FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

More documents

Recommendations

Info

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS It is not very meaningful to talk about the human rights situation in a country where there is no guarantee of the right to life. Kurds still face problems when expressing themselves in the mother tongue. While these atrocities are going on, the government has launched a public television channel that broadcasts in the Kurdish language. This is just before the local elections, and can be assumed to be a tactic to get the votes of the Kurds as well as improving the government’s position with regards to the EU. Yet one should not be blind to the possibility of the TV channel being used as a propaganda tool espousing the official ideology of the government. And there are still obstacles and difficulties for private television channels wanting to broadcast in Kurdish. Prisoners still are not allowed to talk to their families in Kurdish. The mayors who wrote New Year cards in Kurdish face trials. According to the law governing political parties, the parties are still are not permitted to use any other languages apart from Turkish. In the TBMM (The Grand National Assembly of Turkey) sections of some speeches of DTP members that were in Kurdish are recorded as being spoken in ‘an unknown language’. The legal obstacles for education in Kurdish as a mother tongue still exist. The root of the problem is that Kurdish and the existence of the Kurds are denied. If the government launched the Kurdish channel after the elections, Kurds would perhaps welcome it as a more sincere step. In addition to this, there are more important steps to be taken than opening a channel, for example Turkey is still not a signatory of the European Regional and Minority Languages Agreement. Kurds rightfully become suspicious of the goodwill of the government in the wake of the increase of human and civil rights violations in 2008. Kurds are experienced in the ways of the government policies and it seems that the Kurds are not convinced and will not be drawn in by the manipulations of the government. Always being at the heart of any debate on the Kurdish issue, my client Mr Abdullah Öcalan’s imprisonment conditions seem to run parallel with the general negative overview of Turkey’s progress. As human rights violations increased in 2008, the kind of treatment that my client received also became increasingly brutal. Mr Öcalan has been the sole inmate in a prison that is kept totally isolated from the outside world for nearly ten years. In November 2008 he received isolation cell punishments ten times and Mr Öcalan now faces new cell punishments. These cell punishments as well as the isolation that my client faces are an unbearable torture for him. Öcalan receives these punishments as a result of expressing his opinions on the solution of the Kurdish problem during the limited meetings with his lawyers. These punishments give the message to my client that ‘You cannot think and express what you think.’ In October 2008, our client was subject to a physical attack and received a death threat from the prison authorities. Öcalan is watched for 24 hours by the cameras, his cell has been raided, he is sworn at, insulted, and furthermore threatened with being killed. Such incidents, as my client believes, are the responsibility of the government. Once the treatment of Öcalan was made public, Kurds took to the streets to protest. This resulted in violent intervention by the police with hundreds of people taken into custody and many people sent to prison. The reaction of the public indicates once 86
FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS again their sensitivity to the Öcalan issue. The question that needs to be asked is how can those who lead Turkey act in such a way when the Kurds are so sensitive on this issue and can they not comprehend that such treatments do not serve to solve the issue? As I indicated at last years’ conference, Mr Öcalan stresses in his defence that the violence on both sides must end; according to Öcalan it is clear that the problem cannot be solved by violence. What needs to be done is to pave the way for an honourable and just solution. Our client has never been hesitant to play his role for such an initiative. On 1 September 2006 on the International Peace Day, intellectuals, various political parties and NGOs called on the PKK to declare a ceasefire. My client also supported such calls and as a result of these calls, the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire. Yet due to operations by the army, the conflict started again and the ceasefire was broken. Unfortunately still to this day the violence continues costing the lives of both soldiers and guerrillas. As I have indicated at the beginning of my speech, violence is detrimental to society in Turkey and to the daily lives of its citizens. For Turkey to be a state of democratic values, it is necessary for her to take the initiative to end the violence. Turkey also needs to be willing to face her past. However not in the way that we are seeing in the Ergenekon case, where recent developments in the trials show that the case will proceed within the accepted framework of both the army and the government. The Ergenekon case could easily identify the ‘unidentified’ murders in the past as well as the deep state organisations. The best way to proceed, as my client has also suggested on many occasions, is by setting up a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ as had been done in South Africa and some American countries; for people from across the spectrum to discuss different past experiences. It is never too late; however, the state would need to decide to make peace with its Kurds. 2.2 Role of Civil Society in Promoting Democratic Change Emilio Molinari I’m not an expert on international affairs but I’m a good friend of the Kurdish people. I’m interested in this issue of basic human importance, which is access to water. So this may be a somewhat partial approach looking at the role of the civil sector to this process. The Kurdish issues lies at the heart of the Turkish process of accession into the EU. I shall take as my starting point what has been said by a representative of the Kurdish community in Italy. He recently wrote in a newspaper ‘We Kurds are being bombed and forgotten by everyone.’ When we leave this room I think that is the expression that we have to acknowledge as a dramatic reality. The Kurds have been forgotten by everyone. 87
Page 1:
FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON T
Page 6 and 7:
Acknowledgments The EUTCC would lik
Page 8 and 9:
Page 10 and 11:
Page 12 and 13:
Page 14 and 15:
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Page 20 and 21:
Page 22 and 23:
Page 24 and 25:
Page 26 and 27:
Page 28 and 29:
Page 30 and 31:
Page 32 and 33:
Page 34 and 35:
Page 36 and 37: FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON T
Page 136 and 137:
Page 138 and 139:
Page 140 and 141:
Page 142 and 143:
Page 144 and 145:
Page 146 and 147:
Page 148 and 149:
Page 150 and 151:
Page 152 and 153:
Page 154 and 155:
Page 156 and 157:
Page 158 and 159:
Page 160 and 161:
Page 162 and 163:
Page 164 and 165:
Page 166 and 167:
Page 168 and 169:
Page 170 and 171:
Page 172 and 173:
Page 174 and 175:
Page 176 and 177:
Page 178 and 179:
Page 180 and 181:
Page 182 and 183:
Page 184 and 185:
Page 186 and 187:
Page 188 and 189:
Page 190 and 191:
Page 192 and 193:
Page 194 and 195:
Page 196 and 197:
Page 198 and 199:
Page 200 and 201:
Page 202 and 203:
Page 204:
show all

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?