23 April 2004

1. "Council of Europe asks Turkey to free convicted former Kurdish lawmakers", the Council of Europe on Thursday asked Turkey to free human rights award winner Leyla Zana and three other Kurdish former lawmakers, a day after they were convicted in a retrial.

2. "Three Kurdish rebels killed in clashes in Turkey", three Kurdish rebels were killed in clashes with Turkish security forces in an operation in a mountainous region in the south of the country close to the border with Syria, a senior local official said Thursday.

3. "Austrian Woman Detained And Tortured By Turkish Police", on 19 April 2004 while trying to go on a bus in Aydinli-Istanbul during midday, International League for People’s Struggle (ILPS) member working on the Turkish Section Aliyah Elisabeth Brunner of Austria was taken by 2 unknown assailants.

4. "European Court condemns Turkey for failure to investigate Kurdish extra-judicial killing", a Kurdish man whose brother was extra-judicially executed in Turkey has won his case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) (Buldan v. Turkey).

5. "Human Rights Activist To Be Put On Trial By Syrian Regime", a lawyer and prominent human rights activist will be tried before the state security court on charges of spreading false information and harming Syria's image, his lawyer said Wednesday. Aktham Naisse, the chairman of the Committees for the Defence of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, was arrested April 14.

6. "The truth about the Armenian genocide", Wednesday's parliamentary resolution recognizing the Turkish slaughter of Armenians during the First World War as a genocide and a crime against humanity may seem obscure to many Canadians.

7. "Recognizing Armenia's Past and Its Present", Saturday is the 89th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, a dark episode of history indelibly carved into the souls of the 5 million people of Armenian descent scattered throughout the world and the 2.5 million people living in Armenia today. Armenians can never forget or forgive the slaughter of some 1.5 million men, women and children at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

8. "Cyprus sets course for wilderness", a solution to the Cyprus problem once again looks like slipping through the fingers of the international community.

1. - AFP - "Council of Europe asks Turkey to free convicted former Kurdish lawmakers":

STRASBOURG / 22 April 2004

The Council of Europe on Thursday asked Turkey to free human rights award winner Leyla Zana and three other Kurdish former lawmakers, a day after they were convicted in a retrial.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, the chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, said Zana, Selim Sadak, Hatip Dicle and Orhan Dogan should be released pending the outcome of all appeal trials.

The re-trial which ended Wednesday had confirmed their original convictions to a 15-year prison sentence in 1994 for membership of an armed rebel group. Bot said that the Committee of Ministers had pressed the Turkish authorities into adopting legislation paving the way for the re-opening of the proceedings in the case.

Concerns had also been expressed following numerous reports questioning the fairness of the re-trial. He deplored that his committee's repeated requests -- most recently expressed on April 6 -- were ignored.

The four Kurds had continued to be treated as convicted persons throughout the re-trial which raised serious issues regarding the presumption of innocence, he added in a press release. Their case is an important test of the efficacy of the recent raft of reforms in Turkey, which was wholeheartedly welcomed by the international community, and in particular of the Turkish courts readiness to accept the European Human Rights "acquis", he said.

The president of the pro-democracy body's Parliamentary Assembly, Peter Schieder, also deplored the confirmation of the Kurds' conviction saying it was to a large extent based on an unjustified interference with their freedom to discuss issues of public concern.

Schieder regretted the time it had taken to have the criminal procedure against them re-opened following a European Court of Human Rightss judgment in 2001 which found the original trial to be unfair. Despite repeated requests by the Parliamentary Assembly, the execution of the original prison sentence imposed was not suspended and the four therefore remained in prison.

"While fully respecting the independence of the judiciary, I must say that this court sentence comes at a particularly delicate moment," said Schieder.

"Next week, our Parliamentary Assembly will debate a report on the honouring of obligations and commitments by Turkey which recommends closing the monitoring procedure on the grounds that over the last three years Turkey has clearly demonstrated its commitment and ability to fulfil its statutory obligations as a Council of Europe member state," he said.

"This Court sentence damages the overall picture we have of Turkey, which has otherwise implemented a huge reform package and made progress with regard to respect for human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles.

"I would therefore appeal to the Turkish authorities to do everything in their power to set them free," Schieder said. In a related development, a Turkish lawmaker sued an Italian member of the European parliament for calling Turkish special courts "a relic of fascism", Anatolia news agency said.

The president of Turkey's highest appeals court, Eraslan Ozkaya, also criticized Luigi Vinci, a communist, for his statement. "In Europe one cannot interfere with court affairs. But a European deputy can do just that when it comes to Turkey," said Ozkaya.

Vinci's criticism was putting pressure on Turkish courts and was therefore illegal, he added.

In his complaint, Atilla Basoglu, a member of the social democratic Republican People's Party, asked for legal proceedings to be opened against the Italian as he had violated Turkey's penal code which provides for imprisonment of up to six years for insulting a court.

Speaking to the press, Vinci had called the Kurds' conviction "shameful" and said Turkey's state security court (DGM) should be disbanded.

2. - AFP - "Three Kurdish rebels killed in clashes in Turkey":

ANKARA / 22 April 2004

Three Kurdish rebels were killed in clashes with Turkish security forces in an operation in a mountainous region in the south of the country close to the border with Syria, a senior local official said Thursday.

The fighting erupted during a security sweep by a special operations team and paramilitary troops in the Amanos mountain range in the province of Hatay, governor Abdulkadir Sari told the Anatolia news agency.

Sari said the rebels from the Kurdistan People's Congress (KONGRA-GEL), which was founded last November as an offshoot of the disbanded Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), had refused orders to surrender and fired back at security forces.

"Three Kurdish rebels were killed in the clash which lasted nearly two hours," he said. Sari mentioned no losses among the Turkish forces. Last week, five Kurdish rebels and three Turkish soldiers were killed in a clash in a mountainous region in the southeastern province of Sirnak during a major security crackdown, local security sources said.

The operation, involving 6,000 troops and village guards, was launched after the army received intelligence that a group of 60 PKK militants had crossed from northern Iraq into Turkey. The rebels, on the other hand, said they had killed 10 Turkish soldiers and seven of Ankara's Kurdish allies during continuing fighting in Sirnak.

The PKK led a 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast which claimed more than 36,000 lives. The Kurdish rebellion has been nearly frozen since the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was arrested in 1999.

3. - Kurdish Centre for Human Rights - "Austrian Woman Detained And Tortured By Turkish Police":

22 April 2004

On 19 April 2004 while trying to go on a bus in Aydinli-Istanbul during midday, International League for People’s Struggle (ILPS) member working on the Turkish Section Aliyah Elisabeth Brunner of Austria was taken by 2 unknown assailants. Brunner yesterday made a statement at Istanbul Human Rights Association (HRA) with ILPS activist Selma Sahin, HRA Vice-President Eren Keskin and various other civil society organizations.

Brunner stated that she was sexually assaulted and tortured; they extinguished cigarettes on her arm. Brunner said that she knew one of the people who abducted her stating that, "I was taken into custody at the Anti Terror Office before and the voice of one of them was the same person working in that unit". Brunner said that, "I wanted to go to a panel at the Deri-Is (Leather-Work) Tuzla Office. When I wanted to enter the bus at Aydinli village from Tuzla bridge, they took me by the arm. The people who grabbed me by the arm were the people on the bus. Till then I did not sense that I was being followed. They said to me "Where are you going. We know that you are going to attend the panel." I said, "I have nothing to talk with you about" and I waned to enter the bus. But they said "You are going to come with us, we are going to take you into custody" and forcibly tried to take me. So the people there could hear me I shouted, "Human honor will victor against torture, pressure will not intimidate us".

Brunner continued to say the following: "We went by a vehicle for a while and then they wanted to close my eyes. When I did not allow they said, "You are under custody". It was then that they sexually assaulted me. After a long period of travel they took me out of the vehicle. They made me kneel on my knees and bean to insult me. They asked questions like "You are a terrorist, you are one of the leaders in the latest movements, you are linking terrorist organizations in the international arena. Who is your responsible?" I did not answer any question. They said "Do you think this is a game?", they said to me "this is our last warning" and they put a gun to my head and began threatening me."

They extinguished cigarettes ten times on her arm and after they hit her head with a hard material which she thought to be a gun. She woke up later on and took the cloth off her eyes, she was in a forest.

DEHAP (Democratic People’s Party) Ankara Youth Branch administrator Metin Yildiz was also taken by civilian clothed persons calling themselves police on 13 April 2004. Yildiz was forcibly put in a car and taken to a discreet place. They offered him to become an agent promising to give him a good pay check. They asked him to give names of people using "illegal" words. Yildiz applied to HRA Ankara Branch Office.

These incidents have increased tremendously lately. The method of torture has changed. Prisons and police stations are not places where this takes place. Now they take people to forests and isolated locations and most of the time they do not leave physical marks on the person tortured. Making it even more difficult torture incidents to be proved.

The Human Rights Association stated in their yearly report that human rights violations have increased last year compared to previous years. It coincides with the coming to power of the AKP (Justice and Development Party). Although on paper we see some changes in practice we see how cosmetic some of the changes have become. There are no initiatives or actions by the government to deter these grave human rights violations. We call on the state and on human rights organizations to condemn these acts and pursue the criminals behind this.

Kurdish Centre for Human Rights; Tel: +41 22 328 1984, Fax: +41 22 328 1983, Email: kurd-chr@bluewin.ch, Address: 15 rue des Savoises, 1205 Genève-SUISSE

4. - KHRP - "European Court condemns Turkey for failure to investigate Kurdish extra-judicial killing":

22 April 2004

A Kurdish man whose brother was extra-judicially executed in Turkey has won his case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) (Buldan v. Turkey).

Savas Buldan was leaving a casino with two friends in Istanbul on 3 June 1994 when they were approached by seven or eight people with walkie-talkies, firearms and bullet-proof vests who introduced themselves as police officers. The three men were then forced into three cars. That night, three bodies - shot at point-blank range - were discovered in an area near the river.

An investigation was undertaken and murder charges brought against Savas Buldan’s suspected killer, who was acquitted for lack of evidence on 18 November 1999.

KHRP took a case to the ECtHR on behalf of Savas Buldan’s brother, Nejdet Buldan.

On 20 April 2004, the Court held unanimously that Turkey had violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for its failure to investigate the abduction and killing of Savas Buldan (Article 2). It found a further violation of the right to an effective remedy under Article 13, ECHR.

In its judgment, the Court noted that the Susurluk Report, which stated that it had been a State strategy to kill wealthy Kurdish people who supported the PKK, had referred to the killing of Savas Buldan. In addition, Hanefi Avci, former head of Istanbul and Diyarbakir Police Intelligence, had maintained that the kidnapping and assassination of Savas Buldan had been carried out by a special team made up of State officials and civilians.

The Court nonetheless recalled that the Susurluk Report could not be relied on to establish to the required standard of proof that State officials were implicated in any particular incident. Accordingly, there was insufficient evidence on which to conclude that the applicant’s brother was, beyond reasonable doubt, killed by or with the connivance of State agents in the circumstances alleged by the applicant.

Kerim Yildiz, KHRP Executive Director, says, "We will continue to monitor the Turkish Government’s implementation of this and other judgments."

5. - AP - "Human Rights Activist To Be Put On Trial By Syrian Regime":

DAMASCUS / 22 April 2004

A lawyer and prominent human rights activist will be tried before the state security court on charges of spreading false information and harming Syria's image, his lawyer said Wednesday. Aktham Naisse, the chairman of the Committees for the Defence of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, was arrested April 14.

Anwar Al Buni, one of Naisse's lawyers, said his client is charged with "spreading false information and tarnishing Syria's image and reputation abroad." Buni, himself a human rights activist and member of the Human Rights Association in Syria, said the decision to prosecute Naisse reflects "the Syrian authorities' persistence in their policy of repression and stifling voices, particularly those of human rights activists who monitor the severe human rights violations in Syria." Naisse's brother, Osama, said nothing has been heard of Naisse since he was arrested last week. In a statement faxed to news agencies in Damascus Wednesday, he said security officials have dismissed the family's questions and refused to give Naisse his medication. Naisse is said to suffer from heart and kidney ailments as well as hypertension.

Naisse's group also expressed worry about his health, and released a statement urging human rights groups and international organisations to intervene to ensure his release.

Naisse has been campaigning for political reform and the repeal of Syria's state of emergency laws. Last month he organised a rare and bold protest outside parliament, which security agents quickly broke up. He and other activists were detained for a few hours and then released.

Naisse timed the sit-in to coincide with the 41st anniversary of Syria's March Revolution, when the ruling Baath party seized power.

Naisse's arrest came two days after he issued a report accusing authorities of arresting more than 1,000 Kurds in a continuing campaign against the Kurdish minority. In the report, Naisse called for an immediate halt to the state's "terrorist and illegal practices" against the Kurds.

The crackdown against Kurds began following clashes between Kurdish rioters and Syrian security forces in the country's northeast last month in which 25 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

6. - National Post (Canada) - "The truth about the Armenian genocide":

23 April 2004

Wednesday's parliamentary resolution recognizing the Turkish slaughter of Armenians during the First World War as a genocide and a crime against humanity may seem obscure to many Canadians. But in Turkey, the issue is extraordinarily sensitive. Most non-Turkish historians agree that Turks killed up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 , in some cases burning them alive in churches or forcing them into the wilderness, where they died of starvation and exposure. The Turkish government, however, claims the real number of deaths was just 300,000, and that even these fatalities arose not from genocide but from Turkish "self-defence" against Armenians allied with Russia. Though widely debunked, this national myth is precious to the Turks, which explains why Ankara went ballistic yesterday, accusing Canadian legislators of being "narrow-minded" and sowing "hatred."

Paul Martin knew this was coming. In 2000, when the U.S. Congress considered a similar resolution, Ankara threatened to cut America's access to its Turkish military bases. Prior to the vote, Mr. Martin had his Foreign Affairs Minister, Bill Graham, twist arms in an effort to defeat the motion. But to his credit, the Prime Minister ultimately refused to declare this a whipped vote -- despite the fact there are a number of Canadian companies with business interests in Turkey, including Bombardier, which has a $335-million contract with Ankara's public transportation system. Ignoring realpolitik, many Liberals voted their conscience, and the motion passed by a 153 to 68 margin.

All of this leaves us conflicted. On one hand, the MPs who voted for Wednesday's motion are certainly on the right side of history -- and there was something gratifying about seeing them buck their party bosses to speak up for the truth. On the other hand, Parliament's job is to make laws -- not to decide issues best left to historians and filmmakers.

This is not to say that governments should never take a position on historical events. In Germany, it is illegal to deny the existence of the Holocaust, a law arguably justified by the singularly evil crimes of the Nazis. And in other Western nations, governments have properly recognized the campaigns of slaughter their forebears inflicted on aboriginals. But these are exceptional instances. Our worry is that, with the passage of Wednesday's resolution, we will now witness a parade of aggrieved ethnic groups coming before Parliament, each seeking recognition of its own historical tragedy. Recall that millions of Ukrainians were starved by Stalin in the 1930s. Half-a-million Rwandan Tutsis were killed at the hands of Hutus in 1994. In 1948, Hindus and Muslims killed one another by the truckload in South Asia. Is our Parliament to serve as history's scorekeeper, duly tallying all of these massacres and the hundreds more like them?

As for the Turkish government, we would urge that it stop insisting on a blinkered view of history. Even within the Turkish community itself, a small group of scholars has emerged in recent years to challenge the official line. Ankara should pay them heed. Though it is not our Parliament's job to point it out, Turkey's refusal to recognize the 1915 Armenian massacre is a stain on the country's international reputation.

7. - The Moscow Times - "Recognizing Armenia's Past and Its Present":

23 April 2004 / by Kim Iskyan*

Saturday is the 89th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, a dark episode of history indelibly carved into the souls of the 5 million people of Armenian descent scattered throughout the world and the 2.5 million people living in Armenia today. Armenians can never forget or forgive the slaughter of some 1.5 million men, women and children at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

But while continuing to honor the memory of genocide victims, Armenia today, along with its vast and powerful diaspora and those in the international community who support it, needs to ensure that future generations of survivors of the 20th century's first genocide have more to live for than feelings of outrage and injustice.

Defining what happened to Armenians in 1915-1923 has evolved into a game of high-stakes geopolitical grammar, with implications that stretch far beyond the tiny Caucasus country nestled at the intersection of the Middle East, Europe and the former Soviet Union. Armenia points to a vast number of eyewitness accounts describing the systematic atrocities perpetuated against Armenians to eliminate them from the Ottoman Empire. A legal analysis by the International Center for Transitional Justice concluded that the episode fit the (admittedly broad) definition of genocide in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Turkey contends that Armenian deaths were an inevitable consequence of war and preventive measures necessitated by security and political concerns, but which had no genocidal intent. The notion of exclusive victimhood is particularly galling to Turkey, which points to the deaths of an estimated 2.5 million Muslims during the same period.

This is not merely a question of semantics or national pride. Turkey regularly threatens geopolitical retribution against countries that characterize the events during the period as genocide. In October 2000, for example, Turkey threatened to deny the United States access to a Turkish military base used for launching air patrols over Iraq if the U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution accusing Turkey of genocide.

For fear of alienating a critical NATO ally, and despite heavy pressure from well-organized Armenian-American lobbying groups, the U.S. government studiously avoids the term "genocide," opting instead for less politically charged terms such as "murder."

Why is this issue so important? For Turkey, admitting that the country's forebears were guilty of genocide would contradict generations of official indoctrination and could lead to uncomfortable questions about the foundation of the republic. It could also open the door to potentially massive territorial and financial reparation claims.

Many Armenians are passionate in their insistence that the genocide be officially recognized. The issue is comparatively inconsequential for Turkey, whose population is 25 times larger than Armenia's and whose economy is roughly 180 times larger.

The cultural and ethnic identity of Armenians -- particularly those in the diaspora -- is formed in no small part by the trauma of genocide passed down through the generations. Armenians seek acknowledgment of their suffering, a sense of closure and, possibly, compensation. They are rankled that the Holocaust is accepted as historical fact, while they still struggle for recognition of the Armenian genocide. To deny the Holocaust is an act of intellectual savagery, while in some circles refuting the Armenian genocide is considered evidence of evenhandedness.

For all that, it is imperative that Armenia confront the reality of Turkey today. Since the early 1990s Turkey has blockaded its border with Armenia, originally as a show of support for Azerbaijan during the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.

The World Bank estimates that opening the border would give a 30 percent boost to the Armenian economy. With this in mind, the Armenian Foreign Ministry does not predicate relations with Turkey upon genocide recognition. Istanbul is an occasional destination for wealthy young Armenians looking to get away for a long weekend. Trade through mutual neighbor Georgia is thriving.

Meanwhile, many elements of Armenia's diverse diaspora remain focused on genocide recognition, often at the expense of issues of more immediate impact on the country and region today. Few diaspora organizations uttered a whimper of protest, for example, when the government of Armenian President Robert Kocharyan brutally suppressed opposition demonstrations this month, demonstrating a blatant disregard for human rights.

Genocide recognition is critical, but so is a sustained and genuine focus on, say, reducing the 50 percent poverty rate in Armenia so that the country's youth might have something more to look forward to than a one-way ticket out of the country.

Armenians should not and will not surrender in their battle to earn historical recognition for their suffering. So long as the plight of the Armenians is ignored, the risk of history repeating itself will remain. But Armenia, its diaspora and the world community should be careful not to allow recognition of the genocide to undermine the future of the country and the region.

* Kim Iskyan, a freelance journalist and consultant in Yerevan, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.

8. - BBC - "Cyprus sets course for wilderness":

NICOSIA / 23 April 2004 / by Tabitha Morgan

A solution to the Cyprus problem once again looks like slipping through the fingers of the international community.

The latest opinion polls indicate that a United Nations plan to reunite the island is likely to be accepted by Turkish Cypriots but rejected by Greek Cypriots when the two communities vote in separate referendums on 24 April.

While major world powers see the reunification of Cyprus - divided since the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974 - as an important element in their strategic vision of the Eastern Mediterranean, most of the islanders themselves are preoccupied by domestic considerations.

The United States' interest in Cyprus is bound up with its concerns about Turkey's future.

Washington wants its Nato ally - the only one with a predominantly Muslim population - to be admitted into the European Union.

For its part, the EU has said that Turkey will not be given a date to start accession talks until a solution to the Cyprus problem is found - ending the Turkish army's occupation of the northern part of the island.

In Washington, there is a fear that an unequivocal rebuff from the EU would prompt Turkey to turn eastwards, fostering links with the Islamic world rather than Europe.

But such issues have had minimal impact on the campaigns on the two sides of Cyprus in the run-up to the referendums.

Turkish Cypriot enthusiasm for reunification is motivated largely by economic considerations.

For much of the past 30 years, the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has endured an international trade embargo.

Political isolation has also left its mark - the north of the island is a depressed backwater.

A "yes" vote on both sides of the island would see a united Cyprus entering the EU on 1 May, dramatically improving the prospects for Turkish Cypriots.

The prosperous predominantly Greek Cypriot south - the Republic of Cyprus - on the other hand is secure in the knowledge that it will become an EU member at the beginning of next month, no matter what the outcome of the referenda.

So the Cypriot government, which has been less than enthusiastic about the UN proposals, has shrugged off suggestions that it will be cold-shouldered within the EU if Greek Cypriots reject the UN plan.

Furthermore, among a large number of Greek Cypriots, international concern about Cyprus is interpreted as unacceptable international pressure.

"I hope that our foreign friends will respect the people and the republic of Cyprus," President Tassos Papadopoulos said in an emotional televised address to the nation in early April in which he denounced the reunification plan.

"I hope that they will understand that interventions and pressure offend the dignity of the Cyprus people."

The president's speech is credited with pushing many wavering Greek Cypriot voters into the "no" camp.

But a sizeable proportion of the population was already planning to vote against the UN plan.

Greek Cypriot refugees, in particular, who were forced from their homes after the Turkish invasion in 1974, form a powerful lobby group.

Under the terms of the proposals, more than half of them would be allowed home.
But the absolute right of all refugees to return is an emotive political doctrine that no politician has yet had the courage to question.

On this issue and many others, it seems that Cypriots - Turkish as well as Greek - have failed to learn the language of compromise.

"In Cyprus we are still villagers, we are not Europeans," says Turkish Cypriot peace campaigner Sevgul Uludag.

"People don't come out and express their view, and if they do it's a scandal in both communities.

"When there is no freedom of expression it's not that people think and can't express themselves - it's that people stop thinking."

Motherlands

This mindset reflects the way that Cypriots identify primarily with their respective motherlands - Greece or Turkey - rather than seeing themselves as Cypriots first and foremost.

Yiannis Papadakis, an anthropologist at Cyprus University, believes that both communities suffer from ethnic autism.

"Autistic people," he says, "are those who are not in touch with their environment and they cannot listen or communicate with what is outside them.
"I think the situation in Cyprus is one where both sides are so enclosed in their own feelings of self victimisation they have never been able to listen to the other's pain and suffering."

If this is the case, then the prospects for reconciliation and re-integration in the near future seem remote - even if a reunification plan is finally accepted by both communities on the island.

Where does blame lie?

Perhaps, then, the international community - and the EU in particular - will share the blame if reunification is rejected on 24 April for failing to understand the particular concerns and perceptions of the Cypriots.

Perhaps, some diplomats have said, the EU was ill-advised to accept Cyprus for EU membership while the island remained divided.

But regional analyst James Ker Lindsay does not think that the EU made a mistake in its policy on Cyprus

He adds that the decision was taken in 1995, "when it was felt that Turkey was obstructing a settlement".

"I think it would have been unfair to prevent the Greek Cypriots from obtaining EU membership because Turkey was effectively vetoing that," he said. "However, I think that the stance taken by the Greek Cypriots in this referendum has certainly disappointed many in Europe."

So, as the latest attempt to reunify Cyprus seems set to fail, international statesmen are likely to think long and hard before having another try - no matter how pressing the regional geopolitical factors may be.