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Australia: From refugees to outlaws,
Kurdish group banned
20.2.2006
By Tom Allard |
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Australia, Feb 20, - Australian Kurds are
furious after the Federal Government pronounced the
Kurdistan Workers Party a terrorist group, even
though it was allowing sympathisers to become
refugees as recently as last year.
The party, which has been running a long campaign
for autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish minority, was
listed as a proscribed terrorist group in
mid-December, making it a criminal offence to
recruit, train, fund or have "other forms of
association" with the group. A person found to have
links with the party or 16 related entities faces a
jail term of up to 25 years.
A coalition of Australian Kurds, lawyers and refugee
advocates has urged the Government to reverse the
decision, arguing it will jeopardise asylum seekers
and that it is politically motivated.
The Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, pronounced the
Kurdistan Workers Party a terrorist group just a
week after the visit of the Turkish Prime Minister,
Recep Erdogan, to Australia.
There are about 15,000 people of Kurdish origin in
Australia, and roughly half have fled Turkey. Almost
all have sympathy for the party, according to the
Kurdish leader Mehmet Kahraman.
"We view it as a liberation organisation. We are
against violence but we support the cause or support
it emotionally," he told the Herald yesterday.
"Most of the asylum seekers to Australia and Europe
came because they were persecuted for working for
the Kurdish people, the Kurdish cause."
The workers party was formed by Abdullah Ocalan in
1974 to promote the separatist ideals of the Kurdish
people, who consider themselves racially and
culturally distinct from their Arab neighbours. In
its early years it had a strong Marxist bent, which
eventually waned.
During the 1980s and 1990s the party's campaign was
bloody, involving violent attacks on Turkey's
security forces and civilians.
It turned to terrorist techniques from 1989 in
response to a Turkish military crackdown, but called
a ceasefire in 1999 when Ocalan was captured.
The group had shifted its emphasis from creating a
homeland to the protection of Kurdish culture, Mr
Kahraman said. "The PKK is against targeting
civilians. The PKK has accepted the Geneva
Convention," he said.
Vicky Sentas, a spokeswoman for the Federation of
Community Legal Centres, said the Refugee Review
Tribunal approved one Kurdish person's asylum claim
last year because of links to the Kurdistan Workers
Party.
"One year ago we considered Turkish Kurds as
refugees. And now we consider them open to the
charge of terrorism. It's absurd," Ms Sentas said.
"It's a bitter irony that Australia considers the
Kurds in Iraq to be their close allies, while over
the border in Turkey they are terrorists."
However, the Australian Security Intelligence
Organisation has pointed to 14 incidents of violent
attacks, some against civilians since July 2003.
"ASIO assesses the PKK is continuing to prepare,
plan and foster the commission of acts involving
threats to human life and serious damage to
property," it said.
Mr Ruddock told the Herald the listing of the party
as a terrorist group had no link to the visit of Mr
Erdogan. He said the US, the European Union and
other countries had also outlawed the party.
"The judgement at an earlier point in time was that
it didn't warrant proscription. The judgement at
this point of time is that it does," Mr Ruddock
said.
"The fact that at some earlier point in time people
got refugee status doesn't in any way derogate from
the judgement [to make them a terrorist group]."
www.smh.com.au
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