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Reporters Without Borders condemns Turkish
police violence against six journalists during Kurdish
New Year
2.4.2008
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April
2, 2008
Reporters Without Borders condemns police violence
against six journalists during a demonstration
linked to the Kurdish New Year celebrations on 23
March in the far southeast city of Hakkari. They
were punched and kicked and their film and videotape
was seized. One of them, Senar Yildiz of the news
agency Ihlas and the news website Yüksekova Haber (www.yuksekovahaber.com),
was hospitalised with a head injury.
“We call on the local and national authorities to
identify and punish those responsible,” the press
freedom organisation said. “The security forces
should act with judgment and restraint. Journalists
should not be treated like criminals.”
Yildiz and the five other journalists - Hamit Erkut
and Erkan Cobanoglu of the privately-owned news
agency Dogan, Necip Capraz of the news agency
Anatolia, Sevket Yilmaz of the news agency Cihan and
Sami Yilmaz of DIHA - were in Hakkari to cover a
pro-Kurdish demonstration held the day after the
Kurdish New Year celebration Newroz.
Capraz said the journalists were targeted when the
police dispersed the demonstration. At first, they
were charged by a lone police officer. Then other
policemen followed suit, hitting them and seizing
their material.
“All we did wrong was to be journalists and from
Yüksekova,” Capraz said. The nearby district of
Yüksekova was the scene of violent clashes between
Kurds and Turkish anti-riot police in 2006.
Meanwhile, DIHA reporter Behçet Dalmaz said police
were abusive and threw his press card in his face
during an identity check on 18 March in Hakkari,
where he had gone for the Martyrs Commemoration, an
official ceremony marking a Franco-British offensive
against Turkey in 1915, during the First World War.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, rfs org
** 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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