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Turkey to compensate 71-year-old Kurd for
forced military service
5.3.2008
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March 5, 2008
Strasbourg, -- The European Court of Human
Rights ordered Turkey Tuesday to pay 5,000 euros
(7,594 US dollars) in compensation to a 71-year-old
Kurdish man who was forced into military service.
The physically punishing training and resulting
illness suffered by the man constituted humiliating
and degrading treatment and a violation of the man's
human rights, the Strasbourg court ruled.
The Turkish state had no plausible explanation to
offer for why a man of this age was put through the
physical and psychological burden of training
designed for a 20-year-old,www.ekurd.net
the court said in its
ruling.
The man, who was illiterate, had lived since
childhood as a shepherd in a village and had not
been entered into the official registry of the
population until 1986.
Neighbours had denounced him as a deserter and he
was called to military service in 2000. After four
weeks of training for recruits, a military doctor
certified that he was unsuited for training owing to
the heart problems he was suffering and his age.
DPA
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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, a
large Turkey's Kurdish community 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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