2
June 2004
1. "'Radical' shift in Turkey's judiciary", in a bid to join the EU, Turkish judges and prosecutors are being trained in the fundamentals of human rights law.
2. "Turkey defers education reform measures", Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has moved to defuse the controversy that has engulfed his plans for higher education reform, postponing "for a while" another attempt to get the legislation passed.
3. "Kurdish villagers pick up the pieces after forcible evacuation", Mevlut Yalcin clearly remembers the forced departure from his home in this sun-baked village in the heart of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, and his equally difficult return eight years later.
4. "Iraqi Kurdish leader vows support for Turkey against rebels", the Iraqi Kurds will not allow Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in northern Iraq to use the enclave as a launchpad for attacks on neighboring Turkey, a senior Iraqi Kurdish officials said here Tuesday.
5. "Car Bomb Rips Through Kurdish Party HQ in Baghdad", a car bomb tore through the headquarters of one of Iraq (news - web sites)'s main Kurdish parties in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing and wounding dozens shortly before the Iraq's new government was announced.
6. "Documentation: Statement by
the People's Defence Forceses (HPG)", translated extract
from the original full Turkish statement. 
1. - The Christian Science Monitor - "'Radical' shift in Turkey's judiciary":
In a bid to join the EU, Turkish judges and prosecutors are being trained in the fundamentals of human rights law.
ISTANBUL / 2 June 2004 / by Yigal Schleifer
When a pro-Kurdish politician accused ofsupporting a terrorist organization was acquitted recently, the verdict made front-page news here. "Radical," was how the daily Milliyet described the case.
The nation's State Security Courts (DGMs), tribunals that handle terrorism and political cases, cited European human rights law as the basis of the decision. In doing so, they marked a fundamental shift in the way Turkey's legal system is beginning to operate.
"The DGMs Say Hello to Europe," the newspaper's headline read. But the two courts are not the only parts of the judiciary saying "hello" to Europe. Over the past few months, some 9,200 judges and prosecutors have been trained- in the largest program of its kind in Turkey - in the basic foundations of human rights law. It is a massive effort to help the country adopt a model more in line with European standards.
The program, a project of the Turkish Ministry of Justice and the European Union, is one of numerous reforms undertaken by Turkey as it continues its bid to join the EU. One of the largest obstacles on the road to Brussels, thus far, has been the spotty human rights record of its criminal justice system.
"This [training program] is part of being contemporary. At a certain point you have to respect human rights," says Demet Gural, executive director of the Human Resources Development Foundation. "I wouldn't have imagined 10 years ago that the Ministry of Justice, for example, would be conducting human rights training for its staff."
Reforms have ranged from ending the death penalty to loosening the military's control over civil affairs. Hoping to receive a positive answer from the EU this year about when accession negotiations may begin, Turkey has been passing reform packages at a rapid clip.
So rapid, in fact, that the terrorism trial against 69 people accused of helping organize the deadly Istanbul bombings last November was stopped as soon as it began in a state security court Monday. The defense argued that the case was not valid, since such DGMs are soon to be replaced with new tribunals more in line with European norms.
Organizers of the human rights training program say they are trying to bridge an educational gap that some Turkish jurists may have. "In Turkish law schools, in their old program, there were no courses in human rights," says Ebru Dabbagh, the training program's coordinator. "They learned about human rights as a small part of the penal code or through international law, but they did not learn about it in detail."
International standards
Haluk Mahmutogullari, a judge who heads the Ministry of Justice's training division, says that although Turkish judges and prosecutors are not unaware of international human rights standards, the practical application of those standards has sometimes failed.
"For the last years Turkey has been punished by the European Court of Human Rights quite often," he says, "which meant that we definitely should do something about it and find what we were doing wrong."
Looking at such basic principles as property rights, freedom of association, and prohibitions against torture, the program brought European legal experts to Turkey to train a core group of 225 judges and prosecutors who are now in charge of instructing their colleagues.
The program is one of several initiated over the past year that have attempted to familiarize Turkish judges, prosecutors, and policemen with international human rights standards.
Many experts say these programs reflect a change in how the Turkish state is starting to view international laws and standards.
"Turkish judicial circles had always kept a sort of nationalistic approach to international human rights law, but there is a change," says Turgut Tarhanli, director of the Human Rights Law Research Center at Istanbul Bilgi University, which has taken some 60 judges and prosecutors to legal seminars in Sweden and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
"They are now starting to look at cases through a human rights lens," he says. "There are still problems, but a real change has started."
Turkey's human rights record, eroded for years by charges
of torture, police brutality, and questionable legal proceedings has
been shaped by the country's turbulent recent history.
State versus individual
A 1980 military coup led to a new constitution that enshrined state order over individual rights. During the bloody fight in the 80s and 90s against the militants of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Turkey's courts were often used as a weapon in that battle.
"In criminal law cases or civil law cases, mainly during the era of struggling against the PKK, the national interests of the state were a priority over the rights of the individual," says Mr. Tarhanli.
But Turkey's hopes of joining the EU, as well as pressure from the US and the country's own civil society organizations, have changed the legal landscape.
"At the state level there was no way [Turkey] could go on with the old regulations," says Mrs. Gural, whose organization began training jurists and policemen on international human-trafficking laws this year.
Human rights activists point out that structural problems still remain, with cases of torture and freedom of expression violations still reported in the country. An EU report last year found that parts of the judiciary still do not always act "in an impartial and consistent manner."
Tarhanli says "black holes" still exist in Turkish daily judicial work. Training programs in human rights law are a start, but he says a critical test is for the country's judges and prosecutors to take what they have learned and apply it in the cases that come before them.
"The most important thing is to what extent can judges
and prosecutors use these international instruments of law in their
daily work?" he says. "To what extent can they use the knowledge
they got in this training?"
2. - The Financial Times - "Turkey defers education reform measures":
ANKARA / 2 June 2004 / by Vincent Boland
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has moved to defuse the controversy that has engulfed his plans for higher education reform, postponing "for a while" another attempt to get the legislation passed.
Mr Erdogan said yesterday a bill to shake up the higher education system, including granting full university access to religious high school students, would not immediately be sent back to parliament after it was vetoed last week by the president.
He said the government had more important issues to address, including further amendments to the constitution to bring it into line with European norms.
Among the most pressing is the setting up of a new court system to try terrorist crimes, after the postponement on Monday of the trial of 69 suspects charged with the bombings in Istanbul last November.
The state security court system due to hear the trial of the bombing suspects was abolished last month as part of the constitutional reform process.
Separately, Cemil Cicek, the justice minister, said draft legislation to set up serious crimes courts was being sent to parliament, which could approve it as early as next week.
The higher education reforms are the most divisive the government has attempted since it came to office in late 2002. The secular establishment, including the military, claimed the measures undermined Turkey's secular society by allowing religious students to take scarce places at secular universities.
Diplomats and analysts said Mr Erdogan appeared to have heeded the advice of senior officials in the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) that the attempt to widen university access could overshadow reforms aimed at getting Turkey into the European Union.
Still, the prime minister, a devout Muslim and a graduate of a religious school, remained defiant on the substance of the education reforms, known as the YOK law.
"We are completely right about the YOK law," he told party members yesterday. "However, [it] has been suspended for a while."
The AKP has a huge parliamentary majority, which voted
in favour of the bill last month and would almost certainly do so again
if the bill were returned. The president cannot veto a bill a second
time.
3. - AFP - "Kurdish villagers pick up the pieces after forcible evacuation":
SAKLAT / 1 June 2004
Mevlut Yalcin clearly remembers the forced departure from his home in this sun-baked village in the heart of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, and his equally difficult return eight years later.
His home village of Saklat, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the regional capital of Diyarbakir, was one of the first to be evacuated by the Turkish army in a systematic drive to eliminate what it thought to be places where armed Kurdish rebels fighting for self-rule obtained supplies.
According to official figures, 3,688 villages were emptied out by security forces in their struggle against the 15-year Kurdish insurgency, displacing 300,000 people.
Yalcin was among those who initially tried to resist the evacuation in 1993, but gave in as security forces continually cracked down on the village, maltreated the villagers and finally torched the 300 houses there.
"We were forced out because the rebels would come down to the village from the mountains and security forces accused us of collobarating with them," said the 55-year-old farmer.
"They set stables on fire, killing the animals inside. They destroyed the houses. They chased us away and we had to go," he added.
Another villager, 66-year-old Mehdi Fidancan, explains the ultimate threat that led to their departure: "They told us that we could stay until the end of our lives and then said ’the next time we see you here, we will shoot you’."
The village mosque was also partially destroyed in the evacuation when security forces fired rockets at it.
It has since been repaired. Villagers were allowed to return to their homes in 2001, two years after a fragile peace followed a unilateral ceasefire, led by the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), and the withdrawal of the rebels from Turkey.
Surrounded by rugged hills, Saklat, though much smaller than before, is now full of new concrete or brick houses. It was once one of the biggest villages in the region bt now has only 120 households.
"There are some 1,200 people in the village. That is only one fourth of the previous population," said a 41-year-old villager.
One of the main reasons for this is financial. Forced out of the village without taking their belongings with them , most moved into big cities where they were stuck in shantytowns, living on irregular, meagre incomes.
As a result they do not have the means to rebuild their lives in the villages.
A few of the returnees received a little aid from the state: about 50 bags of cement and some 20 saplings.
"What is the point of coming back if they do not have a house? Others also fear that if they return and the fighting picks up, they will have to move away again," said the villager, who preferred not to be named.
The five-year lull in heavy clashes is now under threat after the successor to the PKK, KONGRA-GEL, announced that it would end the truce on June 1.
Not everyone is as lucky as the villagers of Saklat in getting permission to return to their homes, according to the Human Rights Organization (IHD).
"Some hamlets, and even some villages do not exist on the map anymore. When people ask local authorities if they can go back to their village, the answer is that there is no such place," Selahattin Demirtas, the head of the IHD’s Diyarbakir branch, said.
Authorities in some places in the region also do not allow the villagers to return unless they sign a form which states that they left of their own free will, he added.
The Turkish government is planning to push through parliament a law which opens the way for the state to pay out compensation for losses suffered in the fighting but only under certain conditions.
"The aim of the law is to prevent the villagers from taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights. There is nothing wrong with that, but the draft law is unsatisfactory in that it excludes the years when village evacuations were most intense," Demirtas said.
The residents of Saklat, meanwhile, say they are going to the European Court of Human Rights over the evacuation of their village.
"We hold the state responsible for the evacuation,"
Yalcin said.
4. - AFP - "Iraqi Kurdish leader vows support for Turkey against rebels":
ANKARA / 1 June 2004
The Iraqi Kurds will not allow Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in northern Iraq to use the enclave as a launchpad for attacks on neighboring Turkey, a senior Iraqi Kurdish officials said here Tuesday.
The rebels announced last week that they would end a unilateral five-year ceasefire with Ankara as of June 1, warning foreigners against coming to Turkey.
"We are adamant and we are commited that Iraqi territory, and Iraqi Kurdistan as well, will not be used in any way ... as a base of operations to endanger the security of our neighbors," Barham Saleh, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told reporters after talks with Turkish diplomats.
"We will be working with our neighbors to ensure that there will be no threat emanating from our territory to their interests," he added.
About 5,000 Turkish Kurd militants are said to have found refuge in the mountains of northern Iraq since 1999 when the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said it would end its armed campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey in favor of a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.
Since then the group has several times changed names. Its most recent reincarnation, KONGRA-GEL, however, remains on the list of terrorist organizations of both the United States and the European Union.
But Turkey has several times expressed frustration over
what it sees as US reluctance to purge northern Iraq of the rebels despite
an "action plan" that the two NATO allies signed on the issue
last October.
5. - Reuters - "Car Bomb Rips Through Kurdish Party HQ in Baghdad":
BAGHDAD / 1 June 2004
A car bomb tore through the headquarters of one of Iraq (news - web sites)'s main Kurdish parties in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing and wounding dozens shortly before the Iraq's new government was announced.
Iraqi policeman Sattar Jabar said he had seen at least 25 bodies but Lieutenant Colonel Robert Campbell, a U.S. officer at the scene, said only three people were confirmed dead and 20 wounded. He said the blast was caused by a car bomb.
The blast was at the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, close to Iraq's Foreign Ministry and an entrance to the "Green Zone" compound where the U.S.-led administration in Iraq is based. Shooting rang out after the explosion.
A huge crater was blown into the ground at the entrance to the building. Officials said an anniversary party had been going on in the building and that it was packed with people when the bomb exploded.
Saad Adnan a driver at the transport ministry, said he was driving past the PUK headquarters when it was hit by the blast.
He said guards at the building opened fire after the blast, killing some bystanders.
Adnan said he saw several bodies. "One of the dead
was a woman. Only her head was left," he said.
6. - KNK - "Documentation: Statement by the People's Defence Forceses (HPG)":
1 June 2004 / Translated extract from the original full Turkish statement
The unilateral ceasefire which was declared by our leadership on 1 September 1998 was designed to make possible a democratic solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey. It was continued by our movement with great sacrifice. It has now become senseless in both military and political terms in face of the operations to exterminate our forces by the Turkish state in the last three months. As legitimate defence forces we are obliged to respond to these actions.
Our original intention had been to create chances for all people in Turkey to live together in freedom, peace and democracy. Thus our guerrilla forces were moved from the north to the south following an appeal by our leadership on 2 August 1999. With this move an appropriate atmosphere was created for a democratic solution to the Kurdish question, which remains the basic problem for the Turkish state.
Since that time there have been no attacks by the Kurdish side against the military forces of the state.
The AKP party which formed the Government in November 2002 is not a classical political party but an ideological organisation. Prime Minister Erdogan¹s statement, ³As long as you do not waste a thought on the Kurdish matter it does not exist² was an open confession of the political approach of the AKP party to government. This remains its current policy.
After the lack of success with its Œrepentance¹ law, the Government intensified its military operations in the spring of 2004, with the encouragement of the European Union, which placed KONGRA-GEL on its list of terrorist organisations. The aim of these operations, which were more intense than all those of the last five years in total, was the complete extermination of the guerrilla forces. With this policy the Government has shown its most dangerous face and is leading Turkey into a new conflict.
In the last six years approximately 700 operations have been carried out against the People¹s Defence Forces (HPG). In these operations about 500 members of the guerilla forces have lost their lives.
We want to clarify that we, the HPG, are opposed to a new conflict. It is being forced on us as we will not accept that every day our forces are under attack. We want steps to be taken towards a solution of the Kurdish question and to create genuine peace and democracy. Our President, Abdullah Ocalan, exerts great efforts to achieve these goals. But he, the architect of peace and democracy, continues to be imprisoned in solitary confinement on Imrali island, the Kurdish people are terrorised by repression and efforts are now made to exterminate our legitimate defence forces. Acceptance of this policy in silence would lose us freedom and dignity. We have remained patient because our President has asked for that while he continues his tireless efforts for a peaceful and democratic solution.
Our People¹s Defence Forces have positioned themselves in the mountainous regions of north and south Kurdistan, according to their mission as guarantors of our peace and democracy. If the Turkish Army or village guards enter these regions all forms of guerrilla actions will be carried out against them. In such cases we will not only defend ourselves at the place of that aggression but we will also strike back with our own operations everywhere there are Turkish forces. In the course of such a conflict several aspects of Turkish life including the economy and tourism, could be affected.
It is for the Turkish Government to move towards a democratic solution if a war is to be averted. In particular, the Government needs to take the following steps to avoid renewal of the conflict:
- it should terminate the current isolation policy against our leader
Abdullah Ocalan;
he must be acknowledged as a guarantor for peace and democracy and as
a
representative of the will of the Kurdish people.
- it should accept officially the conditions for a bilateral ceasefire
- it should take steps to smooth the way for a democratic solution
- it should withdraw that part of itts miliary forces
which are not necessary
for general security needs
- it should abolish completely the state of emergency
which has continued
under modified terms
- it should terminate military operations against the
People¹s Defence Forces
guarantors for peace and democracy
- it should refrain from torture, intimidation and repression against its people
- it should abolish completely the village guard system
Finally we wish to point out clearly that any Government peace initiative has to be addressed to our leader President Ocalan.
Our aim is to support peace and democracy and the well-being of the Kurdish and Turkish people, and to gain freedom for President Ocalan.
Command Council of HPG
(Hezen Parastina Gel - People¹s Defence Forces)