2 September 2004

1. "Leading Kurds warn fighting could harm Turkey’s EU prospects", leading Kurdish activist Leyla Zana and three fellow politicians warned Wednesday that continued clashes between Kurdish rebels and the army could derail Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

2. "Peace vital: ex-DEP deputies", the problems of Turkey will be resolved through implementing greater democracy, Zana said.

3. "Teachers Want the Mentality to Change", Egitim-Sen presented their report titled, "The Structural Problems of Our Education System and Proposals to Solve the Problem," to the Education Minister. "1 million children do not go to school. The classrooms are overcrowded.

4. "Kurdish villagers still far from home", GOC-DER and TOHAV said the title of the law on "Compensating for Losses Arising from Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism Operations," is problematic. They said the village guards may be an obstacle in the villagers’ return.

5. "Turkey's EU membership may be 10 to 15 years away", Turkey may join the European Union "perhaps only in 10 or 15 years" but its membership is a key to the fight against international terrorism, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Thursday.

6. "Adultery is not Crime in a State of Law", the TCK Women's Platform criticized AKP's reported efforts to abolish an article in the TCK draft that states adultery is not a crime: "Turkey must ensure equality between men and women to be able to become an EU member."

1. - AFP - "Leading Kurds warn fighting could harm Turkey’s EU prospects":

ANKARA / 1 September 2004

Leading Kurdish activist Leyla Zana and three fellow politicians warned Wednesday that continued clashes between Kurdish rebels and the army could derail Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

"Society is fed up with violence... It is time to say ’enough is enough’ to suffering, tears and mourning," the four former parliament members said in a statement.

Zana and her colleagues -- Hatip Dicle, Selim Sadak and Orhan Dogan -- have appealed to Kurdish militants to lay down their arms since they were released in June after a decade in jail, pending a review of their 1995 sentences for aiding the armed rebellion against Ankara.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), now known as KONGRA-GEL, called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire on June 1, raising tensions in the mainly Kurdish southeast which had been mostly calm during the truce period.

EU leaders will assess Turkey’s progress towards greater democracy in December before deciding whether to set a date to open membership talks.

"Though it is a very low possibility, if a date for accession negotiations is not given because of the clashes, the moral responsibility of this will be enormous," the four activists said. "That is why it is very important that arms are silenced."

They argued that it would be easier to resolve the Kurdish question if Turkey came closer to the EU.

"The attitudes and contributions of the EU member states will be as important as the attitudes of Kurds and Turks in the acceleration of the process," they said.

Turkey has undertaken several major reforms to broaden the cultural freedoms of its Kurdish minority as part of its campaign for EU membership.

Some 37,000 people have been killed in fighting between the PKK and the army since 1984 when the rebels took up arms for self-rule in the southeast.

2. - NTV/MSNBC - "Peace vital: ex-DEP deputies":

The problems of Turkey will be resolved through implementing greater democracy, Zana said.

1 September 2004

Four former parliamentary members of the now banned Democracy Party (DEP), who spent more than 10 years behind bars after being found guilty of supporting separatism, marked World Peace Day by calling on an end to conflict inside Turkey.

Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak, who are free pending another trial of their case, said that peace was essential for Turkey.

“Laying down arms and ending clashes soon unconditionally and indefinitely is an urgent need for our people,” the four told a press conference Wednesday.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Zana said that Turkey was in a process of reform. However, she added that the process was not yet complete.

“Despite all those steps taken, it is not yet possible to say that all our problems pertaining to democratisation are solved,” Zana said. “Of course we have many problems to be solved, however the most important one is the Kurdish problem which is a democracy problem in its core. The more freedoms broaden, the more Kurdish problem will be settled on a peaceful basis and thus our country will further be strengthened.”

3. - Bianet - "Teachers Want the Mentality to Change":

Egitim-Sen presented their report titled, "The Structural Problems of Our Education System and Proposals to Solve the Problem," to the Education Minister. "1 million children do not go to school. The classrooms are overcrowded.

ISTANBUL / 1 September 2004

The Education and Science Workers' Union (Egitim-Sen), which represents some 200,000 thousand educators, met with the National Education Minster Huseyin Celik on August 14, and presented him a report on "The Structural Problems of Our Education System and Proposals to Solve the Problem."

According to the report, the National Education Ministry (MEB) changed the education system in accordance with the European Union (EU) criteria. However, in European countries, there are only 25 students per classroom and more than 10 percent of the budget is allocated to education.

In Turkey, while the number of students doubled in the last 15 years, the amount allocated for education dropped from 16 percent to 8.4 percent. There are an average of 60 students per classroom in the elementary school level.

The union argues that the recent reforms in the education system do not solve the problems. It advocates that the government's mentality on education has to change for the solution of the problems. Among problems are the facts that one million children do not go to school and that there is a very high level of failure in entrance examinations for high schools and universities.

There is a shortage of 96 thousand teachers

The educators prepared the 50-page report in one year, taking as a basis the data from MEB. According to the report, which will be presented at the Democratic Education Congress in December 2004, there is a shortage of 3 thousand schools, 100,000 classrooms and 106 thousand teachers in Turkey. According to MEB figures, there is a shortage of 96, 381 teachers. Only 18 thousand teachers were appointed during the semester 2004-05.

In the report, Egitim-Sen proposed that compulsory education is brought up to nine years, and students attend to middle schools where technical education is also provided, so that they can discover what their skills are.

The union said that there are 2,500 students per advisor, and added that the current advising system should be improved so that students can receive an education where they can discover themselves and are able to take up different subjects.

The educators said despite the reform, the content of schoolbooks was still discriminatory based on race, religion, origin and sexuality.

In 8, 325 schools, there are double classes, and in 17,636 schools classes are joined, according to the report.

Egitim-Sen said that teachers were still punished or sent on exile and underlined the fact that teachers' salary is 650 million Turkish lira (USD 433). The poverty limit is 1.5 billion Turkish lira (USD 1,000).

Other criticisms and proposals of the report are below:

* There are a total of 10 million and 10 thousand students in elementary schools in Turkey. There are 35,502 schools and 267,241 classrooms. A total of 646,000 students especially in the provinces of Urfa, Samsun and Erzurum, receive education in joined classrooms.

* There are an average 60 students per classroom in Istanbul, Diyarbakir and Sanliurfa. There are 2,512 students per advisor. In middle schools, there are an average 43 students per classroom.

* Research revealed that 70 percent of teachers, students and parents, believe there is no equality of opportunities in education and think the education system is undemocratic.

* One in every two families are violent against their children. Forty percent of children are beaten at school. Out of 13 million and 200 thousand children between the ages of five and 14, 1 million and 8 work in agriculture, services, industry and trade.

4. - Bianet.org - "Kurdish villagers still far from home":

1 September 2004 / by Yildiz Samer

GOC-DER and TOHAV said the title of the law on "Compensating for Losses Arising from Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism Operations," is problematic. They said the village guards may be an obstacle in the villagers’ return.

BIA (Istanbul) - Sefika Gurbuz from the Immigrants’ Social Solidarity and Culture Association (GOC-DER) rejected media reports that said the European Union would ask Turkey to ensure that all villagers go back to the houses they had to evacuate. "We know that the European Union places a lot of importance on the villagers’ return. This is not a new issue," said Gurbuz.

"The EU places a lot of importance on villagers’ return because, for the bloc, agriculture and farming is important," she added. "The EU believes that agriculture and farming will have a positive impact on regional economy.

Gurbuz said the law on "Compensating for Losses Arising from Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism Operations," was approved by the Turkish Grand National Assembly on July 17, but added a regulation was never prepared.

"The law is definite, but nobody knows how the returns will take place because there is no regulation on the issue," said Gurbuz.

Gurbuz and lawyer Sehnaz Turan, the head of the Social and Legal Research Foundation (TOHAV), are generally happy about the law, but believe that the system of village guards is preventing the return. The land mines in certain regions also have to be cleared.

According to a report by the Commission on Human Rights, more than 3,500 villages were evacuated between 1990 and 1997. A total of 350 villagers, according to formal figures, and 1 million villagers, according to the figures of the Human Rights Watch, had to leave their houses and villages.

GOC-DER says that a total of 3 million people had to leave their houses and villages, including those who had to leave due to unsolved murders and threats.

According to a research by the association conducted among 18,000 people in six provinces in 2000, 87 percent of people who had to evacuate their villages would like to go back.

Gurbuz said that, first of all, the title of the law on "Compensating for Losses Arising from Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism Operations" is problematic. She added their proposal to replace that phrase with "a Period of Clashes," and/or "a Small-Scale War" was rejected.

"The title is misunderstood. The governors’ offices previously prepared forms for returning to villages. The villagers did not fill the forms. ’Is terrorism my son, is it the son of my uncle?’ they asked," said Gurbuz.

Turan argues that the Commission on Determining Losses should not be made up of representatives of formal institutions.

"The law on compensating losses should have also taken into account the psychological damage, traumas, psychological problems and children’s problems, besides the economic losses," said Sefika Gurbuz.

"There are no health centers, no schools. Basic needs such as electricity, roads and water must be provided," she added.

5. - AFP - "Turkey's EU membership may be 10 to 15 years away":

2 September 2004

Turkey may join the European Union "perhaps only in 10 or 15 years" but its membership is a key to the fight against international terrorism, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Thursday.

"Turkey is not yet ripe for the European Union and it knows that," Fischer, whose country has been a major supporter of Ankara's bid to join the EU, told the mass-circulation Bild Zeitung.

But he said that Turkey "must definitively enter Europe, and that will be the case at the end of accession negotiations -- perhaps in only 10 or 15 years."

"In addition, Turkey must energetically continue down the path it has chosen: to consistently put in action important reform," Fischer said.

He said Ankara had made important advances in a number of domains, including abolition of the death penalty, a ban on torture and the release of political prisoners.

"We cannot do without a European Turkey to fight international terrorism," Fischer went on. "If we close the European door on this country, that will give more weight to forces that oppose democracy and western values."

"That would be dangerous for us," he said.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, will release its report on Turkey's progress on democratic reform on October 6, which will say whether it recommends or not opening accession talks with the mainly Muslim nation.

Ankara has passed numerous democracy reforms to meet the Union's political criteria and believes those steps should be enough to ensure it can begin membership talks after EU leaders officially assess the report in December.

In addition to the democratic overhaul, it has to battle doubts among European leaders on whether the EU can absorb a vast and relatively poor country of some 70 million inhabitants with a strong Islamic faith.

It must also recognise the divided island of Cyprus which, represented by its Greek Cypriot side, joined the EU on May 1.

6. - Bianet.org - "Adultery is not Crime in a State of Law":

The TCK Women's Platform criticized AKP's reported efforts to abolish an article in the TCK draft that states adultery is not a crime: "Turkey must ensure equality between men and women to be able to become an EU member."

1 September 2004

Women's Platform of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) criticized reports that said that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) wants to abolish an article in the TCK draft that states adultery is not a crime.

The platform said that the AKP government was expecting a date to start membership negotiations with the European Union (EU) at the end of this year. "If the government is sincere, it has to ensure equality between men and women, in line with the Copenhagen Criteria," said the platform.

"Our responsibilities and promises on women's policies are clear since the day Turkey became a candidate country to join the EU on December 10, 1999 in Helsinki," said the women. "What are they trying to gain by bringing up the issue of adultery only weeks ahead of the completion of the progress report on Turkey?"

"Adultery is not a crime in the penal code of any country with a rule of law. It cannot become a crime in Turkey's penal law," said the platforms. It listed the women's demands about the TCK law to be discussed in parliament on September 14:

* Virginity tests should be completely banned.

* There should be no punishment for youth aged between 15 and 18, who engage in sexual relations.

* Phrases that limit the freedom of expression should be removed from the article on "obscenity."

* The expression "sexual orientation" should be added in the article on "discrimination."

* The phrase "traditional crimes" should be changed to read "honor crimes."