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Kurdish PKK party re-listed as terrorist
organization in Australia
20.8.2012 |
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August 20, 2012
AMSTERDAM,— In a media statement
made Friday, Australia’s Attorney-General Nicola
Roxon announced that five organizations have been
re-listed as terrorist organisations under the
country’s counterterrorism laws. One of which is the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Also included on the list were the Somalian Al-Shabaab,
Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad and Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam
Brigades.
Under the Commonwealth Criminal Code, Australia
lists organizations that the Attorney-General is
sure are “directly or indirectly engaged in,
preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the
doing of a terrorist act or advocating the doing of
a terrorist act.”
There are currently 17 listed terrorist
organizations under the Criminal Code in Australia.
The listing is valid for three years, after which an
organization may be re-listed.
"In 2011, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party ended its
ceasefire and continues to use violence to achieve
its objective of autonomy for Kurds within Turkey,”
Roxon said.
"These organizations were re-listed following
careful consideration of advice from security
agencies for the purposes of the Criminal Code. The
re-listings will ensure that all terrorist
organization offence provisions under Australia's
counterterrorism legislation continue to apply in
relation to these organizations,” Roxon said.
The PKK is also listed as a terrorist organization
by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
According to the report “Turkey: Ending the PKK
Insurgency” by the International Crisis Group, the
terrorist label “obstructs realistic thinking about
the PKK, whose actions, while including terrorist
acts, would be better described as an ‘insurgency.’”
Moreover, the NGO Scotland Against Criminalising
Communities (SACC) argues that “banning resistance
movements is an intervention calculated to aid one
side -- the government side -- in each of these
conflicts. It makes peace less likely and creates a
‘divine right of governments.’”
The SACC supported a campaign to lift the ban on the
PKK in the United Kingdom and the European Union.
But attempts by activists and the PKK to lift the
ban have not met with success. In January 2011, for
example, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
upheld the conviction of Aysel Aydin,www.ekurd.net
fined for supporting a campaign to lift the ban on
the PKK.
By Wladimir van Wilgenburg
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