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06/09/2004
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1) Turkish Court Frees Pro-Kurdish Lawmakers
2) Turkish Police Raid Pro-Kurdish Media, Detain 23
3) Turkey’s Kurds Welcome Broadcasts in Kurdish, with Broken Hearts
4) French Armenians Call on Chirac to Take Stance
5) Zepure Shant Dies
1) Turkish Court Frees Pro-Kurdish Lawmakers
ANKARA (Reuters)–Turkey’s appeals court ordered the release of former Nobel
peace prize nominee Leyla Zana and three other Kurdish former lawmakers on
Wednesday in a landmark decision certain to please the European Union it seeks
to join.
The ruling, freeing them pending appeal, coincided with historic first
Kurdish-language broadcasts on state television, and the start of an appeal at
the European Court of Human Rights on the fate of jailed Kurdish rebel chief
Abdullah Ocalan.
“Turkey’s 80-year ban on the Kurds is over today,” Sirri Sakik, another
former
pro-Kurdish lawmaker, told Reuters outside Ankara’s Ulucanlar prison as
supporters waited for the four to walk free. “It shows Turkey recognizes the
Kurdish reality.”
Turkish financial markets bounced on news the four would be freed, seeing it
as highlighting improved human rights and promoting a drive for EU membership.
Zana, campaigning for Kurdish rights, had taken on a great symbolic importance
for supporters and those who saw her as threatening Turkish unity.
Turkey had denied the very existence of its Kurdish minority for decades,
terming them “mountain Turks.” Courts came down hard on public expressions of
Kurdish identity, especially after the outbreak of armed separatism in 1984.
Kurds form an estimated 12 million of Turkey’s 70 million population.
The EU and international human rights groups consider Zana, Hatip Dicle,
Selim
Sadak, and Orhan Dogan prisoners of conscience. They were jailed in 1994 after
being stripped of their parliamentary mandates and convicted of maintaining
ties to Kurdish separatist guerrillas.
“Their verdict has not been overturned. But taking into account their long
imprisonment, a decision was made for their release pending the end of the
investigation,” a court official told Reuters.
The 1994 conviction was upheld by a state security court in April after a
retrial ordered by the European Court of Human Rights, which said Zana and the
others were denied a fair trial.
April’s ruling brought sharp criticism from the EU. The Ankara government is
working flat-out on political and human rights reforms and hoping to wind a
firm start date for accession talks when EU leaders meet in December.
A state prosecutor called this week for the annulment of their sentences, and
the court official said an appeal court would start hearing the case from July
8.
“This will make things easier for us politically, both domestically and
abroad,” Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said. “The Turkish justice system did
what it needed to do.”
Cicek told reporters the court had correctly interpreted recent legal reforms
aimed at meeting EU criteria.
The government last month abolished the controversial state security courts
under which the four were tried, and is working to set up new civilian
structures to replace them.
2) Turkish Police Raid Pro-Kurdish Media, Detain 23
ISTANBUL (AFP)–Anti-terror police raided on Tuesday a pro-Kurdish news agency
and two magazines and detained at least 23 employees on suspicion of links
with
armed Kurdish rebels, Kurdish sources said.
Police obtained court permission to search the Istanbul office of the Dicle
news agency and said the operation was part of security measures ahead of the
NATO summit in the city on June 28-29, the secretary of the agency told AFP by
telephone.
“They also said that people here are suspected of being linked to the PKK,”
she said, referring to the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which this
month announced the end to a five-year unilateral cease-fire with the
government.
The pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) said police also searched
the offices of two small pro-Kurdish monthly magazines, Ozgur Halk and Genc
Bakis.
They were also suspected of having links with the PKK, DEHAP spokesman Kemal
Avci told AFP.
DEHAP issued a statement condemning the raids and accusing the government of
insincerity in democratization efforts aimed at bringing Turkey closer to the
European Union.
3) Turkey’s Kurds Welcome Broadcasts in Kurdish, with Broken Hearts
YOLBOYU (AFP)–Glued to the television set in a squalid coffee shop, residents
of this Kurdish village on Wednesday welcomed the first-ever Kurdish broadcast
in Turkey but also voiced resentment that it took so long to come about and
only through EU pressure.
Haunted by memories of the days when their mother tongue was banned in the
country, villagers gathered in the shop ahead of the broadcast on TRT state
television, visibly eager and excited.
As the presenter announced the beginning of the taboo-breaking program in
Kurmanci, the most widespread Kurdish dialect in Turkey, complete silence fell
and the crowd watched the 30-minute program attentively.
“This is what we have been waiting for since the 1970s. It has finally come
true,” said 32-year-old worker Abdurrahman Demir, referring to the period when
Kurds first raised their demands for cultural rights.
“My mother is old. She does not speak Turkish. Now she will also be able to
understand,” exclaimed Selahattin Cimen, 37.
Turkey launched daily television and radio broadcasts in non-Turkish
languages
on Monday, under pressure from the European Union, which will decide in
December whether the country is ready to start accession talks.
The program, called “Our Cultural Riches,” started with news and continued
with a bizarre mix of Kurdish music and brief documentaries on nature, the
development of civilization, and technology.
In a sign of the haste with which the program was put together, the “news”
material was taped earlier in the week.
“Even though the content was poor, even though it was short, even though it
was undertaken because of EU pressure, we are still happy to watch a broadcast
in our own language on our national television,” Demir said.
Worker Zeki Karakas added: “We are both happy and sad. We are happy to watch
television in our mother tongue and we are sad because we wished that those
programs had started not because the EU wanted them, but because we wanted
them.”
For years, Ankara had rejected Kurdish demands for cultural freedoms, fearing
that such rights could fuel nationalist sentiment among the minority and
constitute a reward for Kurdish rebels waging a bloody campaign for self-rule
in the country’s southeast.
Several Kurdish channels, broadcasting either from Europe or the Kurdish
enclave in neighboring northern Iraq, are already widely watched in Turkey’s
southeast, where satellite dishes have become an inseparable part of the
landscape.
Also as part of EU-sought reforms, private courses began teaching the Kurdish
language earlier this year.
The restive region has enjoyed a period of relative calm since 1999 when the
separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced an end to its 15-year
armed
campaign and the government loosened its grip on locals.
But the PKK, now known as KONGRA-GEL, said last week that it was ending the
unilateral truce as of June 1, raising fears of renewed bloodshed in the area.
The Kurdish conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives, most of them rebels.
4) French Armenians Call on Chirac to Take Stance
PARIS (Yerkir)–A public rally will take place in Paris on June 12, demanding
that French President Jacques Chirac take a final stance on Turkey’s European
Union membership. Organized by the Hai Tahd Committee of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation of France, the gathering will take place around the
monument to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, which includes a statue of
Gomidas Vartabed, erected in April 2003 in a park between the Armenian
Cathedral on Jean-Goujon, and Champs Elysee, near the Seine River.
French Armenians are appealing to the French government to honor the 1987 and
2004 resolutions of the European Parliament, stipulating that before starting
accession talks on its EU membership, Turkey withdraw its troops from northern
Cyprus invaded in 1974, release political prisoners, guarantee rights of
Kurdish and religious minorities, recognize the Armenian Genocide perpetrated
by the Ottoman Empire, and lift the blockade of Armenia imposed in 1991.
5) Zepure Shant Dies
Folllowing a lengthy illness, Zepure Shant, one of the founding members of the
Hamazkayin Kaspar Ipegian theatrical group died in Glendale, California on
Monday, June 7. She was 92.
Born in the European Turkish town of Rodosto, Shant eventually moved to
Lebanon. In 1941, during the formation of the Kaspar Ipegian theatrical group,
she actively participated, taking on both major and smaller roles in almost
all
performances.
Besides her love for the theater, Shant’s fondness for singing landed her in
the Parsegh Ganachian Kousan choir.
She was married to Levon Shant’s son Souren. They had one child, Levon.
Throughout the years, Zepure Shant maintained a profound connection to the
Kaspar Ipegian theatrical group, with the sole objective of serving Armenian
theater.
With the outbreak of Lebanon’s civil war, she settled in Los Angeles, and
continued to support Armenian theater, specifically collaborating with
director
Jean Nshanian.
Funeral services for Zepure Shant will take place on Friday, June 11, 11
AM at
St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Glendale, California. Burial services
will be conducted at the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn Cemetery.
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