Multilingualism as a Separatist Crime

Legal Proceedings against Politicians in Diyarbakir

Multilingualism as a Separatist Crime

Public prosecutors in Turkey are bringing an increasing number of politically motivated court cases against Kurdish local politicians in south-east Anatolia who are standing up for the recognition of the cultural and social rights of the Kurds. The charge is always the same, namely the dissemination of separatist propaganda. Ömer Erzeren has the details

There is currently a shortage of organ donations in Turkey. Numerous organisations and the Ministry of Health are running campaigns to counteract this situation. The major of the municipality of Sur in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, Abdullah Demirbaş, wanted to do his bit for the campaign and instructed the city administration to print posters in Turkish and Kurdish encouraging organ donations.

However, instead of sending words of gratitude or recognition, the government sent investigators from the Ministry of the Interior. They came because they considered the printing of posters in Kurdish by the city administration to be an illegal activity.

Denying Turkey's multilingual diversity

These investigations were followed by even more investigations because Demirbaş also used the language spoken by the citizens who elected him for other services offered by the city administration. A study commissioned by the municipality concluded that 72 per cent of the population speaks Kurdish and 24 per cent Turkish. It was also discovered that the mother tongues of the remaining population are Armenian, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic.

The mayor defended the multilingual services provided by the municipality in a speech to the European Social Forum. This address was also held against him. Eventually the Ministry of the Interior initiated proceedings to remove him from office. He was then charged by the Supreme Court of Administration and removed from office, as were the members of the council that approved Demirbaş' decisions.

The judges ruled that the multilingual services offered by the city administration were unconstitutional. Demirbaş now plans to bring the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

"We just want to offer our citizens a better service by addressing them in their language," said Demirbaş, whose official car has been confiscated by the police, "after all, announcements on Turkish Airlines flights are made in Turkish and in English!"

Demirbaş is not only fighting to reverse his deposition, he is also fighting criminal proceedings that have been brought against him for allegedly disseminating "propaganda for a terrorist organization". On the first day of the hearing, he defended himself with the words: "Standing up for a Turkey with multiple identities, cultures, and languages is not separatism!"

Not an isolated case

Demirbaş has not, however, been singled out for this treatment; many other local politicians who are members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) have also had similar experiences.

There are currently a dozen proceedings pending against the Lord Mayor of Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir. In one such proceeding he is charged with having made available a municipal ambulance for the funeral of a deceased combatant of the illegal Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Baydemir received 58 per cent of the vote in the last municipal election. Ever since DTP members have been elected mayors in a number of Kurdish cities, local politicians have been put under pressure.

Many of the reform laws that have been passed in recent years have not been implemented in Kurdish regions and a war of attrition is being fought against anyone who tries to exercise these new rights.

Denouncing the DTP as the "fifth column" of the PKK

The general consensus would seem to be that the DTP is the "fifth column" of the PKK. It is completely excluded from the political decision-making process at national level.

The reason for this is that in order to enter parliament, a party must receive at least 10 per cent of the vote. The DTP received over 6 per cent of the vote in the last parliamentary election.

However, despite the marginalization of the DTP mayors and despite the court cases and the intimidation, the region's governors, who represent the central government in Ankara, have reached a kind of understanding and cooperation with the mayors.

The mayors have been in office for years and know and understand the concerns and needs of the citizens. They often act as mediators. When young PKK supporters flexed their muscles in Diyarbakir in March of last year, the governor and the security forces called on the mayor to intervene in order to avoid an escalation of the situation.

Despite the fact that the PKK undoubtedly has a strong influence on the party, the DTP certainly does not take orders from the PKK guerrillas. DTP politicians who are critical of the PKK have gained people's trust as local politicians.

Just how much support there is for the DTP in the Kurdish regions became evident last week at the funeral of Orhan Dogan, a former member of the national parliament, in the city of Cizre. Over 100,000 people came to the city to pay their last respects.

Together with Leyla Zana and other Kurdish MPs, Dogan's immunity was lifted. In 1994 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for engaging in "separatist activities". He spent over ten years behind bars. Following his release, Dogan, who has always distanced himself from the PKK, has been active in the DTP.

Because of the 10-per cent hurdle, the DTP has decided not to run as a party in the parliamentary election that is due to be held in Turkey on 22 July. Instead, 42 of its members will run as "independents" in the various constituencies.

The reason being that independent candidates are not subject to the ten-percent hurdle. The DTP estimates that at least 20 independents will enter the next parliament. They could then re-join the party and form a parliamentary party.

Raids in Kurdistan

Turkish anti-PKK op nets dozens

Turkish police have detained more than 30 people, including several mayors of Kurdish-majority towns, in an operation against alleged Kurdish separatists.

The raids, conducted in 11 provinces, targeted two outlawed organisations - the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Democratic Society Party (DTP).

The DTP was banned by Turkey's highest court two weeks ago. It was accused of links with PKK militants.

The PKK has been fighting for 25 years to create a separate Kurdish homeland.

The ban on the DTP sparked protests across south-east Turkey and was opposed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had initiated a programme to improve Kurdish rights.

The DTP was the only Kurdish party represented in parliament. It was the latest of 10 pro-Kurdish parties to be closed down by the Turkish authorities.

The EU, which Turkey hopes to join, has expressed concern at the ruling.

Some 40,000 people have died since the PKK launched its armed campaign in the mainly Kurdish south-east. It is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU and the US.

Kurds make up about 20% of Turkey's population of more than 70 million.

The BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul says prosecutors are closing down the already limited opportunities for dialogue between the state and its largest minority.

Thursday's operation was the fifth this year. Fifty-two Kurdish activists are still being held after similar raids eight months ago - and all have been charged with membership of the PKK.

The dissolution of the DTP left the government without a negotiating partner for its peace plan, our correspondent says.

The party's MPs have now decided to retain their seats in parliament - but most of them have similar charges hanging over them. Only parliamentary immunity has protected them from arrest, Jonathan Head reports.

Kurdistan in Europe

New roadblocks spring up to obstruct peace with Turkey’s Kurds

SOON after Turgut Ozal, a former Turkish president, spoke in 1993 of an amnesty for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), 33 Turkish soldiers were killed by PKK rebels in an ambush. His hopes for lasting peace went up in smoke. There was a sense of déjà vu on December 10th when the PKK claimed responsibility for the deaths of seven soldiers in Tokat, a Turkish nationalist stronghold in the north-east. The attack came soon after bold reforms by the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party to improve the lot of the country’s 14m-odd Kurds and perhaps end the PKK’s 25-year insurgency.

Kurdish and Turkish nationalists alike promptly declared the government’s so-called Kurdish overture dead. Clashes between Turks and Kurds intensified when the constitutional court voted unanimously on December 11th to ban the biggest Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), on the grounds that it had become “a focal point for terrorism”. Two DTP parliamentarians, including its co-chairman Ahmet Turk, were stripped of their seats and 37 party officials were banned. Some 19 other DTP deputies said they were pulling out of parliament with the aim of regrouping under a new label.

On December 15th two Kurds died in Bulanik, in the south-east, after a shopkeeper fired on protesters. Fears of ethnic conflict are growing. Might this be part of a plot hatched by rogue members of the security forces (and the PKK) to weaken the AK government? This is being claimed as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, ponders his next move.

Mr Erdogan’s overtures—easing restrictions on the Kurdish language, restoring Kurdish names to Kurdish villages, and reintegrating PKK fighters untainted by violence—have spooked the terrorists, who thrive on state repression. Nobody more so than Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, who ignited the protests in early December when he claimed he had been moved to a smaller cell. “I can hardly breathe,” he said, though it emerged that his quarters had barely shrunk. More reforms mean less support for the PKK. It seems that Mr Ocalan does not like being sidelined—and he still commands the allegiance of millions of Kurds.

Now he has decided to take a bloody gamble by unleashing the PKK once again. He may want to blackmail the government into direct, public negotiations. He also wants to be moved from solitary confinement into house arrest. Neither demand is likely to get very far. As ever, ordinary Kurds will pay the price as support for the AK’s Kurdish reforms fizzles out. Banning the DTP has reinforced the belief of many Kurds that they can get change only through bullets, not the ballot box. By walking out of parliament, the DTP has cemented this belief. Murat Karayilan, a PKK commander in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, has exhorted the Kurds to “flow to the mountains.” He says recruitment is up.

What should Mr Erdogan do? Pressing ahead could mean losing votes to nationalists. AK has already frozen its plans to ease penalties for Kurdish youths accused of “terror crimes” (usually chanting PKK slogans or hurling stones at the police). Yet Mr Erdogan could call Mr Ocalan’s bluff and pursue Kurdish reforms with greater vigour. The AK might lose a few votes, but Turkey could still win the peace.

Say the "K" word please!

A Turkish university will for the first time teach the Kurdish language, which was banned throughout the country until 1991, Turkish officials say.

Postgraduate studies in Kurdish will begin at Artuklu University, in the southeastern province of Mardin (Kurdistan, FYI).

The language will be offered alongside Farsi, Arabic and Syriac, at a new "Living Languages in Turkey" institute.

Expanding Kurdish language rights is part of a government drive to end years of conflict with armed Kurdish rebels.

In January, Turkey's public broadcaster launched a 24-hour Kurdish-language television channel.

As many as one in five people in Turkey are ethnically Kurdish, most of them living in the country's south-east (BBC means Kurdistan but they don´t mention it in order not to upset Turkey).

The head of Turkey's higher education board, Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, announced the new language course on Thursday, saying the goal would be to train academics to teach the minority languages.

The EU has urged Turkey to do more to improve Kurdish cultural rights, among a package of reforms demanded by the EU as conditions for joining the 27-nation bloc.

Turkey's EU accession talks opened in October 2005, but progress has been slow.

(from the BBC website)

Kurdistan: TV & Villages Names

Turkish promises to improve the treatment of Kurds ring hollow

AFP

INSIDE a concrete shack in the predominantly Kurdish slum of Daglioglu, in south-east Turkey (The Economist means Kurdistan but they don´t want to upset Turkey mentioning the "K" word! - a shame), 17-year-old “Mehmet” (he cannot give his real name) rolls up his trousers and points to a deep scar. “They beat me, kicked me repeatedly, called me a ‘dirty Kurd’, forced me to do push-ups and demanded I become an informant.” In another neighbourhood a 16-year-old girl suffered worse horrors. “Confess or I’ll fuck you and your mother,” she was told as she was driven to police headquarters. She and other female detainees were, she says, clubbed and dragged by the hair. In jail they were stripped naked and forced to kneel as wardens “searched our crevices”.

Both teenagers are among hundreds of Kurdish minors who face prosecution around the country for allegedly taking part in illegal street protests in support of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In Adana alone, some 155 children are facing trial, 67 have been convicted and five have begun to serve their sentences, says Ethem Acikalin, head of the local branch of Turkey’s Human Rights Association. All were charged under article 220/6 of the penal code, which criminalises “acting on behalf of a terrorist organisation”. The cases are tried in adult courts. Most of the crimes consist of no more than chanting pro-PKK slogans and throwing stones at police. But some have also been charged with damaging public property, resisting arrest, spreading terrorist propaganda or endangering public security.

Mr Acikalin reckons that, even after benefiting from reductions because of his age, “Mehmet” will spend at least four years in jail. “When it comes to children, the courts have frequently chosen to place them in pre-trial prison detention for many months,” comments Emma Sinclair-Webb, of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based watchdog. “This flies in the face of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Turkey is a party.”

It also flies in the face of recent efforts by the ruling Justice and Development Party to improve the lot of Turkey’s 14m Kurds. After launching the country’s first state-run (and predictably tame) Kurdish-language television station in January, the government hinted that it might let thousands of Turkified villages revert to their original Kurdish names. The army chief, General Ilker Basbug, recently conceded that, even though 40,000 rebels had been killed since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984, “social and economic measures” were required. Murat Karayilan, the PKK’s commander in northern Iraq, says the PKK no longer demands independence and is happy to let third parties negotiate a deal on its behalf. All of this prompted Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, to declare recently that there was now “an historic opportunity” to fix the Kurdish problem.

Perhaps so. In Adana Mr Acikalin is “still in shock” after an unprecedented meeting with security bigwigs. “They listened with patience, offered us tea and promised to stop the abuse,” he says. Yet Mr Acikalin, who is himself facing eight separate charges under article 220/6 for a series of public statements that he has made, insists he will not be swayed unless and until the law is changed.

His scepticism is shared by Ali Kulter, who ekes out $12 a day as a farmworker in Tuzluca, just south of Adana. Home is a reed shack without running water, the toilet is a hole dug in the ground that serves Mr Kulter and scores of Kurdish families. They migrated here in the early 1990s after being forced out of their villages in the south-eastern province of Sirnak for refusing to join a state-run Kurdish militia to fight the PKK. “Our village was an Eden, this is hell,” Mr Kulter sighs. “If there were peace I wouldn’t spend another second here.” But, as the 55-year-old explains, “my stomach is full with unfulfilled promises [by the state].”

Some of his scorn ought to be directed at the PKK. Despite Mr Karayilan’s doveish talk, his men continue to blow up Turkish soldiers. The Danish-based, PKK-leaning channel, ROJ TV, “certainly plays a part in inciting teenagers,” says Guven Boga, who represents Egitim Sen, a leftist teachers’ union. One big worry, he adds, is ethnic tensions between Kurdish and non-Kurdish students that flare up with each PKK attack. The other is the lack of opportunity for many Kurdish youths. “They are angry and have no hope for the future,” Mr Boga says. Their experience in jail only hardens them. And this makes them perfect recruits for the PKK.