FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS
the elections are over, you’ll see the old AK,’ 45 declared Abdurrahman Kurt, an AK
Party MP from Diyarbakır.
U.S. State Department Country Report on Turkey
Although the United States and Turkey have had an alliance for more than half a
century, in recent years it has been challenged by the Kurdish issue, among other
factors. 46 Thus, the U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2007
offers another highly placed evaluation of Turkey’s progress in those areas
that most concern its Kurdish problem and a valuable confirmation of the EU
Progress Report on Turkey. 47 The most recent Country Report, for example, found
that ‘serious [human rights] problems remained in several areas,’ and cited ‘a rise in
cases of torture, beating, and abuse by security forces . . . [who] committed unlawful
killings’ (p. 2). The Report also noted ‘the overly close relationship of judges and prosecutors
[which] continued to hinder the right to a fair trial’ (Ibid.). Finally, ‘the government
limited freedom of expression through the use of constitutional restrictions
and numerous laws, including articles of the penal code prohibiting insults to the
government, the state, ‘Turkishness,’ or the institution and symbols of the republic’
(Ibid.). On the other hand, a respected Turkish newspaper revealed how a recent decision
by the High Court of Appeals in effect incited ultra-Turkish nationalists to kill
pro-Kurdish DTP members and concluded: ‘In this country, you cannot say ‘Happy
Bayram’ in Kurdish. But you can say ‘cleanse the Kurdish microbes’ in Turkish.’ 48
Regarding the Kurdish issue in particular, the Country Report noted how in November
2007, the Diyarbakır prosecutor ‘investigated 14 children, ages 12 to 17 for
‘promulgating propaganda on behalf of an illegal organization [the PKK]’ after they
sang a Kurdish folk song also utilized as the anthem of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government
at the San Francisco International Music Festival, held during the last week
in October [2007]’ (p. 12). Although ‘at year’s end the prosecutor had not formally
indicted the participants,’ (Ibid.) the mere threat such an indictment represented obviously
placed a chilling effect over Kurdish cultural rights and freedom of speech in
Turkey.
45 Cited in “Turkey: The Worrying Tayyip Erdoğan,” Economist.com, http://www.economist.com/
world/europe/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=12696853, accessed December 3, 2008.
46 Michael M. Gunter, “The U.S.-Turkish Alliance in Disarray,” World Affairs 167 (Winter 2005), pp.
113-23.
47 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Turkey: Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices—2007, March 11, 2008. The following citations from this document
are referred to in the text by page numbers in parentheses.
48 Mustafa Akyol, “Insulting Kurdishness (and Even More Than That),” Turkish Daily News, October
4, 2008.
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