİTEM (the acronym for the Turkish phrase translating, roughly, as Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit) two years later. Mazlum never saw his uncle again, but a former JİTEM agent later claimed they tortured him for six months before killing him and burning his body by the side of a road in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır.
Such experiences have moved thousands of Kurds in Turkey to join the armed rebellion of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, which has been outlawed since its inception. But Mazlum, along with thousands of others, chose to fight for his people’s rights through the non-violent means of pro-Kurdish political parties, a succession of which have been allowed to operate by the Turkish state before then being shut down. He was first arrested in 2001, when he was 17. Now 28, Mazlum has been in jail for three and a half years, though he has not been convicted of a crime. His trial is deadlocked because Turkish courts refuse to let him or his fellow political prisoners offer their legal defenses in their native Kurdish language. All of them speak fluent Turkish; they are making a political point.
Since 2002, the Turkish state has taken cautious steps toward softening its overall stance vis-à-vis the demands of the Kurdish political movement in the country. Some Kurds have opted to agitate within the ruling Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish initials, AKP). Yet others essentially have two choices: to press their demands peacefully, and risk being thrown in prison like Mazlum, or to take up arms with the PKK. That is the fundamental reality behind his and the other Kurdish political prisoners’ hunger strike, launched on September 12 to demand the rights to get an education and offer a legal defense in Kurdish, as well as improvement in conditions for imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been barred from meeting his lawyers since July 2011.
“These are legitimate demands,” Vahap Coşkun, a law professor at Diyarbakır’s Dicle University, said in an interview. “A very large portion of Kurds support them. Kurds’ political preferences may vary, but on the issue of language rights, it can be said that there’s a large consensus.” In July, hundreds of Kurdish NGOs issued a joint declaration protesting Öcalan’s isolation, which Coşkun maintains has “no legal basis.” A notable feature of the current hunger strike is the number of Turkish NGOs and intellectuals, including many academics and writers, who have stood by the strikers and their demands. Solidarity demonstrations have occurred at Turkey’s top universities in Istanbul and Ankara.
Search for a Solution
Since the early 1990s, the Kurdish political movement in Turkey -- including the PKK, whose goals are constantly mischaracterized in the Western media as “separatist” -- has been calling for a negotiated solution to the Kurdish issue based on autonomy and expanded rights within Turkey’s borders. The PKK has declared scores of unilateral ceasefires to open a pathway to talks, but on each occasion the Turkish army has continued military operations against the group. The government, for its part, has ordinarily dismissed the ceasefires, repeating pledges to destroy the PKK.
Since 2009, some 8,000 Kurdish rights defenders, lawyers and journalists have been arrested in operations the Turkish police say are aimed at the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that includes the PKK, and thus is also illegal. In reality, most of the detainees are connected to the legal Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which shares a political base with the PKK and voices the same demands.
Secret parleys between the Turkish state and PKK occurred in the shadow of this renewed repression from 2009 to mid-2011. A simultaneous set of talks took place in Oslo and on İmralı island, where Öcalan is serving a life sentence. Little is known about what was discussed, but there is evidence that peace was within reach. In an audio recording from an Oslo meeting that was leaked in 2011, Hakan Fidan, a senior Turkish intelligence official, commented that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Öcalan were in accord in “90 to 95 percent” of their views. Murat Karayılan, the PKK’s lead commander since Öcalan’s 1999 capture, later said the two sides had come “very close” to a solution and that “conditions had ripened” for a settlement.
There is evidence, moreover, to suggest that Turkish society was ready for a peace agreement, although the PKK remains intensely unpopular among the majority of Turks. Although opposition parties have criticized Erdoğan for negotiating with the PKK at all, there was no large-scale, bottom-up backlash when the recording of Fidan’s remarks was released. Over the last decade, both sides have come to realize that the Kurdish question cannot be settled on the battlefield, prompting a public discussion of alternatives.
There is good reason to believe, then, that a historic opportunity was missed when the negotiations were abruptly halted around the time of the June 2011 parliamentary elections in Turkey. In a September 2012 television interview, Erdoğan admitted to having terminated the talks: “We cut off the meetings,” he said. “Why? Insincerity in communication. When that insincerity surfaced, we said ‘Let’s cut this off,’ whether we wanted to or not.” [1] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_1_>
The Turkish government’s decision to stop talking left the Kurdish side frustrated. “The Kurdish people have waited for a genuine step [toward a solution] for a long time,” said Hamdiye Çiftçi, a young Kurdish journalist who was imprisoned for two years after documenting repeated human rights abuses in the majority-Kurdish southeast. “Expectations for peace grew especially during the 2011 general elections, but the government showed its real face by not doing anything for dialogue and a lasting peace. No one trusts them.” It was the elections’ outcome, Çiftçi and others believe, that led Erdoğan to end the meetings. The unprecedented victory of 36 candidates allied to the BDP had shown that the government’s attempt to undermine the Kurdish movement through a combination of repression and political marginalization was not working. Instead of accepting the results, the government stepped up its police actions hounding the people it was supposed to be negotiating with; about half of the 8,000 detentions have occurred since mid-2011.
Military operations against the PKK escalated at the same time. “We had agreed on a protocol for an agreement with the Turkish delegation. Erdoğan needed to approve it, but he never answered,” Karayılan said in an interview with Fırat News Agency. “Instead, believing that they were powerful and that they could defeat us with weapons, they increased attacks on all fronts. We suffered severe losses in the winter. We reorganized ourselves in the spring and went on the offensive in the summer.”
The fighting in the southeast has now reached its most severe level since the 1990s, according to the International Crisis Group. The PKK redoubled its armed campaign to prove that its peace overtures were not born of weakness and that the Turkish government had manifestly failed to “pacify” the southeast after decades of trying. Whereas for years combat had been confined to the mountains, in areas that are mostly remote, the PKK increasingly mounted attacks on Turkish soldiers and installations in Kurdish cities. At the same time, they detained AKP officials, as well as teachers and others seen as working with the Turkish state.
No doubt the organization was spurred on by gains made by Kurds in Syria and eager to concentrate minds in Ankara on Turkey’s own Kurds instead of those across the border. Predictably, the Turkish government now accuses the PKK of backing the Asad regime, ignoring the fact that it was Ankara and Damascus that had cordial relations prior to the Syrian uprising that began in March 2011. Hafiz al-Asad, father of the current Syrian president, allowed the PKK to base fighters on Syrian territory from the 1980s until 1998, and also sheltered Öcalan. In 1998, however, Damascus expelled the PKK leader under pressure from Ankara. At present, the PKK and its sister group in Syria, the PYD, are at odds with the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition, which has failed to convey sufficient assurances as to Kurdish rights in a post-Asad Syria.
The hunger strikes are, in some regards, an extension of this renewed Kurdish resistance and a reflection of the urgent need for a comprehensive solution to the Kurdish issue. By drawing attention to key demands that will be indispensable for any such settlement, the hunger strikes aim to break the country’s political logjam and force the Turkish government back to the negotiating table. They have succeeded to an important extent, as public discourse in Turkey has once again focused on the government’s refusal to respect the basic rights of Kurdish citizens.
Erdoğan has hinted in the course of the autumn that he might resume the state-PKK negotiations “if necessary.” But given his history of raising expectations only to let them crash down -- from a ballyhooed 2005 speech in Diyarbakır, recognizing the need for a political solution, to the moribund 2009 “democratic opening,” which was supposed to deliver that solution, to the lack of progress on drafting a new constitution despite his pledges -- such intimations inspire little confidence. Besides, the prime minister has already announced that he will not accept education in Kurdish or autonomy, leaving Kurds to wonder what sort of “solution” he has in mind.
The AKP’s Kurdish Strategy
Since 2007, indeed, Erdoğan has appeared to vacillate himself, introducing a state-run Kurdish-language TV channel and elective Kurdish language courses, on the one hand, and sharpening the crackdown on legal activism for Kurdish rights, on the other. Far from being contradictory, however, these two approaches work in concert. By simultaneously offering limited reforms, making the occasional conciliatory statement and imprisoning Kurdish activists en masse, Erdoğan has sought to expand his base among Kurds who traditionally vote for conservative Turkish parties and to isolate and weaken the BDP and PKK to the point that they have no choice but to accept a version of the political settlement that is preferred by the Turkish state.
The Kurdish political prisoners now on hunger strike, many of whom have been incarcerated since 2009 due to the anti-KCK campaign, are basically hostages to this long-term project to demobilize the Kurdish movement. Faced with unending court proceedings and a government that has rejected their core demands, they have embraced a dramatic method that may yet embarrass the government into action.
The KCK arrests and hunger strikes are the outcome of developments stretching back more than a decade, particularly the political rivalry between Erdoğan’s AKP and the BDP. In its early years, the AKP was widely viewed as a coalition party that “formed a broad democratic platform appealing to a wide range of sectarian, ethnic, social and political forces hitherto marginalized by the Kemalist state,” [2] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_2_> including Islamists, Anatolian businessmen and Turkish liberals. Many Kurds were drawn to the AKP’s reformist image and religious roots. Thanks in part to these Kurdish supporters, the AKP became the largest party in Parliament in 2002, little more than a year after its founding.
The AKP’s arrival on the political scene temporarily stalled and then reversed the electoral growth of the BDP, whose predecessors’ share of the vote had increased in every election from 1995 to 2002. In 1995, the BDP (then HADEP) won 4.2 percent of the vote nationally, reaching 6.2 percent in 2002. But in 2004 its portion dropped to 5.1 percent, and in 2007 the BDP won just 4 percent, its worst showing ever. The BDP lost these votes to the AKP, which won 32.5 percent of votes in Kurdistan, or the majority-Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey, in the 2002 elections, a share jumping to 55 percent in 2007. [3] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_3_>
Indeed, the 2007 election, in which the AKP won its highest-ever number of Kurdish votes and the BDP its lowest ever, represented a key turning point in the AKP’s approach to the Kurds. Though its performance was impressive, the ruling party appears to have misread the election’s outcome in two critical ways, contributing to the repression and deadlock that prevails today.
First, having won more than half of the Kurdistan vote, the AKP seems to have decided that it could count on this bloc permanently. Party leaders frequently boasted that they had 75 Kurdish parliamentarians in their delegation, presenting themselves as the “real” representatives of the Kurds in Turkey. Erdoğan declared that he wanted to win in such traditional BDP strongholds as Diyarbakır and Batman in the 2009 elections, apparently believing this goal to be achievable.
But this AKP analysis neglected the extraordinary circumstances in which the 2007 vote took place. In April of that year, the Turkish army had threatened to intervene should Parliament elect an AKP member to the presidency, summoning memories of the “soft coup” that dislodged the AKP’s Islamist forerunners in 1997 and the long history of military subversion of Turkish democracy. Thus the 2007 election was, to some degree, a referendum on the military’s role in politics. The army’s warning accentuated the AKP’s early reputation as a coalition of forces excluded by the Kemalist republic, and many Kurds rallied to the party as a way to express their opposition to the generals’ meddling. At the same time, the AKP’s modest liberalizing reforms and promise to draft a new civilian constitution led some Kurds to conclude that the ruling party was their best chance for a political solution to the Kurdish issue. The votes in the 2007 election thus reflected the hope that the Kurdish movement’s core demands would be realized under the AKP, not a repudiation or a rethinking of these goals.
The AKP’s second major miscalculation grew out of the first. Having mistaken its electoral performance in Kurdistan as indicating support that could be taken for granted, the AKP anticipated another strong showing in 2009’s local elections and assumed it could settle the Kurdish question without the cooperation of the BDP. No doubt, another electoral cycle in which the BDP’s share of votes dropped would have left the Kurdish political movement weakened and vulnerable. The ruling party’s bet was that, with political momentum on its side, the Kurdish movement losing ground and thousands of Kurdish leaders in prison as bargaining chips, the AKP would be in a position to impose its own “solution” to Turkey’s most intractable problem.
The ruling party embarked on a strategy for undermining the Kurdish movement through a combination of sheer repression and political isolation. In 2007, the Diyarbakır prosecutor’s office began collecting the evidence it would use to justify the first wave of KCK arrests, which were eventually launched two weeks after the March 2009 local elections. In January 2009, the government opened the country’s first TV channel broadcasting exclusively in Kurdish. Weeks before the March balloting, Abdullah Gül hinted at the “democratic opening” when he said “good things” would happen on the Kurdish front, as the government announced plans for a state-run radio station that would broadcast in Kurdish. Meanwhile, a government-backed “Kurdish conference” in Iraqi Kurdistan -- the purpose of which was to sideline the PKK by having Kurdish figures friendly to Turkey call on the group to lay down its weapons -- was scheduled for April 2009, by which point the Islamists expected to have humiliated the BDP at the polls.
Even as it attempted to attract Kurdish voters through such cynical political maneuvers, the ruling party positioned itself to ride a wave of Turkish nationalism erupting in the country’s west. Military operations against the PKK intensified with renewed US backing. Erdoğan harkened back to the antiquated statist-nationalist approach to the Kurdish issue when, in a speech in the Kurdish city of Hakkari in November 2008, he said, “We said, ‘One nation, one flag, one motherland and one state.’ Those who oppose this have no place in Turkey and should leave.” At the same time, Erdoğan refused to meet with the BDP until it denounced the PKK as “terrorists” -- a policy that insulted the millions of Kurds who actively supported or at least respected the political movement. Small wonder, then, that Kurds increasingly saw the AKP as the party of the state, rather than an anti-state party.
In the end, the government could not have it both ways. Instead of the expected victory, the AKP suffered a major setback in the 2009 elections, with the BDP nearly doubling the number of municipalities under its control to 100. The “Kurdish conference” was unceremoniously canceled, apparently at the request of AKP Interior Minister Beşir Atalay. [4] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_4_> Kurds celebrated the BDP’s historic victory at the party’s building in Diyarbakır.
The government nevertheless pushed ahead with the doomed “democratic opening,” which was sold as a plan to resolve the Kurdish issue and demobilize the PKK. Erdoğan’s decision to openly discuss the possibility of a political solution was rightly seen as historic. But instead of a genuine negotiated settlement, the policy’s overarching goal was to isolate both the BDP and PKK by promising modest reforms even as the government arrested thousands of Kurdish activists. Hüseyin Çelik, vice president of the AKP at the time, seemed to admit as much when he told Zaman, the daily sympathetic to the Islamists, that the BDP (and the ultra-nationalist MHP) would become a “marginal” party if the initiative succeeded. [5] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_5_>
In August 2009, Öcalan instructed the PKK to send a “peace team” of its members to Turkey to symbolize the organization’s commitment to a political solution. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds welcomed the group with festive gatherings, hoping that peace might be near. But some seized on the opportunity to claim that Erdoğan’s approach was emboldening “terrorists,” and the initial euphoria of the movement dissipated as the BDP’s predecessor party, the DTP, was closed by the constitutional court in December. Court cases against members of the PKK delegation were soon filed, and those who were not arrested returned to the group’s bases in northern Iraq in July 2010.
The September 2010 referendum on two dozen amendments to the country’s constitution, drawn up after the 1980 military coup, briefly sparked optimism that the “democratic opening” could be revived. The package was approved by an overwhelming margin, but most Kurds in the southeast backed the BDP’s call for a boycott on the grounds that the amendments focused more on consolidating the ruling party’s hold over the state than on reviving democratic reforms. Since then, the BDP has continued to emphasize the importance of drafting a new civilian constitution for a solution to the Kurdish issue. Notwithstanding the ruling party’s constant pledge to do so, the parliament’s constitutional committee has made little progress.
The secret state-PKK talks occurred parallel to all these events in the public eye, only to be closed down by Ankara after the BDP’s strong performance in the June 2011 parliamentary elections.
The KCK Operations
The “democratic opening” and state-PKK talks occurred in the shadow of the KCK operations, which began two weeks after the BDP’s 2009 election victory, and just one day after the PKK had announced a new ceasefire. In the short term, the arrests offered the Turkish government thousands of bargaining chips and strong leverage in its dealings with the Kurdish movement. In the long run, they aimed to break up a new class of Kurdish leaders that rapidly emerged after 1999, the watershed year when the BDP’s ancestor HADEP entered local government for the first time, Turkey became a candidate for EU membership and the PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire that lasted for five years.
During the 1990s, at least 112 members of pro-Kurdish political parties were assassinated by the Turkish state, along with scores of journalists and human rights defenders. But in the sanguine and comparatively peaceful period that followed 1999, these extrajudicial killings all but ceased as the state made tentative gestures at allowing expressions of Kurdish identity, again as part of Turkey’s EU membership bid. Provisions for limited broadcasting in Kurdish were introduced, the country’s first private Kurdish-language courses were opened and the hated “state of emergency” regime in the southeast was lifted.
The BDP seized the opportunity to consolidate its ranks, especially its youth and women’s branches. Kurdish politicians drew on the resources and platforms afforded by the municipalities they now controlled to develop their political identity and gain experience in self-rule. [6] <http://merip.org/mero/mero110812#_6_> Like many future BDP leaders, Kurdish intellectuals like Selahattin Demirtaş (who went on to be elected to Parliament and head the party) and Osman Baydemir (who would become mayor of Diyarbakır) were also deeply involved in civil society initiatives, especially the Human Rights Association, during this period. These activist roots show up in the BDP’s unique political style, which mixes agitation in the streets with deliberations in Parliament.
“The State Created This Resolve”
Young activists arrested under the KCK operations have taken a leadership role in the hunger strike. About half of the nine women prisoners who began refusing food on September 12 -- the thirtieth anniversary of the 1980 military coup -- were in their early thirties or younger at the time of their arrest. These women are representatives of the much discussed “new generation” of Kurds who, like Mazlum Tekdağ, came of age during the darkest days of the 1990s war and have barely known a day of true peace in their lives.
Some commentators have, predictably, accused the PKK of forcing its followers to starve themselves, an accusation the organization and its affiliates flatly reject. “This is a decision the strikers took based on their own thoughts, will and desire. As the KCK, we had no involvement in this whatsoever,” KCK spokesman Roj Welat said in an e-mail.
Kurdish journalist Murat Çiftçi (no relation to Hamdiye), himself a member of the “new generation,” spent three months in prison earlier in 2012 for an article he wrote. He was later sentenced to almost nine years in prison; he is currently free pending appeal. He says that anyone who wants to understand the hunger strike should simply look at the Turkish government’s policies: “It’s the state that created this resolve, in my opinion. Because thousands of people are in prison for no reason. Everyone feels like I do: These sentences are given because we’re Kurds, not because we’re good PKK activists. The goal is to scare and suppress us with prisons, but this has had the exact opposite effect.”
Murat and other released Kurdish political prisoners say activists in each jail have their own mechanisms for organizing protests, and that authorization from the outside PKK leadership would not be required to undertake a hunger strike. There is coordination among prisoners in different facilities, but according to Murat, no one is forced to join any protests. “There’s a separate formation in the prisons that can make decisions in the name of Kurdish prisoners. Those who want to participate, say, in a hunger strike, volunteer their own names,” he said. “This happened when I was there -- 20 people decided to start one, and there were soon 350 volunteers. I wanted to participate for a limited time, but they didn’t let me because I was ill. In other words, no one’s forced to join. It’s completely voluntary, and sometimes they don’t even accept certain volunteers.”
The hunger strike is not the first of its kind. A similar action with similar demands occurred earlier in 2012. On the fiftieth day, the KCK effectively terminated the strike by issuing a statement through its media channels. “In line with [Abdullah Öcalan’s] call that there should be no deaths in the course of resistance, the correct position is for the actions in all prisons to be ended for now,” the communiqué said. But they added a qualification: “The protest had developed solely with the activists’ initiative. This hunger strike is a warning. If there’s no improvement in [Öcalan’s] situation in the days ahead, new types of actions will be developed in a more comprehensive way, including hunger strikes.” KCK spokesman Welat said the current hunger strike is “certainly” a follow-up to the previous one. “The strikes will only stop if the hunger strikers’ just and legitimate demands are fulfilled by the Turkish government. They have declared as much to the public. We’ve tried very hard for a political, democratic and peaceful solution,” he said.
The hunger strikes in the fall have achieved far more success in mobilizing the public and generating debate than those in the spring, meaning it may prove more difficult to bring the action to an end before strikers start dying. Many Kurds have heeded the strikers’ call for serhildan -- the Kurdish equivalent of intifada -- with solidarity actions occurring on a daily basis across the southeast. “Everyone aged 7 to 70 has broken their silence. Even Kurds who stayed out of these sorts of things before are mobilized and demanding their basic rights,” Hamdiye Çiftçi said. “Life stopped in the region on October 30,” Murat Çiftçi said in reference to a special day of action coinciding with the strike’s fiftieth day. “The popular rebellion is growing daily.”
As the strike approaches its sixtieth day, all eyes are on Erdoğan. One of his first responses was to deny that the hunger strike even existed, claiming that one person, not hundreds, was refusing food. He also referred to a months-old picture of BDP leaders dining on lamb kebab, accusing them of hypocrisy. The prisoners have again underlined their refusal to end the strike unless their demands are met, pledging to increase their numbers by the thousands in the days ahead.
In a press conference following a cabinet meeting on November 5, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç reported that Erdoğan had ordered the Justice Ministry to make the necessary arrangements to allow suspects to offer their legal defenses in Kurdish during court proceedings. He also said that Öcalan could meet with his lawyers if he applied to the Justice Ministry for permission. (His lawyers’ subsequent application was declined, on the grounds that the ferry to his island prison is “out of service” -- as officials have claimed since July 2011.) But Arınç left mother tongue education -- the third area of the hunger strike’s focus -- untouched in his comments. These are signs that a solution may be imminent. Meanwhile, the clock continues to tick on the hunger strikers.
“By melting our bodies, we’re trying to intervene in the situation, to shape our future,” Tekdağ wrote in an October letter from Diyarbakır prison that was circulated in the Turkish media. “Between these four walls, there’s nothing else we can do in the face of tyrannical repression.”
Endnotes
[1] Milliyet, September 27, 2012.
[2] M. Hakan Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. xi.
[3] Taraf, August 18, 2009.
[4] Today’s Zaman, April 19, 2009.
[5] Zaman, January 4, 2010.
[6] For more on the history of pro-Kurdish political parties in Turkey, see Nicole Watts, Activists in Office (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010).
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