24 April 2007

1. "Students Sentence to 60 Years Imprisonment", an Ankara court sentence 28 university students to a total of more than 60 years imprisonment following the demonstrations in 2005 against the Council of Higher Education, which is seen as a legacy of the military coup of 1980.

2. "Rights Organizations Protest Court Ruling", Human rights organizations IHD, Mazlumder and KHRP protested the court decision in the landmark case where four police officers have been acquitted of killing a boy and his father in Mardin in 2004. They criticized the lack of a fair trial.

3. "Turk AK Party Picks Presidential Candidate", Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday his ruling AK Party's candidate for the presidential election next month has been decided and will be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday.

4. "Vote puts Turkish headscarf battle back in spotlight", the Islamist-rooted ruling AK Party says it wants to lift the ban, a key demand of its grass-root supporters, but has faced fierce opposition from Turkey's powerful secular elite.

5. "Turkey: Turkish Academics Dispute 'Genocide' Label", Turkish academics widely object to the characterization of the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey from 1915-18 as "genocide." While it is accepted that killings took place during the relocation of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire during World War I, many Turkish scholars do not believe they were the result of a deliberate campaign.

6. "German concern at Turkish "intolerance" after Christian killings", German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced concern Monday at 'unacceptable intolerance' in Turkey, following the killings of three Christians.

1. - Bianet - "Students Sentence to 60 Years Imprisonment":

An Ankara court sentence 28 university students to a total of more than 60 years imprisonment following the demonstrations in 2005 against the Council of Higher Education, which is seen as a legacy of the military coup of 1980.

ANKARA / 23 April 2007 / by Ayca Orer

28 university students have been sentenceed to a total of 68 years imprisonment for participating in a demonstration against the Turkish Council of Higher Education (YÖK) in its 25th anniversary in November 2005.

During the demonstrations in Ankara, the security forces had intervened and took 50 students under custody, while many others were injured by use of force by the police.

40 students among them were charged and the case ended recently.

Ankara 11th High Criminal Court condemned two students to 10 years in prison on grounds of "being member to an illegal organization and disposing of explosives".

20 other students were condemned to 18 months while six of them to 30 months.

Lawyer of the students, Ali Haydar Hakverdi said they would appeal to the ruling. He reminded the court that his clients are students and the case interfered with their right to education.

In the past, 33 students in Trache University have been condemned to 3 years imprisonment for "damaging public property" following a spring festivity at the campus.

A central body, which controls all universities in the country, YÖK, has been established following the military coup of 1980.

Each year, students protest it as an obstacle in front of the sovereignity and free speech at the institutions.

2. - Bianet - "Rights Organizations Protest Court Ruling":

Human rights organizations IHD, Mazlumder and KHRP protested the court decision in the landmark case where four police officers have been acquitted of killing a boy and his father in Mardin in 2004. They criticized the lack of a fair trial.

ISTANBUL / 23 April 2007

Rights organizations reacted to the acquittal of the police officers in the case where they were tried with killing 12-year-old Ugur Kaymaz and his father.

An Eskisehir court has ruled that four police officers acted in self-defense during a raid into the Kaymaz house in Mardin in 2004.

Human Rights Association of Turkey (IHD) said there were failings with regard to the fairness of the trial since its beginning and urged the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Minister of Justice to resign.

Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER) Diyarbakir branch said the courts must provide a fair trial for those on the culprit and relieve the public consciousness from any doubts about justice being done.

London-based Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) commented that "the court ruling is a revelation that the Turkish state rejects to protects the right to life of the ethnic Kurds in the country" given both Kaymaz's were of Kurdish descent.

Criticizing the reasoning of the court while acquitting the police officers, IHD directed the following questions to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal affairs.

* Would a 12-year-old child and his father who run out with his slippers constituted a real threat to 100 fold police officers surrounding the house?

* Why did the Ministry of Justice relocated the trial to Eskisehir which began in Mardin, the lieu of the incident?

* Why do the cases where the security forces are tried end up in breach of justice?

3. - Reuters - "Turk AK Party Picks Presidential Candidate":

ANKARA / 23 April 2007

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday his ruling AK Party's candidate for the presidential election next month has been decided and will be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Erdogan has refused to deny speculation that he himself plans to run for the office, causing tensions between his Islamist-rooted, centre-right party and the secular elite, which includes the powerful military top brass.

But in comments made later at a reception to mark National Sovereignty Day, Erdogan seemed to rule himself out by saying the party's candidate would be a conciliatory figure.

Secularists fear Erdogan, a charismatic but divisive politician, would erode the division between state and religion if elected president. Erdogan denies any Islamist agenda.

"In our heads it's clear (the name of the candidate), but because of the conditions in the country, we are not announcing it (today)," Erdogan said after talks with the parliamentary speaker.

AK Party sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the frontrunner to be the party's candidate was Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul, a low-profile official who has worked closely with the army generals. Crucially for secularists, Gonul's wife, unlike Erdogan's, does not wear the Islamic headscarf.

But the sources stressed that Erdogan could still change his mind at the last minute. Several other compromise figures have been mooted in the Turkish media in recent days.

The president is elected by parliament, and the AK Party has a majority large enough to be sure of guaranteeing that its candidate will win. The ruling party has already given Erdogan the mandate to pick its presidential candidate.

Though the prime minister has most power under Turkey's parliamentary democracy, the president has key powers to veto laws once and appoint many officials, including top judges.

"Tomorrow we are holding a group meeting, and on Wednesday we may have an extraordinary meeting. Tomorrow or Wednesday we will announce it," Erdogan said.

April 25 is the deadline for registration of candidates. So far one AK Party lawmaker has announced his candidacy, but is likely to withdraw after Erdogan announces the party's choice.

4. - Reuters - "Vote puts Turkish headscarf battle back in spotlight":

ISTANBUL / 23 April 2007 / by By Emma Ross-Thomas

The men and women stand separately but their chant is the same: "Long live the fight for the headscarf!"

The women at this protest in Istanbul's old quarter want to wear their headscarves in school, university and parliament, but Muslim Turkey's secular system forbids that, with laws pious Muslims see as a breach of their personal and religious freedom.

The Islamist-rooted ruling AK Party says it wants to lift the ban, a key demand of its grass-root supporters, but has faced fierce opposition from Turkey's powerful secular elite.

However, the issue is now back on the agenda as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan considers running for president in an election next month. That would put a scarf-wearing first lady into the presidential palace in Ankara for the first time.

Outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, an arch-secularist, currently forbids such headgear on the premises of the palace.

Such an outcome would shock the secular elite, but not the 60 percent of Turkish women who cover up, nor the 59 percent of Turks who according to a survey by think-tank TESEV think Muslim women must cover their heads.

Ayse Nur Bulut, 20, is one of them: she left university because she could not wear a headscarf to class.

"I cried a lot, I thought a lot, I talked to everybody about it and in the end I decided this," she told Reuters. "It's an identity problem ... and it's a religious command."

Thousands of women have made the same decision since a ban previously applied only sporadically was enforced in 1997 after the army ousted a government it deemed too Islamist.

Some make the same decision for their children, pulling them from school in their teens.

Others, not wanting to miss out on the fast growth that reforms and modernisation have brought to EU candidate Turkey, go to university, and either uncover at the gates or wear a wig.

The obstacles do not end with university. Parts of the private sector are also reluctant to employ covered women, as a glance around Istanbul's business district suggests.

"There are very few companies which employ women with headscarves ... They think their image will be harmed," said Fatma Disli, a columnist at Today's Zaman, adding that her headscarf was a factor in her career choice.

Turkish women have low work force participation rates and hold only 4 percent of the seats in parliament.

"Whether you're talking about women's rights, women's progress or women needing to participate more in society, you just can't ignore those 62 percent (who wear headscarves)," said lawyer Fatma Benli.

Benli, who quit a masters degree she was about to complete because of the ban, cannot appear in court because of her scarf so passes cases to her brother when it's time to go to court.

Secularists tend to see the headscarf as a threat to the modernising reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who threw religion out of public life as he rebuilt Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. They say any relaxation of the ban could quickly turn Turkey into another Iran.

The headscarf is so controversial, and so politicised, that the two sides cannot even agree on its name.

Secularists tend to call it a "turban" when they consider it political, and a "basortusu" or "headcover" to denote what their grandmothers or rural women might wear, either for tradition or religion. They say hair can poke out of a headcover, which they don't consider a threat, but not out of a turban, which they do.

But many of the women who according to the secularists wear turbans refuse to accept the word, calling any kind of scarf a "headcover" and denying any political motive.

"Turban is the name given by those favouring the ban about those who want to go to school, work in the government, be a doctor, a pharmacist or work in a company using a headscarf," said Ayse Irem Demiriz, from human rights group Mazlumder.

Hundreds of women, including Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's wife, have applied to the European Court of Human Rights, but the court has upheld the ban.

Wearers reject claims that if the headscarf is allowed, uncovered women will feel under pressure to follow suit and deny that the headscarf is the thin end of an Islamist wedge.

"Turkey really cannot get rid of its fears that it will be divided, that sharia will come to power, that it will destroy secularism and democracy. It's not possible, we've digested democracy and secularism," Disli said.

5. - RFE/RL - "Turkey: Turkish Academics Dispute 'Genocide' Label":

23 April 2007

Turkish academics widely object to the characterization of the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey from 1915-18 as "genocide." While it is accepted that killings took place during the relocation of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire during World War I, many Turkish scholars do not believe they were the result of a deliberate campaign. RFE/RL spoke with some prominent Turkish historians and lawmakers to hear their take.

Betul Aslan, University of Erzurum:

All archives are open in Turkey. Based on these archive materials they will see that there has been no genocide. This was a decision that the Ottoman state had to make under conditions of war.

I don't see it even as deportation, but moving out and resettling. They (the Armenians) even claim a number of dead that exceeds the total number of [the Armenian] population in the Ottoman Empire.

Murat Belge, Bilgi University, Istanbul:

I believe what happened in 1915 cannot be put in the same frame with and does not have the same essence of what Hitler did for three main reasons: Firstly, Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews altogether. Hitler was not trying to extradite the Jews from Germany.

He wanted to exterminate them everywhere in the world they lived. So, what happened in the Ottoman state and what Hitler did and led to the creation of the term 'genocide' are quite different. Secondly, it is important to look at how a society or state organized a crime to see if it was 'genocide.' In [Nazi] Germany, we saw the horrible organization of genocide.

Murat Belge (courtesy)The Ottoman state, however, under those circumstances, couldn't have done this even if it had wanted to. Chaotic things have happened and it is not fully clear who attacked whom and where.

A small group inside the Special Organization (eds. A three member executive committee established by the Committee of Union and Progress) undertook a number of actions in the course of deportation, but we can't see any efforts to massacre those left behind. And thirdly, the Jews were completely innocent and Hitler tried to exterminate them based on fabricated claims. But the Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were involved in armed struggle against the government although it would be an exaggeration to claim that all Armenians engaged in this struggle.

Cengiz Aktar, Bahceshehir University, Istanbul:

Turkey has never said that 'Nothing happened in 1915.' Sure, things happened. As a result, fewer Armenians were left in the Ottoman Empire, while Turks and Kurds remained. But I think it was no genocide. Research and debate is continuing over whether it was indeed a genocide. But, certainly, whatever is agreed upon, it cannot relieve the Ottoman Empire of its responsibility.

Sukru Elekdag, parliamentarian, former UN ambassador:

In World War I, the Ottoman state was fighting against Russia in the east and against France and Britain in the west. They (Ottoman Armenians) were planning to create an Armenian state in eastern Anatolia. Armed Armenian groups were joining the Russian army to fight the Ottomans. They (the Armenians) were also massacring Turks in the areas in which they were active. That means that in 1915, along with the [world] war, there was also a civil war within the Ottoman Empire. That is why the Ottoman state exercised its legitimate right of self-defense.

RFE/RL: Elekdag on the possibility of the United States passing a congressional resolution defining the massacre of Armenians as a genocide:

The Armenian leadership openly sided with the Ottoman Empire's enemies. Ottomans lose their legitimate right of self-defense. The ex post facto inculpation of the Ottoman Empire by such a resolution violates Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution, because the word and the concept of 'genocide' did not exist back in 1915.

Turks protesting France's 'Armenian Genocide' bill in 2006 (epa)Second, the passage of the resolution would constitute a condemnation for a crime without trial and prosecution. It will contravene the principle of due process enshrined in the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Yusuf Halacoglu, head of Turkish Society of History:

The Armenians wanted to create an Armenian state in Anatolia, but they weren't allowed to. There was a fight and they lost it.

If the Armenians, with the help of the Russians, French, and British, had succeeded in 1915 in creating their independent state, nobody today would be talking about 'genocide.' And all of those who were killed would be called heroes who were martyred for the cause of an independent Armenia.

6. - DPA - "German concern at Turkish "intolerance" after Christian killings":

MUNICH / 23 April 2007

German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced concern Monday at 'unacceptable intolerance' in Turkey, following the killings of three Christians.

'Action needs to be taken to avoid a climate in which such terrible murders are possible,' Merkel said in an interview with the newspaper Muenchener Merkur.

The chancellor urged the government in Ankara to ensure that 'intolerance against Christianity and other religions does not stand a chance' in the Muslim nation.

The three Christians, one of whom was German, were found with their throats slit in the south-eastern town of Malatya on April 18.

Five persons have been arrested in connection with the murders at a Christian publishing house where the 43-year-old German worked as a translator.

The three victims, including two Turkish citizens who had converted to Christianity, were found with their hands and legs bound and their throats slit.

Merkel said the incident would have no affect on Turkey's negotiations for membership of the European Union. Germany is current president of the EU.

The murders in Malatya are the latest in a string of attacks on Christians, who make up less than 1 per cent of Turkey's population.

In February 2006 a teenager shot dead an Italian priest in the Black Sea city of Trabzon and earlier this year a Turkish nationalist killed Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.