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Turkish MPs pass amendment seen as curbing Kurdish
votes
10.5.2007 |
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Turkish legislators have approved a constitutional
amendment that would make it more difficult for
Kurdish politicians to enter parliament.
May
10, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey, May 10, -- Turkish
legislators on Thursday approved a constitutional
amendment widely seen as an effort to make it more
difficult for Kurdish politicians from
non-mainstream political parties to enter parliament
in the July 22 elections.
A total of 429 MPs in the 550-seat house voted in
favour of the measure while 12 opposed it,
parliament speaker Bulent Arinc said.
Under the bill, the names of independent candidates
will figure on the same ballot paper as all the
parties in the running, contrary to current practice
under which their names appear on separate voting
slips.
The new procedure is widely seen as a bid to
obstruct voters in the mainly Kurdish southeast,
where many are illiterate or do not speak Turkish,
and are likely to have trouble picking their
candidate's name from the long list of parties and
other independents.
The amendment needs presidential approval to come
into force.
Turkey's main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society
Party (DTP), said it will field independents rather
than run as a party in the July 22 election to
bypass the 10-percent national threshold that allows
parties access to parliament.
Once they are voted in as independents, the Kurdish
deputies can regroup under the DTP banner.
Many Kurds have become legislators in Turkey as
members of mainstream parties, but pro-Kurdish
movements failed to overcome the 10-percent national
threshold despite usually dominating the Kurdish
vote in the southeast, where they routinely win the
local elections.
Kurdish parties are routinely accused of being
instruments of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Partry,
the PKK, which has led a bloody separatist
insurgency in the southeast since 1984.
AFP
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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