8 August 2001

1. "Turkish army lashes out at deputy PM over security remarks", Turkey's powerful army on Tuesday lashed out at Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz for his remarks that the country's current understanding of security hindered its development.

2. "In Turkey, 'Honor Killing' Follows Families to Cities", women Are Victims Of Village Tradition.

3. "In Turkey, a New Crisis Every Day", earthquakes, scandals, soaring interest rates, and a collapsing currency are just some of the things a magazine publisher must deal with

4. "Sharon's Turkey visit divides loyalties", Turkish Islamists condemn Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada

5. "Pro-Kurdish HADEP seeks for alliance ", speaking on Medya-TV, which is the television channel for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party (HADEP) Murat Bozlak expressed his unease at efforts to found a new Kurdish party in Ankara. He also signalled that HADEP was ready to enter election alliances with other parties.

6. "Russian Kurds deny existence of guerrilla camps, slam media coverage", Various Kurdish public groups denied Tuesday the existence of a training camp for Kurdish fighters near Russia's northern city of Yaroslavl, and denounced the Russian media for circulating reports of it.


1. - AFP - "Turkish army lashes out at deputy PM over security remarks":

ANKARA

Turkey's powerful army on Tuesday lashed out at Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz for his remarks that the country's current understanding of security hindered its development.

"It is baseless and worrying that a person who shares part of the responsibility on ensuring national security makes a speech targeting certain institutions," the general staff said in a harshly worded statement. At a congress of his conservative Motherland Party (ANAP) at the weekend, Yilmaz had said that the concept of national security came up as an obstacle against every step forward and urged a public debate on its necessity.

The army statement recalled that Turkey was still fighting against radical Islamic movements undermining the secular order and a Kurdish movement in its southeastern area which once sought to carve an independent state out of Turkish territory. "One issue that needs to be discussed is whether what is believed to be a step forward is really a step forward," it added, implying that any move facilitating Islamic or Kurdish movements would not be tolerated. The statement also obliquely accused Yilmaz of "running away from responsibility and prospects of failure by attacking others" rather than "fulfilling duties" in the face of problems.

It warned against blaming the country's woes -- a crisis-hit economy, corruption, lack of political stability and the Kurdish problem -- on national security. "Covering up these problems with the concept of national security is illogical, unjust and dangerous," the statement said. The Turkish army, which carried out three coups in Turkey's 78-year history, yields significant influence in domestic politics and frequently issues statements criticising the country's political leaders.


2. - Washington Post - "In Turkey, 'Honor Killing' Follows Families to Cities":

Women Are Victims Of Village Tradition

ISTANBUL

By Sait Kina's way of thinking, his 13-year-old daughter brought nothing but dishonor to his family: She talked to boys on the street, she ran away from home, she was the subject of neighborhood gossip.

Two months ago, when she tried to run away yet again, Kina grabbed a kitchen knife and an ax and stabbed and beat the girl until she lay dead in the blood-smeared bathroom of the family's Istanbul apartment.

He then commanded one of his daughters-in-law to clean up the mess. When his two sons came home from work 14 hours later, he ordered them to dispose of the 5-foot-3 corpse, which had been wrapped in a carpet and a blanket. The girl's head had been so mutilated, police said, it was held together by a knotted cloth.

"I fulfilled my duty," Kina told police after he was arrested, according to investigators' reports presented in the court case against the father and his two sons. "We killed her for going out with boys."

Dilber Kina's death was an "honor killing," a practice steeped in village traditions that is occurring with increasing frequency in cities across Turkey and other developing countries where massive migrations to urban areas have left families struggling to reconcile modern lifestyles and liberties with generations-old rural customs.

As members of Turkey's younger generation, especially girls, become better educated and more exposed to the world through television and city life, they are increasingly rebelling against parents who cling to traditions that prohibit socializing with the opposite sex, choosing a husband or visiting freely with friends outside the home.

The mounting social pressures on both generations have led to an alarming increase in murders, beatings and other violence within families, as well as suicides among urban and rural girls and women, according to police, women's organizations and social researchers.

"Honor crimes are happening all over Turkey," said Pinar Ilkkaracan, director of a human rights group in Istanbul that campaigns for changes in Turkish laws that discriminate against women. "Honor killings are the tip of the iceberg. What is under the surface is terrifying."

Researchers estimate at least 200 girls and women are murdered each year by their families in Turkey; the real numbers, they say, may be far greater. Women's organizations say their estimates -- and their conclusion that honor crimes are on the rise -- are based on reports from local organizations and activists scattered across the country and from local newspapers that document cases investigated by police. Accurate statistics do not exist because police records do not break down homicides into specific types, and honor crimes often go unreported.

The United Nations reported that as many as 5,000 women and girls worldwide were killed last year by family members, "many of them for the 'dishonor' of having been raped."

While many of the countries experiencing the surge in honor crimes are predominantly Muslim, such as Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt and Jordan, incidents are also increasing in nations as disparate as Brazil, Italy, Uganda and Britain, the United Nations found.

In Turkey, honor crimes have become part of a national debate over women's rights. Perpetrators of such crimes are legally permitted shorter prison terms than those who commit similar crimes for other reasons. Sentences for rape are eased if the victim is not a virgin. And a man, as head of a household, can determine whether his wife can hold a job.

Under pressure from women's rights groups and the European Union, which is considering Turkey's bid for membership, the legislature is expected to vote in the coming months on significant changes to the country's civil code. Lawmakers are also facing growing calls from women's groups to amend criminal statutes that give judges leeway to consider local custom and tradition as factors in levying penalties for a variety of crimes. But efforts to amend even the most outdated laws have become mired in the politics of competing factions torn, like many families, between preserving tradition and fostering greater equality between men and women in Turkish society.

Turkey is one of the world's most rapidly urbanizing countries, having shifted in less than half a century from a country where 75 percent of the population lived in rural areas to one in which the same proportion lives in cities.

"People put their traditions in their luggage, along with their pillows and sheets," said Mehmet Farac, who wrote a book on honor crimes in Turkey and has conducted some of the most definitive research on the subject. "Therefore they cannot break their ties with their society and traditions. Sometimes a girl wearing jeans or lipstick, combing her hair, or the way she looks in a mirror can make the family uncomfortable."

Dilber Kina was 5 when her family left its farm in Siirt, a village in the southeast, and moved to Istanbul eight years ago. The men found work driving taxis to support an extended family with 15 members crammed into one small first-floor apartment.

The more Dilber tried to escape the noisy, crowded living conditions and her domineering father, the angrier he became. "He was going crazy," said Birgul Kina, Dilber's sister-in-law, who mopped the blood off the bathroom floor, fixtures and walls. "She was always running away from the house."

Asked why Sait Kina killed his daughter, she replied, "He did it all for his dignity."

Dilber's mother, Maynur, refused to discuss the slaying. "She's gone, she's dead, it's finished," she said, wiping her hands together as though she were brushing off dust.

Frequently, honor killings are conducted in an even more calculated manner, according to women's rights lawyers and police officials. In the feudal, patriarchal society of rural villages, where a woman's honor is a family's only measurable commodity in an impoverished community, male family members gather to vote on the death of women. They also decide who will carry out the killing -- usually someone under the age of 18 who will be treated more leniently under the law.

In Turkey, the killing of a family member draws the most stern penalty allowable: death or life in prison. But if a judge rules there was provocation for the killing -- such as a question of honor -- the penalty can be reduced. If the defendant is a minor and behaves during the trial and detention in jail, the penalty is frequently cut to two years or less.

"No witnesses speak, so the court has to believe what the perpetrator says, and he gets the minimum charge, although it's homicide and it's in cold blood" said Canan Arin, who heads the women's rights center of the Istanbul Bar Association.

Last April, two sisters age 12 and 14 and their 17-year-old cousin were allegedly shot dead by male relatives because they were seen socializing with boys. The extended family had moved to the outskirts of Istanbul from the eastern province of Bitlis five years earlier.

"They were children; they were very young," said Ismail Kaya, a relative not implicated in the killings. "They [the accused] are young too. One of them is only 17. I feel sorry for everyone."

Kaya added, however: "This is our tradition. Tradition has to be followed."

On an autumn day two years ago, in a village in rural eastern Turkey, the grandfather, father and uncle of a 25-year-old woman held a meeting. They were Sunni Muslims and believed the woman had dishonored their family by marrying a man from the rival Alevi Muslim sect against the father's wishes.

The father walked out of the room, called to his 16-year-old son, draped his arm around the boy's shoulders and handed him a rifle, according to the son, who described the events on the condition that his name not be used for fear of revenge by family members.

The teenager, who could barely hold the gun, was stunned. Only after spending nearly four months teaching the youth to hunt and shoot did his father issue the order: "Your sister has done wrong. You have to kill her."

The father continued: "You are young. This is your task. You will only stay in prison a few weeks. We'll buy you more new clothes. Your uncle in Germany will bring you to Germany."

The first time the boy went to the village where his sister lived, he returned home and told his father, "I can't do it. I won't." His father beat him and ordered him back.

A few days later he walked to the village, said hello to his brother-in-law outside the house, went inside, spotted his sister doing housework with her back to him and pulled the trigger.

The youth spent 11 months in prison before a judge released him six months ago, even though a final verdict has not been rendered in his case.

"My crime was ignorance," he said in an anguished voice, adding that he is now hiding from his family. "The criminals in this case were my father and grandfather. They forced me to do it."

The clash between traditional and modern lifestyles also has driven up suicide rates among girls and young women in cities and towns across Turkey, according to police and social workers. Although Turkish authorities keep no such statistics, women's groups and newspapers have reported dozens of suicides in the last year of young women unable to face family pressures.

Esin Sahin was one of them. Four years ago she ran away from her parents' apartment in an immigrant community in the Istanbul hills near the Bosporus Strait to marry the man she loved, a Sunni Muslim. Her father, an Alevi Muslim, was enraged.

"We wanted her to be with someone from our own sect," said Erengul Sahin, 43, her mother. For four years, the mother said, she never visited her daughter. When the daughter began having marital problems, relatives told her she had brought shame on her family once and should not do so again by leaving her husband.

On Dec. 14, 10 days before her 22nd birthday, Esin hanged herself from a gas pipe in her Istanbul apartment.

"If we hadn't been here, this wouldn't have happened," her mother lamented, even though the family had moved out of the village years ago.

But Esin's cousin, Nurcan Fidan, 22, a schoolteacher listening to the mother's account, said it is time her parents' generation changed its attitudes.

"If we stayed in the village, we'd all be farmers or farmers' wives," Fidan said. "We wouldn't grow as a country or as a society. In the world there is good and evil. This is life."


3. - Businnes Week - "In Turkey, a New Crisis Every Day":

Earthquakes, scandals, soaring interest rates, and a collapsing currency are just some of the things a magazine publisher must deal with

Since setting up a publishing business in Turkey three years ago, my wife and I have weathered an earthquake, numerous government crises, and an International Monetary Fund bailout. And that was before the nation slid into its worst economic crisis.

I moved to Istanbul with my Turkish wife, Esra, several years ago. We decided that the country needed an English-language business magazine. Perhaps you don't realize it, but hundreds of foreign companies have invested in Turkey, including many of the top multinationals: BP, Goodyear, Ford Motor, Siemens, and Toyota. Before we came along, there was no publication addressing the international business community. Our experience has made me appreciate what the companies we cover must be going through, albeit on a much grander scale.

CHEAP AND EASY

It was easy to get started. We had to pay around $60 for permits and business-name registration and voilà: Turkish Business World was born. It was nothing compared to the red tape I had to cut through while working in Italy, where it costs about $1,600 to open a business. Since our easy start, however, we've had to deal with one crisis after another. Each new setback worse than the one before. We're hoping that finally, the worst is behind us.

We published our first monthly issue in October, 1998, just in time to absorb the shock waves from the Russian crisis. We weathered that storm and slowly found our footing. Our main challenge was keeping expenses low. We had a cheap office -- $100 a month -- and did everything ourselves, except the actual printing, which costs about $4,000 per issue.

Lucky thing we were tightfisted. The Russian crisis and the one that followed in East Asia were quick to drag down Turkey and other emerging markets. In November, 1998, the government in Ankara was forced out in a corruption scandal. Balent Ecevit was appointed Interim Prime Minister until elections were held in May, 1999. The change in administrations was good for us. The government announced sweeping economic reforms in line with a program developed with the IMF. We provided coverage, and the month following the elections was our best ever financially.

FAULT LINES

Little did we know that disaster was about to strike. In the middle of the night of Aug. 17, 1999, a devastating earthquake struck the industrial area about 100 miles east of Istanbul. Damage was severe and nearly 20,000 people died. We knew the country had taken a bad economic hit.

Before long, the IMF stepped in and agreed to a multibillion-dollar loan program. Ad business picked up again. Then Ankara started dragging its feet. The IMF started sending warnings that the pace of reform needed to pick up.

Disaster hit again -- this time man-made. Last February, the Prime Minister had an argument with the President about the earnestness of the campaign to root out state corruption and announced to the press that there was a "crisis" in the government. All hell broke loose. The Central Bank, after losing $7 billion in a day, could no longer defend the Turkish lira. It went on the free float and immediately lost 40% of its value (it's now down some 50%).

SELF-DECLARED DISCOUNTS

Within three weeks, we lost 90% of our advertising. Companies panicked. In that kind of environment, nobody negotiates the terms of contracts. We managed to pick up a few new ads, but with strings attached. For example, we signed up a large oil company to take a page at $3,500, but when we sent an invoice they replied with a fax that the company "only pays 985,000 TL to the dollar." We received that payment on a day when the actual exchange rate was 1,310,000 TL per U.S. dollar. That's a cool 25% break on the contract. I felt like going to one of their gas stations and saying, "Michael Kuser only pays 50 cents a liter."

This July, the IMF delayed a tranche of its loans because of slow action by the government on privatizing Turkish banks and changing the board of Turk Telekom. The Prime Minister had to appear in public to assure people that he wasn't dead, as had been reported. The government finally backed down and agreed to reforms. Again, a modest upswing started. Merrill Lynch reports that the Istanbul Stock exchange was the best performing bourse in the world in the second quarter of this year -- up some 40%.

That has been about the only bright news out of Istanbul in months. I met with the chairman of the biggest brokerage firm here the other week. He said no one knows what is going to happen in August. The only sure thing is that Turkey can't move forward with the economic reform program while interest rates remain in the range of 70% to 100%.

Now, with new elections seeming likely, no one can say when or how Turkey will emerge from its current economic crisis. Meanwhile, purse snatching is on the rise and the country is in a collective funk. According to a newspaper report, 97% of companies in Turkey are losing money. The Central Bank said it will issue a new bank note to ease cash transactions: 20 million TL, which has to be one of the most ridiculous bits of currency in history.

GOING POSTAL

There are, however, faintly positive signs. Analysts say it's time to stop crying and start buying shares, citing companies trading on the Istanbul Stock Exchange at very low price-to-earnings ratios. But one of our advertisers cancelled his contract and said, "What does it matter, anyway? Foreign investors aren't interested in Turkey these days."

Not true. HSBC just bought one of the Turkish banks, and another of Turkey's more successful banks is set to announce a deal with Intesa Spc of Italy very soon. Still, things have grown so bad that, in late July, a government worker called us recently to say that courier fees for picking up magazines from us were a bit much for it to pay under the current austerity program. If they forwarded the addresses, would we mind sending the magazines for a couple months? We said we would mind. We continue to publish, but we have to draw the line at paying the postage for the Turkish government.


4. - BBC - "Sharon's Turkey visit divides loyalties":

Turkish Islamists condemn Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada

ANKARA / By Chris Morris

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is visiting Turkey on Wednesday, where he says he will urge the Turkish Government - one of Israel's few allies in the Middle East - to put pressure on the Palestinians to end their 10-month-old uprising.

But as the Palestinians have called on Turkey to cut ties with Israel altogether, Ankara finds itself in an uncomfortable position.

Turkey is becoming increasingly uneasy about Israel's tough response to the Palestinian intifada.

It strongly supports Palestinian claims to statehood in the West Bank in Gaza, but it also has close relations with Israel.

The two countries co-operate on defence and security matters.

Water

They are in negotiations about the possible sale of Turkish fresh water to Israel, and they have a growing trade relationship.

That may be the issue on which Ariel Sharon would like to concentrate in his talks with Turkish leaders, but the continuing violence between Israel and the Palestinians will cast a long shadow.

A small group of anti-Israeli demonstrators gathered in Istanbul in Tuesday, and there were a number of arrests.

Pro-Islamist newspapers in Turkey have also criticized the government's decision to host Mr Sharon while the violence continues.

Turkish officials argue that they have a role to play in maintaining contact between the two sides, and this visit is part of that process.

Israel's foreign and defence ministers and the chief of staff of the armed forces have also been in Ankara in recent months, a sign that Israel certainly values its relationship with Turkey.
The Turkish Government feels the same, but its loyalties are divided, and it is having to perform a difficult balancing act.


5. - Turkish Daily News - "Pro-Kurdish HADEP seeks for alliance ":

Speaking on Medya-TV, which is the television channel for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party (HADEP) Murat Bozlak expressed his unease at efforts to found a new Kurdish party in Ankara. He also signalled that HADEP was ready to enter election alliances with other parties.

Pointing out that both the governing and the opposition parties had suffered a huge loss of votes, Bozlak said that HADEP was the only party that had held onto its voters and even expanded. Asserting that public opinion polls had shown his party to possess 8 percent of the national vote, not enough to get into Parliament, Bozlak maintained their strength was actually much higher.

HADEP leader Bozlak also stressed that his party was ready to enter alliances with other parties and not just for elections, but for the long term as well. "However, we are not saying 'let's have an alliance whatever happens'. Currently, our sole aim is to expand our voting base and spread throughout Turkey. We want to get into government." Referring to those seeking to found new parties on the left and right of the political spectrum, Bozlak said HADEP had not received any proposals of alliance from any party yet.

News of new Kurdish party distressing HADEP

Stating that HADEP was looking for a social consensus on fundamental issues like the Kurdish question and democratization, Bozlak said HADEP was a Turkey party and would remain that way. Referring to circles that have held an assembly in Ankara to found a new Kurdish party, Bozlak said: "These people got together inthe heart of Ankara and called our party nationalist and fascist. These miniscule men think they are conducting grand politics. We want the Kurdish question to be resolved and the Kurdish identity to be recognized. But we are not solely a Kurdish party."


6. - AFP - "Russian Kurds deny existence of guerrilla camps, slam media coverage":

MOSCOW

Various Kurdish public groups denied Tuesday the existence of a training camp for Kurdish fighters near Russia's northern city of Yaroslavl, and denounced the Russian media for circulating reports of it.

The information on the camp had been fabricated by Turkey's special services and fed to the media, said Sharaf Ashirian, leader of the Federal National-Cultural Autonomy group. "The mass media have forgotten the presumption of innocence principle and circulated information they did not verify," Ashirian said as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

Russian media had reported the police's discovery of the training camp earlier this week, and national broadcasters ORT, RTR and NTV had shown footage of the camp and Turkish nationals allegedly imprisoned there. The training camp, located at a summer vacation camp, had been set up with the assistance of its boss, a Kurdish Syrian national whom police have arrested, according to police officials quoted by news agencies.

Police said they discovered the camp in the course of an investigation into the kidnapping of a Syrian businessman a week ago. The camp reportedly served as a base for kidnapping operations aimed at Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian nationals based in Russia. However, Kurdish representatives said the summer camp had only been used as a cultural center and had been frequented by reporters from all countries, including Turkey.

The Turkish authorities have long claimed that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is waging a long-running insurgency in the east of the country, has training facilities in Russia.