KURDISH NEWS: 21st – 22nd April 2010
1. Turkish police officers arrested for death by torture
2. Inquiries into possible Turkish police negligence in Dink case
3. Turkish soldier killed in mine blast in Hakkari
4. Armenia coalition halts ratification of Turkey deal
5. Video records of top court assassination were erased
6. Rights watchdog slams Turkish police abuses
7. A morning with Erdoğan (on Kurds and more)
8. European rights court fines Turkey for police killings
9. Turkish jurists: stone-throwing children victims of laws, not judges
10. Five Amendments Passed - Children's Rights Dismissed
11. "Peace Groups" on Trial for "Organizational Propaganda"
12. Constitutional Reform Package Part 2
13. BDP boycott on reform vote leads to controversy
14. PKK claims it killed 2 police officers
15. 25 children, who were going to Ankara were arrested
16. Turkey in transition seeks closure on troubled past
17. KCK: Kurdish soldiers should desert from Turkish Armed Forces
1. Turkish police officers arrested for death by torture
A police chief and two officers in Istanbul Police Department have been arrested for allegedly torturing suspect Murat Konuş to death, private news site CNNTürk reported late Tuesday.
Konuş was detained in an operation against an extortion gang. After interrogation, the prosecutor's office transferred six suspected police officers, including the chief officer, to court with demands for their arrest. The local court decided to arrest police officers Ramazan Adıgüzel and Abdulcelil Karadağ, as well as chief officer Oktay Kapsız for "causing death by torture." The convicts were later sent to prison.
Police officers Yalçın Beşikçi, Osman Ölker and Gürbüz Kurnaz, the three other officers, were released pending prosecution.
The chief officer and the police reportedly denied the charges.
Recently, a police officer at Beyoğlu Police Station was accused of killing Festus Okey, a Nigerian migrant who was in custody.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
ISTANBUL – Daily news with wires
2. Inquiries into possible Turkish police negligence in Dink case
Inspectors searching for signs of police negligence in the murder of prominent journalist Hrant Dink reportedly ignored important statements by Turkey's former police intelligence chief.
According to Wednesday's edition of the daily Milliyet, former Intelligence Unit Chief Sabri Uzun's statement implicated several police officers in the mishandling of an intelligence report.
On Oct. 23, 2009, inspectors Mustafa Üçkuyu and Mehmet Canoğlu asked Uzun through a written statement whether there had been any negligence in an intelligence report about Dink that they had obtained.
The intelligence report, dated Feb. 17, 2006, said "an action that would create repercussions would be taken against Dink."
On Nov. 4, 2009, Uzun said in a written statement that there had been no negligence in the mentioned report. However, after a short while, Uzun obtained the full version of the mentioned report after realizing that some information had been hidden from him.
Uzun called the inspectors back and said he wanted to provide additional information. In his additional response to inspectors, Uzun said Ali Fuat Yılmazer, a police chief at a lower-ranking intelligence unit, had hid the report from him. The date of Uzun's additional response was Dec. 4, 2009.
Inspectors did not include Uzun's additional response in their reports, however. Instead, they wrote Nov. 19 as the date of their inspection report, suggesting that Uzun's additional response had arrived later.
Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, was murdered on Jan. 19, 2007, in front of the building of the multi-lingual weekly Agos in Istanbul's central Şişli district, while a juvenile murder suspect, Ogün Samast, was detained afterwards.
Samast was from the Black Sea province of Trabzon, in which the murder was alleged to have been organized.
Later, Erhan Tuncel was also detained as a suspected accomplice to the murder – after which it was revealed that he was also a police informant.
Police allegedly neglected to protect Dink despite intelligence reports indicating he was a target.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
NEDİM ŞENER & GÖKÇER TAHİNCİOĞLU
ISTANBUL – Milliyet
3. Turkish soldier killed in mine blast in Hakkari
A mine blast in the eastern province of Hakkari killed one soldier and injured another Wednesday, news agencies reported.
Soldiers on an operation in the Tekeli region against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, detonated a mine after stepping on it, according to Doğan news agency, which said the mine belonged to the organization.
The injured soldier was hospitalized for treatment.
Pvt. Ahmet İnce, from the southern province of Mersin, died in the blast, which happened in the morning, according to Hakkari Gov. Muammer Türker.
Last week a civilian minibus belonging to the military came under fire, resulting in injuries to three soldiers in the southeastern province of Şırnak.
Capt. Levent Çetinkaya, who was among those injured, died Sunday while receiving treatment in hospital.
The conflict between the PKK and the military has been ongoing since the 1980s, resulting in at least 30,000 deaths. The outlawed organization is recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
ISTANBUL — Daily News with wires
4. Armenia coalition halts ratification of Turkey deal
The three parties that form a majority in Armenia's parliament are halting ratification of a landmark accord on normalizing relations with Turkey, they said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement said "the Turkish side is refusing to ratify the protocols without preconditions and in a reasonable timeframe," Agence France-Presse reported.
"We believe it is necessary to halt this process and remove discussions of this question from the agenda ... of the National Assembly until the Turkish side is prepared to continue the process without preconditions," it said.
Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark deal in October to establish diplomatic relations and reopen their border after decades of hostility.
But parliamentary ratification of the deal has stalled in both countries over the contentious issue of World War I-era killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which Yerevan insists constituted genocide. Turkey fiercely rejects the label, saying many died on both sides during civil strife.
Another sticking point is Turkey's support for Armenia's foe Azerbaijan in their dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"Armenia's political majority considers unacceptable the Turkish side's position and, particularly, the latest statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who makes the ratification of the protocols conditional on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process," the statement also said.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
ISTANBUL — Daily News with wires
5. Video records of top court assassination were erased
The 144th hearing of the trial for the first Ergenekon indictment, which was merged with the Council of State assassination case, on Wednesday revealed that security camera recordings were erased after the assassination.
Alparslan Arslan was caught red handed on the scene and confessed to the crime of having shot and murdered Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin on May 17, 2006. Officials said the security cameras malfunctioned during the assassination, but a report of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, or TÜBİTAK, has revealed this to be untrue.
The report sent to the court said the hard drives of the cameras did not malfunction, but some of the records from the evening hours were erased. Some of the files' names were also changed before erasing, according to the report. TÜBİTAK has managed to salvage some of the files.
Judge Hüsnü Çalmuk played a DVD during Wednesday's court hearing, saying it included scenes from the final hearing of the assault on the Council of State case at the Ankara Court of Serious Crimes before it was merged with the Ergenekon case. The DVD is alleged to have been recorded by Mahir Akkar, a suspect in the second Ergenekon indictment.
Meanwhile, one of the defendants in the case, Tekin Irşi, who was accused of throwing hand grenades at daily Cumhuriyet's building, said police followed him from the day the first hand grenade was thrown at the building on May 5, 2006. During the time when police were following him, the attack on the court judges occurred, and he was detained afterward.
The Ergenekon case began with the discovery of 27 hand grenades June 12, 2007, in a shanty house belonging to a retired noncommissioned officer. The finding led to scores of arrests, putting nearly 200 journalists, writers, military personnel, gang leaders, scholars, businessmen and politicians in detention in what has become a terror investigation to stop an alleged ultranationalist gang known as Ergenekon. In later stages of the investigation, those in custody have been accused of planning to topple the government by staging a coup in 2009, initially by spreading chaos.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Istanbul - Daily News with Wires
6. Rights watchdog slams Turkish police abuses
Human Rights Watch on Wednesday accused Turkey's security forces of excessive violence and making routine use of lethal force, urging Ankara to take tougher action against abuses.
The global watchdog warned in a statement that violent police conduct in a string of recent cases "should serve as a wake-up call for the government about the urgent need to do more to combat these abusive practices."
Highlighting three incidents since March, HRW said security forces shot and seriously wounded a reportedly unarmed man in western Turkey, beat a child in the Southeast and shot and killed a child near the Iranian border in an operation against traffickers.
The fact that policemen involved in two of the incidents were suspended from duty "is an important first step," HRW's Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb said.
"The key test is whether the investigation will result in those responsible being held to account," she said.
The government should "make clear that lethal force should be an absolute last resort to protect life, and not a routine means to catch a suspect," she said.
Turkey has come under mounting criticism in recent years over heavy-handed action by its security forces, after a notable decrease in complaints in the early 2000s.
Turkey began European Union membership talks in 2005 after a series of reforms that bettered its human rights record, including a marked decline in cases of abuse and torture by law enforcement officers.
But rights campaigners have decried a renewed rise in such cases since legal amendments in 2007, which, they say, gave police broad discretion to use force and encouraged arbitrary stops and searches.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
ANKARA — Agence France-Presse
7. A morning with Erdoğan (on Kurds and more)
Last Saturday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had a six-hour-long meeting with about four dozen Turkish writers. The topic was what the government calls "the democratic initiative," or "a project for national unity." (A less politically correct definition would be "the effort to win the hearts and minds of Kurds, and to disarm the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.") And Erdoğan's goal, as it turned out, was to listen to different views rather than air his own.
Most writers who were invited to the "working breakfast," which extended until late afternoon, were novelists or poets. Others, including me, were political commentators who have written on the Kurdish issue. And not all of these people were fans of Erdoğan. Ayşe Kulin, a famed novelist and a staunch secularist, noted this frankly. "I did not vote for you, will not do so in the future, and you probably know that," she said to the prime minister. "That's why I appreciate the fact you invited me here to hear what I think."
The gap between both sides
Here is how things went. We all gathered in the prime minister's office in Dolmabahçe, Istanbul. Unlike most official buildings in Turkey, the place was neither ugly nor lavish. Erdoğan arrived soon to personally welcome all guests, and then to make an introductory speech emphasizing the cultural diversity of Turkey. Then the floor was given to the guests, which included Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Jews, liberals, Islamists, conservatives, Marxists and more. For more than three hours in total, all these intellectuals shared their opinions, critiques and concerns.
Roni Margulies, a Trotskyite Jew, pointed to the still-intact limits on free speech and reminded everyone he was on trial for referring to Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, as "Sayın." (A prefix in Turkish which denotes respect.) Fatma Barbarasoğlu, a conservative Muslim lady who wears a headscarf, complained about the discrimination that some Kurdish high school students seem to have faced in the recent university exams.
I, for my part, noted that the government will not be too successful in its "democratic initiative," unless it explains to society why it is necessary. "The steps you take often look like too little for the Kurds, and too much for the Turkish majority," I said. "This huge perception gap in society makes it very hard to proceed. You need more effective public diplomacy to help the Turkish and Kurdish sides understand each other's story."
Erdoğan listened to all these remarks carefully and took notes. Then, during the last part of the meeting, he commented back, by referring to each and every speaker, either acknowledging their contributions, or promising to follow the points they raised.
All in all, I found him as a good listener, which is I think a must for being a good politician. If I am not wrong, no other Turkish prime minister has ever organized such a meeting before to listen to public intellectuals for hours. No other Turkish prime minister, with the exception of the late Turgut Özal, my all-time favorite, has also shown the courage to solve the Kurdish question by deviating from the 80-year-long official rhetoric (i.e., we-are-all-Turks-and-those-who-differ-are-traitors).
That's one reason that I still have faith in Erdoğan's potential to make Turkey a better place. My criticism toward his excesses (such as his intolerance toward critical media, his bursts of anger, and his patrimonial style of politics) remains. But he is still the only leader around who can "sell" some crucial liberal reforms, such as the ones we need on the Kurdish issue, to Turkey's conservative masses. Other leaders on the scene (such as Deniz Baykal or Devlet Bahçeli) promise nothing but more of Ankara's rotten status quo.
State or society
A heated discussion that emerged in the intellectual's meeting with Erdoğan was, interestingly, right on this gap between the old and new ways of political thinking. Alev Alatlı, a bestselling novelist, spoke in a way which fell at odds with the liberal attitude that dominated the scene, and expressed her faith in the state with an interesting question:
"By whom would you like to be tried? By a commission of republican judges, or a jury of randomly elected citizens? I would opt for the former."
I, on the other hand, agreed with the answer that Etyen Mahçupyan, the editor of the Armenian daily Agos after the killing of Hrant Dink, gave:
"I certainly would prefer the jury of randomly elected citizens. For I trust the conscience of society more then that of the state."
This is not because Turkish society is a beacon of wisdom and righteousness. (No society is that way.) It is rather because the traditional Turkish state elite is worse, for they venerate nothing but the state, and put the official ideology above the rights of the citizens.
And, honestly, Erdoğan's party is still the only considerable political force that offers a way out.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
MUSTAFA AKYOL
8. European rights court fines Turkey for police killings
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ordered Turkey to pay 100,000 euros ($134,700) in damages to relatives of two men killed by police during an anti-terrorist operation.
The two plaintiffs, the wife and sister respectively of the victims, Murat Bektaş, 32, and Erdinç Arslan, 22, claimed six officers used unnecessary force and unlawfully killed the men in 1999 during a raid on their building.
In another case, 16 plaintiffs alleged that police beat and shot dead their relative, Yılmaz Özcan, 42, when officers went to his home on Sept. 24, 2000, to arrest him for unlawfully cutting down trees in his garden.
The judges in the Strasbourg court awarded the plaintiffs, who included Özcan's parents, wife and children, a total of 81,000 euros in damages.
The Turkish government has one month to lodge an appeal.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
STRASBOURG — Agence France-Presse
9. Turkish jurists: stone-throwing children victims of laws, not judges
Society should not blame the courts for the laws written by legislators demanding long sentences for children and youth who throw stones at police during protests and demonstrations, a top judge who hears terror-related cases tells an Istanbul conference. 'The law requires us to treat minors in this manner,' the judge says as his peers call for reform
Turkish judges and prosecutors gather to discuss the sentencing of minors.
Top judges in Turkey have thrown up their hands at the extensive jail time imposed on children arrested for throwing stones at security forces during demonstrations, saying they are forced to dole out the controversial punishments regardless of their personal beliefs.
The harsh punishment toward stone-throwing children arrested generally during protests in Southeast Anatolia has become an acute problem, as at least 1,056 children between the ages of 12 and 18 who participated in such protests were tried in penal courts under the anti-terror law between 2006 and 2007, with 208 being sentenced.
"Many problems in the justice system that victimize children, both targeted by and suspected of crimes, can only be solved by the executive and legislative bodies, not the judiciary," Mahmut Acar, head of the 9th Criminal Department of the Supreme Court of Appeals, told participants at a conference in Istanbul on Tuesday.
"The courts are blamed for trying stone-throwing children as adults and giving them disproportional punishments, but the law requires us to treat minors who participate in protests or other actions supported or organized by terrorist groups in this manner," Acar said, speaking at the International Colloquium on Children and Law in Germany, Turkey and India, held at the Istanbul Kültür University.
Acar blamed terrorist organizations for involving children and women in illegal protests, saying they do so to "increase the false belief that they are being unjustly treated" and to boost their support among local communities.
Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin disagreed, saying the idea that stone-throwing children face "disproportionate" punishment is a belief that has been created in recent years. He said the fact that terror organizations are using these children should be taken into account.
"We may face a problem of throwing our children into the hands of terror organizations when we try to make their situation better by devising a more proportionate punishment," Engin said, implying he does not approve of changing the law to reduce sentences for stone-throwing children.
A public prosecutor from Istanbul told attendees at the same conference that judges and prosecutors can solve the problem, which he said derives from how laws are implemented. According to Vuslat Dirim, the chief public prosecutor of Istanbul's Eyüp district, judges and prosecutors should not use their right to call for the arrest of a suspect unless it is really necessary. "Even if there are gaps and deficiencies in the law, we cannot wait for reforms, since reforms also may create problems that can cause disproportionate punishment," he said, adding that prosecutors and judges can make changes to ease the processes that children suspected of throwing stones must undergo.
The prosecutor called for a change of mind rather than law, saying, "Reforms come too late; we should first change our minds in order not to send children to prison."
Osman Baş, a member of the 9th Criminal Department, agreed with Dirim, saying that Turkey has to decide whether it will protect its children or not.
According to Baş, article 17 of the child protection law, which came into effect on July 15, 2005, makes the whole law meaningless. "According to this law, when children commit crimes with adults, the investigation and prosecution of these children should be done separately from [the] adults," he said. "However, the third sub-clause says that 'if the court sees a necessity, then the prosecution, investigation and trial processes of the children and adults can be combined.'"
"This sub-clause makes the whole law to protect children meaningless," Baş said.
According to a 2008 Justice Ministry report, there are 2,622 children in prison, with 1,440 of them housed in the same institutions as adult prisoners.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
10. Five Amendments Passed - Children's Rights Dismissed
After two sessions, the Turkish Parliament passed five clauses of the constitutional reform package on equality, secrecy of private life, freedom of movement, labour union rights and protection of children's rights. The reservations on the Convention on Children's Rights were not lifted though.
The reservation put by Turkey on three articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) have not been lifted in the course of the parliamentary discussions on constitutional amendments. The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) had issued an according proposal to lift the reservations on article 17, 29 and 30 of the CRC which recognize the child's right to be educated in his/her mother tongue.
In the context of the amendment of article 41 of the Constitution on "Protection of the Family", BDP Diyarbakır MP Akın Birdal proposed to add the clause "Conventions on children's rights shall be implemented without reservation". The proposal was rejected. The article was passed through the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) on 20 April as proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with 336 to 69 votes.
Five amendments passed through parliament
A total five provisions of the constitutional reform package have passed through parliament (TBMM) so far.
Two articles related to equality and the secrecy of private life were passed with the votes of AKP. MPs of the Republican Peoples Party (CHP), the Democratic Left Party (DSP) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) abstained from voting, MPs of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voted against the proposals.
The first amendment regarding article 10 of the Constitution on "Equality before the Law" was approved by 336 to 70 votes. One vote was invalid.
The amendment orders that measures taken in regard to children, elderly or disabled people, widowed spouses and orphans of people who died in war or on duty and incapacitated people and veterans are not accounted for as contrary to the principle of equality.
The amendment of article 20 on "Privacy of Individual Life" was passed with 337 to 68 votes.
The following provision will be added: ""Everybody has the right to have their personal data protected. This includes the right on information about one's own personal data, access to this data, the request to alter or erase data and to learn whether the data was used according to its purpose. Personal data may only be processed according to the law or with the person's consent".
Freedom of Movement
Article 23 on "Freedom of Residence and Movement" will be amended as follows: "A citizen's freedom to leave the country may be restricted on account of criminal investigation or prosecution and a judicial decision". The amendment was passed with 337 to 71 votes.
Protection of the family and the rights of the child
The heading of article 41 on "Protection of the Family" will include the term "and the Rights of the Child" as well. The article will furthermore be supplemented by the following provision:
"Every child has the right to protection and care and to establish and maintain a personal and direct relationship with her/his mother and father, unless this is clearly against the benefit of the child. The state shall take the necessary measures to protect children against all sorts of child abuse".
336 MPs voted in favour of the amendment, 69 against, two MPs abstained from voting and one vote was invalid.
Labour Union Rights
Article 51 on the "Right to Organize Labour Unions" is going to be amended in order to enable a person to hold membership of more than one labour union at the same time.
The provision passed through parliament with 333 to 70 votes, one MP abstained from voting and one vote was invalid. (TK/VK)
Tolga KORKUT <http://bianet.org/yazar/tolga-korkut>
tolgakorkut@bianet.org <mailto:tolgakorkut@bianet.org>
Ankara - BİA News Center
22 April 2010, Thursday
11. "Peace Groups" on Trial for "Organizational Propaganda"
17 members of the "Peace Groups" that came from Iraq to Turkey in 2009 are facing trial for "propaganda for an illegal organization". The defendants dismiss the charges and refer to their freedom of thought. Another 30 trials are filed against each adult of both groups.
The trial against 17 members of the "Peace Groups" under charges of "propaganda for an illegal organization" has started at the 6th High Criminal Court in Diyarbakır in the pre-dominantly Kurdish south-east of the country.
A total of 26 refugees from the UN refugee camp in Mahmur and eight former members of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) entered Turkey via the Iraqi border upon imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's call on 19 October 2009. They followed their personal decisions as an attempt to push forward the jammed political process of finding a solution to the Kurdish question.
In the first hearing of the case on 20 April, the prosecutor demanded prison sentences of five years for each of the 17 group members. They stand accused of "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization" on the grounds of a press release made at the Human Rights Foundation Branch in Diyarbakır on 30 December 2009.
bianet talked to Fethi Gümüş, defence lawyer of the members of the "Peace Groups". Gümüş stated that in their press release, the defendants had requested to improve the detention conditions of Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), in order to reach a solution for peace and for the Kurdish question. Lawyer Gümüş indicated that this was not organizational propaganda but part of freedom of thought and expression.
According to the news of the Diyarbakır Söz newspaper, group member Gülbahar Çiçek said, "We made a press release with the intention to prevent the tensions that were experienced at the time and to remind once again the steps that could be taken for peace and democracy. We aimed at developing the sensitivity of the government, the European Council Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Defendant Elif Uludağ did not attend the hearing. The court postponed the case to 29 June.
"Another 30 single trials"
Lawyer Gümüş informed bianet that another 30 single trials have been launched with the 30 adults of both peace groups. The defendants coming from Kandil are sued under allegations of "membership of an illegal organization and spreading its propaganda"; the defendants from Mahmur stand accused of "behaving like a member of an illegal organization although not being a member" and "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization", Gümüş said. (TK/VK)
Tolga KORKUT <http://bianet.org/yazar/tolga-korkut>
tolgakorkut@bianet.org <mailto:tolgakorkut@bianet.org>
Diyarbakır - BİA News Center
22 April 2010, Thursday
12. Constitutional Reform Package Part 2
The Constitutional Reform Package passed through the Constitutional Commission in Parliament. Read here a summary of the second part of the amendments.
The government's Constitutional Reform Package has passed through the Constitutional Commission in Parliament. This is the second part of a summary of the amendments as they have been passed by the Commission.
Click here <http://bianet.org/english/children/121411-constitutional-reform-package-part-1> for the first part of the summary.
Constitutional Court
Article 146: Organization of the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court shall be composed of 17 full members instead of eleven regular and four substitute members. The Turkish Grand National Assembly shall elect two members out of three candidates proposed by the Court of Auditors General Assembly; one member is to be elected out of three candidates from lawyers of the Bar Association. Elections will be held secretly.
The President of the Republic shall appoint two regular and two substitute members from the High Court of Appeals, two regular and one substitute member from the Council of State, and one member each from the Military High Court of Appeals, the High Military Administrative Court and the Audit Court, three candidates being nominated for each vacant office by the Plenary Assemblies of each court from among their respective presidents and members, by an absolute majority of the total number of members; the President of the Republic shall also appoint one member from a list of three candidates nominated by the Higher Education Council from among members of the teaching staff of institutions of higher education who are not members of the Council, and three members and one substitute member from among senior administrative officers and lawyers.
The president and two deputies shall be elected in a secret absolute majority vote from amongst the members of the Constitutional Court for a term of four years. Elected candidates can be re-elected after their term has expired.
Article 147: Termination of Membership. The draft law suggests limiting the duration of term for members of the Constitutional Court. Members shall be elected for the duration of 12 years. A person cannot be elected for a second term. Members will retire before their end of term if they have reached retirement age.
Article 148: The amendment of the article on "Functions and Powers of the Constitutional Court" proposes to recognize the right of personal application.
The President of the Republic, the Chief of General Staff, members of the armed forces and the Gendarmerie General Command shall be tried for offences related to their functions by the Supreme Court. Appeals can be filed against the Supreme Court decisions for a new investigation. The decision of the General Assembly on the result of the investigation is final.
Everybody shall be entitled to apply to the Constitutional Court under allegations of a violation of basic rights and freedoms under the protection of the Constitution by public forces or a violation of constitutional rights and freedoms in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights, if all other legal remedies are exhausted.
Article 149: Functioning and Trial Procedure. According to amendments related to article 149, the draft law foresees that the Constitutional Court shall consist of two parts working as a General Assembly. The section of the Constitutional Court will meet with four members under the presidency of the deputy president. The General Assembly shall consist of at least 12 members under the presidency of the court judge or a deputy president appointed by the president. Decisions taken by the sections and the general assembly can only be taken by absolute majority vote. Commissions can be established for the assessment of acceptance of individual applications.
The General Assembly shall deal with cases and prosecutions conducted by the Supreme Court related to political parties, annulment suits and appeals. Correspondent sections shall decide on individual applications.
Cancellation of Constitutional amendments, the closure of political parties or deprivation of subsidies shall be decided by the Constitutional Court by a majority vote of two thirds.
The Constitutional Court shall examine cases on the basis of documents in the case file, except where it acts as the Supreme Court. The court can decide to hold a hearing on an individual application.
Article 156: Military High Court of Appeals. The Military Court of Appeals shall not be concerned with the members' requirements of military service regarding disciplinary and personnel matters relating to the status of its members. This shall be taken into consideration by the judgeship.
Article 157: High Military Administrative Court of Appeals. Members of the Supreme Military Administrative Court shall benefit from judicial assurance.
Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges (HSYK)
Article 159: The article on the "Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges" (HSYK) is subject to the following amendments: The number of members shall be increased from seven to 22 and there shall be 12 deputy members. The HSYK shall consist of three chambers.
The President shall appoint four regular members from the members of staff of law, economy and political branches of high education institutions, high level executives and lawyers. The Supreme Court General Assembly shall appoint three regular and three substitute members from among the members of the Supreme Court. The State Council General Assembly appoints two regular and two substitute members from the members of the State Council. One regular and one substitute member is appointed by the General Assembly of the Turkish Justice Academy from academy members. Elected candidates may be re-elected after their term has expired.
Appeals can be filed against the Board's decision of a "vocational ban". Otherwise, there shall be no appeal to any judicial instance against the decisions of the Council.
Prosecution of putchists becomes possible
Article 166: The Economic and Social Council shall be taken within the scope of the Constitution.
Article 15: Suspension of the Exercise of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. The provisional article 15 shall be lifted according to the draft law. It prevented the prosecution of the coup leaders of 12 September 1980 and those who governed the country afterwards.
Provisional Articles
Three additional articles shall be added to the Constitution.
Article 69: Principles Observed by Political Parties. The financial auditing of political parties shall be done by the Constitutional Court for the year 2009. This shall be transferred to the Court of Auditors from 2010 onwards.
According to clause 19 of the draft law, deputy members of the Constitutional Court shall obtain the status of "regular members" with the date of the bill's enforcement.
Members of the HSYK from the Supreme Court and the Council of Ministers shall finish their regular term after the enforcement of the draft law.
Clause 27 of the draft law proposes that the bill shall be enforced as it was passed into law. In case of a public referendum the bill will be subject to approval as a whole. (TK/VK)
Tolga KORKUT <http://bianet.org/yazar/tolga-korkut>
tolgakorkut@bianet.org <mailto:tolgakorkut@bianet.org>
Ankara - BİA News Center
21 April 2010, Wednesday
13. BDP boycott on reform vote leads to controversy
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) is participating in debates in Parliament over the constitutional reform package but is boycotting the voting because its suggestions have not been taken into consideration, BDP leaders have said; however, the supporters of the BDP might not agree with the party.
Gülten Kışanak, the co-chairperson of the BDP, claimed while addressing her parliamentary group on Tuesday that with the constitutional reform package the public is being forced to either defend the status quo or to accept the amendments that do not respond to the democratic needs of the public. She also claimed that their constituents agree with them.
"There are efforts to mislead the public. There are claims that the voter base of the BDP is saying 'yes' to the constitutional amendments. These claims are trying to cheat our people, but our constituents are very well aware of what they need," she said.
On the other hand, observers argue that the electorate in pro-Kurdish areas will have a tendency to say "yes" to the constitutional amendments when asked in a referendum. However, experts have underlined that if there is a call for a boycott from the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), then the grass roots might obey. At the beginning, the BDP gave conditional support to the constitutional amendments but then changed its position, especially after Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, who is serving a life sentence on İmralı Island in the Marmara Sea, told his lawyers several times that the constitutional reform package is full of inconsistencies. He also urged the BDP to form a strong front against the constitutional amendments if the conditions raised by the BDP were not met.
In the same speech, Kışanak mentioned the children in conflict with the law who are facing long prison sentences and the more than 1,000 BDP members, including some mayors, who are currently under arrest. She said the government claims to be making these constitutional amendments for the sake of democracy but that it is impossible to believe in the sincerity of the government while these groups are still under arrest. Kışanak also said that the judiciary is under the control of the deep state now but that after the constitutional amendments are passed, it will be under the control of the government.
"The constitutional reform package is forcing the public to choose either the military coup constitution or the constitution of the AK Party, which is not doing anything for the various groups in society and the working class. We are not obliged to accept this. We will follow a third path," she said.
Bengi Yıldız, the parliamentary group chairman of the BDP, explained their reasoning and said the package disregarded the demands of the working class and that this was why they would not be a party to it. "We will show the color of our vote by boycotting it. We will not say 'no,' but neither will we say 'yes.' We will follow a third path," he said.
He added that from the beginning their door had been open to the government to discuss their suggestions, but their views had not been taken into consideration in Parliament's Constitution Commission. "The package submitted to Parliament is the package of the [ruling Justice and Development Party] AK Party. We will not be dragged behind any party," he said. At the beginning of the constitutional reform package discussions, the BDP declared that they were not against it but that some steps towards democratization needed to be taken first. The demands outlined by the BDP for the most part don't require constitutional amendments but rather changes to existing laws, such as lowering the 10 percent election threshold, new regulations that will enable political parties to benefit from financial assistance from the Treasury on more equal terms and also some amendments to the Anti-terror Law and the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). The BDP had also demanded amendments in the law so that political campaigning in Kurdish would be allowed.
21 April 2010, Wednesday
AYŞE KARABAT ANKARA
Zaman
14. PKK claims it killed 2 police officers
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was behind a weekend ambush in Samsun that killed two police officers, the Fırat news agency -- a mouthpiece for the terrorist group -- has reported.
According to Fırat, members of the People's Defense Forces (HPG), an armed wing of the PKK, were responsible for the deaths. The attack took place on Saturday night in Samsun's Ladik district when unidentified assailants in a building under construction opened fire on police officers on patrol. Police officer Hüseyin Koç was killed at the scene while officer Malik Soysal, who was critically injured, died after being rushed to a hospital.
The Fırat news agency broadcast a statement from the HPG that read: "A unit of ours acting on its own initiative carried out an attack on April 17 at 10 o'clock at night on Samsun Avenue in Samsun's Ladik district as retaliation for the attacks that have been directed against our people in recent days; the conducting of extermination operations against our guerillas throughout Kurdistan, especially in Gabar, Cudi, Dersim and the Media Defense Zones; and in memoriam of our comrades who have died in this conflict. As a result of the attack, two police officers were killed."
Samsun Governor Hasan Basri Güzeloğlu told reporters after the attack that initial findings suggested that the attack was a terrorist ambush, while authorities began to search for the assailants.
21 April 2010, Wednesday
TODAY'S ZAMAN İSTANBUL
15. 25 children, who were going to Ankara were arrested
ADANA - Last night while traveling to events for April 23rd Children's Day, 25 children were stopped at the entrance to Pozanti while they were on the way to participate the press release held in Ankara.
25 children and BDP Adana Management Committee Member Fettah Kalecek were taken to the County Police Department with the reasons that their parents were not with them and they did not have any documents on them regarding their parents' permission. Children are still being held in the County Police Department.
ANF
April 22, 2010
16. Turkey in transition seeks closure on troubled past
In Court Number 6 in Diyarbakır, the main city in the mainly Kurdish southeast, Turkey is examining its recent history.
Along with six others, Colonel Cemal Temizöz stands accused of at least 20 killings during his time as a paramilitary commander in Cizre, a town in Şırnak province on the Syrian border, between 1993 and 1995.
Never before has such a senior uniformed figure faced trial for crimes committed during Turkey's bloody counter-insurgency campaign against ethnic Kurdish separatists.
Lurid testimony has been given of severed ears threaded as prayer beads and corpses disposed of in wells of acid. The web of evidence includes jailhouse testimony from a brother of Cizre's former mayor and the discovery of human remains.
For over 25 years the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, a group designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, has fought an armed struggle in pursuit of a separate Kurdish state.
The conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives and led to a stream of internal migration away from the affected areas.
While human rights campaigners and the families of the dead have welcomed the Temizöz trial, the case also highlights the problems Turkey faces in reaching any settlement with its past.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of the Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party or AK, has tried to expand the rights of minority Kurds.
Nationalist rivals fiercely oppose Erdoğan's initiatives, but so do many AK supporters. An election is due next year, and the AK has to protect its vote bank to win a third term.
The influence of conservative, secular nationalists opposed to AK has waned, but they remain a force to be reckoned with in a country that has become increasingly polarised since the AK shot to power in 2002.
The old elite's strongholds remain the military and the judiciary and the courts have become a battleground.
"Turkey is dealing with issues of transitional justice while the transition is not over yet," said Gerald Knaus, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.
While South Africa and some Latin American nations have tried to address past human rights abuses after a complete change of regime, Turkey is trying to address its past without such a dividing line between old and new governments.
At the same time it is taking steps to strengthen its democracy, having seen its military topple four governments in the last 50 years.
"What is happening in Turkey at the moment does not happen usually in countries where there is no big rupture," said Kerem Öktem, an academic at St. Anthony's College in Oxford.
RESPECT FOR MILITARY
For decades the idea endured that the military stood above civilian authorities as guardian of the secular values of the modern republic founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Today that notion is changing. There is still enormous respect for the military and Atatürk's portrait adorns classroom and office walls across the country.
But Turks, confident that democracy will bring prosperity and opportunity, do not want any more coups, and many believe the armed forces must be subject to the same laws as the rest of the country.
The ruling AK party has drafted constitutional amendments that would, among other changes, make military officers liable for prosecution in civilian, rather than military, courts.
Much of the current focus on the past stems from the Ergenekon investigation, a probe into the supposed 'deep state' -- a secret group of hardline nationalists in the security forces and bureaucracy determined to uphold secular values.
Named after a mythical Central Asian valley where Turks are said to have been saved from annihilation by a wolf that led them past their enemies, the Ergenekon network was said to have been planning the overthrow of Erdoğan's government.
The investigation began in 2007 and as it gained ground, Turks watched in amazement as a procession of senior military figures, both serving and retired, appeared before prosecutors.
There was public support from the outset, but some have voiced the suspicion that the AK may have been using the probe to attack its political opponents.
Some think the number of cases, which has expanded to include events that happened after the Ergenekon investigation began, is too big for the judicial system to handle.
Others doubt whether the Ergenekon network even exists.
But Ergenekon has certainly broken taboos -- in particular by bringing previously untouchable military figures before prosecutors -- and opened the way for other investigations.
It has also proved the value of liberalizing statutes passed as part of Turkey's bid for EU membership.
"The Ergenekon investigation created an atmosphere which allowed us to deal with the other cases," said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a columnist for the Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman.
Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher with Human Rights Watch in Turkey, said Ergenekon helped make it possible to bring the Temizöz case to court.
"It provided the inspiration and an impulse in the region for people to come forward, and for the press to cover the issue," she said.
In Diyarbakır, Temizöz is under arrest but is still commander of the provincial gendarmerie battalion, and Tahir Elçi, a lawyer for the victims' families, fears the trial could end up in a military court.
"Until now I am happy with the case, but I also worry about future developments," he said. "The other side is trying to transfer the case to the military courts." Reuters
22 April 2010, Thursday
SIMON AKAM İSTANBUL
17. KCK: Kurdish soldiers should desert from Turkish Armed Forces
BEHDİNAN – Kurdistan Societies Union (KCK) Member of Executive Council Duran Kalkan stated that the number of suspicious deaths of Kurdish soldiers in the Turkish army has been increasing in recent years and he made a call to Kurdish soldiers to desert from Turkish Armed Forces.
Kalkan pointed out that the conscientious objection movement should be promoted and asked parents not to send their children to serve in the military.
Kalkan stressed that in Cukurca seven soldiers were killed by land mines that were laid by the Turkish army. The Turkish army was caught red-handed using land mines.
To use land mines is an international crime and the Turkish army very frequently commits that crime in Kurdistan.
*There was an event which occurred in Karakoçan, targeting Kurdish soldiers: army officers put a hand-grenade, with the pin pulled out, into a soldier's hand and in the resulting explosion many soldiers were killed. To cover this up they said that it was an accident. However, it came to light that the commander himself had done this. We believe that this type of event was certainly consciously performed .
*There are thousands of young people that serve in the military. They are subjected to many kinds of insults during their service. When they show a reaction, they are immediately taken away and murdered. After that, they state that those soldiers committed suicide or that an accident happened.
Similar situations have been occurring in the Syrian army. There is a significant increase in such events in recent years. These cannot a coincidence but rather feed on and increase such actions.. In this regard this shows an increase of fascist nationalism.
* So, what should we do about this situation? Do we expect the army to reform itself? Is it possible to demand this in this case? Even if we could insist these changes, would they result in effective action? Of course not. So what should we do? We should not go to the army… I speak openly: why should mothers, fathers, Kurdish families send their children to a place where they subjected to every kind of indignity and insult?
ANF
10:27 / April 22, 2010
1. Turkish police officers arrested for death by torture
2. Inquiries into possible Turkish police negligence in Dink case
3. Turkish soldier killed in mine blast in Hakkari
4. Armenia coalition halts ratification of Turkey deal
5. Video records of top court assassination were erased
6. Rights watchdog slams Turkish police abuses
7. A morning with Erdoğan (on Kurds and more)
8. European rights court fines Turkey for police killings
9. Turkish jurists: stone-throwing children victims of laws, not judges
10. Five Amendments Passed - Children's Rights Dismissed
11. "Peace Groups" on Trial for "Organizational Propaganda"
12. Constitutional Reform Package Part 2
13. BDP boycott on reform vote leads to controversy
14. PKK claims it killed 2 police officers
15. 25 children, who were going to Ankara were arrested
16. Turkey in transition seeks closure on troubled past
17. KCK: Kurdish soldiers should desert from Turkish Armed Forces
1. Turkish police officers arrested for death by torture
A police chief and two officers in Istanbul Police Department have been arrested for allegedly torturing suspect Murat Konuş to death, private news site CNNTürk reported late Tuesday.
Konuş was detained in an operation against an extortion gang. After interrogation, the prosecutor's office transferred six suspected police officers, including the chief officer, to court with demands for their arrest. The local court decided to arrest police officers Ramazan Adıgüzel and Abdulcelil Karadağ, as well as chief officer Oktay Kapsız for "causing death by torture." The convicts were later sent to prison.
Police officers Yalçın Beşikçi, Osman Ölker and Gürbüz Kurnaz, the three other officers, were released pending prosecution.
The chief officer and the police reportedly denied the charges.
Recently, a police officer at Beyoğlu Police Station was accused of killing Festus Okey, a Nigerian migrant who was in custody.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
ISTANBUL – Daily news with wires
2. Inquiries into possible Turkish police negligence in Dink case
Inspectors searching for signs of police negligence in the murder of prominent journalist Hrant Dink reportedly ignored important statements by Turkey's former police intelligence chief.
According to Wednesday's edition of the daily Milliyet, former Intelligence Unit Chief Sabri Uzun's statement implicated several police officers in the mishandling of an intelligence report.
On Oct. 23, 2009, inspectors Mustafa Üçkuyu and Mehmet Canoğlu asked Uzun through a written statement whether there had been any negligence in an intelligence report about Dink that they had obtained.
The intelligence report, dated Feb. 17, 2006, said "an action that would create repercussions would be taken against Dink."
On Nov. 4, 2009, Uzun said in a written statement that there had been no negligence in the mentioned report. However, after a short while, Uzun obtained the full version of the mentioned report after realizing that some information had been hidden from him.
Uzun called the inspectors back and said he wanted to provide additional information. In his additional response to inspectors, Uzun said Ali Fuat Yılmazer, a police chief at a lower-ranking intelligence unit, had hid the report from him. The date of Uzun's additional response was Dec. 4, 2009.
Inspectors did not include Uzun's additional response in their reports, however. Instead, they wrote Nov. 19 as the date of their inspection report, suggesting that Uzun's additional response had arrived later.
Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, was murdered on Jan. 19, 2007, in front of the building of the multi-lingual weekly Agos in Istanbul's central Şişli district, while a juvenile murder suspect, Ogün Samast, was detained afterwards.
Samast was from the Black Sea province of Trabzon, in which the murder was alleged to have been organized.
Later, Erhan Tuncel was also detained as a suspected accomplice to the murder – after which it was revealed that he was also a police informant.
Police allegedly neglected to protect Dink despite intelligence reports indicating he was a target.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
NEDİM ŞENER & GÖKÇER TAHİNCİOĞLU
ISTANBUL – Milliyet
3. Turkish soldier killed in mine blast in Hakkari
A mine blast in the eastern province of Hakkari killed one soldier and injured another Wednesday, news agencies reported.
Soldiers on an operation in the Tekeli region against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, detonated a mine after stepping on it, according to Doğan news agency, which said the mine belonged to the organization.
The injured soldier was hospitalized for treatment.
Pvt. Ahmet İnce, from the southern province of Mersin, died in the blast, which happened in the morning, according to Hakkari Gov. Muammer Türker.
Last week a civilian minibus belonging to the military came under fire, resulting in injuries to three soldiers in the southeastern province of Şırnak.
Capt. Levent Çetinkaya, who was among those injured, died Sunday while receiving treatment in hospital.
The conflict between the PKK and the military has been ongoing since the 1980s, resulting in at least 30,000 deaths. The outlawed organization is recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
ISTANBUL — Daily News with wires
4. Armenia coalition halts ratification of Turkey deal
The three parties that form a majority in Armenia's parliament are halting ratification of a landmark accord on normalizing relations with Turkey, they said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement said "the Turkish side is refusing to ratify the protocols without preconditions and in a reasonable timeframe," Agence France-Presse reported.
"We believe it is necessary to halt this process and remove discussions of this question from the agenda ... of the National Assembly until the Turkish side is prepared to continue the process without preconditions," it said.
Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark deal in October to establish diplomatic relations and reopen their border after decades of hostility.
But parliamentary ratification of the deal has stalled in both countries over the contentious issue of World War I-era killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which Yerevan insists constituted genocide. Turkey fiercely rejects the label, saying many died on both sides during civil strife.
Another sticking point is Turkey's support for Armenia's foe Azerbaijan in their dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"Armenia's political majority considers unacceptable the Turkish side's position and, particularly, the latest statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who makes the ratification of the protocols conditional on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process," the statement also said.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
ISTANBUL — Daily News with wires
5. Video records of top court assassination were erased
The 144th hearing of the trial for the first Ergenekon indictment, which was merged with the Council of State assassination case, on Wednesday revealed that security camera recordings were erased after the assassination.
Alparslan Arslan was caught red handed on the scene and confessed to the crime of having shot and murdered Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin on May 17, 2006. Officials said the security cameras malfunctioned during the assassination, but a report of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, or TÜBİTAK, has revealed this to be untrue.
The report sent to the court said the hard drives of the cameras did not malfunction, but some of the records from the evening hours were erased. Some of the files' names were also changed before erasing, according to the report. TÜBİTAK has managed to salvage some of the files.
Judge Hüsnü Çalmuk played a DVD during Wednesday's court hearing, saying it included scenes from the final hearing of the assault on the Council of State case at the Ankara Court of Serious Crimes before it was merged with the Ergenekon case. The DVD is alleged to have been recorded by Mahir Akkar, a suspect in the second Ergenekon indictment.
Meanwhile, one of the defendants in the case, Tekin Irşi, who was accused of throwing hand grenades at daily Cumhuriyet's building, said police followed him from the day the first hand grenade was thrown at the building on May 5, 2006. During the time when police were following him, the attack on the court judges occurred, and he was detained afterward.
The Ergenekon case began with the discovery of 27 hand grenades June 12, 2007, in a shanty house belonging to a retired noncommissioned officer. The finding led to scores of arrests, putting nearly 200 journalists, writers, military personnel, gang leaders, scholars, businessmen and politicians in detention in what has become a terror investigation to stop an alleged ultranationalist gang known as Ergenekon. In later stages of the investigation, those in custody have been accused of planning to topple the government by staging a coup in 2009, initially by spreading chaos.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Istanbul - Daily News with Wires
6. Rights watchdog slams Turkish police abuses
Human Rights Watch on Wednesday accused Turkey's security forces of excessive violence and making routine use of lethal force, urging Ankara to take tougher action against abuses.
The global watchdog warned in a statement that violent police conduct in a string of recent cases "should serve as a wake-up call for the government about the urgent need to do more to combat these abusive practices."
Highlighting three incidents since March, HRW said security forces shot and seriously wounded a reportedly unarmed man in western Turkey, beat a child in the Southeast and shot and killed a child near the Iranian border in an operation against traffickers.
The fact that policemen involved in two of the incidents were suspended from duty "is an important first step," HRW's Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb said.
"The key test is whether the investigation will result in those responsible being held to account," she said.
The government should "make clear that lethal force should be an absolute last resort to protect life, and not a routine means to catch a suspect," she said.
Turkey has come under mounting criticism in recent years over heavy-handed action by its security forces, after a notable decrease in complaints in the early 2000s.
Turkey began European Union membership talks in 2005 after a series of reforms that bettered its human rights record, including a marked decline in cases of abuse and torture by law enforcement officers.
But rights campaigners have decried a renewed rise in such cases since legal amendments in 2007, which, they say, gave police broad discretion to use force and encouraged arbitrary stops and searches.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
ANKARA — Agence France-Presse
7. A morning with Erdoğan (on Kurds and more)
Last Saturday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had a six-hour-long meeting with about four dozen Turkish writers. The topic was what the government calls "the democratic initiative," or "a project for national unity." (A less politically correct definition would be "the effort to win the hearts and minds of Kurds, and to disarm the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.") And Erdoğan's goal, as it turned out, was to listen to different views rather than air his own.
Most writers who were invited to the "working breakfast," which extended until late afternoon, were novelists or poets. Others, including me, were political commentators who have written on the Kurdish issue. And not all of these people were fans of Erdoğan. Ayşe Kulin, a famed novelist and a staunch secularist, noted this frankly. "I did not vote for you, will not do so in the future, and you probably know that," she said to the prime minister. "That's why I appreciate the fact you invited me here to hear what I think."
The gap between both sides
Here is how things went. We all gathered in the prime minister's office in Dolmabahçe, Istanbul. Unlike most official buildings in Turkey, the place was neither ugly nor lavish. Erdoğan arrived soon to personally welcome all guests, and then to make an introductory speech emphasizing the cultural diversity of Turkey. Then the floor was given to the guests, which included Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Jews, liberals, Islamists, conservatives, Marxists and more. For more than three hours in total, all these intellectuals shared their opinions, critiques and concerns.
Roni Margulies, a Trotskyite Jew, pointed to the still-intact limits on free speech and reminded everyone he was on trial for referring to Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, as "Sayın." (A prefix in Turkish which denotes respect.) Fatma Barbarasoğlu, a conservative Muslim lady who wears a headscarf, complained about the discrimination that some Kurdish high school students seem to have faced in the recent university exams.
I, for my part, noted that the government will not be too successful in its "democratic initiative," unless it explains to society why it is necessary. "The steps you take often look like too little for the Kurds, and too much for the Turkish majority," I said. "This huge perception gap in society makes it very hard to proceed. You need more effective public diplomacy to help the Turkish and Kurdish sides understand each other's story."
Erdoğan listened to all these remarks carefully and took notes. Then, during the last part of the meeting, he commented back, by referring to each and every speaker, either acknowledging their contributions, or promising to follow the points they raised.
All in all, I found him as a good listener, which is I think a must for being a good politician. If I am not wrong, no other Turkish prime minister has ever organized such a meeting before to listen to public intellectuals for hours. No other Turkish prime minister, with the exception of the late Turgut Özal, my all-time favorite, has also shown the courage to solve the Kurdish question by deviating from the 80-year-long official rhetoric (i.e., we-are-all-Turks-and-those-who-differ-are-traitors).
That's one reason that I still have faith in Erdoğan's potential to make Turkey a better place. My criticism toward his excesses (such as his intolerance toward critical media, his bursts of anger, and his patrimonial style of politics) remains. But he is still the only leader around who can "sell" some crucial liberal reforms, such as the ones we need on the Kurdish issue, to Turkey's conservative masses. Other leaders on the scene (such as Deniz Baykal or Devlet Bahçeli) promise nothing but more of Ankara's rotten status quo.
State or society
A heated discussion that emerged in the intellectual's meeting with Erdoğan was, interestingly, right on this gap between the old and new ways of political thinking. Alev Alatlı, a bestselling novelist, spoke in a way which fell at odds with the liberal attitude that dominated the scene, and expressed her faith in the state with an interesting question:
"By whom would you like to be tried? By a commission of republican judges, or a jury of randomly elected citizens? I would opt for the former."
I, on the other hand, agreed with the answer that Etyen Mahçupyan, the editor of the Armenian daily Agos after the killing of Hrant Dink, gave:
"I certainly would prefer the jury of randomly elected citizens. For I trust the conscience of society more then that of the state."
This is not because Turkish society is a beacon of wisdom and righteousness. (No society is that way.) It is rather because the traditional Turkish state elite is worse, for they venerate nothing but the state, and put the official ideology above the rights of the citizens.
And, honestly, Erdoğan's party is still the only considerable political force that offers a way out.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
MUSTAFA AKYOL
8. European rights court fines Turkey for police killings
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ordered Turkey to pay 100,000 euros ($134,700) in damages to relatives of two men killed by police during an anti-terrorist operation.
The two plaintiffs, the wife and sister respectively of the victims, Murat Bektaş, 32, and Erdinç Arslan, 22, claimed six officers used unnecessary force and unlawfully killed the men in 1999 during a raid on their building.
In another case, 16 plaintiffs alleged that police beat and shot dead their relative, Yılmaz Özcan, 42, when officers went to his home on Sept. 24, 2000, to arrest him for unlawfully cutting down trees in his garden.
The judges in the Strasbourg court awarded the plaintiffs, who included Özcan's parents, wife and children, a total of 81,000 euros in damages.
The Turkish government has one month to lodge an appeal.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
STRASBOURG — Agence France-Presse
9. Turkish jurists: stone-throwing children victims of laws, not judges
Society should not blame the courts for the laws written by legislators demanding long sentences for children and youth who throw stones at police during protests and demonstrations, a top judge who hears terror-related cases tells an Istanbul conference. 'The law requires us to treat minors in this manner,' the judge says as his peers call for reform
Turkish judges and prosecutors gather to discuss the sentencing of minors.
Top judges in Turkey have thrown up their hands at the extensive jail time imposed on children arrested for throwing stones at security forces during demonstrations, saying they are forced to dole out the controversial punishments regardless of their personal beliefs.
The harsh punishment toward stone-throwing children arrested generally during protests in Southeast Anatolia has become an acute problem, as at least 1,056 children between the ages of 12 and 18 who participated in such protests were tried in penal courts under the anti-terror law between 2006 and 2007, with 208 being sentenced.
"Many problems in the justice system that victimize children, both targeted by and suspected of crimes, can only be solved by the executive and legislative bodies, not the judiciary," Mahmut Acar, head of the 9th Criminal Department of the Supreme Court of Appeals, told participants at a conference in Istanbul on Tuesday.
"The courts are blamed for trying stone-throwing children as adults and giving them disproportional punishments, but the law requires us to treat minors who participate in protests or other actions supported or organized by terrorist groups in this manner," Acar said, speaking at the International Colloquium on Children and Law in Germany, Turkey and India, held at the Istanbul Kültür University.
Acar blamed terrorist organizations for involving children and women in illegal protests, saying they do so to "increase the false belief that they are being unjustly treated" and to boost their support among local communities.
Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin disagreed, saying the idea that stone-throwing children face "disproportionate" punishment is a belief that has been created in recent years. He said the fact that terror organizations are using these children should be taken into account.
"We may face a problem of throwing our children into the hands of terror organizations when we try to make their situation better by devising a more proportionate punishment," Engin said, implying he does not approve of changing the law to reduce sentences for stone-throwing children.
A public prosecutor from Istanbul told attendees at the same conference that judges and prosecutors can solve the problem, which he said derives from how laws are implemented. According to Vuslat Dirim, the chief public prosecutor of Istanbul's Eyüp district, judges and prosecutors should not use their right to call for the arrest of a suspect unless it is really necessary. "Even if there are gaps and deficiencies in the law, we cannot wait for reforms, since reforms also may create problems that can cause disproportionate punishment," he said, adding that prosecutors and judges can make changes to ease the processes that children suspected of throwing stones must undergo.
The prosecutor called for a change of mind rather than law, saying, "Reforms come too late; we should first change our minds in order not to send children to prison."
Osman Baş, a member of the 9th Criminal Department, agreed with Dirim, saying that Turkey has to decide whether it will protect its children or not.
According to Baş, article 17 of the child protection law, which came into effect on July 15, 2005, makes the whole law meaningless. "According to this law, when children commit crimes with adults, the investigation and prosecution of these children should be done separately from [the] adults," he said. "However, the third sub-clause says that 'if the court sees a necessity, then the prosecution, investigation and trial processes of the children and adults can be combined.'"
"This sub-clause makes the whole law to protect children meaningless," Baş said.
According to a 2008 Justice Ministry report, there are 2,622 children in prison, with 1,440 of them housed in the same institutions as adult prisoners.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
10. Five Amendments Passed - Children's Rights Dismissed
After two sessions, the Turkish Parliament passed five clauses of the constitutional reform package on equality, secrecy of private life, freedom of movement, labour union rights and protection of children's rights. The reservations on the Convention on Children's Rights were not lifted though.
The reservation put by Turkey on three articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) have not been lifted in the course of the parliamentary discussions on constitutional amendments. The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) had issued an according proposal to lift the reservations on article 17, 29 and 30 of the CRC which recognize the child's right to be educated in his/her mother tongue.
In the context of the amendment of article 41 of the Constitution on "Protection of the Family", BDP Diyarbakır MP Akın Birdal proposed to add the clause "Conventions on children's rights shall be implemented without reservation". The proposal was rejected. The article was passed through the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) on 20 April as proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with 336 to 69 votes.
Five amendments passed through parliament
A total five provisions of the constitutional reform package have passed through parliament (TBMM) so far.
Two articles related to equality and the secrecy of private life were passed with the votes of AKP. MPs of the Republican Peoples Party (CHP), the Democratic Left Party (DSP) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) abstained from voting, MPs of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voted against the proposals.
The first amendment regarding article 10 of the Constitution on "Equality before the Law" was approved by 336 to 70 votes. One vote was invalid.
The amendment orders that measures taken in regard to children, elderly or disabled people, widowed spouses and orphans of people who died in war or on duty and incapacitated people and veterans are not accounted for as contrary to the principle of equality.
The amendment of article 20 on "Privacy of Individual Life" was passed with 337 to 68 votes.
The following provision will be added: ""Everybody has the right to have their personal data protected. This includes the right on information about one's own personal data, access to this data, the request to alter or erase data and to learn whether the data was used according to its purpose. Personal data may only be processed according to the law or with the person's consent".
Freedom of Movement
Article 23 on "Freedom of Residence and Movement" will be amended as follows: "A citizen's freedom to leave the country may be restricted on account of criminal investigation or prosecution and a judicial decision". The amendment was passed with 337 to 71 votes.
Protection of the family and the rights of the child
The heading of article 41 on "Protection of the Family" will include the term "and the Rights of the Child" as well. The article will furthermore be supplemented by the following provision:
"Every child has the right to protection and care and to establish and maintain a personal and direct relationship with her/his mother and father, unless this is clearly against the benefit of the child. The state shall take the necessary measures to protect children against all sorts of child abuse".
336 MPs voted in favour of the amendment, 69 against, two MPs abstained from voting and one vote was invalid.
Labour Union Rights
Article 51 on the "Right to Organize Labour Unions" is going to be amended in order to enable a person to hold membership of more than one labour union at the same time.
The provision passed through parliament with 333 to 70 votes, one MP abstained from voting and one vote was invalid. (TK/VK)
Tolga KORKUT <http://bianet.org/yazar/tolga-korkut>
tolgakorkut@bianet.org <mailto:tolgakorkut@bianet.org>
Ankara - BİA News Center
22 April 2010, Thursday
11. "Peace Groups" on Trial for "Organizational Propaganda"
17 members of the "Peace Groups" that came from Iraq to Turkey in 2009 are facing trial for "propaganda for an illegal organization". The defendants dismiss the charges and refer to their freedom of thought. Another 30 trials are filed against each adult of both groups.
The trial against 17 members of the "Peace Groups" under charges of "propaganda for an illegal organization" has started at the 6th High Criminal Court in Diyarbakır in the pre-dominantly Kurdish south-east of the country.
A total of 26 refugees from the UN refugee camp in Mahmur and eight former members of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) entered Turkey via the Iraqi border upon imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's call on 19 October 2009. They followed their personal decisions as an attempt to push forward the jammed political process of finding a solution to the Kurdish question.
In the first hearing of the case on 20 April, the prosecutor demanded prison sentences of five years for each of the 17 group members. They stand accused of "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization" on the grounds of a press release made at the Human Rights Foundation Branch in Diyarbakır on 30 December 2009.
bianet talked to Fethi Gümüş, defence lawyer of the members of the "Peace Groups". Gümüş stated that in their press release, the defendants had requested to improve the detention conditions of Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), in order to reach a solution for peace and for the Kurdish question. Lawyer Gümüş indicated that this was not organizational propaganda but part of freedom of thought and expression.
According to the news of the Diyarbakır Söz newspaper, group member Gülbahar Çiçek said, "We made a press release with the intention to prevent the tensions that were experienced at the time and to remind once again the steps that could be taken for peace and democracy. We aimed at developing the sensitivity of the government, the European Council Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Defendant Elif Uludağ did not attend the hearing. The court postponed the case to 29 June.
"Another 30 single trials"
Lawyer Gümüş informed bianet that another 30 single trials have been launched with the 30 adults of both peace groups. The defendants coming from Kandil are sued under allegations of "membership of an illegal organization and spreading its propaganda"; the defendants from Mahmur stand accused of "behaving like a member of an illegal organization although not being a member" and "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization", Gümüş said. (TK/VK)
Tolga KORKUT <http://bianet.org/yazar/tolga-korkut>
tolgakorkut@bianet.org <mailto:tolgakorkut@bianet.org>
Diyarbakır - BİA News Center
22 April 2010, Thursday
12. Constitutional Reform Package Part 2
The Constitutional Reform Package passed through the Constitutional Commission in Parliament. Read here a summary of the second part of the amendments.
The government's Constitutional Reform Package has passed through the Constitutional Commission in Parliament. This is the second part of a summary of the amendments as they have been passed by the Commission.
Click here <http://bianet.org/english/children/121411-constitutional-reform-package-part-1> for the first part of the summary.
Constitutional Court
Article 146: Organization of the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court shall be composed of 17 full members instead of eleven regular and four substitute members. The Turkish Grand National Assembly shall elect two members out of three candidates proposed by the Court of Auditors General Assembly; one member is to be elected out of three candidates from lawyers of the Bar Association. Elections will be held secretly.
The President of the Republic shall appoint two regular and two substitute members from the High Court of Appeals, two regular and one substitute member from the Council of State, and one member each from the Military High Court of Appeals, the High Military Administrative Court and the Audit Court, three candidates being nominated for each vacant office by the Plenary Assemblies of each court from among their respective presidents and members, by an absolute majority of the total number of members; the President of the Republic shall also appoint one member from a list of three candidates nominated by the Higher Education Council from among members of the teaching staff of institutions of higher education who are not members of the Council, and three members and one substitute member from among senior administrative officers and lawyers.
The president and two deputies shall be elected in a secret absolute majority vote from amongst the members of the Constitutional Court for a term of four years. Elected candidates can be re-elected after their term has expired.
Article 147: Termination of Membership. The draft law suggests limiting the duration of term for members of the Constitutional Court. Members shall be elected for the duration of 12 years. A person cannot be elected for a second term. Members will retire before their end of term if they have reached retirement age.
Article 148: The amendment of the article on "Functions and Powers of the Constitutional Court" proposes to recognize the right of personal application.
The President of the Republic, the Chief of General Staff, members of the armed forces and the Gendarmerie General Command shall be tried for offences related to their functions by the Supreme Court. Appeals can be filed against the Supreme Court decisions for a new investigation. The decision of the General Assembly on the result of the investigation is final.
Everybody shall be entitled to apply to the Constitutional Court under allegations of a violation of basic rights and freedoms under the protection of the Constitution by public forces or a violation of constitutional rights and freedoms in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights, if all other legal remedies are exhausted.
Article 149: Functioning and Trial Procedure. According to amendments related to article 149, the draft law foresees that the Constitutional Court shall consist of two parts working as a General Assembly. The section of the Constitutional Court will meet with four members under the presidency of the deputy president. The General Assembly shall consist of at least 12 members under the presidency of the court judge or a deputy president appointed by the president. Decisions taken by the sections and the general assembly can only be taken by absolute majority vote. Commissions can be established for the assessment of acceptance of individual applications.
The General Assembly shall deal with cases and prosecutions conducted by the Supreme Court related to political parties, annulment suits and appeals. Correspondent sections shall decide on individual applications.
Cancellation of Constitutional amendments, the closure of political parties or deprivation of subsidies shall be decided by the Constitutional Court by a majority vote of two thirds.
The Constitutional Court shall examine cases on the basis of documents in the case file, except where it acts as the Supreme Court. The court can decide to hold a hearing on an individual application.
Article 156: Military High Court of Appeals. The Military Court of Appeals shall not be concerned with the members' requirements of military service regarding disciplinary and personnel matters relating to the status of its members. This shall be taken into consideration by the judgeship.
Article 157: High Military Administrative Court of Appeals. Members of the Supreme Military Administrative Court shall benefit from judicial assurance.
Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges (HSYK)
Article 159: The article on the "Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges" (HSYK) is subject to the following amendments: The number of members shall be increased from seven to 22 and there shall be 12 deputy members. The HSYK shall consist of three chambers.
The President shall appoint four regular members from the members of staff of law, economy and political branches of high education institutions, high level executives and lawyers. The Supreme Court General Assembly shall appoint three regular and three substitute members from among the members of the Supreme Court. The State Council General Assembly appoints two regular and two substitute members from the members of the State Council. One regular and one substitute member is appointed by the General Assembly of the Turkish Justice Academy from academy members. Elected candidates may be re-elected after their term has expired.
Appeals can be filed against the Board's decision of a "vocational ban". Otherwise, there shall be no appeal to any judicial instance against the decisions of the Council.
Prosecution of putchists becomes possible
Article 166: The Economic and Social Council shall be taken within the scope of the Constitution.
Article 15: Suspension of the Exercise of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. The provisional article 15 shall be lifted according to the draft law. It prevented the prosecution of the coup leaders of 12 September 1980 and those who governed the country afterwards.
Provisional Articles
Three additional articles shall be added to the Constitution.
Article 69: Principles Observed by Political Parties. The financial auditing of political parties shall be done by the Constitutional Court for the year 2009. This shall be transferred to the Court of Auditors from 2010 onwards.
According to clause 19 of the draft law, deputy members of the Constitutional Court shall obtain the status of "regular members" with the date of the bill's enforcement.
Members of the HSYK from the Supreme Court and the Council of Ministers shall finish their regular term after the enforcement of the draft law.
Clause 27 of the draft law proposes that the bill shall be enforced as it was passed into law. In case of a public referendum the bill will be subject to approval as a whole. (TK/VK)
Tolga KORKUT <http://bianet.org/yazar/tolga-korkut>
tolgakorkut@bianet.org <mailto:tolgakorkut@bianet.org>
Ankara - BİA News Center
21 April 2010, Wednesday
13. BDP boycott on reform vote leads to controversy
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) is participating in debates in Parliament over the constitutional reform package but is boycotting the voting because its suggestions have not been taken into consideration, BDP leaders have said; however, the supporters of the BDP might not agree with the party.
Gülten Kışanak, the co-chairperson of the BDP, claimed while addressing her parliamentary group on Tuesday that with the constitutional reform package the public is being forced to either defend the status quo or to accept the amendments that do not respond to the democratic needs of the public. She also claimed that their constituents agree with them.
"There are efforts to mislead the public. There are claims that the voter base of the BDP is saying 'yes' to the constitutional amendments. These claims are trying to cheat our people, but our constituents are very well aware of what they need," she said.
On the other hand, observers argue that the electorate in pro-Kurdish areas will have a tendency to say "yes" to the constitutional amendments when asked in a referendum. However, experts have underlined that if there is a call for a boycott from the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), then the grass roots might obey. At the beginning, the BDP gave conditional support to the constitutional amendments but then changed its position, especially after Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, who is serving a life sentence on İmralı Island in the Marmara Sea, told his lawyers several times that the constitutional reform package is full of inconsistencies. He also urged the BDP to form a strong front against the constitutional amendments if the conditions raised by the BDP were not met.
In the same speech, Kışanak mentioned the children in conflict with the law who are facing long prison sentences and the more than 1,000 BDP members, including some mayors, who are currently under arrest. She said the government claims to be making these constitutional amendments for the sake of democracy but that it is impossible to believe in the sincerity of the government while these groups are still under arrest. Kışanak also said that the judiciary is under the control of the deep state now but that after the constitutional amendments are passed, it will be under the control of the government.
"The constitutional reform package is forcing the public to choose either the military coup constitution or the constitution of the AK Party, which is not doing anything for the various groups in society and the working class. We are not obliged to accept this. We will follow a third path," she said.
Bengi Yıldız, the parliamentary group chairman of the BDP, explained their reasoning and said the package disregarded the demands of the working class and that this was why they would not be a party to it. "We will show the color of our vote by boycotting it. We will not say 'no,' but neither will we say 'yes.' We will follow a third path," he said.
He added that from the beginning their door had been open to the government to discuss their suggestions, but their views had not been taken into consideration in Parliament's Constitution Commission. "The package submitted to Parliament is the package of the [ruling Justice and Development Party] AK Party. We will not be dragged behind any party," he said. At the beginning of the constitutional reform package discussions, the BDP declared that they were not against it but that some steps towards democratization needed to be taken first. The demands outlined by the BDP for the most part don't require constitutional amendments but rather changes to existing laws, such as lowering the 10 percent election threshold, new regulations that will enable political parties to benefit from financial assistance from the Treasury on more equal terms and also some amendments to the Anti-terror Law and the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). The BDP had also demanded amendments in the law so that political campaigning in Kurdish would be allowed.
21 April 2010, Wednesday
AYŞE KARABAT ANKARA
Zaman
14. PKK claims it killed 2 police officers
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was behind a weekend ambush in Samsun that killed two police officers, the Fırat news agency -- a mouthpiece for the terrorist group -- has reported.
According to Fırat, members of the People's Defense Forces (HPG), an armed wing of the PKK, were responsible for the deaths. The attack took place on Saturday night in Samsun's Ladik district when unidentified assailants in a building under construction opened fire on police officers on patrol. Police officer Hüseyin Koç was killed at the scene while officer Malik Soysal, who was critically injured, died after being rushed to a hospital.
The Fırat news agency broadcast a statement from the HPG that read: "A unit of ours acting on its own initiative carried out an attack on April 17 at 10 o'clock at night on Samsun Avenue in Samsun's Ladik district as retaliation for the attacks that have been directed against our people in recent days; the conducting of extermination operations against our guerillas throughout Kurdistan, especially in Gabar, Cudi, Dersim and the Media Defense Zones; and in memoriam of our comrades who have died in this conflict. As a result of the attack, two police officers were killed."
Samsun Governor Hasan Basri Güzeloğlu told reporters after the attack that initial findings suggested that the attack was a terrorist ambush, while authorities began to search for the assailants.
21 April 2010, Wednesday
TODAY'S ZAMAN İSTANBUL
15. 25 children, who were going to Ankara were arrested
ADANA - Last night while traveling to events for April 23rd Children's Day, 25 children were stopped at the entrance to Pozanti while they were on the way to participate the press release held in Ankara.
25 children and BDP Adana Management Committee Member Fettah Kalecek were taken to the County Police Department with the reasons that their parents were not with them and they did not have any documents on them regarding their parents' permission. Children are still being held in the County Police Department.
ANF
April 22, 2010
16. Turkey in transition seeks closure on troubled past
In Court Number 6 in Diyarbakır, the main city in the mainly Kurdish southeast, Turkey is examining its recent history.
Along with six others, Colonel Cemal Temizöz stands accused of at least 20 killings during his time as a paramilitary commander in Cizre, a town in Şırnak province on the Syrian border, between 1993 and 1995.
Never before has such a senior uniformed figure faced trial for crimes committed during Turkey's bloody counter-insurgency campaign against ethnic Kurdish separatists.
Lurid testimony has been given of severed ears threaded as prayer beads and corpses disposed of in wells of acid. The web of evidence includes jailhouse testimony from a brother of Cizre's former mayor and the discovery of human remains.
For over 25 years the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, a group designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, has fought an armed struggle in pursuit of a separate Kurdish state.
The conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives and led to a stream of internal migration away from the affected areas.
While human rights campaigners and the families of the dead have welcomed the Temizöz trial, the case also highlights the problems Turkey faces in reaching any settlement with its past.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of the Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party or AK, has tried to expand the rights of minority Kurds.
Nationalist rivals fiercely oppose Erdoğan's initiatives, but so do many AK supporters. An election is due next year, and the AK has to protect its vote bank to win a third term.
The influence of conservative, secular nationalists opposed to AK has waned, but they remain a force to be reckoned with in a country that has become increasingly polarised since the AK shot to power in 2002.
The old elite's strongholds remain the military and the judiciary and the courts have become a battleground.
"Turkey is dealing with issues of transitional justice while the transition is not over yet," said Gerald Knaus, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.
While South Africa and some Latin American nations have tried to address past human rights abuses after a complete change of regime, Turkey is trying to address its past without such a dividing line between old and new governments.
At the same time it is taking steps to strengthen its democracy, having seen its military topple four governments in the last 50 years.
"What is happening in Turkey at the moment does not happen usually in countries where there is no big rupture," said Kerem Öktem, an academic at St. Anthony's College in Oxford.
RESPECT FOR MILITARY
For decades the idea endured that the military stood above civilian authorities as guardian of the secular values of the modern republic founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Today that notion is changing. There is still enormous respect for the military and Atatürk's portrait adorns classroom and office walls across the country.
But Turks, confident that democracy will bring prosperity and opportunity, do not want any more coups, and many believe the armed forces must be subject to the same laws as the rest of the country.
The ruling AK party has drafted constitutional amendments that would, among other changes, make military officers liable for prosecution in civilian, rather than military, courts.
Much of the current focus on the past stems from the Ergenekon investigation, a probe into the supposed 'deep state' -- a secret group of hardline nationalists in the security forces and bureaucracy determined to uphold secular values.
Named after a mythical Central Asian valley where Turks are said to have been saved from annihilation by a wolf that led them past their enemies, the Ergenekon network was said to have been planning the overthrow of Erdoğan's government.
The investigation began in 2007 and as it gained ground, Turks watched in amazement as a procession of senior military figures, both serving and retired, appeared before prosecutors.
There was public support from the outset, but some have voiced the suspicion that the AK may have been using the probe to attack its political opponents.
Some think the number of cases, which has expanded to include events that happened after the Ergenekon investigation began, is too big for the judicial system to handle.
Others doubt whether the Ergenekon network even exists.
But Ergenekon has certainly broken taboos -- in particular by bringing previously untouchable military figures before prosecutors -- and opened the way for other investigations.
It has also proved the value of liberalizing statutes passed as part of Turkey's bid for EU membership.
"The Ergenekon investigation created an atmosphere which allowed us to deal with the other cases," said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a columnist for the Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman.
Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher with Human Rights Watch in Turkey, said Ergenekon helped make it possible to bring the Temizöz case to court.
"It provided the inspiration and an impulse in the region for people to come forward, and for the press to cover the issue," she said.
In Diyarbakır, Temizöz is under arrest but is still commander of the provincial gendarmerie battalion, and Tahir Elçi, a lawyer for the victims' families, fears the trial could end up in a military court.
"Until now I am happy with the case, but I also worry about future developments," he said. "The other side is trying to transfer the case to the military courts." Reuters
22 April 2010, Thursday
SIMON AKAM İSTANBUL
17. KCK: Kurdish soldiers should desert from Turkish Armed Forces
BEHDİNAN – Kurdistan Societies Union (KCK) Member of Executive Council Duran Kalkan stated that the number of suspicious deaths of Kurdish soldiers in the Turkish army has been increasing in recent years and he made a call to Kurdish soldiers to desert from Turkish Armed Forces.
Kalkan pointed out that the conscientious objection movement should be promoted and asked parents not to send their children to serve in the military.
Kalkan stressed that in Cukurca seven soldiers were killed by land mines that were laid by the Turkish army. The Turkish army was caught red-handed using land mines.
To use land mines is an international crime and the Turkish army very frequently commits that crime in Kurdistan.
*There was an event which occurred in Karakoçan, targeting Kurdish soldiers: army officers put a hand-grenade, with the pin pulled out, into a soldier's hand and in the resulting explosion many soldiers were killed. To cover this up they said that it was an accident. However, it came to light that the commander himself had done this. We believe that this type of event was certainly consciously performed .
*There are thousands of young people that serve in the military. They are subjected to many kinds of insults during their service. When they show a reaction, they are immediately taken away and murdered. After that, they state that those soldiers committed suicide or that an accident happened.
Similar situations have been occurring in the Syrian army. There is a significant increase in such events in recent years. These cannot a coincidence but rather feed on and increase such actions.. In this regard this shows an increase of fascist nationalism.
* So, what should we do about this situation? Do we expect the army to reform itself? Is it possible to demand this in this case? Even if we could insist these changes, would they result in effective action? Of course not. So what should we do? We should not go to the army… I speak openly: why should mothers, fathers, Kurdish families send their children to a place where they subjected to every kind of indignity and insult?
ANF
10:27 / April 22, 2010
--
Patrick Mac Manus
Midgaardsgade 13, 3. th.
2200 København / Copenhagen N
+45 22 45 41 78
Foreningen Oprør / Rebellion (Denmark): www.opror.net/blog/
Ny udgivelse: Den tilkæmpede historie - fabler og fortællinger. Forlaget Arbejderen 2009. http://arbejderen.dk/bestil_materialer.asp#Manus
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1524044767&ref=name
