12 July 2007

1. "Turkish Politicians Clamouring for Death Penalty", recent mud slinging between the ruling AKP and the nationalist MHP has widened into a national discourse on the possibility of reintroducing the death penalty. Öcalan has become part of the election campaign and people in favour of the death penalty.

2. "Electoral Campaign in Eastern Turkey", the upcoming elections can be felt all over Turkey. In Van, a Kurdish-majority province in the very east of Turkey, this is no different. In the past, the Kurdish vote has been wasted because pro-Kurdish parties couldn't pass the electoral threshold.

3. "Turkish army intervenes ever more openly in political life", the Turkish army is intervening ever more openly into political life as the country’s July 22 parliamentary election approaches.

4. "Turkish women struggle to get elected", before the July 22 legislative vote, women's groups push for more equity on male-dominated ballots.

5. "Train derails in Turkey’s east after bomb blast", in another bombing, one carriage of a train en route to Erzurum was damaged.

6. "Small bomb detonates in Istanbul", a small bomb has exploded in the car park of a local government office in Istanbul, wounding two people including a police officer.

1. - Bianet - "Politicians Clamouring for Death Penalty":

Recent mud slinging between the ruling AKP and the nationalist MHP has widened into a national discourse on the possibility of reintroducing the death penalty. Öcalan has become part of the election campaign and people in favour of the death penalty.

ISTANBUL / 11 July 2007 / by Tolga Korkut

Politicians are using the death penalty as a cheap means of scoring points against each other.

In the pursuit of votes, there are no discourses of peace, democracy or human rights. Rather, nationalism, racism and discrimination are rife. Thus the killing of people by the state, the death penalty, has become a topic of discussion again.

"Some deserve it"

According to Prof. Dr. Melek Göregenli, who has conducted research on perceptions on torture in Turkey, most people consider cases in two categories, those that deserve the death penalty, and those who do not.

This means that nearly everyone may have a list of those who deserve "the death penalty, torture, maltreatment, rape, or exploitation". A kind of list of "people who do not deserve human rights".

Death penalty competition

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Devlet Bahceli of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are publicly arguing about whose fault it is that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was not hanged after his capture in 1999.

It started with Erdogan saying, "You don't become nationalist by saying you are nationalist. They give you the head of a terrorist leader as a present. You put him in prison in Imrali [a prison island in the Marmara Sea] and let the AKP pay the bill."

Erdogan was addressing the MHP who was a coalition partner in government at the time of Öcalan's capture. The same government also abolished the death penalty in order to comply with EU criteria.

Bahceli replied at a rally in eastern Turkey: "Instead of accusing the MHP of not hanging him, if you cannot find rope, here is some rope, if you can hang the separatist leader, hang him". He shouted at a person behind him on stage, "give it here", and the man quickly took a rope out of his jacket or from around his waist, and gave it to Bahceli, who then threw it into the crowd. It was obvious that this whole spectacle was staged. A bad script, a bad performance, and bad intentions!

Erdogan's answer was not slow in coming: "If you are so skillful [with the rope], if only people had sent you rope when you were in government, and you could have finished the job".

Meanwhile, Yasar Nuri Öztürk, a popular theologian-turned-politician who recently founded the "People's Ascent party" (HYP), has said that they would widen the scope of the death penalty and bring it back.

Another candidate in the upcoming elections, Kemal Yavuz, standing as an independent candidate, but with a Great Union Party (BBP) background, was able to say in a discussion programme on TV 8 that "terrorists and traitors deserve the death penalty".

The print media has also contributed to the reintroduction of a discussion on the death penalty. Radikal newspaper editor-in-chief Ismet Berkan wrote, "The [Kurdish] problem will not be solved with the hanging of Abdullah Öcalan; if it were, I would support his hanging, although I am against the death penalty."

What about human rights?

Whoever reads about human rights knows that the most basic right is the right to life, which cannot be violated under any circumstances. The state cannot only not violate this right; it also has the duty to protect the right to life.

Furthermore, this right is universal and cannot be ignored in the case of specific persons.

In October 2005, Turkey ratified the second optional protocol of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights , which guarantees countries' commitment to the abolishment of the death penalty. In addition, it has also signed the 13th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights, which says that "the death penalty is to be abolished even during war and when there is a threat of war".

Death penalty not a deterrent

It is important here to remember that the death penalty, despite arguments to the contrary, does not act as an effective deterrent.

According to research of the Death Penalty Information Centre in the USA, there is no proof that executions lower crime rates:

* The crime rate in states with the death penalty is higher by 44 percent than in states without it.

* The number of murders in the USA is four times higher than the number of murders in Europe, which does not apply the death penalty.

Furthermore, death is a punishment that cannot be revoked. According to Amnesty International, 122 of the people executed in the USA since 1973 were later found to be innocent.

In Turkey rise in nationalism

Political parties in Turkey are not doing anything to address any of the pressing problems, such as the Kurdish issue, human rights, democracy, labour rights, poverty, social rights and social policies. As the General Staff is pushing for "parties of security", political parties are forced to compete in nationalism.

Politicians and Journalists calling for a return to the death penalty, should do the following:

* be educated in basic human rights

* read the Charter of Journalists' Rights and Responsibilities, which declares that defending human rights is a duty

2. - Bianet - "Electoral Campaign in Eastern Turkey":

The upcoming elections can be felt all over Turkey. In Van, a Kurdish-majority province in the very east of Turkey, this is no different. In the past, the Kurdish vote has been wasted because pro-Kurdish parties couldn't pass the electoral threshold.

ISTANBUL / 9 July 2007 / by Anna Grabolle Celiker

As the general elections of 22 July draw close, parliamentary candidates in Van, a province in eastern Turkey, are stepping up their campaign.

Parties largely irrelevant

The political landscape in this province is both an example of the weak party loyalty that exists in Turkey (40 percent of voters nationwide are said to vote for different parties from one election to the next) and for the continuing exploitation of tribal ties by political candidates.

Seven MPs go to Ankara

Van province has a population of about 900,000. Between 350,000 and 400,000 people will vote in the upcoming general elections. The province sends seven MPs to parliament, and the whole spectrum of parties is represented here. A total of 70 candidates from ten parties and 14 independent candidates are competing for the seats.

As in much of Turkey, most of the candidates are men. In the present parliament, there are 550 MPs, and only 24 of them are women.

2002: Two parties passed hurdle

In the 2002 elections, only the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People's Party (CHP) had managed to pass the national hurdle in Turkey. The AKP, although it only received 34.43 percent of the votes, occupied 66.36 percent of the seats in parliament (367out of 550), while the CHP, with 19.41 percent of the national vote, occupied 32.18 percent of the seats (177).

The 10 percent election hurdle has become much-discussed in the recent presidential elections, when opposition parties within and outside parliament protested against the inordinate power of the ruling AKP. This sudden protest is particularly hypocritical because the hurdle has always served to keep pro-Kurdish parties out of parliament.

This situation becomes blatantly obvious in Van. In the 2002 general elections, the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) received 6.14 percent of votes nationally, thus not passing the hurdle.

However, in Van, as in many other eastern and south-eastern provinces with Kurdish-majority populations, DEHAP received the most votes. In Van, for instance, DEHAP came first with 40.85 percent, followed by the AKP with 25.86 percent. The centre-left CHP came fourth with 5.15 percent after the centre-right True Path Party (DYP) with 6.48 percent. Because both DEHAP and the DYP did not pass the hurdle, the AKP ended up with six of the seven seats, and the CHP received the other.

HADEP first in 1995 and 1999

A similar situation was observable in the previous elections in 1999. Then, the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP) came first with 35.71 percent, followed by the religious Virtue Party (FP) with 18.87 percent, the DYP with 11.07 percent, the centre-right Motherland Party (ANAP) with 9.76 percent and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) with 8.04 percent. Again, the Kurdish-interest party did not manage to pass the national hurdle, which meant that the seats were divided between the following four parties (FP-3, DYP-2, ANAP -1, MHP-1).

In 1995, the Kurds also scored highest in Van, with 27.99 percent for HADEP, followed by 23.74 percent for the religious Welfare Party (RP). While HADEP went empty-handed, the RP was able to send three delegates to Ankara, the Turkish capital.

3. - WSWS - "Turkish army intervenes ever more openly in political life":

11 July 2007 / by Justus Leicht and Sinan Ikinci

The Turkish army is intervening ever more openly into political life as the country’s July 22 parliamentary election approaches.

The army leadership is resorting to increasingly overt measures in its campaign against the moderate Islamic AKP (Party for Justice and Development), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It is encouraging chauvinist sentiments against the Kurdish minority and has appealed to the fascist elements involved in the Grey Wolves movement, which has links to the extreme right MHP (Party of Nationalist Movement).

The military has sought to create an atmosphere of intimidation by portraying the AKP government as traitors who are capitulating to Kurdish “separatism and terrorism.” This motive is also behind the high command’s saber rattling and threats to intervene against the Kurds in northern Iraq.

If the military is unable to prevent an election victory for the AKP in the July 22 elections then a military putsch cannot be ruled out.

The struggle for power between the AKP with its large parliamentary majority and the army and its civilian supporters escalated in the course of presidential elections at the end of April.

The parliamentary opposition, which is allied to the military, had boycotted the election and then, following the selection of foreign affairs minister Abdullah Gül as president, called upon the constitutional court to rule the election invalid. In a parallel development, the army attacked the government and virtually threatened a putsch, should Gül, as the AKP candidate, be nominated. In a legally farcical judgment the constitutional court then annulled the vote and prevented the election of Gül, who had a clear field in the third and final round of voting.

Following the failure to nominate a president, Prime Minister Erdogan called parliamentary elections for July 22. According to opinion polls, the AKP is well placed to retain its majority of seats. The struggle for power over the office for president between the army and its “unarmed armed forces” (i.e., the Kemalist parties and federations, associations and trade unions which also have links to the military) and the AKP has been postponed but not resolved.

On Tuesday, the opposition accepted Erdogan’s offer to seek a compromise candidate, evidently made by Erdogan as part of an attempt to reach an accommodation with the military. Whether this will lead to a resolution of the dispute is unclear, however. No names have yet been proposed by the government, and the question of who will be nominated for President has been postponed until after the parliamentary elections.

The so-called “unarmed armed forces” embody the Kemalist establishment, which has dominated key levers of power in Turkey for decades—including control of the security, legal and administrative machinery. On the other side stands the AKP, which represents the interests of the “Anatolian bourgeoisie,” and has the support of poorer layers in the big cities and less-developed rural regions.

The Kemalists have organized a series of nationalistic mass demonstrations, involving up to hundreds of thousands of participants, using the slogan, the “defense of secularism,” to mobilize better educated middle class layers in the major cities.

In its campaign, the Kemalists have largely failed to strike a resonance in poorer city districts and in the rural areas. In these regions the AKP has lost influence amongst workers and farmers due to its implementation of free market policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund and European Union, but the Kemalist establishment is even more discredited. In response, the latter is increasingly appealing to chauvinism and anti-Kurdish sentiment to defend its interests.

Politicians of legal Kurdish parties have been prosecuted merely for speaking in a respectful fashion about the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan or, in their function as mayors, making official announcements in the Kurdish language.

Turkey’s Supreme Court recently dismissed the conviction of two NCOs who were caught in Semdinli in 2005 carrying out an assassination in which a number of people were killed. Soldiers, who in 2004 shot a 12-year-old Kurdish boy in the back as part of an “anti-terror deployment” were also acquitted. Through a last minute legal move, the AKP and the parliamentary opposition have made it more difficult for the legally recognized Kurdish party, the DTP (Democratic Society Party), to put up independent candidates. The DTP currently has no parliamentary representation, having failed to acquire the necessary ten percent threshold.

The AKP has reacted to the nationalist campaign of the military by adaptations and concessions. In an express procedure it passed a law that gives the police wide-ranging powers in the name of the “fight against terrorism.” Erdogan has also refrained from including a large number of the religious hard liners around the parliamentary president Bülent Arinc from re-standing as candidates in the election.

This has not been sufficient, however, for the “unarmed armed forces” which have renewed their offensive. Attacks and attempted assaults on soldiers and civilians, by actual or alleged supporters of the PKK, have been used to whip up a pogrom-type hysteria.

Television channels and most large newspapers have been filled with the photos for weeks: crying mothers, coffins draped with the national flag, large groups of people waving flags and crying out nationalist slogans. Officers, even including the head of the General Staff Yasar Büyükanit, have appeared at the scenes of attacks and warned of the dangers of terrorism while praising the army and expressing their sympathy or even weeping alongside mourning mothers.

The army has shifted large numbers of troops to the border with northern Iraq, has declared the areas close to the border, which are mainly occupied by Kurds, to be “security zones,” recalling times when martial law prevailed in the region. At the same time the army has invited selected journalists to take part in information tours of the region, while retired generals grumble in newspaper commentaries over the AKP government, which is allegedly ceding ground to “terrorism.” The AKP was even charged with being a “government of murder.”

Activists from the Grey Wolves have been prominent at the funerals of victims, denouncing the PKK and calling for the overthrow of the government.

An important part of this campaign is the demand for a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq. The army command has been conducting a systematic campaign against the Kurdish regional government of Masud Barzani in northern Iraq, seeking to sabotage any agreement between the Turkish government and the Iraqi Kurds.

The Turkish generals have repeatedly declared their readiness to march into northern Iraq if only the government gave the go-ahead. In fact, such an intervention is rejected in the first place by the US, which is dependent on the loyal support of Kurdish organizations for the maintenance of their occupation of the country. For its part, the Turkish army, which plays a key role on the east flank of NATO, owes a debt to the US, which has repeatedly supported its putsches and has played a major role in providing military equipment. Under these conditions, the military has qualms about snubbing its most important sponsor and taking responsibility for a Turkish-Kurdish war. This has not prevented the high command from denouncing members of the Erdogan government as traitors for failing to give the go-ahead for an invasion.

The pinnacle of the military campaign was an appeal by the general staff published in the internet calling for “collective resistance” to terrorism and all those hiding behind “peace, liberty and democracy” who in reality would support terrorism. The statement goes on to say that the unity of the Turkish national state is threatened, and the Turkish nation must respond with street protests—in fact a thinly veiled call for the overthrow of the elected government.

There was an immediate response to this call. A day later two workers in west Turkey were beaten up by a right wing mob and almost killed. Their offence was that they were wearing t-shirts featuring the deceased Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya. Such appeals by the military to fascist elements means playing with fire, which threatens to plunge the country into civil war and a regional war against Iraq.

As the representative of the “Anatolian bourgeoisie,” the AKP is neither willing nor able to oppose the offensive by the Turkish military against basic democratic rights. Erdogan has not ruled out an invasion of northern Iraq and has stressed his solidarity with the military. One had to carry out the “fight against terrorism” firstly in Turkey instead of in northern Iraq, he declared. The AKP has already made clear what this means: more power for the Turkish police. Foreign minister Abdullah Gül recently repeated that the government would be ready to call a special session of parliament in order to authorize military action against northern Iraq, if the military formally requested it, which the general staff has so far refused to do.

4. - The Christian Sience Monitor - "Turkish women struggle to get elected":

Before the July 22 legislative vote, women's groups push for more equity on male-dominated ballots.

ISTANBUL / 11 July 2007 / by Yigal Schleifer

Nursuna Memecan, a well-known Istanbul businesswoman, surprised her friends with the recent announcement that she would be running in Turkey's July 22 parliamentary elections.

Her friends were even more surprised when they found out the secular-minded Ms. Memecan would be running on the ticket of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), an Islamic-rooted party that for the last few months has been facing increasing criticism that it is working to erode Turkey's secular foundations.

But it's not surprising that the AKP would pick someone like Memecan as a candidate – and not just to deflect charges that the party is antisecular. Her presence also helps the party respond to an increasingly loud demand for women to enter politics in Turkey, which has the lowest percentage of women in parliament in all of Europe.

"This election is special because everyone has realized the importance of women," says Aysegul Tuncer Topal, an Istanbul businesswoman who is deputy chairman of the city's AKP branch. "If you look at the business world and in other fields, women have started to have a more prominent role in the last ten years and political parties have started to pay attention to that."

Several mammoth pro-secularism rallies – some drawing well over a million people – were held in cities around Turkey in April and May, and women were a vocal and highly-visible part of them.

Also, in recent months, the Association for Supporting and Training Women Candidates, a Turkish nongovernmental agency known as KA-DER, launched a popular media campaign featuring famous Turkish women with bushy mustaches drawn on their faces. "Is this what you need to get into parliament?" the campaign's slick ads and billboards asked.

Although Turkish women were given the right to vote in 1934, ahead of many other countries in Europe, critics say progress has been stalled since then. The average level of women's representation in the parliament has been 2.2 percent since 1935 and currently stands at a paltry 4.4 percent, one of the lowest rates in the world. On the local level, only 18 of Turkey's 3,234 elected mayors (0.56 percent) are women.

By comparison, 47 percent of Swedish parliamentarians are women while in Bulgaria, Turkey's neighbor to the west, women make up 22 percent of the parliament.

"Politics in Turkey is very much a man's game," says Nukhet Sirman, an anthropologist at Istanbul's Bogazici University who is active in the women's movement in Turkey. "Therefore a woman cannot be a proper actor there. She cannot play the game the way the men do."

Memecan says she believes the AKP is a natural fit for her. "They are very open-minded. They are really looking to make Turkey a more democratic state with greater respect for human rights and women's rights," she says.

In the wake of the large rallies and the campaign by KA-DER, the female candidates' group, several of Turkey's parties scrambled to promote their image as women-friendly. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister and AKP's leader, even promised a woman candidate in each one of Turkey's 81 provinces.

But women's organizations expressed disappointment when parties' candidate lists were announced in early June. Despite Prime Minister Erdogan's promise, AKP fielded only 63 women candidates, representing 11 percent of its total. And women made up only 10 percent of the candidates of the next largest party, the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP).

More troubling to many activists was where the women were placed on the lists. Parties fill their allotted seats in parliament starting at the top of their candidate lists in each voting district, and, although many parties fielded more women, most of the ones on the AKP's and CHP's lists were at the bottom, making their election to parliament highly unlikely.

"Part of the political system is terribly undemocratic, since it's the party leader who decides what the candidates' list will look like and these men will not name women as candidates, or will only name a small number of women just so they can be seen there," says Sirman.

Many Turkish women are now calling for the institution of a quota system in the parliament and other other political bodies to ensure gender parity.

Spain recently passed similar legislation and it also exists in some 100 countries around the world.

The AKP has blocked efforts in parliament to create gender parity laws and Erdogan has frequently expressed his opposition to a quota system.

"Although I would like to see a lot of women in parliament, I am against seeing someone on the list just based on their gender," says Tuncer Topsal, the AKP Istanbul deputy chairman.

"The main point is to get the best representation for the Turkish republic. To go from four percent representation to 50 percent at this point is unrealistic."

But critics say the current system leaves half of the Turkish population underrepresented and underserved and needs to be remedied.

"Currently, women's issues are not being dealt with properly in parliament," says Gila Benmayor, a columnist with Hurriyet, Turkey's largest daily newspaper.

"Once you have a quota in place, you can start dealing with women's issues."

5. - NTV/MSNBC - "Train derails in Turkey’s east after bomb blast":

In another bombing, one carriage of a train en route to Erzurum was damaged.

ERZINCAN / 11 July 2007

Rail traffic has been halted on one of Turkey’s main eastern lines Tuesday after seven wagons of a goods train left the tracks following the detonation of an explosive device.
Haberin devami

The derailment occurred close to the junction of the line to the eastern Tunceli line on the main Erzincan-Erzurum line. Though seven wagons left the tracks, there were no casualties, according to rail authorities. Repair teams are working to reopen the line to traffic.

Earlier Tuesday, one carriage of a goods train was damaged after a remote control bomb was detonated on the Erzincan-Kemah rail line.

According to Ali Gungor, the governor of the province of Erzincan, the train was en route from Istanbul to Erzurum when the blast occurred near the village of Mermerli just after 3:00 am.

6. - Press TV - "Small bomb detonates in Istanbul":

11 July 2007

A small bomb has exploded in the car park of a local government office in Istanbul, wounding two people including a police officer.

Police said the device was a percussion bomb, designed to make a loud noise but cause minimal damage.

It went off outside the local governor's office in the mainly residential district of Bahcelievler, on the European side of the city.

A police officer and a man were hospitalized, suffering from the effects of the bomb, the Anatolia news agency reported, without elaborating.

There was no immediate responsibility claim. Militant Kurdish, leftist and Islamic groups however, have carried out bombings in the city in the past. The explosion comes ahead of general elections on July 22.