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Suspected Kurdish militant arrested in
Belgium
24.3.2008
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March 24, 2008
BRUSSELS, -- A Kurdish man accused by Turkey
of instigating attacks during the 1990s that killed
16 people has been arrested in Belgium, Belgian
authorities said Sunday.
A Turkish court had issued seven international
arrest warrants against Mehmet Sahin, 33, who has
been living in Belgium since 2000, the prosecutor in
the Belgian city of Liege said.
Sahin was arrested on Friday in Liege by the
terrorism unit of the Belgian federal police as he
was participating in a demonstration organised for
the Kurdish New Year.
He is being held in a detention center in the
suburbs of Liege.
According to Turkish authorities, Sahin has been
implicated in attacks and confrontations between
1992 and 1997 with government forces in the region
of Diyarbakir,www.ekurd.net
in Kurdish-majority
southeast Turkey.
"If you add up all the acts in question, which the
Turks consider terrorism, there have been 16 deaths
and 20 people injured," Belgian prosecutor Danielle
Reynders said on local television.
Once an official request comes from Turkey, the
appeals court in Liege will whether to extradite
Sahin -- but it would have to be assured that a
possible death sentence would not be eventually
carried out, the prosecutor added.
AFP
** 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 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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