10 March 2004

1. "Europe rights court raps Turkey for curbing free speech", the European Court of Human Rights Tuesday found Turkey guilty of curbing the free speech rights of one of its citizens and ordered it to pay him 13,000 euros (16,000 dollars) in damages and costs.

2. "Turkey plans to amend constitution before key EU decision in December", the Turkish government is planning to push through parliament a set of constitutional amendments to haul itself up to EU norms before a key decision by the European Union in December on whether to open accession talks with Ankara, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Tuesday.

3. "Turkish soldiers killed in landmine blast", two Turkish soldiers have been killed and four others wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine in southeast Turkey.

4. "EU urges tougher measures against 'honor' killings", other deficiencies raised by the EU Troika include court cases against human rights organizations, the continuing imprisonment of four former pro-Kurdish lawmakers and obstacles to broadcasting in languages other than Turkish.

5. "Barbaric rape law revoked", the Parliament's justice sub-committee announced some good news on International Woman's Day -- Article 327 of the Turkish Criminal Code (TCK) which indirectly forced women to marry their rapist has been revoked in the draft. This article has been long criticized by human rights activists and women rights supporters in Turkey.

6. "Time for Mr Never to change tack", Rauf Denktash, president of the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, has blocked so many attempts to end the island's division that some compatriots call him Mr Never.

7. "Iraq-US calm Turkey fears on charter", Iraqi and US authorities moved to calm Turkish fears yesterday after the signing of a interim constitution maintaining autonomy for Iraq's Kurds, as the country's majority Shi'ites played down their concerns about the document.

8. "Iraq: The Federal State - an excerpt from Jo Wilding’s Diary", whatever it means for the rest of Iraq, in Kurdistan the interim constitution was celebrated, giving the Kurds a federal state of their own for the first time ever. More circus shows and games in villages, among the minefields.

1. - AFP - "Europe rights court raps Turkey for curbing free speech":

STRASBOURG / 9 March 2004

The European Court of Human Rights Tuesday found Turkey guilty of curbing the free speech rights of one of its citizens and ordered it to pay him 13,000 euros (16,000 dollars) in damages and costs.

Abdullah Aydin was jailed for one year for incitement to hatred and hostility after he spoke at a rally marking World Peace Day in 1996. A
security court said he had drawn an illegal distinction between the Turkish and Kurdish peoples.

The court said Aydin had criticised the governments actions and policy and accused it of breaching human rights, but "alongside those criticisms there had been clear and repeated calls for peace, equality and freedom" and it was his right as representative of a democratic platform to speak about these issues.

The Strasbourg judges said the presence of a military judge on the Turkish court compromised its impartiality. "The applicants conviction had not been necessary in a democratic society," it said.

2. - AFP - "Turkey plans to amend constitution before key EU decision in December":

9 March 2004

The Turkish government is planning to push through parliament a set of constitutional amendments to haul itself up to EU norms before a key decision by the European Union in December on whether to open accession talks with Ankara, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Tuesday.

"The constitution does not conform to the EU (norms). The planned constitutional amendements will be an expression of our determination before the December summit," Cicek told the NTV news channel in an interview.

Turkey has been an EU candidate since 1999, but is the only country among 13 states not to have begun accession talks with the pan-European bloc.

EU leaders are to decide in December 2004 whether the mainly Muslim but strictly secular country has made enough progress in democratic reforms to open membership negotiations.

Among the planned reforms are the abolition of state security courts, which are tasked with crimes committed against the state, according to the NTV report.

They will be replaced by specialized courts responsible for hearing terrorist-related charges.

The package will also amend the constitution to give precedence to international treaties over Turkish law, in a change which means that Turkey will share sovereignty with the pan-European bloc.

"When the law contradicts treaties, the law is implemented, but we have promised the world otherwise," Cicek told NTV.

The sharing of sovereignty is a hot issue which euro-sceptics in Turkey use to argue against Ankara's long-standing aspiration to integrate with Europe.

Turkey has adopted a raft of significant reforms since 1999 -- among them some taboo-breaking constitutional amendments -- and argues that it has fulfilled the majority of criteria required to open membership talks.

Brussels has said it needs to see the reforms properly implemented before it sits down at the negotiating table with Turkey.

3. - Reuters - "Turkish soldiers killed in landmine blast":

8 March 2004

Two Turkish soldiers have been killed and four others wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine in southeast Turkey.

The soldiers were killed as they patrolled an area on Monday in Batman province's Gercus district in the mainly Kurdish southeast, scene of civil strife in the 1980s and 1990s that claimed more than 30,000 lives, most of them Kurds.

"A large-scale investigation is under way; we are looking into who placed the mine," a security official said.

Turkey has in the past accused Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists of planting landmines in the region.

Explosions

In December five soldiers were killed in a mine blast in the southeast.

Stretches of Turkey's borders with Syria and Greece are also peppered with landmines, and hundreds of people have been killed in explosions. Many more have been crippled or wounded.

Ankara is not yet a signatory to the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning mines but has said it intends to sign the treaty.

4. - Turkish Daily News - "EU urges tougher measures against 'honor' killings":

Other deficiencies raised by the EU Troika include court cases against human rights organizations, the continuing imprisonment of four former pro-Kurdish lawmakers and obstacles to broadcasting in languages other than Turkish

ANKARA / 10 March 2004

The European Union has raised the issue of women rights in Turkey and has urged the government to take tougher measures to prevent so-called honor killings, which involve the murder of women by male members of their family to defend what is regarded as family honor.

The issue was taken up during Monday talks between Turkish officials and the EU Troika, bringing together the EU's enlargement and common foreign and security policy commissioners as well as the foreign ministers of Ireland and the Netherlands, the current and next presidents of the union.

Turkey has been an EU candidate since 1999, and its efforts to open accession talks with the union have so far not borne fruit, mostly due to persisting deficiencies in the field of human rights. EU leaders will review Turkey's membership efforts in a December summit and decide whether or not to initiate talks.

Assuring Turkish officials that the EU will agree to open talks in the December summit provided that Turkey fulfills all the membership criteria, the EU Troika highlighted, however, deficiencies in the field of reform implementation, raising in particular the issue of murders of women in the name of family honor.

The latest victim of such killings was the 22-year-old Guldunya Toren from the southeastern province of Bitlis, who was killed by her brothers after giving birth to a child outside wedlock in February.

Honor killings are not uncommon, particularly in Turkey's impoverished and conservative Southeast, and women's rights activists blame clauses in the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which envisages reduced punishment for such killings. Parliament is discussing proposed changes to the TCK that include steps to abolish reductions in sentences for perpetrators of honor killings.

More extensive regulations should be included in the TCK against such killings, the EU Troika officials said in their meetings with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to diplomatic sources.

Other deficiencies raised by the EU officials were court cases against human rights organizations for "insulting the Turkish Armed Forces" and freedom of expression in general; the continuing imprisonment of four former lawmakers from the banned pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) and obstacles towards broadcasting in languages other than Turkish.

In talks with the Troika, Foreign Minister Gul reiterated once again Turkey's request for the inclusion of KONGRA-GEL, the newest offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), on the EU's terrorist organizations list, diplomatic sources said.

The EU Troika's visit to Ankara came amid Turkey's intensified efforts to meet the membership criteria before the EU's December summit and as the two Cypriot sides have been meeting for U.N.-brokered talks aimed at reunification of the island before the accession of the island into the EU on May 1.

5. - Turkish Daily News - "Barbaric rape law revoked":

ANKARA / 10 March 2004

The Parliament's justice sub-committee announced some good news on International Woman's Day -- Article 327 of the Turkish Criminal Code (TCK) which indirectly forced women to marry their rapist has been revoked in the draft. This article has been long criticized by human rights activists and women rights supporters in Turkey.

According to Article 327 of the TCK, if the kidnapped or raped woman gets married to her kidnapper, the punishment for the kidnapper would be dismissed. However, if the married couple is divorced within five years of marriage, the kidnapper's punishment would be restored.

According to criminal law experts, this provision was forcing women to get married to their assailants since there is great social and family pressure put on women that apart from kidnappers or rapists no one else would marry a women who was raped. The same experts also say that there is no such provision in any of the European countries' criminal codes.

According to the draft law which is expected soon to be accepted in the Parliament, however, the rapist will be sentenced to seven to 12 years of imprisonment regardless of the rapist marrying the women or not. The justice sub-committee has also increased punishment for the crime of rape within wedlock. According to the draft, if a spouse forces his partner to have sexual intercourse the punishment would be 18 years of imprisonment.

6. - Financial Times - "Time for Mr Never to change tack":

10 March 2004 / by Vincent Boland

Rauf Denktash, president of the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, has blocked so many attempts to end the island's division that some compatriots call him Mr Never.

Now, as the latest and most urgent round of talks continues on a United Nations-sponsored reunification plan, Mr Denktash is discovering that never is no longer an option.

This 80-year-old veteran of the Turkish Cypriot cause finds himself playing second fiddle to Turkey which, for once, is more keen than he is on ending 30 years of often bitter division.

The UN-brokered process gives the real bargaining levers to Ankara and Athens, with Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, filling in any last-minute gaps should the Greek and Turkish sides fail to agree.

If a deal can be reached, all of Cyprus will join the European Union on May 1. If not, only the Greek Cypriot southern part will join.

The process is proving frustrating for Mr Denktash, who has held the fate of the 200,000 Turkish Cypriots in his hands since the 1970s. Now, his critics say, his bluff has been called and he has proved to be out of touch with the views of his community. Opinion polls show most Turkish Cypriots wants to see a reunited island join the EU.

As Mustafa Akinci, a pro-settlement Turkish Cypriot politician, puts it: "Rauf Denktash doesn't really want to see a solution, but there is no escaping this UN process. Turkish Cypriots are in the mood to end to this problem and to see a united Cyprus join the EU."

If voters on both parts of the island approve a referendum next month, the outcome of which is still deeply uncertain, isolated northern Cyprus, recognised only by Turkey, would in effect disappear from the map.

It was created when Turkish troops invaded Cyprus in 1974 to crush an attempted coup by Greek Cypriot nationalists that was fanned by the military leadership in Athens. Since then, northern Cyprus has fallen behind its Greek Cypriot neighbour socially and economically.

According to Ali Erel, president of the Turkish Cypriot chamber of commerce, living standards are about a third of those in the south and the economy depends heavily on grants from Ankara to pay its state employees. Years of international isolation have ruined the economy. Nearly half its citrus harvest is abandoned every year, Mr Erel says. Import taxes are steep and many Turkish Cypriots cross the UN-patrolled "Green Line" into the south to work.

The problems over the economy and the north's exposure to Turkey's economic crises during the 1980s and 1990s have created a desperate desire for change among Turkish Cypriots, a mood Mr Denktash appears to have misread with a consequent loss of support.

He rejected Mr Annan's reunification plan when it was first presented last year, leaving himself few bargaining chips when he was eventually brought into the process by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, whose government seems set on a settlement that would immeasurably help its own EU aspirations.

Mr Denktash's falling support and growing isolation suggest these talks may prove his final appearance in the diplomatic spotlight. If so, it will mark the end of a remarkable but unfulfilled career.

As Murat Tuzunkan, chairman of the department of international relations at Cyprus International University, puts it: "Rauf Denktash was a hero to Turkish Cypriots, protecting their rights. But his image now is tarnished."

Mr Denktash is guaranteed a big job in any federal government of a reunited Cyprus. But depending on the outcome of the referendum, it will not be the one he has hankered after - president of an internationally recognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

After years of rebuffing solutions to the Cyprus problem, this proud Turkish patriot may have a solution imposed upon him - with the backing of his erstwhile friends in the motherland.

7. - Gulf Daily News - "Iraq-US calm Turkey fears on charter":

BAGHDAD / 10 March 2004

Iraqi and US authorities moved to calm Turkish fears yesterday after the signing of a interim constitution maintaining autonomy for Iraq's Kurds, as the country's majority Shi'ites played down their concerns about the document.

Turkish and US sources said Ronald Newmann, a member of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, had been asked by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to go to Ankara after Turkey criticised the charter.

Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek said Ankara was unhappy with the new basic law and warned it would pave the way for more instability in Iraq.

A Turkish diplomat said Ankara was particularly worried over the status of the Kurds, whom it has long suspected of plotting to break away from Baghdad.

"The Kurdish region is like first among equals. This leads to question marks as to whether this may lead to a break-up one day ... All neighbours are uneasy," he said.

Despite its concerns, Ankara welcomes other provisions and does not entirely reject the document, he added.

In Baghdad, an influential Shi'ite member of the Governing Council that signed the provisional constitution said Iraq wants good relations with Turkey and will do everything possible to calm its fears.

"We continue to behave in a way not to cause any fear with them and with other countries neighbouring Iraq," Abdel Aziz Al Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said.

Under the constitution, Iraqi Kurdistan will retain its federal status and the rest of Iraq will be given the right to prepare to form states. The document also recognises Arabic and Kurdish as the official languages of Iraq.

Many of the Governing Council's 13 Shi'ite members are still worried about a veto clause giving what could be perceived as unfair power to the Kurdish north.

The 25-member Governing Council is creating a committee to facilitate direct elections, which must take place by end-January 2005, under a timetable in the temporary constitution, Hakim added.

Council members and US officials have pledged to work with the UN to establish a body acceptable to all after the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ites, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, rejected a US proposal for an administration selected through regional caucuses.

Iraq's neighbours and other countries have continued to hail signing of the constitution.

Kuwait called it a "constructive step in Iraq's modern history that will facilitate the transfer of power to Iraqis, restore security and stability".

The Gulf Co-operation Council said it was "a concrete step toward the formation of an independent Iraqi government".

Meanwhile, the Arab League is studying whether to send a special envoy to Iraq or open an interests section there, its secretary general Amr Moussa said.

"The door is open for consultations with Iraqis on developments either through a special interests bureau or naming a special envoy," Moussa said after talks with Mohsen Abdel Hamid, an Islamist member of the Iraqi Governing Council.

8. - UNobserver - "Iraq: The Federal State - an excerpt from Jo Wilding’s Diary":

9 March 2004

Whatever it means for the rest of Iraq, in Kurdistan the interim constitution was celebrated, giving the Kurds a federal state of their own for the first time ever. More circus shows and games in villages, among the minefields.

Drums announced the coming of the parade, men and boys, the red, white and green of the Kurdish flag, with a many-pointed gold star in the middle, the placard featuring Mustafa Barzani, the murdered Kurdish leader. The Kurds have been stateless people in the empires of others more or less forever, ruled by the Ottomans, the British, the puppets of the British and, until 1991, the Baathists. Winston Churchill authorised the crushing of their demand for an independent state in Kurdistan in the 1920s with poison gas.

Today, with the signing of the interim constitution, there is a federal state of Iraqi Kurdistan. At last. At long, long last.

"Maybe they don't understand us," a voice behind me said. "I think perhaps they are Russian."

Sinan and Selim are studying English at Salahudin University in Erbil. It's a strange thing, but a lot of Kurdish people are unaware that the weapons they talk about, the weapons Saddam used against them, were sold to him by the UK, the US, Germany, France and so on, paid for with funding granted by the US in the full knowledge of what he was doing to the Kurds.

I suppose the Baghdad government was exerting control and censorship (in the form of execution) over the Kurdish media and I suppose the Iraqi controlled media didn't care to broadcast that it needed the help of other countries, much less that it was persecuting the Kurds with that assistance.

And Blair? What did I think of him? I told him Blair was the man who introduced tuition fees for universities, so higher education isn't free anymore, that he privatised hospitals, that his government is approving arms sales to countries which are known to be abusing human rights.

We talked about the war, why it happened. Kurdistan wasn't the target of much bombing and there are no troops on the streets, no house raids, no detentions without charge, no random shootings. People here know as little about what's going on in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq as people in Jordan do. It's another country.

Two shots were fired, I think in celebration of the new federal state. A whole street of heads turned: all but ours. In Baghdad, no one looks around at the sound of gunfire. In Baghdad, everyone laughs at you if you do. It's another country.

"You know Kirkuk?" Selim asked. "Kirkuk is Kurdish. It is part of Kurdistan, but it was not included in the area that was given to us. Why do you think they did that? Is it because of the oil?"

Sinan shushed him. "No, Kirkuk is not really Kurdish."

Selim looked shocked. "How can you say that Kirkuk is not Kurdish? Well, we are different there." And although the war ended the sanctions for the Kurdish people, Selim tentatively wondered whether the reason for it might have been oil, more than concern for human welfare. They knew nothing about the vast sums of money going to US companies in reconstruction contracts which could have been fulfilled more cheaply, with more benefit to the Iraqi economy, had they been awarded to local companies.

Peat muttered to Luis, "She's talking politics," and they sneaked around the corner for a cup of tea. I didn't notice. The owner came out of the camera shop whose window we were blocking with the crowd that had gathered to watch two local men talking to a foreign woman. We shuffled round the corner and the crowd spread to block the tea shop as well, whose proprietor came out. We shifted to the edge of the pavement and the crowd went on growing. Eventually the police came and dispersed us as a security risk.

While Luis did magic tricks in the coffee shop, Peat and I smoked a narghila and watched the signing of the constitution on TV. The men made no noticeable response to Masoud Barzani, the big cheese for this bit of Kurdistan, laughed at some joke when Jalal Talabani, the big cheese for some other bits of Kurdistan, walked up to sign.

The signing was followed by patriotic songs and footage, a military rhythm accompanied by shots of dramatic scenery, old film of Peshmerga on the march and images of the persecution of the old Iraqi government. It happens every day, several times a day. Television is government controlled.

In the first school we went to today, Shenoor came out saying there was no place in the school for the show, but not to worry, we could go somewhere else. We were standing in a big open space that stretched a few hundred metres to the farms and mud brick houses one way, to the horizon the other.

"Here would do."

The kids gambolled out of tiny classrooms hardly believing their luck and the rest of the village crept around desperate to see what was happening but reluctant, for the first little while, to be seen childishly enjoying a kids' show. The girls were awesome. One of them stood up facing Luis as the bullying boss.

"Bash nia," he was insisting. No good. Clowns ought not to be dancing with music boxes instead of sweeping the floor.

"Bash," she replied firmly, not about to be intimidated by any dictator.

When, for the third time, I was in trouble for capering instead of cleaning and Luis was about to explode with fury, another girl stood in front of me, spreading her coat to protect me. I wished there was time to play parachute games with them but there wasn't if we were going to make it to the second school in time. we arrived in costume, again doing the show outside the school with the whole community gathered round. The teachers had to leave for their afternoon school but the kids played with us for ages.

The school opened in 1993 after the people came back to the village, Girdesory, in 1991. The people of the area fought Saddam's army but they never took the area. It was the helicopters that defeated them in the end: the village was destroyed and the people chased away. Attacks carried on after 1991 in spite of the no-fly zone because the village was so near the border with the government controlled area that they could bomb from tanks.

The headmaster Mohammed has got two wives and twelve children. Mr Daoud, our guide, has got two wives and thirteen children. At their mother's direction, Rawa, Ahmed and Selim chased the sheep around their pen with much arm waving to position them appropriately for a photo, alternately fussing and persecuting the lamb, yanking his floppy ears in a kind of good shepherd – nasty shepherd routine.

The drive home was bordered both sides with mine fields, marked with red and white tape, red triangle flags, small rock piles and white stones. Peat started telling us about landmines, just in case.

"If you ever find yourself in a mine field, never, never retrace your steps. Some are designed to blow up with you step on them, some when you step off and some when the fourth person steps on or off them."

"So you might have been the third on your way in?"

"Exactly. And some fly up in the air and explode. And then there are the new 'intelligent' mines, which give off a radar signal when they're disturbed, like when the minefield is being cleared, which triggers all the other mines in the area to explode or to fly into the air and explode.

"They're supposed to have a metal ring on them so they can be detected but all the manufacturers make them detachable so they can be taken off before they're planted."

What kind of twisted mind sits in an office or a boardroom or wherever those freaks sit to invent those things, thinking up that kind of murder, while someone else works out ways around the flimsy export controls. Go home, kiss your children, tell them you're going to repair some of the damage you've done. Crawl on your belly through the mountains and let one child or one mine clearance worker live instead of you. You won't be missed.