28 May 2003

1. "Human rights associations voice concern over reform package", Turkey's leading human rights advocates, the Human Rights Association (IHD), Turkish Human Rights Foundation (THIV) and the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER) said in a joint declaration on Tuesday that they have concerns over the reform package prepared in the name of democratization within the framework of Turkey's ambition to become a member the European Union.

2. "Turkish prison protests took toll on health", Prisoners who took part in massive hunger strikes said that they were fighting for more humane conditions; now they're struggling just to live normal lives

3. "Peace envoy lost his life", Ismet Baycan who went to Turkey as a member of the 1. Peace and Democratic Solution Group in 1999 and was a prisoner in Mus E-Type Prison lost his life as a result of negligence on the part of the prison administrator.

4. "EU harmonization involves only the laws? What about the state and society?", by Sedat Bozkurt.

5. "Two Turkeys", apparently, Greece’s foreign minister is deeply convinced that there are two Turkeys. One is the Turkey of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: pro-European, moderate and flexible. The other is that of Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok: typically Eastern, intransigent and aggressive.

6. "Kurds face dilemma over autonomy issue", at the proclaimed border of Kurdistan, a 10-minute drive west of here, peshmerga warriors inspect the documents of travelers and traders entering their turf.

1. - Turkish Daily News - "Human rights associations voice concern over reform package":

ANAKARA / 28 May 2003

Turkey's leading human rights advocates, the Human Rights Association (IHD), Turkish Human Rights Foundation (THIV) and the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER) said in a joint declaration on Tuesday that they have concerns over the reform package prepared in the name of democratization within the framework of Turkey's ambition to become a member the European Union.

"It becomes unclear who sponsored and who carried out these works in line with the harmonization process to the EU. The Turkish public and its nongovernmental organizations are alienated from this process. Human rights associations can learn about these important implementations closely related to our democratic life from the press. This process should be transparent and the contribution of public should be maintained," the declaration stressed.

Government plans to present the sixth harmonization package or publicly known as the reform package soon. The package is still at the Prime Ministry.

The sixth package aims to lift Article 8 of the anti-terrorism law which restricted the freedom of expression, while they would adjust the definition of terrorism in line with U.N. resolutions.

The sixth package includes arrangements allowing private radios and TVs to broadcast in different languages and dialects other than Turkish and enabling international observers to monitor the elections.

The package also includes amendments to the Zoning and Construction Law, Population Law, Foundations Law and the law on cinema, video and music pieces.

According to Turkey's prominent human rights advocates, the package prevents the contribution of nongovernmental organizations and calls on circles that views Turkey's main problems only as a security issue to become the determiners.

"Implementations meaning more pressure become available in the name of democratization," the declaration said.

Human rights associations say that the package aims to lift the Article 8 of the anti-terror law but includes a new article to the Turkish Penal Code allowing courts to sentence those who are convicted under this article to higher penalties.

2. - Taipai Times / AFP - "Turkish prison protests took toll on health":

Prisoners who took part in massive hunger strikes said that they were fighting for more humane conditions; now they're struggling just to live normal lives

28 May 2003

Confined to a somber flat in a modest Ankara neighborhood, far-left militant Hasan Cepe is striving to remember what he has just read before turning the page. Next in his daily routine is a walking exercise.

"We struggled for our rights, now we struggle for our lives," slurs the 32-year-old, one of hundreds of former Turkish inmates who have been disabled for life in an unprecedented hunger strike against controversial jail reforms.

Released from prison on medical grounds, Cepe is left with an impaired short-term memory, muscle disorder and barely intelligible speech -- the result of 239 days of starvation.

He can now remember only part of his daily life and is unable to go out on his own as he does not know how to get back home. Hunger is something he no longer feels.

The so-called "death fast," which was launched in prisons across Turkey in October 2000 to protest the introduction of new high-security jails, claimed its 66th victim in March.

The protest once saw about 2,000 prisoners fast on a rotating basis, but with the government refusing to yield it now appears to be petering out with only about 20 inmates still fasting.

Survivors owe their lives to sugared water and vitamins they take in order to prolong their protest.

But their current plight has attracted no sympathy from authorities, who see the strikers -- most of whom belong to far-left underground groups with violent records -- as terrorists.

Their laborious rehabilitation and care now depends mostly on relatives and fellow militants who run "houses of life" -- flats like the one in which Cepe lives -- where the disabled relearn basic tasks together.

"This house is our bridge from prison to normal life," Esmahan Ekinci, 46, says haltingly.

Ekinci's condition has improved since her release two years ago when "I was watching everything happening around as on a TV screen, unable to perceive and communicate."

She now attends social functions, contributes to a newsletter dedicated to the "houses of life" and makes postcards that she sells at a neighborhood marketplace.

She also meticulously keeps a diary -- a precaution against memory gaps, which, doctors say, will haunt most strikers for the rest of their lives.

Some 60 percent suffer to a varying extent from a brain disorder caused mainly by alcoholism but also by malnutrition, says Levent Kutlu, a doctor with the Human Rights Foundation, which has helped in the physical and psychological treatment of more than 500 inmates released on health grounds.

"Full recovery is not possible. What we are trying to achieve is to restore their functions as much as we can so they can live a life as close to normal as possible," he says.

But in the "house of life" the stakes are much higher.

"Despite our physical disabilities, we want to be part of the life outside, to be in the midst of things," says Ekinci. "We are still against the F-type prisons," using the official term for the new jails.

Her resolve underscores the spirit of unrelenting dissidence and militant discipline in the house, whose dwellers were jailed for up to 12 years for membership in the Turkish Revolutionary Communist Union -- ?a Maoist group with a violent record.

The inauguration of the F-type jails, where one- and three-man cells replaced wards housing dozens, is seen as one of the most dramatic and controversial episodes in recent Turkish history.

Using firearms and tear gas, hundreds of soldiers raided jails across the country, several weeks after the hunger strike started, to transfer the inmates to the new prisons. Bulldozers were used to demolish prison walls.

The prisoners responded with gunfire, and some set themselves ablaze. The four-day operation claimed the lives of 32 prisoners and two soldiers.

Ankara has brushed aside criticism that the new design will further isolate the inmates and leave them more vulnerable to maltreatment and torture by prison guards.

Authorities say the dormitory system was at the core of lax security in crowded prisons, where inmates were able to smuggle in guns and were running the wards as indoctrination centers.

3. - Kurdish Observer - "Peace envoy lost his life":

26 May 2003

Ismet Baycan who went to Turkey as a member of the 1. Peace and Democratic Solution Group in 1999 and was a prisoner in Mus E-Type Prison lost his life as a result of negligence on the part of the prison administrator.

Ismet Baycan who came to Turkey as a member of the 1. Group for Peace and Democratic Solution in order to support the “Peace Project” launched by KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan, and was put into Mus Prison lost his life the other day. Prisoners from KADEK said, “Our comrade who had been in prison for 4 years had not any health problems until his death. His sudden death in prison caused us deep worries.”

He was not taken to hospital on time

Ismet Baycan fainted as a result of sudden low blood pressure and a heart problem in Mus Prison. But as the prison management did not take him to hospital on time he lost his life. His body will be taken to the district of Dogubeyazit of Agri after the autopsy.

He had no health problems

Making a statement on behalf of KADEK prisoners in Mus Prison, Turabi Kisin, Ridvan Aslan and Yuksel Genc said the following: “Our comrade who had been in prison for 4 years had not any health problems until his death. His sudden death in prison caused us deep worries.”

The statement stressed that the prison management did not take the demand to take him to hospital urgently into consideration, claiming that there were no vehicles and privates were on training. Baycan was kept waiting for half an hour and a doctor prisoner was not allowed to examine him. As he was taken to Mus State Hospital, Baycan is said to be able to speak but he died while he was taken to the province of Van.

The statement continued with words to the effect: “There is certainly a negligence on the part of the prison administration. Some deputy directors have nationalistic views and approach Kurds with an antipathy. The deputy director on duty displayed the same approach when our comrade died. Besides health and nutrition conditions are extremely backward. There is no doctor in the prison. The administration does not concern itself with us prisoners and refuse any dialogue. It has an excluding approach. We believe that the prison administration has everything to do with our comrade’s sudden death and we shall follow up the case closely. Comrade Ismet Baycan’s martyrdom has shown inhuman conditions in prisons once again. Our many friends are not treated although they have grave health problems. Captives are left to die by delibarate policies.”

Who is Ismet Baycan

Ismet Baycan (Suat Tekin) was born in the district of Dogubeyazit of Agri province on April 1, 1964. He studied economy in Eskisehir University. He was introduced to the Kurdish freedom movement in 80s and joined the guerrilla in 1994. He came to Turkey on October 1, 1999 as a member of the 1. Group of Peace and Democratic Solution as a member of the 1. Group for Peace and Democratic Solution in order to support the “Peace Project” launched by KADEK President Abdullah Ocalan. He was sentenced to 12 years 6 months in prison along with other members of the group.

4. - Turkish Daily News - "EU harmonization involves only the laws? What about the state and society?":

28 May 2003 / by Sedat Bozkurt*

Turkey has prepared six reform packages for harmonization to the EU in the past one and a half years. Five of these packages cleared Parliament, while the last package has recently been presented to Parliament. It would be unjust to call these arrangements "insufficient" because the legal and constitutional amendments realized for harmonization to the EU have content that would deeply affect the social or political structure of Turkey. The first harmonization package that cleared Parliament on February 6, 2002, is an example. It amends the bloody two articles of the Turkish Penal Code, Articles 159 and 312. The Anti-terrorism Law's Article 8, which threatens many pundits and writers with prison terms, was also amended with this package. What's most interesting is that the sixth harmonization package, which has been presented to Parliament one and a half years after this amendment, totally lifts Article 8.

It's not so hard to understand how much we can adjust to the EU when we look at this picture. There's no problem about harmonization depending on the sincerity of the government which holds the power in Parliament. Coalition partners MHP and ANAP were at odds because of "democratization opening" in the first package and the coalition's second partner objected to these arrangements in Parliament. There are two parties in the current Parliament and the opposition CHP also supports the sixth harmonization package. That's why the only objection to the package came from a nonpolitical actor, the military. However, does the military's objection cover all the soldiers or not? The government has sought answer to this question and did not act in haste to send the package to the Prime Ministry from the Justice Ministry. The package came to the Prime Ministry just after the meeting of the chief of staff and the prime minister. Having a luncheon with EU ambassadors, Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc commented on the statement sent to the Prime Ministry by the National Security Council (MGK) Secretary General Gen. Tuncer Kilinc, who voiced the opposition to the package. Arinc said, "It does not bind the army, it's his opinion." The chief of staff was meeting the prime minister when Arinc uttered these words. He might have uttered such an assertive statement according to the information came from the Prime Ministry.

The second harmonization package included many new arrangements, varying from Press Code to the Associations Law, from Demonstrations Law to State Security Court (DGM) Law.

The third package was also thick. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer applied to the Constitutional Court for the cancellation of an article and the coalition partner MHP filed with the court for the cancellation of six articles included in this package. Abolition of the death penalty and education and broadcasting in the Kurdish language were included in this package.

The fourth harmonization package was a modest package which amended 16 laws. The fifth package included five drafts. The most important arrangement was to bring retrial right in line with the European Court decisions. Former pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) deputies, who spent past nine years in jail, were the first to use this right. The sixth reform package is next on the line. Heated discussions are going on about this package, as usual, although it includes homework for a country which targets EU membership. Finding these discussions "meaningless", Justice Minister Cemil Cicek put forth a concrete suggestion in order to voice his "boredom": "All the institutions should come together and decide: Do we want to enter the EU?" There are three articles which are discussed, in fact were put on debate by the MGK Secretary: Lifting of the 8th article of the Anti-Terrorism Law, broadcasting in Kurdish and possession of goods by foreigners.

However, everybody expects this package to pass Parliament with CHP's support despite the ongoing discussions. CHP's "support" is very significant in terms of understanding the address of the objections. CHP seems to be beside the military in terms of the process. However, CHP cannot do that since these amendments are those changes supported by the CHP to date and the latter is in an effort to be the party which most desires to enter the EU.

Now, it's time to put forth how much we adjusted to the EU with these six packages prepared in the past one and a half years. If the harmonization rate is 80 percent, has Turkey become a country whose legislation conformed 80 percent to the EU? Do those people living in Turkey feel that they comply 80 percent with the EU? The main problem lies here. Legislation's harmonization to the EU has no contribution to the daily practice. The only people that benefit from the amendments in the sixth package are those former DEP deputies. They have been in prison for the past nine years because of a crime that can never been seen in any European country and this arrangement provides nothing but retrial because of the same crime by those courts which imprisoned them.

Our legislation has complied 99 percent with the EU. There are 58,000 mercenary and 23,000 voluntary village guards in the southeast and these people who possess arms practice law in this geography and the law is made up of their rules.

The police can interrogate high school students within their schools because of their participation in the legal Labor Day May 1 street demonstrations. They can threaten the parents of these children who object to this interrogation. When asked, the police spokesperson denies such an event. The principal, vice principals, students and parents are both victims and witnesses of this event. The police are the state in one way and can deny its "fault" in order to cover it. And a very surprising result comes to the scene: everybody is lying, the police are telling the truth. Police are telling the truth because the police spokesperson says, "The concerned unit was asked of the event and responded as saying no such event took place." What kind of an amendment shall we make in order to put an end to this situation? None of the current laws allow such a situation. The Human Rights Association (IHD) raid was experienced just after this event. The police raided IHD headquarters and its Ankara branch on the day when the Foreign Minister invited IHD to the nongovernmental organizations' meeting to be held for EU harmonization. When looking at the harmonization laws passed in the past one and a half years we should not have experienced such a raid, but it happened.

When we leave aside the public security issues, how many harmonization packages should we pass to adjust our social structure and lives, most importantly our minds, to the EU? How will the state harmonize its citizens to the EU while it's unable to fulfill its essential duties?

*Sedat Bozkurt is the news director of ATV.

5. - Kathimerini - "Two Turkeys":

28 May 2003 / by Stamos Zoulas

Apparently, Greece’s foreign minister is deeply convinced that there are two Turkeys. One is the Turkey of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: pro-European, moderate and flexible. The other is that of Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok: typically Eastern, intransigent and aggressive.

This would explain the fact that while Ozkok has said that Turkish fighter jets will fly wherever they want to over the Aegean Sea (his remarks were verified on Monday as 32 aircraft violated our air space on seven occasions), George Papandreou and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul announced three new confidence building measures aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries’ militaries.

Even if we accept that Papandreou’s insistence on turning a blind eye to the Turkish military establishment’s assertiveness, instead conversing only with representatives of moderate Turkey, has yielded some fruit — specifically, showing Ankara as the sole source of intransigence in Greek-Turkish disputes and the Cyprus issue — this tactic cannot acquire the status of official strategy.

The first reason is because it has once again been proven that the military bureaucracy has the final say in Turkish politics. Secondly, because Ankara is eager to see Athens’s constant conciliatoriness as a sign of backing down. And, thirdly, because Greece has no reason or power to spearhead Turkey’s democratization and Europeanization, hoping to tip the current balance of power within Ankara in favor of the moderates. Whether this will take place depends primarily on the people of Turkey and their political leaders.

The Greek government must re-examine its tactic as Ankara’s conciliatory tone is negated by its aggressive behavior.

6. - Los Angeles Times - "Kurds face dilemma over autonomy issue":

ARBIL / 28 May 2003 / by Carol J. Williams

At the proclaimed border of Kurdistan, a 10-minute drive west of here, peshmerga warriors inspect the documents of travelers and traders entering their turf.

At Arbil's scruffy central market, fruit vendors and money changers scoff at the Iraqi national currency that still circulates elsewhere. Kurdistan has its own legal tender, printed in Switzerland, that's worth 200 times the value of a Baghdad dinar.

From their separate language and media to their region's own taxes and tariffs, Iraqi Kurds have lived for a dozen years in what amounts to the independent state of Kurdistan.

Now, though, as Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens, Assyrians and other ethnic groups vie for power with the fall of Saddam Hussain's regime, there is growing debate about how much of that autonomy Kurds will sacrifice for the sake of a multiethnic federation.

There is also some doubt among Western officials midwifing the new interim government about the commitment Kurds will make to any national entity based in Baghdad, when they have for so long so openly pined for their own state.

Leading figures from among the region's 36 political movements and parties profess pragmatism, promising allegia-nce to the emerging government on condition Kurdistan recovers territory lost to Saddam's.

"Arabisation" that expelled Kurds from towns and cities they once dominated.

"We will always dream of having our own state, but we are realistic enough to know our boundaries," says Abdul Salam Berwari, political editor of the daily newspaper Khabat ("Struggle"), and an influential member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party that rules the western half of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Too much autonomy for Iraq's Kurds would encourage ethnic brethren in neighbouring states to seek an alliance with them, further straining relations between the Kurds and the governments of Turkey, Syria and Iran, the editor notes.

The KDP sees the Kurds' future as more secure in a united Iraq, he says, as long as they retain the rights enjoyed under a U.S.-enforced "no-fly" zone that effectively severed Kurdistan from the rest of Iraq.

More radical Kurds, however, threaten to spoil a negotiated solution by demanding full independence and eventual union with Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iran in a Greater Kurdistan.

"We've struggled for our independence for 100 years. We are willing to accept a federal state at this stage, like in America or Germany, but in the future we want 100 per cent independence. We want to have our own country," says Faruqadir Mohammed, head of the Kurdistan Indepe-ndence Party.

Mohammed contends that most Kurds share his nationalist aspirations, but accept U.S. warnings that independence would destabilise the region.

There is little U.S. military presence in Kurdistan, as peshmerga fighters have long kept the peace in their own territories. U.S. forces are viewed here as allies, having helped defend Kurds against the brutality and discrimination of Saddam's regime.

But some observers fear the mood could swing if Kurds get short shrift in the power-sharing arrangements or if their relative plenty dissipates under taxation from Baghdad.

"We would have to insist that all tax money collected here should be spent here. We are not responsible for the damages suffered elsewhere," says Ali Qader, a local official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Kurdistan, already more prosperous than the rest of the country because of its de facto exemption from 12 years of UN sanctions against Iraq, was spared the destruction rained on the capital and cities to the south.

The peshmergas, whose name means "those who face death", say they are amenable to a federal government in Baghdad that would allow Kurdistan to retain its autonomy, including a militia.

"We have lived through much sacrifice and torture to secure our freedom and we don't want to lose our rights," says Sami Sarhad, a 42-year-old peshmerga guarding the customs border between Mosul and Arbil.

Sarhad insists that Kurds need their own state, but echoes the political line of Kurdistan's leaders in saying Kurds could accept a central government provided fair representation and other guarantees are met.

"If the Americans and the British control the choice of the next regime, it will be OK. But we are afraid the old regime will come back bit by bit if the troops withdraw and leave us again to be dominated by the Arabs," says the peshmerga, who says he named twin sons born in early May after President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Kurdistan, with fields of ripening grain and city streets bustling with life, stands in sharp contrast to bombed and impoverished Baghdad.

But even the Iraqi Kurdish enclave is divided, with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan ruling the eastern sector from the mountain city of Sulaymaniyah and the KDP governing the western half from Irbil.

The fissures running through Kurdish politics make a united negotiating front difficult, although all parties have been paying lip service to the idea of a central government. Both major parties have their own representatives lobbying international mediators in Baghdad ahead of a gathering expected to seat an interim government in July.

At the Arbil market, people voice an array of opinions. Some say they are willing to give up their more durable currency, reflective of a more vibrant economy, in the interest of a stronger country.

"It would be better to have one currency. It would symbolise a united Iraq," says trader Dlear Mohammed. "Kurdistan is more prosperous, but it would be better for business if there (was) a bigger trade zone and everyone had free movement."

Qasim Hasan, a 31-year-old businessman with a shop at the central market, says he trusts the U.S. forces to broker a new Iraqi administration with fair ethnic representation. But, like many Iraqis, he wants to see speedy elections so their nation can be ruled by a figure of the people's choosing.

"We want a single government for Iraq and we don't care what our leaders say. All they do is line their own pockets," says Ismail Rasul Ahmad, his wizened face clenched with anger.

"It doesn't matter who is in power as long as he is a good person. It could be a Kurd or an Arab or an American or a Briton. We would even support an Israeli if he works at our service."

U.S. officials believe that despite talk of independence, Kurdish leaders are fully prepared to accept a role in a unified Iraqi government.