4 October 2001

1. "Turkish hunger strike claims 40th victim", the death toll in a year-old hunger strike against prison reforms in Turkey has reached 40 with the death of another inmate, police and human rights activists said on Thursday.

2. "Turkish parliament passes reforms to boost EU membership bid", Turkish legislators on Wednesday adopted 34 amendments to the country's constitution, including abolishing the death penalty in almost all cases, in a move to strengthen Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

3. "Turkey aims for EU membership", Turkey has passed a package of reforms - including limiting the death penalty - aimed at improving its chances of joining the European Union.

4. "Turkey In the Aftermath of Attacks on the US", after initial expressions of shock and sincere sympathy for the American victims and the US as a whole, Turkey soon followed in the footsteps of some of the European countries-and especially of other Muslim states- in expressing a certain scepticism and caution about "blindly" endorsing every US move in its war against terrorism.

5. "Deputy PM urges for speedy work for complying with political criteria", Yilmaz: 'The military should not hold their position in Turkey's political life'.

6. "HRW says Turkey missed big chance for reform", Human Rights Watch (HRW) claimed the Turkish Parliament missed a big chance for change, for the reform fell short on the death penalty, free speech, and torture.

1. - AFP - "Turkish hunger strike claims 40th victim":

ANKARA

The death toll in a year-old hunger strike against prison reforms in Turkey has reached 40 with the death of another inmate, police and human rights activists said on Thursday. Mustafa Coskun, 31, died Tuesday in an Ankara hospital, where he was transferred from a jail in the eastern city of Elazig after his health deteriorated, a Human Rights Association spokeswoman told AFP.

Coskun had been jailed for membership to the extreme-left Turkish Communist Party/Marxist-Leninist, she said. The death toll from the fast, which began last October against the introduction of new jails with cells for a maximum of three people, involves both inmates and associates fasting in solidarity outside prisons. Another hunger striker died last month in an Istanbul hospital from burns suffered when he set himself ablaze to denounce a police crackdown on a funeral procession for a fellow striker.

The protestors say the new prison cells deepen social alienation and leave prisoners more vulnerable to mistreatment. In the past, the prisoners were housed in dormitories for up to 60 inmates. The government introduced the new jails in December in order to restore order and security in its troubled and crowded jails, where riots and hostage-taking incidents had become commonplace.

On September 10, a suicide bomber protesting the new jails blew himself up in downtown Istanbul, also killing two policemen and an Australian tourist and injuring about 20 people.
The main architect of the hunger strike, the far-left underground People's Liberation Party-Front, claimed responsibility for the attack.

2. - AFP - "Turkish parliament passes reforms to boost EU membership bid":

ANKARA

 Turkish legislators on Wednesday adopted 34 amendments to the country's constitution, including abolishing the death penalty in almost all cases, in a move to strengthen Turkey's bid to join the European Union. The changes, endorsed at the end of a two-week extraordinary session, are the largest ever overhaul of the constitution. The constitution -- the legacy of the 1980 military coup -- is seen as a major obstacle in efforts to improve Turkey's crippled democracy and critics have argued that without improvements Ankara cannot open accession talks with the EU.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit hailed the vote as "great progress" on the road to full EU membership although the reforms have been criticised as inadequate. "Our task does not end here. We should now rapidly prepare and adopt the (related) harmonisation laws... with the same speed and in the same atmosphere of reconciliation," Ecevit said to applause from the assembly.

The package won 474 votes from the 494 deputies present in the 550-member house, well above the 367 votes it needed to be adopted. Sixteen deputies voted against the measures, while the remaining abstained or cast either invalid or blank votes. But legislators rejected three articles that aimed to lay a basis for sovereignty-sharing ahead of Turkey's eventual EU entry, facilitate the lifting of parliamentary immunity and ease eligibility criteria for lawmakers.

The changes approved include painful reforms that have provoked heated debates ever since the EU declared in December 1999 that Turkey was a candidate for membership but asked Ankara to rectify its troubled human rights record. A key article abolishes the death penalty except in times of war, imminent threat of war and for terrorist crimes. It deprives condemned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan from a formal chance to escape the gallows even though Turkey has not executed anyone since 1984 under a de facto moratorium on executions.

Another provision scraps a ban on using "forbidden" languages to voice opinions, which paves the way for the country's Kurdish minority to broadcast and publish material in their mother tongue. But certain restrictions remain to "protect national security, public order and safety, the fundamental principles of the republic and the indivisible unity of the state and nation". Ankara has long tolerated magazines and record albums in Kurdish. But the language remains officially banned because of fears that expanded cultural freedoms such as education in Kurdish could encourage separatist-minded Kurds, who have waged a 15-year war for self-rule in southeast Turkey.

Other changes make the banning of political parties more difficult and add more civilian members to the National Security Council (MGK), Turkey's top policy-making body, which is dominated by the powerful military. The reform scraps a provision obliging the government to "take up with priority" the MGK decisions, saying instead they should be only "considered". The package also lifts certain restraints on freedom of expression, cuts custody terms from 15 to four days, speeds up court procedures, expands the rights of trade unions and associations and permits the organisation of peaceful demonstrations without prior authorisation.

The three rejected articles, meanwhile, included a proposal giving international agreements precedence over domestic law in a bid to lay a foundation for future sovereignity-sharing with the EU. Opponents said the measure was premature for Turkey, which lags behind the other 12 candidates and does not expect to join the EU in the near future. Deputies also voted down a proposal to speed up protracted procedures on lifting parliamentary immunity, under which many lawmakers facing criminal charges have been able to remain in parliament for years.

The third rejected article would have eased eligibility criteria to allow people convicted of "ideological or anarchic acts" to run for parliament while barring those convicted of "terrorist acts". The government, which includes a powerful nationalist party that has resisted some reforms sought by the EU, wanted the package adopted before the European Union publishes an annual report on Turkey's progress in November.

3. - BBC - "Turkey aims for EU membership":

Turkey has passed a package of reforms - including limiting the death penalty - aimed at improving its chances of joining the European Union. The Turkish parliament adopted 34 changes to the constitution, which was drafted after a military coup in 1980 and has been criticised as repressive by human rights groups.

The measures outlaw capital punishment except in times of war and for acts of terrorism and allow broadcasts to me made in Kurdish. The amendments were passed by 474 votes to 16 and will go before the president for final approval.

Civil liberties

Turkey has been debating ways of improving civil liberties since the end of 1999 when the EU said it could apply for membership if its human rights record improved. Entry to the EU is barred to any country which allows the death penalty.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit wanted the legislation passed before the EU published a report on Turkey's progress towards membership in November. "A great step has been taken in order to improve our democracy," Mr Ecevit told parliament.

The amendments also reduce the influence of the military in the National Security Council by increasing the number of civilians in the policy-setting body, following EU complaints.

'Not far enough'

The changes have widespread support among Turkish society, but critics say they do not go far enough. "The amendments will only partially satisfy the EU. They are cosmetic changes and won't fool anyone," said Oya Akgonenc from the pro-Islamic Felicity Party.

Alongside permitting greater freedoms, however, the government will still be able to ban Kurdish broadcasts it considers a threat to national security. Education in Kurdish also remains banned and most prisoners on death row were convicted on charges of terrorism, which remains a capital offence.

4. -Oxford Business Week - "Turkey In the Aftermath of Attacks on the US":

After initial expressions of shock and sincere sympathy for the American victims and the US as a whole, Turkey soon followed in the footsteps of some of the European countries-and especially of other Muslim states- in expressing a certain scepticism and caution about "blindly" endorsing every US move in its war against terrorism.

Remembering former President Turgut Ozal's wholehearted collaboration with the US's attacks on Iraq during the Gulf War, columnists have often complained that Turkey gained nothing in return for its support: on the contrary, it forfeited $30bn in revenues from having been obliged to cut off trade with Iraq during the past decade. Now, seeing other Muslim countries being generously rewarded through debt cancellation and "erasure" from the list of countries against which various US sanctions have been levied, the government is being urged to move more cautiously.

Certainly, Turkey is gratified that the world is beginning to acknowledge the pain that terrorism can bring, and the papers are full of reminders of what Turkey suffered from almost two decades of Kurdish terrorism: 30 000 people died and financial losses are estimated at $110bn. But what about Armenian terrorism against Turkish diplomats in the 1980's? Little attention was paid to that. Instead, Turkey has been charged by various Western parliaments of having committed genocide against the Armenians during and after World War I- with no recognition of the number of Turks killed by Armenians during that period. An even stronger grievance is the sympathy and support Europe- and especially Germany- has given to Kurdish separatist movements- "terrorists" in the eyes of Turkey.

Turkey has already guaranteed that it will permit the US to utilise the giant American airbase near Adana and that it would provide other as yet unspecified assistance. But General Hursit Tolon, Commander of the Aegean Army, cautioned that "fighting terrorism will not eradicate the problem of terrorism because it has many aspects: social, economic, military, cultural etc. While extinguishing one fire, we should be careful not to fan other fires." Even higher up the line, Chief of Staff General Huseyin Kivrikoglu warned that a ground war in Afghanistan would "swallow the US up." "An operation in which civilians get harmed would cause not only the regional and Islamic countries but also the countries which currently side with the US to take a stand against it," he added.

The US is clearly taking pains to treat Turkey gently. A senior congressional delegation from the US called Turkey a "shining crown jewel" in an unstable region. The group's leader, Republican congressmen Curt Weldon noted that Turkey had about $5bn outstanding debt for military supplies. "Perhaps it's time for us to review that debt," Weldon said. He also implied that Turkey should be compensated for the $30bn in exports lost to Iraq after the Gulf War.

With Turkey's economy sinking ever further, many believe that additional financial help is sorely needed. Since the start of this year, the economy has shrunk by some 8%, inflation has soared from 30% to 70% and interest rates have risen to 95%. The lira, earlier in the year, stood at TL900 000 per US dollar, it is now almost TL 1.6m to the dollar. Shortages of bread and cooking oil now threaten. In order to adhere to the IMF's imposed economic reform package in 2002, fresh funds will be needed-from the IMF, the US Treasury and local banks. Turkey is due to repay $5.5bn in loans to the IMF by March 2002, although indications are that it may well be rescheduled. With the world deepening in recession after the attack on the US, tourism and exports- sectors, which had been bringing in good results-have suffered badly.

In an effort to revive the Turkish automobile industry, whose sales on the domestic market fell by 71% in the first eight months of this year, the government announced a 50% cut in the lax levied on purchases of cars. The new rate, effective until the end of the year, will slash taxes from 12% to 6% of the purchase price for cars with an engine capacity of under 1 600 cc. Some business leaders have pushed for this to be reduced yet further to zero percent.

On a positive note, the Turkish Parliament has rushed through approval of 37 amendments to the Constitution- a precondition for entry into the European Union. The most important of these were the lifting of a clause that forbad broadcasting in a language other than Turkish-thereby paving the way for broadcasting in Kurdish, but not yet legalising formal education in that language- and the abolition of the death penalty except in cases of "war, immediate threat of war and terrorist crimes." Other amendments made it more difficult to close down political parties or ban persons from politics for "ideological" reasons. Of these, the restriction on capital punishment aroused the most controversy and only scraped above the required threshold of 367 votes by one vote.

In his address to Parliament on October 1st after the summer recess, Turkey's reformist President Ahmet Necdet Sezer urged deputies to complete the reforms the country had pledged to the EU before that body starts to evaluate the Progress Report on Turkey this autumn. This would enable Turkey to start accession negotiations "either in 2003 or before the new members join the union." Underlining the damage the corruption brought to the country's economy, he urged deputies to take the lead in fighting corruption and to amend the clauses in the Constitution that grant them political immunity. This week parliament will be voting on the same amendments in a second round, but most observers expect that the results will not be much different from the previous week.

5. - Turkish Daily News: "Deputy PM urges for speedy work for complying with political criteria":

Yilmaz: 'The military should not hold their position in Turkey's political life'

In the midst of the heavy agenda on the Turkish Parliament for changing the constitution, deputy prime minister Mesut Yilmaz made a statement, hinting at a necessity for changing the military's attitude, concerning the concept of national security.

Speaking on Tuesday in Ankara, Yilmaz repeated his well-known attitude for quick work, which will accelerate Turkey's EU journey.

Stressing the need for taking steps to comply with the political part of the copenhagen Criteria, Yilmaz said that the mind of the military should change, since the threat of separatism and fundamentalism has been eliminated.

Defining the year 2010 as a realistic date for Turkey's European Union (EU) membership, deputy prime minister said that EU membership was vital for the country.

"In order not to miss the EU train, we should take the steps necessary for the political criteria," Yilmaz stated.

The military cannot hold their position in the political life of Turkey," Yilmaz said, repeating a well-known position of him concerning the role of the military in the country.

'Turkey is the example for the West'

Concerning the possible clashes in the world between religions, Yilmaz said that Turkey should be taken as an example and the Moslem world should not be limited to the fundamentalists. "We, as Turkey, can prevent the clash of civilizations," Yilmaz said, speaking about a possible role to be played by Turkey.

6. - Turkish Daily News - "HRW says Turkey missed big chance for reform":

Human Rights Watch (HRW) claimed the Turkish Parliament missed a big chance for change, for the reform fell short on the death penalty, free speech, and torture.

Concerning the thirty-seven constitutional amendments, HRW cautioned that, as now formulated, the reforms would maintain the death penalty and restrictions on freedom of expression and continue to deprive detainees of vital safeguards against torture.

"The Turkish parliament is turning what should have been a defining moment of change into just another lost opportunity," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of HRW. "And Turkish citizens will be the real losers here."

HRW also commented that, after making little progress on human rights in 2001, Turkey's leaders are now hurrying through a package of constitutional reforms, apparently to placate the European Commission, currently preparing its annual report on Turkey's progress towards accession to the European Union.

But the measures fall well short of the E.U.'s "Copenhagen criteria" for human rights and democracy among applicant states, HRW said. The constitutional package does not address the practices that facilitate torture.

HRW noted that the Council of Europe and U.N. experts have for years urged Turkey to cease incommunicado police detention, where most torture occurs. Yet the proposed constitutional changes will not guarantee detainees prompt access to legal counsel. The provisions will reduce the length of police custody from seven to four days, but further legislation will be required to shorten the police custody of detainees in the southeastern provinces under a State of Emergency, where detainees can currently be held for ten days, HRW noted.

Death Penalty will not please the EU

HRW said the proposed constitutional changes also fall short on the death penalty. Turkey has maintained a sixteen-year moratorium on the judicial death penalty. The proposed changes would abolish the death penalty for civil offenses but retain it in circumstances of "war, the near threat of war and terrorist offenses." HRW recalled that most of the fifty executions since the 1980 military coup have been for offenses under those headings. The proposed changes will likely prove unsatisfactory to the E.U., which has made a priority of death penalty abolition.

HRW also said that the constitutional changes would do little to expand freedom of speech for journalists and politicians in Turkey. Currently, Turkey's constitution offers no protection for any "statement challenging the unity of the state," punishable under hundreds of laws and regulations. In an apparent effort to bring the constitution in line with the European Convention on Human Rights, the original draft constitutional amendment changed reference to prohibited "statement[s]" challenging the unity of the state to "actions." The latest version refers instead to "activity," which judges, police and governors are likely to interpret as a license to continue their restrictions on freedom of expression and association.

"The package contains some worthwhile measures," said Andersen. "But many glaring constitutional shortcomings have been overlooked." Andersen concluded:

"For decades, successive Turkish governments have enacted cosmetic measures to ease relations with international partners while preserving the balance of fear between state and citizen, Unfortunately, with these proposed constitutional changes we're seeing that pattern repeated once again."