Bulletin de liaison etd'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
KurdishMedia.com By Jeff Klein 23 February 2002
Iranian Kurds are in great danger!
At the moment, much of the world's attention is focused on American campaign against terrorism an~ the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. As the United States sets its sights on Saddam Hussein, the international Kurdish community
nervously watches with the situation in the de facto Kurdish state in northern Iraq. In all of this commotion, many
seem to be overlooking the dire situation of the Kurdish movement in the Iran.
Many activists from Eastern (Iranian) Kurdistan are in great danger. A large number of eastern' Kurdish opposition
members and peOmerge have been granted refugee status by the UNCHR, but nonetheles's, Turkey and European
nations have generally not accepted them within their borders. Earlier this year, Turkey returned Kurdish activist
Karim Tuojali to Iran, where he was executed on January 24, 2002.
While eastern Kurdish activists outside of Iran face an uncertain future, the condition of those inside the Islamic
Republic is even graver. Thousands are languishing in Iranian jails. Earlier today, the Democratic Party of Iranian
Kurdistan (PDKI) issued a press release stating that Iran is planning to execute 15 political prisoners, a large number
of them Kurds. The world community, Kurds, and non-Kurds alike, all concerned with human rights and
democracy, must not turn a blind eye to the crimes being'perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran against its
indigenous Kurdish minority. All ough~ to contaCt their politicalleaders worldwide to inform that these crimes
cannot be ignored. As the international communityintensifies its pro-democracy and pro-human rights rhetoric,
effort must be made to focus the world's attention on the oppressive regime in Iran.
(Economist)
*****
,-Her Excellency's unprivate e-mail
February 21, 2002 A hacker has endangered Turkey's relations with the EU. Deliberately?
JUST who hacked into the e-mail of the European Union's ambassador? No oneknows-or at least no one is sayingbut,
the affair has escalated into a full-scale diplomatic row between the EU and Turkey, and open war between
those in Turkey's elite who want their country to be part of Europe and those who firmly do not.
The e-mail at issue was correspondence between Karen Fogg, the ambassador, and her bosses in Brussels, as well
as an array of Turkish bureaucrats, union leaders, academics and journalists. It was leaked to a maverick weekly,
Aydinlik, which has already published parts and says it has 300 juicy pages more.
Thanks to whom? A "state institution", says the editor. Not us, insist the usually taciturn armed forces and the
national intelligence agency hotly. People in Brussels have been getting heated too. On February 20th, the president
of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, rang Turkey's prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, demanding immediate
action to stop publication of a third week's extracts of Mrs Fogg's billets-doux. The government says it "cannot"
interfere with Turkey's "independent judiciary". A prosecutor in Istanbul is investigating the hack-in.
The scandal has erupted just as Turkey's relations with the EU were turning distinctly rosier, thanks to its support
for the resumption last month of peace talks between the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots. It also coincides with a
debate within Turkey's awkward three-way coalition, ranging from ultra-nationalists to leftists, over scrapping the
death penalty and granting the country's Kurds broader cultural rights-changes which the EU says Turkey must
make if it is to ever join the club.
» i
Mesut Yilmaz, the deputy prime minister, who belongs to the coalition's conservative Motherland wing and is in
charge of relations with the EU, declared that the hackers were "anti-EU elements" and, if the state was involved
in any way, it had committed "a grave crime". Aydinlik claims that the e-mails prove beyond doubt that Mrs Fogg
had organised "a secret network" whose "strategic goal" was to promote Kurdish separatism, unravel the secularism
bequeathed by Kemal Ataturk and generally "destroy Ttlrkey".
Whatever her aims or deeds, the beleaguered ambassador's language has raised nationalist hackles across the political
spectrum. Such idioms as "let sleeping dogs lie", translated literally into Turkish, have provoked rage among
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