10 March 2005

1. "Amnesty Raises Kurd Issue", the Syrian government must put an immediate end to human rights abuses against Syrian Kurds, Amnesty International said in a report published Thursday on the eve of the anniversary of the Qamishli clashes.

2. "EU says crackdown on woman's rally shows a Turkey 'not of 21 century'", the European Union's Luxembourg presidency said Wednesday that a recent police crackdown on a women's rally in Istanbul showed a side of Turkey that was not of the 21st century.

3. "Turkish PM accuses media over controversial demo clampdown", Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the country's media for their reporting on a heavy-handed police clampdown against a women's demonstration which caused tension with the European Union, the Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

4. "Police beatings continue", opinion by Mehmet Ali Birand.

5. "Turkey faces acid test on its rights record", ’The EU reforms that have been approved by Parliament are not being observed all the time. The only way to break this vicious circle is to punish those ignoring the reforms,’ says a Turkish official.

6. "Turkey: EU demands CU agreement with Cyprus", the European Union (EU) expects Turkey to remove limits that prevent full implementation of the Customs Union (CU) agreement without flaws.

1. - IPS - "Amnesty Raises Kurd Issue":

LONDON / 10 March 2005 / by Sanjay Suri

The Syrian government must put an immediate end to human rights abuses against Syrian Kurds, Amnesty International said in a report published Thursday on the eve of the anniversary of the Qamishli clashes.

More than 30 Kurds were killed in clashes that spread from a football match between Kurdish and Arab teams in Qamishli in north-eastern Syria in March last year. The clashes brought into focus the plight of Kurds in Syria.

Amnesty says that more than 2,000 people, almost all of them Kurds, were arrested after the riots. ''Kurdish detainees, including children as young as 12, women, teenage girls and elderly people, were reportedly tortured and ill-treated,'' the report says. ''Dozens of Kurdish students were expelled from their universities and dormitories, reportedly for participating in peaceful protests.''

Kurds remain a people without a nation, spread across Turkey which has the largest population, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Kurds have faced persecution in all these countries. There are an estimated 1.5 to two million Syrian Kurds.

The abuse of Kurd rights has continued after the clashes last year, the Amnesty report says. ''The authorities must open investigations into the allegations of unlawful killings, deaths resulting from torture and ill- treatment in custody and torture of Kurds that have come to light since March 2004,'' Amnesty said in its report.

Since March 2004 there has been a significant increase in the number of reported deaths of Kurds as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody, the Amnesty report says.

''Five of nine such deaths reported to Amnesty International in the seven months after March 2004 were of Syrian Kurds,'' the report says. ''There have also been a number of deaths in suspicious circumstances of Kurdish military conscripts during the same period: at least six died, reportedly due to beatings or shootings by military superiors or colleagues. No investigation is known to have been carried out into any of the deaths in either category.''

The report, which Amnesty says followed several months' research, also describes the ''systemic identity-based discrimination suffered by the Syrian Kurds.'' The report highlights cases of Kurdish human rights defenders who have sought to promote rights of the Kurdish population in Syria and suffered arrest, torture and unfair trial.

''The Syrian authorities must set up an investigation into the apparently disproportionate response of the security forces to the March 2004 events,'' said Amnesty International. ''They must investigate the alleged unlawful killings and deaths as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody and the widespread reports of torture, and propose remedies to deal with the systemic discrimination against Kurds as well as other human rights violations that may have contributed to the tension and the outburst of violence.''

The Amnesty report also calls on the Syrian authorities to end the prohibitions on the use of the Kurdish language in education, the workplace, official establishments and at private celebrations, and to allow children to be registered with Kurdish names and businesses to carry Kurdish names. Amnesty says several hundred thousand Syrian Kurds are effectively stateless and, as such, are denied the full provision of education, employment, health and other rights enjoyed by Syrian nationals, as well as being denied the right to have a nationality and passport.

It has asked for legislation under which prisoners of conscience have been imprisoned to be brought in line with Articles 18-22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Syria has been a party since 1969. That guarantees the right to freedom of conscience, expression, assembly and association and the right to exercise these freedoms without undue interference. It has asked for independent investigations into allegations of unlawful killings and an amendment of legislation on nationality to find an expeditious solution to the statelessness of Syrian-born Kurds.

2. - AFP - "EU says crackdown on woman's rally shows a Turkey 'not of 21 century'":

BRUSSELS / 9 March 2005

The European Union's Luxembourg presidency said Wednesday that a recent police crackdown on a women's rally in Istanbul showed a side of Turkey that was not of the 21st century.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said: "For me that was really not a Turkey of the 21st century, rather a Turkey with a lot of brutality."

Asselborn was speaking about a visit with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in Turkey a day after the crackdown.

Sixty-three people were detained when riot police broke up one of several demonstrations Sunday in Istanbul ahead of International Women's Day on Tuesday.

Footage broadcast on the NTV Turkish news channel showed officers using truncheons and pepper gas against the protestors and hauling those detained on to buses.

The Turkish minister vowed to launch a probe into what the EU had termed "disproportionate" use of force by the Istanbul police.

Speaking in an interview with German radio relased here, Asselborn said: "Turkey has made a lot of progress on human rights issue in the last three years. This Sunday showed that it's not enough in a country like Turkey in a transition phase to make laws against torture, for human rights, for religious freedom and so on."

3. - AFP - "Turkish PM accuses media over controversial demo clampdown":

ANKARA / 10 March 2005

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the country's media for their reporting on a heavy-handed police clampdown against a women's demonstration which caused tension with the European Union, the Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

"All television channels heaped criticism on the police. Our media basically denounced Turkey to Europe and the world," Erdogan said in an interview late Wednesday with the private TGRT television channel.

"Was that really Turkey? What happened there? We need to consider these questions, but no one seems to do that," he added.

The prime minister, however, acknowledged that police went overboard in their response to the demonstration, but also argued that some of the protestors were sympathizers of outlawed groups who provoked officers.

"There was provocation, but there were also mistakes made by members of the police force. They should have been careful and not fallen for the provocation," he said.

More than 60 people were detained in Sunday's protest in Istanbul, meant to mark International Women's Day on March 8, when police broke down what it called an unauthorised gathering.

Television footage showed officers hitting demonstrators with batons and kicking women who had fallen to the ground.

"I do not find it humane to hit a woman who has fallen. It is wrong to do such a thing," Erdogan said.

The clampdown shocked EU officials who were in Turkey for discussions to prepare for the start of membership talks with the mainly Muslim country on October 3.

In response to EU criticism that the police used disproportionate force, local authorities have opened an investigation.

4. - Hürriyet - "Police beatings continue":

10 March / opinion by Mehmet Ali Birand

We have a wonderful national psychology.

We may behave completely inappropriately or we may have faced an incident that angered us. We usually are willing to punish those responsible without any due procedure.

However, when the same type of criticism comes from overseas, we become lions defending our cubs. We try to defend those responsible.

The same thing happened when the police beat up the protestors.

When the European Union criticized the Turkish police, all of us, from ministers to the most liberal commentators reacted very harshly.

“Their police also beat up protestors. Let them first look at themselves.”

“Do we criticize them for their faults?”

“They are trying to create an artificial crisis.”

Dear friends, just wait a minute.

Wherever you go in Europe, if one sees such police brutality, the same reaction is given. Let's not doubt that for a minute.

Last Saturday's incidents might have seemed a little “light” for us, for we are used to more bloody versions. However, the European public, let alone the European Commission, was shocked to see women on the street being beat up on the eve of World Women's Day on their televisions. Just look at the international channels. The reason behind such a reaction is because this happened at a time when people were debating whether Turkey would succeed in adhering to the rules of the EU.

Just leaving the EU aside, let's ask ourselves this question, “Are we going to beat up or kick our citizens just because they are protesting without a permit, or are we going to react appropriately?”

If we are going to react, it means we are deceiving ourselves and employing double standards.

5. - Turkish Daily News - "Turkey faces acid test on its rights record":

’The EU reforms that have been approved by Parliament are not being observed all the time. The only way to break this vicious circle is to punish those ignoring the reforms,’ says a Turkish official.

ANKARA / 9 March 2005/ by Elif Unal Arslan

As a country committed to reforming itself to meet European Union standards, Turkish authorities face an escalating number of legal cases and investigations into alleged human rights abuses, each serving as an acid test for Turkey’s determination to join the 25-nation bloc.

Excessive use of force by Turkish police against demonstrators during a weekend rally in Istanbul prompted sharp criticism from the EU over the performance of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan’s government in implementing the harmonization reforms.

Both European Parliament President Josep Borrell and the EU Troika, which held talks in Ankara only a day after the incident, condemned the "police beating of demonstrating women and young people." Borrell also felt the need to remind the Turkish administration of "the obligations it assumed at an EU summit on December 17." Turkey at that time secured an agreement to start accession negotiations with the union in early October. The European press also fumed over the police treatment of the protesters.

Clearly, it was not only the weekend police violence that paved way to such EU criticism. Failure to bring before the court the policemen suspected of killing a boy and his father, claimed to have been members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in Kiziltepe and prior legal attempts to close down Eðitim-Sen, an education personnel labor union, for advocating education in languages other than Turkish were just two other test cases. Brussels is closely monitoring such cases as it wants to see strict implementation of the reforms.

The official investigation into the weekend incident that was announced by Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül during a joint news conference with the EU Troika will certainly constitute another test case. Turkish officials admitted that Turkey’s determined image was now damaged in the eyes of the Europeans. "The outcome of the investigation is crucial," an official who declined to be identified told the TDN, adding that the policemen who were responsible for the violence should be immediately suspended and then punished in order to display Turkey’s determination to deal with human rights abuses.

According to officials, Turkey has also made significant headway in making and implementing the EU-inspired reforms. For instance, they said, security forces and judicial personnel were provided training to ensure smooth reform implementation.

"However, there is a vicious circle. The EU reforms that have already been approved by Parliament are not being observed all the time," said another official, referring to the weekend incident. "The only way to break this vicious circle is to punish those who are ignoring the reforms," he added.

6. - Reporter.gr - "Turkey: EU demands CU agreement with Cyprus":

The European Union (EU) expects Turkey to remove limits that prevent full implementation of the Customs Union (CU) agreement without flaws.

9 March 2005

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn came to Istanbul the other day as the guest of the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association (TUSIAD) and delivered a speech at Ceylan Hotel to businessmen, representatives of the Turkish Trade Union Confederation and the Foreign Investment Association and Financial Development Foundation.
Rehn said, "Despite the Customs Union's general success, there are unfortunately still some promises that have not been fulfilled by Turkey. This is unacceptable." Rehn criticized limits on intellectual properties, ceramic, textile and meat products exported from the EU, and requirements of license importation in the telecommunication sector.

Rehn said, "It is obviously difficult to understand the kinds of measures that come from a candidate country that is about to start accession negotiations. The EU is not just a rose garden, it is also an level playing field for all European companies."

In addition, Rehn said that the screening process must be completed in order to start actual negotiations and will begin immediately after October 3rd-- the official start of the negotiation process. Rehn believes that the EU Council will make Turkey continue its reforms, "We would like Turkey to continue its reform process at the same speed."