19
October 2004
2. "Ozgür Der: Commission Report is Hypocritical", Ozgur Der argued that the European Commission's progress report on Turkey only focused on the problems faced by the non-Muslims and the non-Sunni in practicing their beliefs, but completely ignored the problems of the Sunnites.
3. "Turkish boys risk jail for breaking school windows", Prosecutors in western Turkey have demanded jail terms of up to seven years for five boys aged between 11 and 15 for breaking the windows of their school, newspapers reported Tuesday of a case that has sparked criticism from the media and local authorities.
4. "Turkish soldier killed in clash with Kurdish rebels", a Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded during fighting with Kurdish guerrillas overnight in Turkey’s troubled southeast, a military official said on Monday.
5. "Dictatorships remain the threat to Kurds and Arabs alike", inside Iraq and in surrounding areas, the Kurdish people and their leaders are in a self-assertive mood, and perhaps understandably so in view of their recent and modern history.
6. "Barzani sees Kirkuk joining an Iraqi Kurdistan", KDP leader says he is sure Kirkuk will become part of Kurdistan once situation in oil-rich city is normalised.
1. - Bianet - "Rights Violations Should be Investigated":
ANKARA / 18 October 2004
Yavuz Onen, the head of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV) and Husnu Ondul, the head of the Human Rights Association (IHD) published a letter for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and criticized him for recently accusing human rights activists who voice torture allegations.
"It is unfortunate that you continue with the accusing statements and it worries us," said Onen and Ondul. "It is the duty of governments to timely and objectively investigate the allegations of torture."
Human rights defenders should be taken into account
Onen and Ondul, in the letter they published for Erdogan, summarized the spirit of the December 9, 1998 "United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders," and underlined the responsibilities of states and governments within the framework of the declaration:
"One of the important responsibilities of states is to facilitate the work of human rights defenders and organizations, to investigate their allegations, and to refrain from punishing them for their opinions, research, studies and evaluations."
The definition of systematic torture
Onen and Ondul once again talked about the reasons why TIHV and IHD believe there is systematic torture in Turkey:
* The United Nations Committee Against Torture defines systematic torture as torture that is "widespread, continuous, and intentional."
* IHD and TIHV, which are among Turkey's foremost human rights organizations, evaluated torture in Turkey according to these criteria, and came to define it to be "systematic."
* Our evaluation is also based on special data from thousands of torture complaints our organizations receive, and other general data about trial periods, forensic medical reports, and legal framework.
* Both human rights organizations are first of all using their freedom of expression, and then doing their jobs. Human rights organizations cannot be asked to keep silent about violations.
Governments' duty is to investigate and research
"The governments' duty is to timely and objectively investigate and research all allegations of torture," said Onen and Ondul. They criticized the prime minister's attitude saying:
* It is not a democratic or good-willed attitude to make human rights organizations, that bring complaints and allegations to the attention of the people and officials, seem like they have a connection to terrorists, and to refer them to intelligence services, instead of investigating, researching or questioning their torture allegations.
* This attitude, which is obvious in your recent messages and especially your speech at the European Commission, conflicts with the "zero tolerance" toward torture attitude. Making such statements is in a way threatening the human rights defenders.
* Although we believe "zero tolerance toward torture" attitude is relevant and necessary to alleviate torture, we don't think this determination is put to use against those who violate human rights.
* It is unfortunate that you continue with your accusing statements against human rights defenders who voice allegations of torture, and it worries us.
* It is a characteristic of dictators to make human rights defenders
seem like they are connected to terrorists just because they voice
torture complaints and allegations. 
2. - Bianet - "Ozgür Der: Commission Report is Hypocritical":
Ozgur Der argued that the European Commission's progress report on Turkey only focused on the problems faced by the non-Muslims and the non-Sunni in practicing their beliefs, but completely ignored the problems of the Sunnites.
ISTANBUL / 15 October 2004
According to the Association of Free Thought and Education (Ozgur Der), the European Commission's progress report on Turkey is a "new example of hypocrisy."
Ozgur Der argued that people in Turkey who would like to practice their Islamic beliefs and identities, have been under intense and systematic pressure since the February 28 incident. The association said the report ignored this fact.
In a press statement, Ozgur Der said the commission's report focused on the freedom of beliefs but "talked only about the problems and limitations faced by non-Muslims and the non-Sunni communities, and especially Alavites, in practicing their beliefs."
The following are criticisms by Ozgur Der:
* The report criticizes the Turkish state, saying that the belief and education rights of these groups are limited, or violated. It calls for urgent improvement of the situation.
* How interesting it is that, while the report pays so much attention to the minorities' freedom of belief, it does not mention the pressure and violence on the religious majority in Turkey.
* On the contrary, it can be understood from the EU commission's report that the people who wrote it, since they only talk about rights violations of the non-Sunni, think the rights of Muslims are not violated.
"The progress report, because of so many elements it includes,
deserves to be called 'hypocritical,'" said the statement by
Ozgur Der. "But especially because of its ignorance of Muslims,
it is an unconvincing and inconsistent document."
3. - AFP - "Turkish boys risk jail for breaking school windows":
ANKARA / 19 October 2004
Prosecutors in western Turkey have demanded jail terms of up to seven years for five boys aged between 11 and 15 for breaking the windows of their school, newspapers reported Tuesday of a case that has sparked criticism from the media and local authorities.
Police caught the boys after a complaint from the headmistress of the school in Ahmetli town in the province of Manisa, who was reportedly exasperated by windows frequently being broken at the school, the papers said.
The suspects, who were later released, are to stand trial for damaging public property, an offence which carries a prison term of between one and seven years.
"The headmistress, who wants the children jailed, teaches them a lesson they will never forget," the Aksam newspaper wrote.
The daily Star described the incident as a "scandal" and said it was "cruelty" towards the boys.
The head of the Manisa education department, Hasan Ozdemir, condemned
the court case against the children and said his department had put
pressure on the headmistress to withdraw her complaint.
4. - Reuters - "Turkish soldier killed in clash with Kurdish
rebels":
TUNCELI / 19 October 2004
A Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded during fighting with Kurdish guerrillas overnight in Turkey’s troubled southeast, a military official said on Monday.
Turkish troops have launched a 3,000-man operation backed by air support against a large group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in a remote part of Tunceli province, he said.
The clash was the latest in an upsurge in violence since the PKK called off a six-year ceasefire in June, threatening to spark unrest in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
Thirty-four people died in September alone, the independent Human Rights Association (IHD) said last week.
Fighting had died down since the 1999 capture of PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan. He and his followers launched their campaign in 1984 to carve out an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people were killed in the violence.
Turkey has expanded Kurdish cultural rights in recent years in a bid to meet European Union political criteria for entry, but has vowed it will never negotiate with the PKK, which it considers a terrorist organisation.
The IHD said in a report that human rights abuses are on the rise
as fighting between the PKK and Turkish security forces mounts.
5. - The Daily Star - "Dictatorships remain the threat to
Kurds and Arabs alike":
19 October 2004
Inside Iraq and in surrounding areas, the Kurdish people and their
leaders are in a self-assertive mood, and perhaps understandably so
in view of their recent and modern history. The Kurds have been victims
of broken promises by foreign powers, self-serving manipulation by
regional ones and mass murder and ethnic cleansing by the former Baathist
regime of Saddam Hussein. Since 1992, Kurds in northern Iraq have
run an efficient operation in their lands, governing their provinces
and people in a decent manner.
Yet a strong legacy of Kurdish anger and anxiety at treatment by the former government in Baghdad keeps rearing its head, and Kurds often refer to the "Arab" threat they fear, especially ethnically Arab Iraqis who have been moved into Kirkuk and other Kurdish areas. It would be a cruel mistake, though, for Kurds to slip into the same sort of wrong behavior against Arab Kurds that some officials in Baghdad once practiced against Kurds, including forms of stereotyping, racism and mass demonization.
The threat that was activated against the Kurds was not an "Arab" threat, but rather the brutal policies of Saddam Hussein's government and henchmen. That killer regime took the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis of all religions and ethnicities. Attacks against Kurds were well-documented in recent decades, though Saddam Hussein's atrocities against Arab Iraqis were only fully revealed after the demise of the regime. The basic problem and threat to many people in this region is not Arabism, but rather the dictatorial regimes that assumed power in Arabism's name, distorting a popular ideology into often monstrous deeds that made millions of Arabs prisoners or corpses in their own lands.
Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar must prominently convey this fact to
Kurds and all other Iraqis, and stop in its tracks a recent tendency
for individual groups in Iraq to cast accusing fingers at whole other
segments of society. He must also emphatically warn that the appropriate
antidote to the ethnic cleansing by the former regime in Kurdish and
other areas is not reverse ethnic cleansing, in Kirkuk or elsewhere.
It must be what the Kurds have demonstrated in recent years when they
had the chance to run their own affairs - responsive and decent government,
equal citizenship rights for all, pluralism in ethnicity, religion
and ideology, and a country run according to the rule of law.
6. - AFP - "Barzani sees Kirkuk joining an Iraqi Kurdistan":
KDP leader says he is sure Kirkuk will become part of Kurdistan once situation in oil-rich city is normalised.
AFP / 18 October 2004
One of the main Kurdish leaders in Iraq, Massoud Barzani, said on Monday he was sure the northern oil city of Kirkuk would become a part of a largely autonomous Kurdistan within Iraq.
"We are sure that once the situation in Kirkuk is normalised, the organisation of a referendum will show that the vast majority of inhabitants are Kurds.
"We are sure consequently that Kirkuk will return to (Iraqi) Kurdistan," Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), told a news conference in the Syrian capital as he wound up a three-day visit.
Earlier this month, hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in Kirkuk to call for a referendum on the city's status, but it has yet to be confirmed whether such a plebiscite will take place.
The two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the Kurdistan Patriotic Union, both opened political offices in the northern Iraqi city after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 and have not hidden their ambitions to see the city as part of the territory they administer.
Iraqi Kurds say the oil rich city was overwhelmingly Kurdish in the 1950s before Baghdad started a deliberate campaign of "Arabization", during which thousands of Arabs were resettled in the city.
The two parties, who share control of the three Kurdish provinces
of Suleimaniyah, Dohuk and Erbil, are not pushing for independence
but want a largely autonomous Kurdistan within a federal Iraq.