26 July 2001

1. "Uproar as Turkey plans virginity tests", girls as young as 14 could be subjected to tests.

2. "Double standards for Piskinsut", former Chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission Sema Piskunsut of the Democratic Left Party (DSP) stated that she would request her legal immunity be lifted.

3. "Turkey's Middle Class Suffering", middle-class Turks know their country is poor but they've always thought it was upwardly mobile - like themselves.

4. "Amnesty International accuses Turkey and Iraq of abusing Kurds", hundreds of millions of indigenous people and ethnic minorities are victims of racism across the world, with no country free from the scourge, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

5. "Second border gate between Turkey and Iraq planned in one year: minister", Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Rashid said Wednesday Baghdad and Ankara planned to open a second border gate in one a year in a bid to revive bilateral trade.

6. "They are under blockade and being tortured", two villages in the Beytussebap district of Sirnak have been under blockade for about a month now and are being forcibly evicted. The males of the village of Yardan in the Beytussebap district of Sirnak have been held in detention and under heavy torture for the past 20 days.

1. - BBC - "Uproar as Turkey plans virginity tests":

Girls as young as 14 could be subjected to tests

The human rights pressure group, Human Rights Watch, has called on Turkey to withdraw an order authorising virginity tests on nursing students suspected of having sex.

In a letter to Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, Human Rights Watch said that the order introduced by Health Minister Osman Durmus was a "profound violation of women's human rights".

The regulation says that girls studying at government-run nursing high schools should be expelled for having sex, and that those under suspicion should be subjected to gynaecological examinations.

It also says that, once expelled, girls should be forbidden from studying at any government institution.

Rat poison

The order has sparked an uproar in Turkey, with angry protests being made by women's and human rights groups.

Forced virginity tests on girls suspected of having had premarital sex were common until the practice was banned in 1999, when five girls attempted suicide by taking rat poison rather than submit to the tests.

Pre-marital sex under the age of 18 is illegal in Turkey.

"Imposition of this test on girls - and the subsequent denial of education opportunities based on test results - represent an intolerable form of gender discrimination," Human Rights Watch said in its letter.

A representative of the group's Women's Rights division, Martina Vandenberg, told the BBC that the Health Minister's order was an attempt to circumvent the 1999 ban.

She said the students - aged 14 to 18 - were children under international law, and had a right to education.

Grounds for suspicion

She added: "When it is enshrined in law that the state can force girls to take virginity tests, it has an effect on millions and millions of girls in Turkey, in the sense that there is constantly the threat of a virginity exam hanging over their head."

Even innocent activities, such as having a picnic with boys, could be perceived in Turkey as grounds for suspicion, she said.

The Health Ministry's order technically avoids the ban on forced virginity tests, because students enrolling at nursing schools would be voluntarily submitting themselves to the rules of the establishment.

2. - Turkish Daily News - "Double standards for Piskinsut":

'I do not need to hide behind immunity'

Former Chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission Sema Piskunsut of the Democratic Left Party (DSP) stated that she would request her legal immunity be lifted. This statement came once a precis was prepared demanding her immunity be lifted on the grounds that she had hidden evidence. It has also became clear that current Chairman of the Parliament Human Rights Commission Huseyin Akgul of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) committed the same crime as Piskinsut, by rejecting to reveal names in torture reports.

Piskinsut, in a statement to the Turkish Daily News said: "I am not a parliamentarian that needs to hide behind her right of immunity. This precis is in fact, against Parliament. I shall request my legal immunity be lifted not only to defend myself, but Parliament as well. I shall submit a petition to the Chairmanship of Parliament and the necessary commissions declaring that I want to be judged."

However, the parliamentarians' right to legal immunity cannot take place upon the request of the parliamentarian. The precis is first discussed in the Constitution-Justice Group Commission, and then goes on to be debated in the Parliament general assembly.

The Ankara Chief Prosecutors' office demanded that the inviolability of Piskinsut be abrogated on the grounds that she had prevented inquiries concerning torture cases from taking place by not submitting documents and reports to the prosecutors. The prosecutors' office had requested the names of people accused of being linked to torture cases from the commission, but had received no answers.

Piskinsut acted as Human Rights Commission chairwoman for two terms, until the beginning of the last legislative year. Reports concerning Istanbul (2), Elazig, Tunceli, Erzurum, Erzincan, Batman, Ankara Ulucanlar Prison and Sanliurfa had been prepared during her chairwomanship. These reports had caused much controversy because of their emphasis on claims of torture. The reports gave place to statements by people claiming that torture is a routine conduct in prisons. False names were used for these people to conceal their identity.

Piskinsut added: "A year and a half has passed since these reports were revealed. They are not the results of personal studies. There were parliamentarians from all parties in the commission"

Piskinsut added that they had spoken to some 8,500 convicts and had promised them that their names would not be revealed. The former chairwoman pointed out that names of guardians they had spoken to were also kept secret.

She stated that once the reports had been revealed, the Justice Ministry had allowed prosecutor offices to conduct inquiries concerning many parts of the reports. Prosecutors offices had then requested names from the commission. Piskinsut apparently then said that this was not a legal inquiry, but work conducted by the control mechanism of Parliament. Stating that their aim was to find solutions, Piskinsut went on to record that the subject had been closed to discussion once they had given their answer. Piskinsut stated that discussions had resurfaced once she became candidate for DSP chairmanship and added that a precis had been prepared on June 26.

Piskinsut went on to say: "I am not implying that this subject is linked to my candidacy. On the contrary, I believe it has got a much more political character. We should stop being a police state and the public should control those with access to arms"

Akgul commits same crime

It has been reported that current Human Rights Commission Chairman Huseyin Akgul has also refused to reveal the names of people claiming to have witnessed torture. In a written statement sent to the prosecutors offices, Akgul stated that they had used a legal right and had tried to investigate the subject of torture from all aspects. Stating that they had tried to devise solutions to this troublesome matter, Akgul went on to say, "We have not revealed the names of these people and will keep them secret. This was a way of encouraging them to speak without fear."

Akgul stated that the commission had taken on a public duty, and added that it was wrong for their efforts to be perceived as legal inquiries. He added: "What the Justice Ministry and Chief Prosecutors offices should take notice of is not the names of people, but the crime in question. Instruments and places claimed to be used during the crime are described in detail. Prosecutors should take action with these descriptions in hand. There has been no official convicted of torture in prisons. This is disturbing for both the public and those injured. We have revealed the names of people who have made such claims and who see no harm in us doing so. However, holders of such claims may face difficulties. That is why our judicial system should come up with new techniques with these in mind"

Parliament Human Rights Commission Deputy Chairman Kocaoglu said, "No prosecutor will prosecute someone that reveals infringements on human rights when he can prosecute the accused instead" regarding the precis concerning the abrogation of the inviolability of Piskinsut.

3. - Washington Post - "Turkey's Middle Class Suffering":

ISTANBUL

Middle-class Turks know their country is poor but they've always thought it was upwardly mobile - like themselves.

Now, both are hurtling in the opposite direction. A deepening economic crisis has halved the currency's dollar value, leaving millions of Turkish families battling to put food on the table.

The middle class - the backbone of Turkey's economic hopes and its push to join the West - isn't going hungry, but it's getting increasingly angry at its politicians.

Analysts blame the crisis on a generation of populist politicians, who plunged the country into debt to meet reckless election promises.

It's no accident that Kemal Dervis, the political outsider who is now the economy minister, is so popular among the middle class. He preaches accountability and an end to political interference Turkey's finances.

"It's a section of the population that knows full well that Turkey has wasted a decade or so," said Ozdem Sanberk, head of the Istanbul-based think-tank TESEV. "They see the cause of the crisis in the waste of money, the mismanagement of the economy."

That mismanagement is driving a generation of Turks out of their chosen professions.

"People are sitting on a branch, and they can hear the saw that's cutting it off," said Fatih Kuran, who runs an employment agency in Istanbul.

Every day Kuran is besieged by accountants with years of experience applying to be office assistants, or women fluent in several foreign languages looking for cleaning jobs.

Since the crisis broke in February, an estimated 600,000 Turks have lost their jobs out of a labor force of at least 20 million.

Many of the new unemployed are from the middle-class that sprang up as Turkey modernized the economy and average incomes rose tenfold from about $300 a year in the 1960s.

Turkey ranks fourth worldwide in military spending as a share of the budget, but spends less on education than any country bar Armenia, according to the latest U.N. Human Development Report.

Part of the problem is that the middle class has little stake in state education, says Cem Alptekin, a professor of education at Istanbul's Bogazici University.

"They never tried to reform the system, just their corner of it ... . That's a cop-out strategy," said Alptekin.

Rising unemployment has decimated the ranks of Turkey's professionals, but ultimately Turks agree their future depends on producing more of them, and there's a widespread belief that the only route to success is through a private school.

Many private schools teach in English, giving their students a huge head start. Half the jobs advertised in newspapers' help-wanted sections - much thinner these days - require knowledge of English.

That's one reason why Sibel Parmaksiz spent $340 a month - 40 percent of the family's income - on her daughter's school fees. Then, in the first month of the crisis, she lost her job as a computer programmer and had to move the girl to a state school.

"We were making an investment in the future," she said. "But how can you invest when you don't have money and you don't know what the economy will do to you tomorrow?"

She worries about facilities so poor that state schools often beg for extra funds from parents, and classrooms are crammed with up to 60 students.

"Maybe in a wealthy country you can afford to trust the state system, but not here," said Cem Gelan, head of the Private Schools Association.

Gelan said five of his group's schools have folded in recent months as applications dwindle. Others have sharply lowered academic requirements in a desperate search for students.

For Turks trying to get by on the country's $94 monthly minimum wage, such concerns look like a luxury.

"I see families who can't afford schoolbooks or school uniforms," said Mehmet Kucuk, a state-school teacher. "Sometimes I help them, sometimes I take them to my friend's shop and he just gives them the clothes."

4. - Turkish Daily News - "Amnesty International accuses Turkey and Iraq of abusing Kurds":

Hundreds of millions of indigenous people and ethnic minorities are victims of racism across the world, with no country free from the scourge, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

In a report drawn up by the international human rights group ahead of the U.N. World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in South Africa, Amnesty singled out countries such as Britain and the United States alongside China, India, Rwanda and Turkey.

Amnesty blamed Iraq and Turkey for abusing Kurds. "The Turkish military and police have carried out extrajudicial executions, "disappearances", mass arbitrary arrests and the wholesale use of torture," the group said.

In the report it was prejudicially claimed that the "Kurdish community" in Turkey are not recognized in law and publicly referring to "the Kurdish people" can lead to a prison sentence.

Israel's criminal justice system was prejudiced against Palestinians while in China ethnic Uygurs and Tibetans were repressed, tortured and in some cases arbitrarily executed.

Asylum seekers from Europe to Japan and Saudi Arabia faced xenophobia, ill-treatment and other abuse, Amnesty said.

"Racism is a blatant attack on the very notion of basic human rights -- that human rights belong to all people, equally," the report, unveiled in London, said.

"It infects, to varying degrees and in various forms, every country in the world."

Amnesty said preparations for the WCAR in Durban from August 31 to September 7 had been overshadowed by political disputes over reparations for slavery and issues related to Israel, Zionism and the use of the term "Holocaust".

"There is a fear that the conference may fail to reach agreement on a common platform," it said. "If that happens the world will have missed a unique opportunity to make a difference in the fight against racism."

The report urges governments to adopt plans to fight racism through specific measures including legislation, investigating racist abuse by officials and ensuring fair policing.

Rampant racism can have tragic consequences, such as Rwanda's genocide where up to one million people, most of them Tutsis, were killed in 1994, Amnesty said. But racist abuse takes place daily in the administration of justice.

U.S. and Britain slammed

It accused the U.S. judiciary of racial discrimination, saying more than 80 percent of prisoners executed from 1977 to 2001 were convicted of the murder of a white person even though blacks and whites were murder victims in almost equal numbers.

It also called British police "negligent" over racism. "Progress has been slow in rooting out racial prejudice within police forces and other public institutions," it said.

South Africa had yet to rid itself of the discriminatory zeal of apartheid, as illustrated in November 2000 when state television broadcast a secret police video showing white police officers setting dogs on three black men, the report said.

In India, Dalits continue to be discriminated against on the basis of their descent despite the abolition by law of "untouchability". They face torture, including rape, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial executions, Amnesty said.

Amnesty said 300 million indigenous people worldwide, including Australia's Aboriginal people and Europe's Gypsies or Roma, faced racial discrimination, impoverishment and marginalization.

Women are more vulnerable to rights abuses when they belonged to ethnic or racial minorities, it said.

5. - AFP - "Second border gate between Turkey and Iraq planned in one year: minister":

ANKARA

Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Rashid said Wednesday Baghdad and Ankara planned to open a second border gate in one a year in a bid to revive bilateral trade. "Our aim is to open the new gate in one year," Rashid said in an interview with the all-news Turkish NTV channel broadcast on Wednesday.

"We have taken the necessary administrative decisions and do not expect any difficulties," he said. Plans for a second border gate came as part of the recent rapproachement between Ankara and its southern neighbour, which is crippled under an 11-year-old international embargo imposed as punishment for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. There is currently one border gate, Habur, through which Turkish tanker-trucks carry 50,000 tons of diesel every month, operating outside the confines of the oil-for-food program between the United Nations and Iraq. The cross-border gate is an important source of revenue for Turkey's impoverished, mainly Kurdish southeast and a means for Turkey to compensate for its losses -- estimated at about 35 billion dollars -- in bilateral trade since the 1991 Gulf War. "The number of vehicles crossing over will soon reach thousands. The second border gate will provide additional logistical support to the cross-border trade," said Rashid, who is in Turkey for an economic cooperation committee meeting. Turkey, a NATO ally that hosts US and British jets patrolling Iraq's northern no-fly zone, has recently spoken in favour of easing the UN embargo. Turkey and Iraq have held a series of talks to revitalize trade and have restored train services between Baghdad and the southeast Turkish city of Gaziantep.

Ankara has also sent several planes to Baghdad carrying humanitarian supplies. Iraq, meanwhile, has said it will give priority to neighbouring states in import contracts under the UN oil-for-food programme for their support at the United Nations, notably in blocking this month a US and British attempt to retool the sanctions programme. Baghdad wants to see the whole embargo scrapped.

6. - Kurdish Observer - "They are under blockade and being tortured":

Two villages in the Beytussebap district of Sirnak have been under blockade for about a month now and are being forcibly evicted. The males of the village of Yardan in the Beytussebap district of Sirnak have been held in detention and under heavy torture for the past 20 days. The males from the village of Hisarkale, meanwhile, were released after being tortured for 10 days.

NEWS CENTER

Human Rights Association (IHD) Deputy Chairman Osman Baydemir, who had gone to the region to investigate, called on government officials to be more sensitive against arbitrary actions.

After two soldiers were injured after stepping on a mine near the village of Yardan during an operation in Beytussebap begun about a month ago, the military first raided the village of Yardan, which is a village guard (militiaman) village. The males of the village remain in detention at the Beytussebap Gendarmerie Base, despite three weeks having gone by. It has been reported that those detained have been severely tortured and that the remaining residents of the village have left.

It was also reported that all the males in the village of Hisarkale, the second village against which a raid was carried out, were detained and tortured for ten days. Although the men of Hisarkale have now been released, the village remains under blockade. A village resident with whom we spoke on the telephone but did not want his name revealed, said, "They tortured all the men. They have not given us permission to go outside the village for a month now."

'Follow the law'

Meanwhile, IHD Deputy Chairman Baydemir gave information to the press following his trip to the area to investigate allegations. Baydemir said that all the men who had been detained by the District Gendarmerie Command had been interrogated in an illegal fashion and subjected to heavy torture. Baydemir said that this had been going on for 20 days. He also said that all the wood that had been gathered for this coming winter in the village of Yardan had been loaded onto trucks and brought to the Gendarmerie base. Baydemir said that the prosecutor had asked for an extension of the detention period for the villages in custody, adding, "We are calling on government officials to be sensitive against this practice which is against the law."