COUNCIL OF EUROPE CALLS FOR LEGAL REFORMS TO IMPROVE KURDISH RIGHTS

Turkish Daily News
Wednesday, September 19, 2007

In a report penned following a fact-finding mission last month
to southeastern Anatolia, the Council of Europe urges the Turkish
government to introduce legal amendments to the municipality law and
broaden changes to encompass ‘Kurdish language-related reforms’

The Congress Bureau of the Council of Europe discussed a report Monday
aimed at investigating legal charges against two pro-Kurdish mayors
and 17 councilmen in southeastern Anatolia.

The report calls for changes to Turkey’s law on municipalities and
for broadening the reforms to encompass Kurdish-language related ones.

A high-level political delegation from the Council of Europe which
is based in Strasbourg traveled to Diyarbakýr and Ankara last month
to focus on local democracy particularly in southeastern Anatolia,
after concerns about the increasing court cases against mayors of the
pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP). The rapporteurs drafted
a report following the visit and submitted it to the Congress Bureau.

"In our view, the current law [on municipalities], in both its
substantive and its procedural aspects, is so flawed as to be
unsustainable," said the report and listed the shortcomings.

"There is the asserted but fraught distinction between ‘international’
and ‘ethnic’ languages; there is the confusion over what exactly
constitutes a ‘political’ abuse of power by public authorities; there
is uncertainty about the distinction between those things done under
the authority of an official resolution and those done as a matter
of administrative practice; there is uncertainty, evidenced by the
procedures in the Sur case itself, about the procedural protections
available to the mayor and councilors when legal measures are
taken against them; and, perhaps above all, we are unhappy about the
apparently arbitrary way in which the law may be invoked and enforced
against different instances of alleged breach of the law."

Two mayors and 17 councilmen in Diyarbakýr who introduced Kurdish
and other languages in office are facing jail terms of up to three
years. The accused include Diyarbakýr Mayor Osman Baydemir and Abdullah
Demirbaþ, who was removed from his post as mayor of Diyarbakýr’s
multi-ethnic Sur municipality in June after the city council allowed
the use of Kurdish, Armenian, Arabic, Assyrian and English in the
municipal services.

"We have some sympathy with claims that abrupt action was taken
against Sur in circumstances where other authorities have been
left unscathed. It is, therefore, our view that, rather than simply
undertaking a narrow reform of the Municipality Law in isolation,
a broader review of existing law should also be adopted," said
the report.

The trial of Baydemir, Demirbaþ and the 17 city councilmen who voted
for the municipal bill on the use of Kurdish as well as other languages
in office is scheduled to begin in November.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has drawn on
substantial electoral support from the Kurdish population but the
July 22 general elections also paved the way for the representation
of the DTP in the Turkish Parliament, said the report.

"The [Turkish] Parliament has a new speaker. The State has a new
president, who has expressed the desire to introduce new constitutional
measures. These developments have the possibility of producing the
momentum for the sort of broad political change, which could readily
encompass the Kurdish language-related reforms of both law and policy
that are so clearly needed. The Congress should, we believe, express
its confidence in the commitment and capacity of the new political
leadership of Turkey to make substantial progress in this direction,"
the report said.

The Congress also decided to extend an invitation to Professor Beþir
Atalay, Turkey’s new interior minister, to address the Congress, on
the occasion of its November fall session in Strasbourg, and outline
the policy that the new Turkish government intends to follow with
regard to the specified issues.

"Moreover the Congress could encourage the Turkish government, as it
ventures on a new phase of reform and modernization, to underpin its
commitment to diversity and pluralism by signing the European Charter
for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for
the Protection of National Minorities. The Congress, for its part,
could stress that it remains at the disposal of the Turkish authorities
and would be willing to undertake a further mission to Turkey, should
this be appropriate," the report said.

The Congress Bureau has two chambers, the Chamber of Local Authorities
and the Chamber of Regions. It brings together 318 full and 318
substitute members representing more than 200,000 European territorial
communities.

A Council of Europe official previously told the Turkish Daily News
that Congress reports are not binding but relevant governments take
them seriously to show that they are open to progress on human rights

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