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EU parliament supports prominent Kurdish
rights activist Leyla Zana
31.1.2009
By Wladimir van Wilgenburg
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Bits & pieces of 5th EUTCC conference 2009 Brussels.
TURKEY AND THE KURDS
Time for Change in Turkey! Brussels, 28-29 January
2009
January 31, 2009
EU parliament to send
delegation to Kurdish politician Leyla Zana's
hearing
Turkey's prominent Kurdish rights activist and
former lawmaker Leyla Zana* was condemned by the
Court of the First Instance to
10 years in jail
for defending the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK**)
in December 2008. The public prosecutor appealed and
has called for 5 years' imprisonment per speech, in
other words 45 years. But Francis Wurtz - President
of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left Group
– announced that the European parliament support
Zana.
During the EUTCC conference Wurtz announced that
Leyla Zana was invited to a forthcoming meeting of
the European Conference of Presidents. That an
official European Parliament delegation is going to
attend the lawsuit against Leyla Zana at the Court
of Appeal, on 31 March next in Ankara. And that a
letter will be sent from the President of the
European Parliament to the Commissioner in charge of
membership negotiations with Turkey about this
serious affair. |
Turkey's outspoken Kurdish rights advocate Leyla
Zana, Former Kurdish MP in Turkey Zana spent a
decade behind bars in Turkey for speaking Kurdish in
the Turkish Parliament after taking her
parliamentary oath. She was the first Kurdish woman
to be elected to Turkey's parliament. |
“I am delighted at the
decision by the Conference of Presidents of the
European Parliament which adopted as its own the
idea that I expressed: "we must consider this
lawsuit against Leyla Zana to be a lawsuit against
the European Parliament," said the relieved European
politician, that has been supportive of Zana.
Leyla Zana was supposed to go back to Turkey on 29
January after the first day of the EUTCC conference
about Kurds in the EU parliament, but she had
meetings with European officials.
Recently also the Dutch government announced that
they would monitor the court case against Leyla
Zana, but that they cannot demand from the Turkish
government to drop the charges. Since the court is
independent from the government.
EUTCC aims to combats
Turkish lobby
Some Kurdish nationalists questioned the successes
of the EU Turkey Civic Commission’s work during
their conference on 29-30 January (which is
non-governmental organization). Until now they have
organized five conferences about Turkey, EU and the
Kurds. But what’s the goal of the organization?
According to one of the founders the goal is to
lobby for the ‘Kurdish movement’. But the EUTCC is
mainly focused on the Kurds from Turkey and not
other regions.
According to a KHPR press release the EU-Turkey
Civic Commission (EUTCC), aims to both promote and
provide suggestions for Turkey’s bid for EU
accession and to help guarantee respect for human
and minority rights and a peaceful, democratic and
long-term solution to the Kurdish situation.
Founding members of the EUTCC include the Kurdish
Human Rights Project, the Bar Human Rights
Committee, Medico International and the Thorolf
Rafto Foundation for Human Rights.
Every year the EUTCC organizes a conference in the
European parliament about Turkey and the Kurds.
EUTCC board member Mark Muller explained that the
goal is to legitimate the ‘Kurdish complaints’.
During these conferences activists, journalists and
politicians come together to discuss with each other
and share the different views. The conference is
divided in subsections with different perspectives
from human rights lawyers,www.ekurd.net
experts, politicians and
NGO’s (for instance constitutional reforms,
economics, human rights, international relations,
linguistic rights, etc).
The EUTCC also gives room to the PKK lobby to
present their ideas. Examples were Roj TV journalist
Amed Dicle and the KNK executive Adem Uzun who
heavily complained about Europe’s policies towards
the Kurds during their speech. This presents certain
limits to the different views of the conference and
results in a domination of the PKK vision on Kurds.
One pro-reform columnist of the Turkish newspaper
Zaman was invited, but eventually didn’t come due to
PKK-presence. Also Turkish politicians and
intellectuals will think twice before they go to an
EUTCC conference. This also might pose limits to
convince the Turkish government of the EUTCC
recommendations. EUTCC member Jon Rud is banned from
Turkey for ‘posing a security threat to Turkey’ and
sympathizing with the PKK. It’s likely Turkey will
listen to EUTCC members as Jon Rud.
As a result the views presented at the conference
are sometimes not very diverse. The famous Turkish
journalist Cengiz Candar wasn’t very happy with the
speeches of some European politicians that mostly
showed the negative parts of reforms by the AKP
government. “The tone of the conference didn’t make
me very happen.” Candar therefore noted that Turkey
is not like Darfur, Burma Zimbabwe. According to
Candar this is not helping Kurds and Turkey to
democratize.
But the actual goal of the EUTCC conference is to
inform the EU establishment of the claims of Kurds.
Not to make Turks like Cengiz Candar happier or to
incite the Turkish government to reform. One of the
EUTCC members said that the goal is that the EUTCC
wants to have Kurds on the same level as the people
representing Turkey. Since the Kurdish non-state
actors don’t have the geopolitical and economical
importance, this makes them weaker in negotiations
and international relations.
At the end of every conference a draft resolution
with recommendations is presented and debated by the
public. After the conference the resolution is
adapted according to criticism and new ideas
accumulated through the conference. Eventually the
resolution is sent to the EU-parliament,www.ekurd.net
EU ministers in charge
and the EU presidency to come ‘up with proposals to
combat the strong pro-Turkish lobby. The resolution
is also sent to journalists. ‘To get legitimacy in
the struggle we wage.’
Next to this the resolutions are used for human
right organizations like Amnesty, during trials,
trial observations. Most of the resolutions are
presenting constitutional reforms, dialogue, an end
to military operations and more cultural rights. The
EUTCC also surprisingly calls for the attention for
the improvement of the prison condition of Abdullah
Ocalan. One of the biggest conditions of PKK
organizations.
This year the EUTCC will also sent a letter to the
new Obama administration to convince them of the
‘Kurdish position’ on Turkish-Iraqi relations. They
also successfully lobbied for Leyla Zana. As a
result Leyla Zana will be invited to a conference of
the presidents of the European parliament and an
official EU delegation will go to the monitor the
court case against Leyla Zana. A letter about Leyla
Zana from the EU parliament will also be sent to the
EU commission.
Wladimir van Wilgenburg is a freelance
journalist, a former Turkology and
History student. Currently busy with minor
Journalism in Leiden and Language and Culture
studies in Utrecht. Experience with lectures,
conferences and articles.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
vvanwilgenburg.blogspot.com
* Prominent Kurdish rights activist and former
lawmaker Leyla Zana, who in 1995 won the European
Parliament's Sakharov human rights award, and several other Kurds
were elected to parliament in 1991, but lost their
seats in 1994 after their party was outlawed for
links with the PKK.
Zana and three colleagues spent 10 years behind bars
for collaborating with the rebels. They were
released in June 2004.
Zana and her colleagues were first sentenced to 15
years in jail in 1994 for membership of the Turkey's outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has been
fighting a 22-year bloody campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in the country's southeast.
The charges were brought two years after Zana, the
first Kurdish woman to be elected to Turkey's
parliament, caused an uproar by first taking the
oath in Turkish and then repeating in Kurdish to the
protest of other legislators.
In March 2003, Zana and her co-defendants were
allowed a retrial after their original conviction
was condemned as unfair by the European Court of
Human Rights in 2001. More
about Kurdish Activist Leyla Zana
from Wikipedia
Leyla Zana, the symbol of peaceful strife of the
Kurdish people, was granted the Italian honorary
nationality in Rome on October 23, 2008.
**
Since 1984 the Turkey's
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
took up arms for self-rule in the mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey (Turkey-Kurdistan). A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK rebels.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas, the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, ranting them full
political freedoms.
The PKK is considered a 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel
group PKK and its political wing on
the European Union's terror list.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish politicians
say the measures fall short of their expectations.
*** 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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