OKTAY EKSI: WHAT I UNDERSTOOD FROM BARROSO

Hurriyet
April 11 2008
Turkey

Yesterday, president of the European Commission, Jose-Manuel Barroso
addressed members of the Turkish parliament. Our first impression of
his speech is like this:

Barroso verbalized his thoughts while seemingly not alluding to the
"hearing process" in the AKP closure case that he had previously
expressed to the public opinion. For instance, he repeated his opinion
about the European Union’s stance that "does not judge non-violent
opinions."

In my opinon, this concept is correct, but it has exceptions. For
example, it is also illegal to support "Nazism" and say "Nazis were
not responsible for the Jewish Holocaust," even it the support doesn’t
include violence. We know that it is also crime to declare the "claim
of Armenian Genocide is a lie" according Swiss law, and Switzerland
isn’t even a member of the EU. What I am saying is that they too can
outlaw certain opinions because for whatever reason they choose and
which "don’t include violence."

The same condition now exists in Turkey and the country has its own
reasons for the decisions it has taken. And therefore, it is a normal
move to file a lawsuit against a party for being "the focal point of
anti-secular actitives."

Since it is not possible to touch on all the points made during Mr.

Barroso’s speech, I will focus attention on one more point:

Barroso says that according to him, "the PKK is a terrorist
organization," and "strong cooperation against terrorism" must be
undertaken. If only he could have made these statements not in the
Turkish parliament, but in other EU parliaments, especially those of
Belgium, Holland and Germany…

But he made an even more important statement; Mr. Barroso declared that
"ethnic Kurdish Turkish citizens living in the southern provinces of
Turkey should be given political rights."

Bay Barroso’ya Turkiye’de yasalar onunde herkesin eþit olduðunu
soyleyen yok mu? Eðer bunu biliyor ise, bir kýsým vatandaþlarýmýza ozel
siyasi haklar talep etmeye kalkmak kendi boyunu aþan bir beyandýr. Bunu
Bay Barroso’ya birileri hatýrlatmalýdýr.

Isn’t there anybody in Turkey able to tell Mr. Borroso that everybody
in the country has equal rights in eyes of the law. If he is already
aware of this, he should not forget that he does not have the right
to demand any special politic rights for any or some of our citizens.

Someone must make him aware of this.

–Boundary_(ID_V8A+6yq5SqS4GsFm1MHF1g)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress