3 October 2001

1. "Turkey lawmakers hit Islamist politician's chances of comeback", Turkish lawmakers on Wednesday voted down a constitutional amendment which could have helped a controversial Islamist politician make a political comeback.

2. "British backing for Turkish dam 'may violate Human Rights Act'", Britain is failing to apply its own rules for funding a Turkish dam that will displace 78,000 people and destroy one of the world's oldest towns, a report published yesterday claims.

3. "Turkey protests Pope's "genocide" remark during Armenian visit", Turkey lodged a protest with the Vatican on Tuesday over Pope John Paul II's use of the word "genocide" to describe the killings of Armenians under Ottoman Turkish rule at the start of the last century, a Turkish diplomat said.

4. "EHRC should be a platform for a solution", Nizamettin Tas, member of PKK Council of Leaders, stated that if EHRC stayed limited by a legal framework in the Case of the Century it could not reach for its aim, adding that the court should be a platform for a democratic solution of the Kurdish problem.

5. "Look To The Kurds In Iraq", Carole O'Leary, a scholar-in-residence at the American University Center for Global Peace, is co-editor of the forthcoming book "The Kurds: Search for Identity."

6. "Trial of journalist highlights grim record of custodial rape in Turkey", the trial of Turkish journalist Asiye Zeybek has highlighted the plight of hundreds of women in Turkey who seek justice for allegations of rape and sexual abuse in police custody.

1. - AFP - "Turkey lawmakers hit Islamist politician's chances of comeback":

ANKARA

Turkish lawmakers on Wednesday voted down a constitutional amendment which could have helped a controversial Islamist politician make a political comeback. Voting in a second reading on a political reform package to help Turkey's candidacy to join the European Union, the legislators also dropped an amendment aimed at facilitating the lifting of parliamentary immunity.

The first amendment would have revised eligibility criteria to allow people convicted of "ideological or anarchic acts" to run for parliament while barring those convicted of "terrorist acts". Of the 493 deputies present in the 550-seat house, 294 voted in favour of the amendment and 169 voted against it. The remaining deputies either cast blank votes, abstained or their votes were invalid. The amendment was widely intepreted as a means to pave the way for Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- the leader of Turkey's newest pro-Islamic party, the Justice and Development party (AK) -- to make an uncontested return to politics.

In August, Turkey's chief prosecutor asked the constitutional court to suspend Erdogan's hairmanship of AK on the grounds he had been banned from politics over a 1998 conviction for inciting religious hatred. Erdogan argues that an amnesty law which came into effect in December ended the ban, but state prosecutors insist that several other legal provisions still bar him from politics.

The constitutional court is still to rule in the case. The second rejected amendment aimed to speed up protracted procedures on lifting parliamentary immunity, under which many parliament members facing criminal charges have been able to remain in parliament for years. The article would have set a period of three months for the completion of the legal procedures.

It would have also abolished a provision, under which lawmakers stripped of their immunity are able to regain their legal priviliges through re-election to parliament. Out of the 483 deputies who took part in the vote, 295 voted in favor and 166 against the change, while the remaining either abstained or cast blank or invalid votes.

The results mean that both changes, which needed 367 votes to be adopted, are dropped from a 37-item constitutional reform package to strengthen Turkey's bid to join the European Union. The parliament will hold a third and final vote before the weekend on the overall package. Among reforms which have been adopted in the two rounds of voting are an article abolishing the death penalty except in times of war and for terrorist crimes, and another which would pave the way for Turkey's Kurdish minority to use their own language in broadcasting and publication. Other reforms would make it more difficult to ban political parties and expand freedom of thought and expression.

The government wants to have the reforms adopted before EU executives wrap up an annual report on Turkey's progress towards EU membership in November. Turkey, which was declared an EU membership candidate in December 1999, has to overhaul its crippled democracy before it can begin accession talks, but the country has so far failed to take any major steps.

2. - Independent - "British backing for Turkish dam 'may violate Human Rights Act'":

By Justin Huggler

Britain is failing to apply its own rules for funding a Turkish dam that will displace 78,000 people and destroy one of the world's oldest towns, a report published yesterday claims. The report, written by groups including Friends of the Earth and the London-based Kurdish Human Rights Project, says the government's own figures show the Ilisu dam in south-east Turkey is not viable.The groups suggest that funding the dam could breach the Human Rights Act and say they are considering legal action.

The Ilisu project has already provoked controversy in Britain, but the Government is in the final stage of considering whether to grant export credits to the British company Balfour Beatty to construct the dam.

There has been widespread opposition to the dam from the thousands of people, mainly Kurds, who will be displaced, and urgent pleas to rescue the ancient town of Hasankeyf. The town is carved from rock on the banks of the Tigris. Its inhabitants live in cave houses carved out of the cliff-face, and shepherds water their flocks in the waters of the Tigris.

The town is just one of the archaeological remains that will be destroyed by a series of dams, including Ilisu. Hundreds of thousands of people will be displaced.

The British Government said it would only grant Balfour Beatty export credits if certain conditions were met, incuding an adequate resettlement plan, preserving "as much as possible" of Hasankeyf, and assurances that the flow of water will be maintained to Syria and Iraq, which fear Turkey will use the dams to cut their supply.

Friends of the Earth says independent analysis of the Government's figures shows that the flow of water to Iraq and Syria will be cut off in times of drought. As for the thousands who will lose their homes, the Government's environmental impact assessment report says: "Past resettlement projects in Turkey have shown that the timely implementation of resettlement plans, especially of housing projects, represents a major challenge."

When the Birecik area was flooded last year, inhabitants of one village woke up to find water lapping round their feet and had to abandon their possessions and flee. No one told them the water was coming. New houses provided by the government were not finished in time. The Kurdish Human Rights Project said there was no evidence that resettlement of those displaced by the Ilisu dam would be any better.

The British Government's report quotes figures from the Turkish government which show that of those resettled in earlier programmes, 67 per cent were dissatisfied, while 83 per cent of those who chose compensation wanted to go back to their old homes. The government report says some 88 villages affected by Ilisu have been emptied.

But a separate report by lawyers in Turkey says those villages were forcibly cleared and burnt down by Turkish security forces during the conflict with Kurdish rebels. None of those affected will receive compensation for the loss of land they still own.

As for Hasankeyf, only 20 per cent of what is "culturally valuable" could possibly be saved, according to Professor Olus Arik of Ankara University.

3. - AFP - "Turkey protests Pope's "genocide" remark during Armenian visit":

ANKARA

Turkey lodged a protest with the Vatican on Tuesday over Pope John Paul II's use of the word "genocide" to describe the killings of Armenians under Ottoman Turkish rule at the start of the last century, a Turkish diplomat said.

The Turkish government summoned the Vatican's ambassador to Ankara, Luigi Conti, to the foreign ministry and orally conveyed its disappointment over the Pope's remarks, made in a joint statement with the head of the Armenian Church during a visit to Armenia last week, the diplomat said, asking not to be named. "We pointed out to the ambassador the contradiction between the Pope's previous reassurances to Turkey and the results of his visit," he added.

In a letter to Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer ahead of his visit to Armenia, John Paul II had said that Turkey had "nothing to worry about" from the trip. The letter had been in response to a message from Ankara to the Vatican saying that the papal visit to Armenia "should not tarnish Turks and their history".

The Vatican has been under pressure from Armenia to recognize the controversial killings of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s as genocide. Turkey categorically rejects claims of genocide, saying that around 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed in fighting when Armenians, then subjects of the Ottoman Empire, sided with invading Russian troops in the hope of carving out an independent state in eastern Anatolia.

Armenia, however, maintains that 1.5 million people died in orchestrated massacres. Ankara refuses to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia as long as it does not give up its campaign for the international recognition of the genocide allegations, and resolves a conflict over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey.

4. - Kurdish Observer - "EHRC should be a platform for a solution":

Nizamettin Tas, member of PKK Council of Leaders, stated that if EHRC stayed limited by a legal framework in the Case of the Century it could not reach for its aim, adding that the court should be a platform for a democratic solution of the Kurdish problem.

Nizamettin Tas, member of PKK Council of Leaders, stated that European Human Rights Court (EHRC) should display an approach open to solution as far as the Case of the Century is concerned, adding, "If it take up the case within the narrow legal limits, it cannot reach for its aim. Our expectation is a democratic solution of the Kurdish problem in the line of the defence of our Leadership." Participated by telephone in the "Gundem" (Agenda) program on MEDYA TC, Tas evaluated the latest political developments about the Case of the Century in EHRC. Pointing out that the basic center of the policy of denial and annihilation against Kurds in Turkey is Europe, Tas said, "Europe has created a ground for the international conspiracy and consists on its continuation. The conflicts in Europe do not stop, but all sorts of steps are taken for the negotiations and they plead with Arafat. But Europe has said us 'If you give up the armed struggle we will support you' in the past. In fact, although we have not fired a gun for three years, there is no change in its policy."

Economical conspiracy

Saying, "As this is not enough, they are talking about the confiscation of all money PKK has," Tas continued to say the following: "One thing, PKK has not black money. It is founded by the support of the Kurdish people, and its money is not much as it is supposed. And the Kurdish people is poor. They try to usurp the values of the Kurdish people. It is the continuation of the conspiracy. The conspiracy is continuing not only politically and militarily but also economically."

"Do not wait for justice, just change it"

Tas had also to say the following: "Our expectation is a democratic solution of the Kurdish problem in the line of the defence of our Leadership. The court of EHRC should be a ground for a solution." Warning the Kurdish people that it should not wait for justice from Europe "committing crime for two centuries", Tas added, "On the contrary it should struggle to change the policy of Europe towards Kurds. Without a change in the European policy towards Kurds, without lifting the ban on PKK, the Kurdish policy of Turkey will not change. And our people living in Europe is the basic force of it."

"The Turkish Parliament is more militaristic"

Nizamettin Tas noted that the Turkish parliament approach the problem more militaristically than the military. Tas said the following on the amendments on the Constitution: "There is two important points on the amendments. The first is the democratic and peaceful struggle of the Kurdish people. It is not possible for Turkey to deceive the Kurdish people anymore. The second is misleading. And the misleading aims at entering to the European Union. Is there any change about Kurds? Is there a statement for Kurds to express themselves freely? We have said that if Turkey gave legal and political guarantees we would take all our guerrillas from t mountains, but is there any change on the matter? Not present. The Turkish state has not such a will to carry out such a change."

5. - Washington Times - "Look To The Kurds In Iraq":

Carole O´Leary

Carole O'Leary, a scholar-in-residence at the American University Center for Global Peace, is co-editor of the forthcoming book "The Kurds: Search for Identity."

Evidence that Mohammed Atta, one of the alleged hijackers, met with Iraqi intelligence in Europe within the last year suddenly grafts a significant and complicating fact onto the emerging body of evidence against Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. Again, attention is focused on Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism. Iraq's likely and obvious motivation would be revenge and its need to shatter the perception of U.S. impregnability to attack.

And, there is more. According to Jane's Foreign Report, Israel's military intelligence service, Aman, has also fingered Iraq as the state sponsor of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Among other things, Aman officers believe that Iraqi intelligence officers shuttled between Baghdad and Afghanistan during the last two years, meeting with Ayman Al Zawahiri, a senior member of al-Qaeda and possible successor to Osama bin Laden. Rafi Eitan, former head of Mossad, also believes that Iraq is behind the attacks.
While nothing has been proved to date, former CIA head R. James Woolsey and Iraq expert Laurie Mylroie have been in the media providing clarion reminders of evidence that links Iraq to the 1993 attack against the World Trade Center and the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa. They also argue that these antecedents to Sept. 11 should now be revisited.

Now the issue rests with a very different administration. In addition to punishing the perpetrators of terrorism, President Bush has said the United States will move against those who harbored or sponsored the terrorists. U.S. officials should also take a hard, exhaustive and fresh look at the evidence linking Iraq to the 1993 attack on the Twin Towers, the 1995 and 1996 attacks in Saudi Arabia (the Riyadh and al Khobar bombings) and the 1998 attack on our embassies in East Africa. Hitting back at bin Laden is the immediate task. No one in government disagrees with this.

However, the next stage of the battle will be to punish, combat and deter terrorism's state sponsors. If Iraq's involvement is proved, policy-makers must bring nuanced understanding of present day Iraq to the fight. The Iraq faced by Bush 43 is not the same Iraq as faced by Bush 41.Secondly, Mr. Bush has declared that we are now in a war that pits those who love freedom against those who do not.

In this context, the experiment in democracy that has taken root in Iraqi Kurdistan since the establishment of the Kurdish safe-haven in 1991 can no longer be ignored by the United States, Iraq's Arab neighbors and Turkey. As the defender and self-proclaimed "beacon of freedom," the United States must protect and nurture what is happening in Iraqi Kurdistan in the event conflict erupts between it and the Iraqi regime.

It is not too soon to think about such a scenario. As I write, Saddam's forces are massing on borders of the Kurdish safe-haven, testing U.S. and British commitment to enforcing the northern no-fly zone, and Kurdish forces are battling Islamic radicals linked to the Taliban. Last week, the Iraqi newspaper Babil, controlled by Saddam's son, Uday, argued that while Iraq should remain neutral in the early stages of the U.S. response, it should "restore" - read "invade" - the Kurdish north at some point in the future.

More ominous still, Babil refers to a possible future "biological attack," in which a "small can no bigger than the size of a hand can be used to release viruses." While not identifying the agent of such an attack, Babil suggests that "it might be done by the Zionists." Iraq's record speaks for itself in this regard.

Most foreign affairs analysts know that the Kurds are second to none in bearing the brunt of Saddam's brutality. Many have been tortured in unspeakable ways. The Iraqi regime has razed more than 4,000 Kurdish villages and hamlets. In 1983, Saddam liquidated 8,000 Barzani Kurds and his 1987-88 Anfal campaign killed at least 180,000 people, 5,000 of whom died in the chemical attack on Halabja.

What is less understood is the Kurds are transforming Northern Iraq into a model of political participation. In late May, Iraqi Kurdistan's Dohuk and Irbil provinces held internationally monitored municipal elections in which 15 political parties participated. Sulamania province held its elections a year earlier.

This is significant in its own right as a rare example of democratic and civil development within the setting of an ethnically and religiously diverse Middle Eastern community. Iraqi Kurdistan is committed to democratization, despite an Iraqi regime eager to stamp out this success. The evolving, vibrant polity there also holds the possibility of one day helping teach a united, federated Iraq how to transition to democracy. This flowering of democracy is also a seed-bed.

The diversity of Iraq's population is often cited as a weakness by specialists who, for ample reasons, reflexively react cynically to those who believe broader, deeper democratization is possible. My hope is that its strength of diversity can be tapped. Constructing a constitutional framework that institutionalizes the rights of ethnic and religious groups within a federal system is the responsibility of the Iraqi people. Supporting such an effort, however, is a necessity for the United States, Turkey and the Arab states.

The United States is now moving quickly and delicately to assemble the world's friends of freedom into a coalition against terrorism. The challenges before our leaders are vast and complex. Amidst all the planning under way, the needs and concerns of the close to 4 million people living in Iraqi Kurdistan who have accomplished so much in the last 10 years should be factored in.

Should Iraq's involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks be proven, and retaliation by the United States follow, every effort should be made not to disrupt what Iraqi Kurdistan has achieved in the spheres of economic, civil and democratic development. In a war against those who hate liberty, and in the rush to exact just punishment, it's in no one's interest for Iraqi Kurdistan's democratic progress to be reversed.

6. - Kurdish Media - "Trial of journalist highlights grim record of custodial rape in Turkey":

By Tina Bird

The trial of Turkish journalist Asiye Zeybek has highlighted the plight of hundreds of women in Turkey who seek justice for allegations of rape and sexual abuse in police custody.

Last Friday Zeybek's trial was postponed by the Istanbul Sate Security Court (DGM) for lawyers to prepare her defence.

Whether Zeybek gets a fair trial at the DGM depends on the court's treatment of the rape in custody claim she made in 1997 after her arrest.

Editor-in-chief of the far-left weekly 'Atilim', Zeybek was arrested in February 1997 accused of links to the banned Marxist-Leninist Communist party. She has been incarcerated in Turkey since 1997 for 4½ years without a full trial.

International human rights monitors, including Swedish representatives of Lawyers without Borders and the Chairman of International PEN Writers in Prison Committee (WIPC), were present at her trial last week.

WIPC Programme Director, Sara Whyatt, told Kurdishmedia, "Our support for Zeybek is concentrated on her right to a fair trial and not to be subject to torture".

In a trial hearing in October 1997 Zeybek claimed to have been repeatedly raped by eight policemen while under interrogation at the Istanbul Security Directorate Political Department.

Investigation by the authorities led to a report by the Psychosocial Traumatology Centre in Istanbul, which supported her allegation. However, in November 2000 an investigation into the case was buried.

Defence attorney, Ercan Kanar, reminded the court on Friday that police statements from his defendant were extracted under torture.

On Saturday the Turkish Daily News reported that Zeybek's custodial rape claim is currently being heard at the Istanbul Seventh Court of Major Crimes.

Zeybek's lawyers will likely base their defence on the outcome of this hearing, as a verdict in her favour could discredit the case at the DGM.

In 1999 Zeybek published a book that recounts the abuse she suffered at the hands of the police:

"I was thrown on the floor. It was ice cold against my skin, yet I was sweating. My eyes were blindfolded, which stopped me from seeing anything but the feet of some of the men. When I tried to get away they kicked me. When I tried to scream it wasn't my voice that I heard. They just went on shouting those dirty words at me…They took everything from me, and the only thing I wanted was to die."

From the middle of 1997 to November 2000 132 women, including ninety-seven Kurdish women, sought help from a legal aid project in Istanbul set up to bring the perpetrators of rape and sexual abuse in custody to justice.

Of the alleged perpetrators ninety-eight are police officers, but gendarmes, soldiers, village guards, and a prison guard are also implicated.

Amnesty International has reported an atmosphere of impunity for torture suspects. Recent official figures reported by the human rights organisation showed that investigations of 577 security officials accused of torture between 1995 and 1999 resulted in only 10 convictions.

Zeybek was blindfolded during her ordeal in custody hampering the identification of the perpetrators. Further to this, PEN reported that Zeybek "has been denied the possibility of identifying her assailants, and in spite of documentary evidence presented by her lawyer…the prosecutor has closed the "investigation" on grounds of lack of evidence."

Human rights defenders assert that medical evidence of torture is often suppressed through the intimidation of doctors and lawyers, who are routinely harassed, face prosecution and imprisonment.

On September 7 the Diyarbakir branch of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) was raided by police. A centre for the treatment and rehabilitation of victims of torture, patient files, computers and details of doctors were confiscated. Emin Yuksel, a HRFT doctor, was taken into custody for questioning.

HRFT has five treatment and rehabilitation centres in Turkey to which 1000 people applied in 2000. The Diyarbakir branch plays a vital role in north Kurdistan (Turkey) where the practice of torture and ill treatment in custody remains deplorably high.

Seeking justice for acts of torture and rape in custody leaves victims and their supporters at risk of further persecution.

On March 21 fourteen women and two men went on trial accused of insulting the security forces after participating in a public conference on rape and sexual harassment in custody in Istanbul in June 2000.

Nazli Top was one of those who spoke out about her experience of custodial rape only to be charged with "insulting and raising suspicions about Turkish security forces".

Constitutional laws that shield the Government and its security forces from insult are used to silence critics, whether they are journalists, politicians, intellectuals or human rights defenders.

In reaction to the trial in March Amnesty International called on the Turkish authorities "to drop the charges against these women's rights activists who are guilty only of peacefully expressing their views."

Fatma Deniz Polattas and N.C.S, a sixteen-year-old Kurdish girl, were sexually tortured while under interrogation at the police headquarters in Iskenderum in March 1999.

The case of the young women was heard at the Istanbul conference, and the father and lawyer of one of the victims were among those facing prosecution in March.

Forced to make false confessions, both girls were subsequently sentenced to long prison terms after being found guilty of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

An investigation into the case by Amnesty International concluded that, "the court did not wait for the results of investigations into these allegations of torture." For a judge to accept confessions extracted under torture as key evidence is a violation of the UN Convention against Torture.

A candidate for E.U membership Turkey is required to reform constitutional laws to meet entrance criteria. Furthermore, the Government must act to implement these amendments to meet international human rights standards.

In July Anatolia news agency reported statements by Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen who denied that there is systematic torture in Turkey.

"Officials investigate claims of all forms of torture, and punish those personnel who are accused of torturing persons", said Yucelen and added, "There is very broad slander campaign against Turkey claiming that there is torture in Turkey."

The presence of international human rights watchdogs, such as PEN, may force justice to be done in the case of Asiye Zeybek when she stands trial again in December.

It remains to be seen whether the policemen suspected of her rape receive a fair trial and proper punishment. This will give the clearest signal of Turkey's attitude to women and commitment to human rights.