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Turkish president approves bill aimed at curbing
Kurdish votes
18.5.2007 |
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May
18, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey, -- Turkish President Ahmet
Necdet Sezer has approved a controversial bill
widely seen as a bid to hinder Kurdish politicians
seeking parliamentary seats in the July 22
elections, his office said.
"The president has sent the said bill to the prime
minister's office to be published in the official
gazzette," it said in a statement late Thursday.
Under the law, the names of independent candidates
will appear on the same ballot as those of political
parties in the running, instead of on separate
slips.
The measure 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. |
Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer |
The law was adopted in parliament last week, a day
after the main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society
Party (DTP) announced said its politicians would run
as independents in the July elections in a bid to
break the 10-percent national threshold for
parliamentary representation.
Once they are voted in as independents, 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 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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