3 August 2001

1. "Turkish prison hunger strike claims 30th victim", a long-running hunger-strike over controversial prison reforms in Turkey claimed another victim on Friday, bringing to 30 the overall death toll from the protest, the Anatolia news agency reported.

2. "Turkey's deputy PM criticizes slow pace in EU reforms", Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz deplored on Thursday the government's slow pace in reforms to catch up with European Union norms, blaming it on differences between the three coalition partners.

3. "The Kurdish dream: emigration to Europe", thousands embark on the perilous journey to the west.

4. "EU: Cyprus Deadlock Threatens Enlargement", Cyprus would appear to be the perfect candidate for European Union membership. The country's negotiators are making rapid progress in accession negotiations with Brussels.

5. "The land mine reality in Kurdistan", while there are 120 million land mines waiting to explode in 64 countries across the world, there are 25 million mines in Kurdistan overall alone. Ten thousand people have been killed in mine explosions up until now in North [Turkish] Kurdistan alone.

6. "Turkey: Veteran Islamic Leader Suffers Blow In European Court", for the first time since its creation more than 40 years ago, the European Court of Human Rights earlier this week backed Turkey's decision to ban a political party.


1. - AFP - "Turkish prison hunger strike claims 30th victim":

ANKARA

A long-running hunger-strike over controversial prison reforms in Turkey claimed another victim on Friday, bringing to 30 the overall death toll from the protest, the Anatolia news agency reported. Muharrem Horoz, a 28-year-old detainee, died at a state hospital in the northwestern Turkish city of Izmit to which he had been admitted 10 days ago because of his failing health, the report said.

He was on the 236th day of his hunger strike when he died, it added. Horoz -- a suspected member of an extreme left-wing group, the Turkish Workers' and Peasants' Liberation Army (TIKKO) -- was on trial for a March 1999 bomb attack against the governor of the central town of Cankiri, which killed three people and wounded 10. The hunger strike, which began last October, is in protest against new jails, commonly known as "F-type" prisons, where cells holding a maximum of three people replaced large dormitories for up to 60 inmates. Prisoners and human rights activists have claimed that confinement in smaller units will alienate inmates from fellow prisoners and leave them more vulnerable to mistreatment and torture by prison officials.

But the government has categorically refused to retract its decision on the new jails, arguing that packed dormitories are the main factor behind frequent riots and hostage-taking incidents in its unruly jails. In a bid to respond to prisoners' demands, Ankara adopted a series of laws allowing prisoners to use recreational areas inside the new prisons and setting up civic boards to inspect the compounds. But the moves have been brushed aside by both the protestors and rights activists as insufficient. The deaths from the fastings came after a security operation in December 2000, when paramilitary police stormed scores of prisons in a bid to end the hunger strike and gain control of the institutions.

The four-day operation left 30 prisoners and two soldiers dead, but failed to end the protest with some 200 inmates still pursuing the hunger strike, according to human rights activists. The controversial operation has recently come under question, with official pathologists' reports contradicting the government's account of how the deaths occurred during the raids, which saw security forces demolishing prison walls to enter prisoners' compounds and using tear gas to subdue those who resisted. Since the raids, more than 1,000 inmates have been transferred to F-type prisons despite a government pledge that the new jails would not become operational until a popular consensus had been reached on their introduction.

The prison hunger strike has placed Turkey's bleak human rights record in the international spotlight at a time when the country needs to make far-reaching democratic reforms in order to promote its bid for European Union membership.


2. - AFP - "Turkey's deputy PM criticizes slow pace in EU reforms":

ANKARA

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz deplored on Thursday the government's slow pace in reforms to catch up with European Union norms, blaming it on differences between the three coalition partners. "One of Turkey's most significant problems today is the hardship in the accomplishment of the national program" of reforms that the country, an EU candidate, should fulfill, Yilmaz said in an interview with the state-run Anatolia news agency. "It is a reality that fractioned politics impede the required speed," he added.

Yilmaz's center-right Motherland Party is in an odd coalition with the center-left Democratic Left Party of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party of Devlet Bahceli. Turkey was declared a EU membership candidate in December 1999. But overwhelmed by an economic crisis and political wrangling, Ankara has so far failed to carry out any major reforms, particularly in the realms of democracy and human rights, which are a pre-condition for the inauguration of accession talks with Brussels. Yilmaz, who holds the EU affairs portfolio, also harshly criticized what he called the lack of public enthusiasm regarding the country's goal to join the Union.

"There is a kind of apathy like it is not Turkey who should make preparations to enter the EU... It is not possible to understand this," the minister told Anatolia. He said Ankara aimed to open accession talks with the EU by 2004 when the bloc is expected to take in the first newcomers. Yilmaz said the government was intending to convene parliament in September, a month ahead of the regular end of its summer recess, in order to pass a comprehensive package of constitutional amendments. The 37-article draft includes major reforms such as the abolition of the death penalty except for times of war and crimes of terrorism, a provision designed to exclude condemned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan.

The draft also envisages the lifting of a ban on using "forbidden languages" in the expression and dissemination of thought, which could allow the free use of Kurdish in the media. It calls for tighter criteria to ban political parties and the inclusion of more civilian members to the country's top policy-making body, the military-dominated National Security Council. Other proposals aim to improve freedom of expression and expand workers' rights to unionize.


3. - The Guardian - "The Kurdish dream: emigration to Europe ":

Thousands embark on the perilous journey to the west

On the face of it the Sheikhallah bazaar is just the shabby little side street in Irbil where you go to change money. But the whole of "liberated" Kurdistan knows that another, more serious business is being conducted behind those counters piled high with debased Iraqi banknotes.

Emigration is the Kurdish national obsession, and it is here that the would-be emigrants begin the long, clandestine, perilous yet highly organised odyssey in containers and ramshackle hulks to the Europe of promise and plenty.

It is here that they acquire a false passport. For none of Kurdistan's 3.6m inhabitants has a legitimate one.

As Iraqis they are entitled to one, but they dare not go to Baghdad to get it. Saddam Hussein is the reason, above all, why they want to leave.

"We have had 60 or 70 years of war, or the laws of war," said Azar Barwari, a Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP) official.

"Saddam was the worst, the summit of chauvinism and brutality. It is enough that he is still there, however weakened. We fear another Anfal [the chemical attacks in which an estimated 180,000 civilians died], genocide, liquidation. It is a fear inside every Kurd."

There are economic and social reasons too for wanting to migrate.

Unemployment is high and, for most, salaries very low. The recent coming of satellite television has greatly enhanced the allure of exile.

"I know that if you really look carefully, it shows a negative as well as a positive side of Europe," said Samar Fawzi, a law student at Sulaymaniyah University, who tried and failed to get to Britain, "but lots see it as a kind of paradise."

And some do make good and return - on holiday, to buy a house, or to marry a local girl - with real money in their pockets.

But the most impressive evidence that the political imperative outweighs the economic one is that this is a society where, unusually, the rich emigrate as ardently as the poor.

Huge cost

The decision to go often involves an enormous investment, psychologically as well as economically. Families may sell off most of their possessions to finance it: it costs twice as much to get to Europe as it does to build a modest house.

Partly because of the steadily growing web of contacts with the west, "liberated" Kurdistan has become a main source of Kurdish emigration; more - probably 30,000-plus last year - leave here than from Baghdad-controlled territory, where conditions are infinitely worse, or from Iranian Kurdistan.

The Kurdish regional government (KRG) tries to discourage emigration, through youth training centres, debates in parliament, and group marriages, and television programmes highlighting the miseries of European asylum centres, the difficulties of adjustment, and the exploitation of and prejudice against immigrants.

"But you surely know that not just Kurds, half the Middle East would emigrate if it could. We can't physically stop them," the deputy prime minister Sami Abdul Rahman said.

So the KRG tolerates the semi-clandestine Sheikhallah passport bazaar, where aspirant emigrants publicly loiter, gleaning the latest news, gossip and hot tips from the underground travel circuits.

Like Europeans planning their summer holidays or stock market investments, they know the exact price and risks of every route and destination.

The passports are smuggled from Baghdad with the help of corrupt officials. The current price is $1 000 (£700) for a virgin one, $400 for a used one that has been "cleaned".

The passport serves one purpose only: legal entry into Turkey. After that it is thrown away. Turkey offers the Kurds 40 visas a day, half of them through Massoud Barzani's KDP, which sells them for $90, half through the Turcoman Front, a Turkish created party ostensibly representing "liberated" Kurdistan's 10,000 Turcomans, which sells them for $600.

The cheap visa means a long wait, the expensive one is "express". With a virgin passport the fugitive stands a much better chance at the frontier than with a used one. But the supply does not match demand. The alternative is to be smuggled over the frontier, often through Iran. That is cheaper - $350 - and quicker but, with mines and the Turkish army, it is perilous.

"My brother went that way," Mahdi Abdul Rahman said. "He only lost his kidney, but nine of his companions were killed when a helicopter, thinking they were PKK guerrillas, attacked them near Van."

The next stop on the standard route is Istanbul, where contact is made with a representative of the international smuggling network, almost always a Kurd, who arranges the sea or land crossing to Greece. The current cost is $2,000 to $2,200.

At this point it is not only those who are captured, drowned, or asphyxiated in containers who fail to make it. Some, like Ary Ahmad, an unemployed technician in Sulaymaniyah, just grow too dispirited to continue.

"After five days hiding in a seaside building site at Bodrum and waiting for a boat that never came, I called it off," he said. "I had a valid passport and Turkish visa, after all."

His companions eventually fetched up on a Greek island near the Turkish coast, and from there took the regular tourist ferry to the mainland.

On arrival in Athens they phoned their families back home and the $2,000 already deposited with a third party was handed over to the network.

From Athens the fugitive can take a plane to western Europe. But that is the deluxe route, only possible with a stolen European passport, whose bearer requires no entry visa; and at $6,000, only a tiny handful can afford it.

The other, normal, route is across the Adriatic by Albanian fishing boat, or secreted inside a long vehicle on a ferry. Current cost: between $1,000 and $1,200. The rest, by train, bus or car from Italy to France, Britain or Germany, is relatively cheap - $400 - and easy.

Rejection

The great drawback now, however, is that asylum itself has become much more difficult to acquire as Europe clamps down on the traffic. There are 9,000 unaccepted Kurdish asylum seekers in the Netherlands alone.

"I hear that in Britain there is now a rejection rate of 90%," the humanitarian affairs minister, Shafiq Qazzaz, said. "There is more and more talk of 'voluntary repatriation'. And the point of view is developing that our safe haven is, after all, safe."

But the upshot of a recent debate in the Swedish parliament was that, in truth, it is not safe. There lies the nub.

"In my view more and more Kurds will try to get to Europe, if only because there are so many already there," said Fakhir Barzani, of the ministry of humanitarian affairs. "The only solution lies here in Kurdistan, and it requires western and UN involvement."

Obliging Baghdad to respect resolution 986 and spend oil-for-food money on development and income support is the lesser part of it, because solid long-term investment will only come when there is political security. And that, Kurds say, can only come with the completion of what the world left incomplete when, under resolution 688 of April 1991, it created the safe haven and the US and Britain added their no-fly zones.

The world may have largely forgotten about 688, a call for the Kurds' "human and political rights" to be respected. But to them it is holy writ, a vital legitimisation of their cause which should be built on until they achieve a secure, legal and internationally recognised status, either the independence they dream of or the federation within a post-Saddam Iraq they realistically aim for.

Without that, they fear, the worst will happen again. "And believe me," Fakhir Barzani said, "next time you could have millions clamouring at the gates of Europe."


4. - Radio Free Europe - "EU: Cyprus Deadlock Threatens Enlargement":

Cyprus would appear to be the perfect candidate for European Union membership. The country's negotiators are making rapid progress in accession negotiations with Brussels. Cyprus's GDP per capita is higher than the other candidates and already approaches EU averages. Yet, Cyprus faces an obstacle that is potentially greater than that facing any of the other candidates. The continuing stand-off between the island's Greek and Turkish communities could jeopardize the country's EU ambitions and is threatening to become a serious impediment to enlargement as a whole. RFE/RL Brussels correspondent Ahto Lobjakas reports.

BRUSSELS

Most public discussions within the EU of the possible dangers facing enlargement limit themselves to the cost of enlargement and public support.

The Mediterranean island of Cyprus is rarely mentioned in this context. Yet the potential hazard it represents to enlargement may be just as great as those two.

Cyprus remains divided between the internationally recognized Greek-Cypriot government in the south and the self-styled Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus, after Turkish troops invaded it in 1974 fearing a military junta in Greece would try to annex the island.

The Greek-Cypriot government in Nicosia is today a leading EU candidate. The Turkish community, on the other hand, suffers from a trade embargo and restrictions placed on tourist access. Its government, led by President Rauf Denktash, opposes accession into the EU, fearing it would downgrade Turkey's presence on the island and relegate the Turkish community to a minority status.

Both the Turkish and Greek Cypriots enjoy strong support from Ankara and Athens respectively. Ankara has made it clear it does not want to see Cyprus join the EU before Turkey. Should this happen, Turkey has threatened to annex the northern part of the island.
Greece, on the other hand, has repeatedly hinted that no enlargement can proceed without the inclusion of Cyprus. Athens could veto the accession of any other candidates should Cyprus be omitted.

From a purely objective standpoint, Cyprus leads all other countries seeking membership in the European Union.

Last week it overtook the other candidate states in the number of "chapters" of EU law it had closed during accession talks and now fulfills both the economic and political criteria for membership. Its citizens are relatively wealthy and average income levels now approach the EU average.

A year ago, the United Nations launched so-called "proximity talks" to try to bring the island's two communities together. Those talks broke down in November, when Denktash walked out in protest at not being recognized as a legitimate head of government.

But George Vasiliou -- Cyprus's head negotiator in EU accession talks and the country's former president -- told RFE/RL recently (27 July) that the talks could resume shortly:

"Unfortunately, up to [now], Mr. Denktash is insisting on keeping away from [the proximity] talks, although we do hope and we hear [behind the scenes] that he may decide to go back to the talks. I sincerely hope that this will happen, but more important [than Denktash going] back to the talks is that when he goes back, he decides not to insist on his ideas of a confederation - [that is], of two states -- because [this goes against] the major request of the [European] Union [that Cyprus remain one state]."

Denktash has confirmed he will shortly be traveling to New York to meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss the resumption of proximity talks. But recent public statements indicate his stance has not softened. In early June, Denktash told a Turkish-speaking Cypriot radio station that Cyprus should suspend its application to join the EU. Also, speaking on the 27th anniversary of the 20 July Turkish invasion of the island, Denktash explicitly ruled out a united Cyprus embracing both the Turkish and Greek communities.

Cyprus's Greek community has demonstrated a similar lack of restraint. Two weeks ago, Nicosia's ambassador to the EU, Theophilo Thepiliou, told the "Financial Times" that Cyprus would join the EU regardless of Turkey's objections. He also noted that as a member, Cyprus would then be able to veto Turkey's eventual membership.

The intransigence of both communities puts the EU in a difficult position. Although EU leaders promised at their Helsinki summit in December 1999 that the division of Cyprus would not be an obstacle to EU membership, this was done mainly to appease Greece and enable the bloc to nominate seven more candidates for membership -- Turkey among them. Several larger member states -- led by France and Britain -- have indicated they would block Cyprus's membership if it meant "importing" its political problems into the EU.

The problems are compounded by a dispute between the EU and Turkey over the EU's plans to create a rapid reaction military force. Turkey, a NATO member, has demanded full decision-making powers in operations that could affect Turkish interests. So far, the EU has said Turkey would only be offered the right to "close consultation."

Assuming that neither Ankara nor Athens is prepared to yield over Cyprus, the EU could find itself facing an unfortunate choice between enlarging or further developing its own defense policy.


5. - Kurdish Observer - "The land mine reality in Kurdistan":

While there are 120 million land mines waiting to explode in 64 countries across the world, there are 25 million mines in Kurdistan overall alone. Ten thousand people have been killed in mine explosions up until now in North [Turkish] Kurdistan alone.

FIRAZ BARAN

Sukru Toprak lost his life when a mine exploded in the village of Kocyigit in Hakkari's Semdinli district. Sukru had gone out to work. Now Sukru's family, his friends and relatives, will mourn and weep for 40 days, they will recite prayers, they will leave their beards unshaven. His children will grow up with the pain of not having a father. Their hearts will bleed every time they see another father playing with his children or walking hand-in-hand with them.

There are 25 million land mines throughout Kurdistan. Ten thousand people have been killed up until now in North Kurdistan alone because of mine explosions. In other words, the pain of Sukru has scorched the hearts of ten thousand other families.

The state mined the 760 kilometers along the Syrian border, from Habur customs gate to Antakya, in the years 1955-56. The area mined is from 300 to 750 meters wide. A total of 4 million donums of land (roughly a million acres) has been turned into a giant mine field.

In addition to the mined fields, permanent security regions were established every five or ten kilometers on other fertile land. All inhabited areas, including agricultural fields, were mined without exception along the borders in Sirnak, Mardin, Urfa, Kilis, and Hatay.

The state explained its reasoning for this in 1955 as follows: "An armed conflict between smugglers and customs guards broke out during some cross-border smuggling in Mardin. Two customs guard officials died. The borders must be mined so that these types of events do not occur again in the region." Movies about land mines have been produced from that day until today, novels and poems have been written, lamentations have been wept. Children playing ball in the fields, cutting hay, or grazing their animals have paid the price with their lives or have been left crippled. Mine fields became the name of death, disaster, and danger for their close ones. Above all, the 4 million donums of land were given by the state to the protection of the National Defense Ministry. There is no such practice in any other country of the world.But the mines did not stop cross-border smuggling.

Despite the fact that so many people lost their arms, legs, or eyes...

The smuggling also resulted in the creation of mafia groups. There are people who have lost four artificial legs to new explosions while continuing smuggling. The increasing number of victims of mine accidents has given birth to a technical underground prosthesis sector. They earned great sums of money fitting smugglers with artificial limbs, because those who lost their arms or legs went to them, rather than going to the hospital. The underground sector, meanwhile, was earning money fitting new 'hands', 'arms' or 'legs.'

The state cannot now clear all the land that was planted with mines because the maps and legends showing where the mines are have been lost. No one knows exactly where the mines are any more. The mines served no purpose whatsoever. Smuggling still continued. Mines are not the answer. The state must compensate its citizens who have suffered because it is obliged to pay for harm occurring under state protection.

The creations of mine fields in order to stop smuggling, ironically, created smugglers out of those farmers whose land had been mined, because they could no longer farm their land and were not compensated for it. As is always the case. The result: China is still struggling with mines; Turkey, like Africa and Vietnam and other third world countries, cannot rescue itself from its fields of mines. And those that suffer are the people. "There was ice but no salt in Kilis. There was salt but no ice in Aleppo. Now both have both salt and ice. There is no sense to keep the borders mined."


6. - Radio Free Europe - "Turkey: Veteran Islamic Leader Suffers Blow In European Court":

For the first time since its creation more than 40 years ago, the European Court of Human Rights earlier this week backed Turkey's decision to ban a political party. The unexpected verdict is likely to strengthen the position of those who oppose political Islam in Turkey, which is a member of the Council of Europe and a European Union candidate. It may also be the coup de grace for the historical leader of Turkey's Islamic movement.

PRAGUE

The European Court of Human Rights set a precedent earlier this week when it ruled that Turkish authorities did not contravene democratic principles by ordering the dissolution of a major pro-Islamic political party three years ago.

This marks the first time since the court, which was created in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, has backed Turkey's decision to ban a political party.

By a vote of four to three, the seven-member panel of judges held on 31 July that sanctions imposed on former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) did not violate Article 11 of the European Human Rights Convention, which guarantees freedom of assembly and association so long as it does not threaten a democratic state.

The Welfare Party was set up in 1983 and took part in several legislative and municipal polls, taking control of six of Turkey's 15 largest cities in 1994, including Istanbul and Ankara. The party garnered 22 percent of the votes in the 1995 general election, paving the way for Erbakan to become the country's first-ever Islamic prime minister in July 1996.

Erbakan was forced from power in 1997 by a "soft" military coup. Shortly after, in January 1998, Turkey's Constitutional Court banned the Welfare Party on grounds that its alleged calls to political violence represented a threat to the country's stated secularism. The court also ordered that a five-year political ban be imposed on Erbakan and five other party members -- including Welfare deputy chairmen Sevket Kazan and Ahmet Tekdal -- on similar charges.

Erbakan, Kazan, and Tekdal went to the Strasbourg-based court, complaining that the ban was violating their rights under the European Convention of Human Rights. They also filed a separate complaint in the name of Welfare, which had had all its assets confiscated and handed over to the Turkish treasury after its closure.

In a statement released after it delivered the verdict, the court said it had ruled against all four complaints, arguing that the Turkish constitutional judges' decision was necessary to preserve civil peace and democracy.

The statement read: "The Court held that the sanctions imposed on the applicants could reasonably be considered to meet a pressing social need for the protection of democratic society."

In their judgment, the seven European judges considered that "on the pretext of giving a different meaning to the principle of secularism, the leaders of the [Welfare Party] had declared their intention to establish a plurality of legal systems based on differences in religious belief, to institute Islamic law (Sharia), a system of law that was in marked contrast to the values embodied in the [European] Convention [of Human Rights]."

The European Court's statement went on to say the plaintiffs "also left in doubt their position regarding recourse to force in order to come to power and, more particularly, to retain power."

Former general prosecutor Vural, who had launched the legal procedures against Welfare, welcomed the verdict, saying that the party had become "a rallying point for activities directed against Turkey's secularism."

Hamit Bozarslan is a Turkey expert at the Paris-based School of Higher Studies in the Social Sciences, better known under its French acronym of EHESS. He told RFE/RL that the court's ruling came as a surprise:

"I think this was quite an unexpected decision because the Welfare Party had never participated in any violent action. Except for two or three verbal faux pas [made by individual members], the party had never advocated violence."

Kazan, a former justice minister, described the verdict as "political" and said he and the other plaintiffs would appeal the court's decision within three months.

Speaking to reporters in Ankara, Islamist leader Recai Kutan made similar comments, accusing the European court of exercising a "double standard."

In June, Kutan's Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi), which had been set up in the immediate aftermath of Welfare's closure, was banned by Turkey's Constitutional Court on the grounds that it, too, represented a threat to secularism and that it was the continuation of Welfare under another name.

Welfare lawyer Laurent Hincker reportedly criticized the verdict, accusing Turkey of running only a facade of democracy.

Hincker was not immediately available for comment. But Hincker's law partner, Marie Lemaitre, told RFE/RL that the court failed to study Welfare's statutes and political programs before ruling over the case. Instead, she said, the panel based its verdict mainly on statements and speeches made by individual Welfare leaders. The Turkish Constitutional Court has described these speeches and statements as "calls to violence" to justify the ban.

"The problem is that these speeches -- some of which date back to the years 1993-1994, while the ban on the party was imposed in 1998 -- had never been prosecuted although Turkey had all the legal means to do so at the time. Since these speeches were considered in 1998 as 'creating a center of activities against the principles of secularism,' why weren't they prosecuted at the time they were made?"

Lemaitre goes on:

"[Prior to 1998], the Turkish Constitutional Court had, for example, closed down the local branch of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), the Communist Party, and the Socialist Party, and the European Court [of Human Rights] had condemned all three decisions. The court had examined the statutes and the programs of each of these parties and each time had held that the Turkish decision had violated the [European] Convention [on Human Rights.] Logically, should the court have followed the same procedure regarding the Welfare Party, the decision would have been different from the final verdict."

Turkey has a long tradition of banning political groups regarded as subversive by the country's powerful military, which presides over domestic affairs through the National Security Council.

Turkey's influential generals, who have toppled four governments since 1960, have vowed to eradicate what they describe as the "fundamentalist Islamic threat." The army argues that any easing in the anti-Islamic campaign could move the country away from founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's stated goal of a pro-Western Turkey and turn it into an "Iran-like theocracy."

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, who was himself temporarily barred from politics in the wake of the 1980 military coup while running the Republican People's Party, has repeatedly said that he does not favor the banning of political parties.

He has said that more democratic means should be used in combating Islamic political movements, arguing that such radical measures have never had deterrent effects.

A simple look at Erbakan's political background would be enough to suggest that Ecevit is right.

A veteran of Turkish politics, the 75-year-old Islamic leader has faced several public bans over the past 30 years. In 1971, his National Order Party was closed down by the Constitutional Court before it re-emerged two years later as the National Salvation Party to join the ruling coalition. Erbakan was banned again from political life in the wake of the 1980 military coup until he returned to head the Welfare Party in the early 1980s.

Although he never had any official position in Kutan's Virtue Party, Erbakan was generally considered as the party's main ideologist. Earlier this month, Kutan announced that he had founded a new party called Saadet (an Arabic word which can be translated as "felicity"). Once again, Erbakan is seen as the man pulling the strings behind the party's nominal leaders.

Yet, Turkish analysts believe that the precedent set by the Strasbourg-based court may signal the end of the road for this man who, ironically, has never been a great friend of European institutions.

In comments reported by the semi-official Anatolian news agency, Ilter Turan, a professor of political sciences at Istanbul's Bilgi University, said that the verdict would prevent Erbakan from running Saadet and that his political career should be considered finished.

But Bozarslan has a different opinion. He said that, to his view, the court's verdict is unlikely to have a direct impact on Erbakan's political life, although he will probably continue to enjoy a high prestige among the conservative branch of the Islamic movement:

"I think that the ruling [of the European Court of Human Rights] will have no direct consequences, because Erbakan's political life was already over. He's now approaching 76 and even though Turkish politicians usually have a very, very long political life expectancy, I think that his political career is already behind him."

Islamic hardliners such as Erbakan and Kutan are largely seen as a fading political force. Virtue won only 15 percent of the vote in the 1999 parliamentary elections, 7 percent less than the vote garnered by Welfare four years earlier. A few months ago, public opinion polls suggested that the party was well below the 10 percent needed to be represented in parliament.

To add to its troubles, the Islamic old guard is challenged by young reformists, such as former Istanbul mayor Recep and Tayyip Erdogan, who seek to modernize the movement and advocate reconciliation between Turkey's Islamic tradition and Western democratic values.

Erdogan was sentenced to a three-year political ban in 1999 for allegedly inciting religious hatred. But he is now considering returning to politics to run a new Islamic party which, recent opinion polls indicate, would attract the majority of Turkey's Islamic voters.

Bozarslan of EHESS agrees that the new blow suffered by Erbakan in Strasbourg could, to some extent, profit Erdogan and other reform-minded Islamic leaders. But he says one of the main beneficiaries of the European court's decision will be the army -- which will use the verdict to further justify its campaign against political Islam.