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Rasmussen celebrates a record third term

2007-11-14T15:15:00.000+01:00

Denmark
14/11 14:32 CET
Rasmussen celebrates a record third term
Denmark's liberal/rightwing coalition is preparing for another five years in government, after edging over the winning line in the tightest vote in years. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen saw his early-election gamble succeed, to the delight of his supporters. "This is an historic victory," he said. Because for the first time the Liberal Party has won three elections on the trot, and is also the biggest party for a third successive parliament."It means little change in parliament with the governing coalition presenting much the same line-up. Rasmussen's Liberals won 46 seats, down six from last time, while his Conservative partners won 18, and the far-Right Danish People's Party 25. Rasmussen needed another allied party in the Faeroe Islands to win a seat, to secure his victory.Rasmussen's main opponent, Helle Thorning-Schmidt's Social Democrats are the second-biggest party, her group falling six seats short of a majority. She said she was proud of the campaign, but admitted it was not quite good enough. The party leaders made their traditional post-election round table appearence to discuss the results. The pro-immigration New Alliance Party of Syrian-born Naser Khader has also indicated it will support the Prime Minister

Source: Euronews

Bia Media Monitoring Desk:Quarterly Report Published

2007-10-21T19:34:00.000+02:00

Bia Media Monitoring Desk: Quarterly Report Published
The Bia Media Monitoring Desk publishes regular quarterly and annual reports on the state of press freedom and the freedom of expression in Turkey. The period of July, August and September 2007 has again witnessed many trials for journalists.
Bıa news centre
21-10-2007
Erol Önderoglu
In the last three months, 125 persons, most of them journalists, and six media agencies have been tried for activities which could be interpreted as being within the framework of the freedom of expression.
Although Articles 301 and 216 of the new Turkish Penal Code continue to worry people, national and international campaigns calling for justice are emerging, too.
19-page report published on website
A 19-page quarterly report for the months of July, August and September 2007 has been published by the Bia Media Monitoring Desk (see bianet's Turkish website). The full report will also be translated into English and published on this website. The report contains information on 158 people and 82 court cases in domestic courts as well as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Report organised under seven headings
The monitoring desk reports the violations of press freedom under the headings "attacks and threats", "detentions and arrests", "trials and initiatives", "corrections and redress", "European Court of Human Rights", "reactions to censorship" and "implementations of RTÜK [the Radio and Television Supreme Council]" .
Articles 301 and 216
Article 301, which has cause more than a hundred people to find themselves in court since 1 June 2005, has been the reason for 15 trials of 22 people, mostly journalists, in the last three months. Writer Emin Karaca, student Durmus Sahin, singer Ferhat Tunc, publishers Ragip Zarakolu and Mehmet Ali Vural, journalists Arat Dink and Serkis Seropyan, human rights activists Eren Keskin, Ferhat Bayindir, Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal still have to defend themselves against charges brought under Article 301. Furthermore, the last three months have seen 12 people sentenced under Article 216 of the Penal Code (the former Article 312), referring to "incitement to hatred and hostility". Do not write about "Turkish citizens" or "Kurdistan"The Supreme Court of Appeals overturned the acquittal of Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Kaboglu and Prof. Dr. Baskin Oran, who had suggested the concept of "Turkish citizenship" [Türkiyelilik] instead of "Turkishness" in their Minority Rights Report. According to the new decree, a redefinition of minority would endanger the "unitary state and the indivisibility of the nation". Yasin Yetisgen, owner and editor of the local Coban Atesi (Shepherd's Fire) newspaper in Gaziantep, has not only been in prison for writing that "Antep is an industrial city in the North of Kurdistan"; he is also on trial under Article 216.
Caricaturist sentenced
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has often targeted caricaturists by taking them to trial; finally, a mayor in Kocaeli managed to get caricaturist Muhammet Sengöz, of the "Özgür Kocaeli" (Free Kocaeli) newspaper sentenced for a caricature entitled "What is next mayor?". The sentence of 11 months and 20 days imprisonment was converted into a fine of 7,000 YTL.
Long detentionsThe above mentioned Yasin Yetisgen and Erzurum student Durmus Sahin were both detained "as a precautionary measure". News editor Sait Bayram and reporter Firat Avci, of the Diyarbakir "Söz TV" were detained for one month after accusing a judge of corruption. 22 journalists and 6 media agencies have been sentenced to 10,246,000 YTL fines and 23 years, 10 months and 20 days imprisonment for "defamation" and "insults". In Europe there are no prison sentences in such situations. Muzaffer Erdogdu, Taner Akcam, Ilhan Selcuk, Erdal Dogan, Hincal Uluc, Cüneyt Arcayürek, Yücel Sayman, Yakup Önal, Güngör Uras, Metin Münir and Sinan Kara are all facing compensation claims or the threat of imprisonment with this kind of charge. A retired judge is demanding 100,000 YTL compensation from editor Nurgül Balcioglu of the Gaziantep Sabah newspaper. Balcioglu had criticised the judge's claim that "In nine out of ten murders, a woman is involved". Former Naval Commander and retired General Özden Örnek is demanding that editor Alper Görmüs of the Nokta magazine be imprisoned for 6 years and 8 months for publishing a news item concerned with claims of a military coup.
Attacks and threats
In the last three months, five journalists have been attacked and four journalists have received threats. During the second quarter, which included the 1 May police violence, 17 journalists had been attacked and 6 had been threatened.The report also writes about journalist Ali Bayramoglu, who first reported about the You Tube clip which combined nationalist singer Ismail Türüt's song "Plan, Don't Make a Plan" with a video clip glorifying the murder suspects of journalist Hrant Dink. It also writes about journalist Türker Alkan, who has been receiving death threats. ECHR: More sentences, but lower sumsIn the relevant period, the ECHR sentenced Turkey to a total of 14,500 Europs compensation in 32 cases of violations of the freedom of expression. Because most appeals to the ECHR had not specified any amounts, this sum is much lower than the 78,250 Euros of the second quarter.
Law on Terrorism
The report also writes about how the Law on Terrorism has been applied. After 23 people were arrested in "Operation Gaye", targeting the Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), Füsun Erdogan, broadcasting coordinator of "Özgür Radio" (Free Radio), Ibrahim Cicek and Sedat Senoglu, the editor-in-chief and publication coordinator for the "Atılım" newspaper respectively, will finally appear in court on 26 October, 14 months after their arrest.Reporter Sebati Karakurt and editors Hasan Kilic and Necdet Tatlican of the Hürriyet newspaper have been sentenced to 455 YTL, 40,000 YTL and 20,000 YTL respectively for a feature report on a PKK camp on Kandil Mountain. Should the fines not be paid by 13 November, imprisonment is still possible.In addition, the trial of 56 mayors from Kurdish cities continues. They had written to the Danish Prime Minister asking him not to close Roj TV, the satellite TV channel which is illegal in Turkey, but watched by many Kurds.There are good news, too...The Army Mutual Aid Foundation (OYAK) has withdrawn its demand of 10 million YTL compensation from Güngör Uras and Metin Münir.A penal court in Mus, eastern Anatolia, has given Mahsun, Fatih and Ferit Yilmaz suspended sentences of two years imprisonment each for threatening Emrullah Özbey, owner of the "Haber 49" (News 49) newspaper. The Yilmaz relatives had threatened Özbey because he had criticised their relative Medeni Yilmaz, an MP for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). (EÖ/AG)

Iran Disrupts the Signals of Kurdish Satellite Channels

2007-10-12T12:08:00.000+02:00

Kurdish Daily paper Awene

Friday 5 October 2007

Iran disrupts the signals of Kurdish Satellite Channels

In Iran not only Kurdish education is banned, but even the Kurdish Satellite channels are exposed to disruption by The Islamic Republic of Iran.
The fact that there are no dire Kurdish words visible on the billboard of boutiques or the name of streets is probably the strangest thing for a Kurd from Southern Kurdistan crossing the border into Eastern Kurdistan. In Iran not only the education of Kurdish language is forbidden, but also the Kurdishn satellite channels are disrupted by Islamic Republic of Iran and they could not be viewed.

Abdullah Moini who is a satellite provider and fixer in Sardasht told Awene:" It is more than a month that Iranian authorities have set up a large dish on the roof of Sardasht garrison. The aim is to cause the disruption of Kurdish Satellite channesl signals so people are not able to watch them".

Although in accordance to a decision by Iranian government the possession of satellite dishes are forbidden, but there are barely anyone who is without one. People discreetly set up little dishes in the backyard of their homes and try to fix it to get signals coming from Europe.
Abdullah added" in the beginning people were not aware of this parasite in Sardasht and its environs. They were delivering back the dishes that they had bought. They thought they may be out of function, I have re-adjusted my own dish three times".
This disruption signals has blacked out the Kurdish and Persian speaking satellites which sent their programs from Europe. The Iranian government has sat up large dishes over high positions in various cities to disrupt all signals sent via Hotbird. This has led to huge disruptions so many satellite channels are not viewable.

Arezu, a young woman in her early 20s from Mahabad told Awene from the beginning of spring Mahabad is exposed to disruptive parasites. It is obvious that there is a political agenda behind all this. The Islamic Republic of Iran is worried about the developments in the region. They are afraid of consolidation of national awareness among the people. They want to hide their bombardment of the border regions and its effects on Kurds. They want the people of Eastern Kurdistan not to show any interest for politics and political events".

All these measures are taken at a time where many youths of this part of Kurdistan are illiterate in Kurdish. Most of them are very keen to learn reading and writing in Kurdish. Some people are trying by using books, newspapers and magazines and even watching satellites to learn about their language. Most of the literate Kurdish youths are fed up with obligatory education in Persian and prefer to leave the school .Most of them are deeply indignant of discrimination among Persians and Kurds. Therefore they think of finding a job instead of going to school. They see that just 10% of Kurds to go to higher free schools.

Shiwa Qereni who is an eighteen years old student, still can not read and write in Kurdish. She pointed out:"By reading Kurdish and watching some programs on Kurdish televisions I tried to learn reading Kurdish, but the Islamic Republic of Iran is denying that to me and many others by disrupting satellite signals".

The report prepared by: Necibe Muhamad, Sardasht

Translated from Middle-Kurdish into English

La police turque tire sur des distributeurs de journaux...

2007-10-10T07:03:00.000+02:00

mardi 9 octobre 2007

La police turque tire sur des distributeurs de journaux...
La Turquie vient encore de dévoiler timidement son visage de pays pluraliste et de prouver une fois de plus sa progression constante vers la démocratie comme chacun sait... enfin, il paraît...Plus concrètement, ce dimanche à İstanbul dans le quartier de Yenibosna, la police turque a ouvert le feu sur des adolescents de HÖC qui distribuaient des revues du magazine Yürüyüş. Parmi eux, le jeune Ferhat (16 ans) qui se trouve en ce moment entre la vie et la mort après avoir reçu une balle dans le dos. Les membres de HÖC vendaient ces revues comme ils le font assez souvent ; parmi eux une quinzaine de personnes ont été placées en garde à vue. (HalkınSesi.tv)La haine pour les médias critiquesHÖC (Haklar ve Özgürlükler Cephesi - Front des Droits et des Libertés) est une plate-forme de gauche (non-nationaliste) en Turquie qui rassemble plusieurs associations progressistes, des organes de presse et un groupe de musique. L'Association des Droits Fondamentaux, le journal en ligne HalkınSesi.tv, la revue Yürüyüş, l'agence de presse Özgürlük, l'association de solidarité des familles des prisonniers politiques TAYAD et le groupe de musique GrupYorum en sont tous membres et subissent régulièrement les intimidations de la police turque quand ce n'est pas pire.Yürüyüş (La Marche) est quant à elle une revue distribuée légalement en Turquie mais dont le siège se trouve aux Pays-Bas, hors frontières pour éviter de tomber sous le coup de la censure comme cela était arrivé à d'autres médias progressistes il y a tout juste un an et dont les sièges étaient situés, eux, en Turquie (voir à ce sujet la campagne "We want freedom" en faveur des prisonniers du 10 septembre).Distribuer, diffuser en Turquie à partir d'une maison d'édition ou d'une antenne installées à l'étranger, sont devenus des secondes natures pour bon nombre de médias anatoliens qui dérangent l'appareil d'État. C'est aussi le cas du quotidien Yeni Özgür Politika (pro-kurde) installé en Allemagne et de la chaîne Roj TV (également pro-kurde) dont l'administration est en Belgique mais qui émet depuis le Danemark. Ce pays subit d'ailleurs les pressions constantes de la Turquie notamment via la diplomatie états-unienne pour faire fermer la chaîne kurde... Fort heureusement, le Danemark n'a jamais cédé jusqu'à maintenant. Info-Türk (de gauche) est aussi abonné à cette mode du média en exil. Les exemples ne manquent bien sûr pas.Outre les médias de gauche plus épars, certaines revues à grand tirage et à la critique acerbe ne sont pas épargnées non plus par la censure. Ainsi, le magazine Nokta (Le point) a du cesser toute activité après que son directeur, Alper Görmüş, a été traîné devant les tribunaux pour "diffamation" suite à des révélations retentissantes sur les généraux turcs. Pendant près de 6 mois, on pouvait lire sur leur page d'accueil "Avec l'espoir de vivre dans une Turquie plus démocratique". Le procès intenté contre le directeur de Nokta est toujours en cours.Alors que beaucoup de journaux turcs à grand tirage sont en général abrutissants, que ces derniers consacrent surtout leur attention à mettre une bonne quantité de photos de dames dévêtues plutôt qu'à l'actualité elle-même - un coup d'oeil sur les pages d'accueil de Milliyet ou de Hürriyet à n'importe quelle heure du jour ou de la nuit suffit à s'en convaincre... - et qu'ils sont largement acquis aux thèses nationalistes en vigueur, la presse critique, elle, fait face quotidiennement à la censure, à l'emprisonnement des journalistes, et aux intimidations qui sont autant de réalités banalisées en Turquie.1/2KL

Source: blog du clea

Conference on Kurds in Diyarbakir

2007-10-09T01:20:00.000+02:00

Conference on Kurds in Diyarbakir
"Kurds in Turkey: Main Requirements for a Peace Process" was the title of the conference, which was held on 29 and 30 September in Diyarbakir.
Bıa news centre
02-10-2007
Tolga KORKUT
Last weekend, a conference on the Kurdish question in Diyarbakir was co-organised by the Diyarbakir Bar Association and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Entitled "Kurds in Turkey: Main Requirements for a Peace Process", the aim was to have an "in-depth discussion".
Some of the speakers at the conference were Sezgin Tanrikulu (president of Diyarbakir Bar Association), Ulrike Dufner (Heinrich Böll Foundation), Prof. Dr. Mithat Sancar (Ankara University), Aysel Tugluk (DTP MP for Diyarbakir), Orhan Miroglu (DTP) Yurdusev Özsekmenler (mayor of Baglar), Dr. Dilek Kurban (TESEV), Prof. Dr. Baskin Oran, Nebahat Akkoc (Ka-Mer), and Dr. Michael Gunter (Tennessee University).
Tanrikulu: "Solution outside of conflict"
In his opening speech, Sezgin Tanrikulu emphasised the importance of having a conference on solving the Kurdish question in the actual region. He described the conference as a "thinking platform which would show that there was a solution outside of conflict."
According to Tanrikulu, there are legal, social and political issues which feed the conflict. He pointed out that Kurds still had problems expressing, organising and representing themselves. There were also still problems with language rights.
Dufner: "The right time"
Ulrike Dufner of the Heinrich Böll Foundation started her speech in Kurdish, which was applauded by the more than 300 strong audience. She said that the presence of DTP MPs in parliament, the discussion of the definition of citizenship in the work on a new constitution, as well as a general relaxation of taboo topics, showed that this was the right time to talk about a solution to the Kurdish question. She said that women in particular were necessary in any peace process.
Giving examples from Germany, Dufner said that the second and third generation Turks demanded education in their mother tongue. She also referred to election quotas according to ethnic origin, which, although potentially problematic, could also guarantee representation.
Sancar: Different definition of citizenship
Prof. Dr. Mithat Sancar spoke during the session entitled "The Process of Ending Conflict". Referring to the current work on a new constitution, Sancar called for a constitution that would "at least not contain any clause which would hinder a solution."
He said that this would mean a definition of citizenship which was not associated with ethnicity [as the term "Turk" is at present]. It would also mean that there would have to be clauses which acknowledged and protected plurality: "The constitution must be open towards the future and the Kurdish question."
Tugluk: Accept all cultures democratically
Aysel Tugluk, MP for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Diyarbakir, spoke at the session entitled "The Process of Passing from Authoritarian and Militarist Structures to a Participant Democracy". She also referred to the debate on the constitution, calling for the constitution to accept all cultures democratically and allow their expression. She further warned, "A constitution which is not supported by the Kurds will not be a text of compromise."
Apparently imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan had called for such an expression of acceptance of different cultures to be included in the constitution around two weeks ago. Speaking with his lawyers, he had said: "This sentence would even be enough. It would open the way for many things. Let them put this sentence in the constitution, and the PKK would put down their arms within two months."
Orhan Miroglu, also of the DTP, called for people to listen to Öcalan's message.
Özsökmenoglu: Table of peace
Yurdusev Özsökmenler, mayor of the Baglar district in Diyarbakir city, spoke during the session entitled "Looking at Peace through the Window of Gender". She saw the work on a new constitution as an opportunity for women to "disclaim violence" and "sit down at a table of peace."
Criticism of discourse on "Founders of Republic"
Dr. Dilek Kurban of the Turkish Foundation for Economic and Social Studies (TESEV) criticised Kurdish attempts at legitimisation by claiming that, together with the Turks, they were the founders of the Republic. According to Kurban, this approach encouraged the authoritarian state attitude towards non-Muslims.
In a later session, Prof. Dr. Baskin Oran also criticised the discourse of "founding elements", saying that this led to a kind of "Kurdish Kemalism". Nebahat Akkoc of the Diyarbakir Women's Centre Foundation (Ka-Mer) also acknowledged that this discourse rejected minorities and led to power struggles.
Gunter: Recognition will strenghten state
Dr. Michael Gunter of Tennessee University likened the rejection of a Kurdish identity to the experiences of blacks in the USA. He pointed out that the state had been strenghtened by legal acknowledgement and protection of a black identity and that this could serve as a model for Turkey. (TK/NZ/AG)

Turkije willen dat Denen ROJ TV uit de lucht halen

2007-10-04T14:11:00.000+02:00

Turkije willen dat Denen Roj TV uit de lucht halen
woensdag 3 oktober 2007 - 11:36
Turkije heeft de Denemarken weer opgeroepen om het Koerdische satellietkanaal ROJ TV te sluiten. Ankara beschuldigt Roj TV van het uitzenden separatistische propaganda.
De Turkse minister van buitenlandse zaken, Ali Babacan, maakte dit duidelijk in zijn recente ontmoeting met zijn Deense college Per Stig Moller in New York. Babacan verklaarde dat Turkije bewijs heeft overgedragen dat Roj TV separatistisch is. "We hebben al lang geleden dit bewijsmateriaal geleverd en we willen nu dat jullie actie ondernemen," zei Babacan.
Mollet zei dat het onderzoek nog moet worden uitgevoerd en vroeg Turkije om geduldiger te zijn. De verklaring van Babacan komt na waarschuwingen van de Turkse generaal Ilker Basbug dat er een stijging is van Koerdisch nationalisme is in Turkije.
Het internationale Koerdische TV-station Roj TV is in 2004 opgezet en heeft programma’s in verscheidene Koerdische dialecten en in het Turks, Perzisch, Engels, Assyrisch en Arabisch. De studio's zijn gelegen in het Oost-Vlaamse (Belgische) Denderleeuw in de gebouwen waar het VTM-programma 'Tien om te Zien' in 1989 het levenslicht zag.
ROJ TV kan je (FTA) bekijken via de Hotbird (13° Oost) op 12.476 GHz. (H) met Sym:27.500 en FEC: 3/4.

Bron: Satellite TV

European Union Must Organise a Campaign,demanding shutting down most TV stations in Turkey!

2007-09-30T20:34:00.000+02:00

European Union must organise a campaign, demanding shutting down Most TV stations in Turkey!
Alan Dersimi
Independent Kurdish Journalist
28.09.2007

Every now and then Turkish media report that Turkish authorities raise their concern over ROJ TV to Danish Authorities. They accuse ROJ TV, which is the true voice of Kurdish people with all sort of heinous fabricated misdeeds.
Since the advent of television, some regulator bodies has been appointed to oversee the TV broadcasting code of conduct based on universal values stipulated in charter of Human rights and other related international conventions.
If one of these regulator bodies observe the Turkish satellite broadcastings, they will without slightest doubt hear statements and commentaries which are full of hatred and abuse against a culture and a people who constitute at least a quarter of Turkey's population. No one raise concern in this regard neither in Turkey nor in European countries. These are pure violation of internationally accepted values by Turkey. Possibly the odd interpretation of human rights is seen appropriate for the way the Turkish state is governed. Turkey sees this as self-evident to continue with their trampling upon universal principles.
While Turkey is adamant in their conduct, shamelessly want to export their repressive measures to Europe and give lessons to Denmark about its press freedom regarding closure of ROJ TV.
It is a legitimate democratic view to ask European Union to explain why they are so defensive and tolerant vis-à-vis Turkish pressure and unacceptable demands. It should not be that hard to translate the Media broadcasting regulation into plain Turkish and introduced to Turkish government. The Turkish government need to understand that TV broadcasting is regulated by law, and any offence or misconduct is watched over by concerned authorities in Denmark.
It is time to let Turkey know that demanding of ROJ TV's closure is not acceptable. The only authority which can judge the content of ROJ TV's programming is the Danish Radio and Television Board. Turkey can not continue its repressive and dictatorial manner to dictate how other country should run their internal affairs. A Europe media regulator shall set up an independent body to oversee TV broadcasting in Turkey to measure the respect for human rights and true meaning of Freedom of expression.

Trkiet vil af med Kurdisk tv-station i Danmark

2007-09-27T22:16:00.000+02:00

Tyrkiet vil af med kurdisk tv-station i Danmark
Under FN's topmøde i New York forlangte den tyrkiske udenrigsminister, at Danmark lukker den kurdiske tv-station ROJ, der sender fra København.
Af Marie Hjortdal 26.sep 2007 kl.20:19

Tyrkiets udenrigsminister Ali Babacan har benyttet FN's generalforsamling til at appellere til den danske udenrigsminister Per Stig Møller (K) om en varm tyrkisk sag. Mellem møderne opfordrede udenrigsminister Ali Babacan ifølge den tyrkiske avis The New Anatolian sin danske kollega om at lukke den kurdiske tv-station ROJ, der opererer fra Danmark og sender via satellit. »Vi har leveret beviserne«Tyrkiet anklager tv-stationen for at sende propaganda for den kurdiske terrororganisation PKK. Herhjemme har Radio- og Tv-nævnet frifundet ROJ og har erklæret, at stationen ikke opfordrer til vold og uroligheder, men producerer traditionelle nyhedsudsendelser. I New York hævdede Babacan, at Tyrkiet har bevis for ROJ's støtte til kurdiske seperatister og dens forbindelser til PKK. »Vi har leveret beviserne for længe siden, og nu vil vi have jer til at reagere«, lød Babacans krav ifølge The New Anatolian. Ifølge avisen svarede Per Stig Møller, at sagen stadig bliver undersøgt, og at det tyrkiske styre må være mere tålmodigt. Strid i rettenStriden om tv-kanalen har ført til en retssag, der venter på at blive afgjort i Tyrkiet. Her kræver den tyrkiske stat 53 tyrkiske borgmestre fængslet, fordi de har sendt et brev til den danske statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (V), hvor de beder ham om at frede stationen. Borgmestrene risikerer op til 15 års fængsel

Tyrkiet presser Per Stig for at lukke tv-station

2007-09-27T22:09:00.000+02:00

Tyrkiet presser Per Stig for at lukke tv-station

26-09-2007 17:39Tyrkiets udenrigsminister har personligt forsøgt at presse Per Stig Møller til at lukke den kurdiske tv-station ROJ TV.De to mødtes til FNs generalforsamling i New York, og Tyrkiets udenrigsminister pressede Per Stig Møller hårdt for at få stationen lukket, meddeler flere tyrkiske medier.ROJ TV sender illegalt fjernsyn til den kurdiske del af den tyrkiske befolkning, primært kulturprogrammer, film og politiske diskussioner. Tyrkiet beskylder kanalen for at være separatistisk og for at stå i forbindelse med de illegale kurdiske parti PKK, der arbejder for kurdisk selvstændighed fra Tyrkiet."Vi leverede for længe siden beviser på kriminalitet, og nu må du tage affære," sagde den tyrkiske udenrigsminister Ali Babacan ifølge The New Anatolian til Per Stig Møller.ROJ TV sender via satellit fra København, og i tre tilfælde er kanalen tidligere blevet frifundet for tyrkiske beskyldninger om ulovligheder.Indtil 2002 var det kurdiske sprog forbudt i Tyrkiet, og først fra sommeren 2004 begyndte andre medier end ROJ TV at sende programmer på kurdisk. Myndighederne forlanger dog stadig, at kanalerne maksimalt må sende en times udsendelser om ugen på kurdisk

Turkish Foreugn Minister reproaches Danish counterpart over ROJ TV

2007-09-27T15:14:00.000+02:00

Turkish Foreign Minister reproaches Danish counterpart over Roj TV
The fact that Danish authorities still haven’t withdrawn the broadcasting licence and pulled the plug on a Danish-based television station that Turkey says is a mouthpiece for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is creating problems in bilateral relations between Ankara and Copenhagen, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan warned during a meeting with his Danish counterpart. The meeting between Babacan and Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller took place on Monday in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Babacan reiterated Turkey’s request for closure of Roj TV, which has been a source of tension between Turkey and Denmark for the last three years.
When Moeller voiced a long-used argument by Danish officials, saying that there has been an ongoing investigation into the issue, Babacan “reproached” the Danish minister and asked why the investigation had taken this long despite the fact that Turkish authorities long ago handed over to the Danish side documents and evidence proving the relationship of the station with the PKK, diplomatic sources told the Anatolia news agency on Tuesday.
(Source: Today’s Zaman)

Babacan calls on Denmark to ban ROJ TV

2007-09-26T20:42:00.000+02:00

Babacan calls on Denmark to ban Roj TV
The New Anatolian / Ankara
26 September 2007
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan urged his Danish counterpart Per Stig Moller in New York to shut down a Kurdish language television channel operating from Denmark and which Ankara accuses of broadcasting separatist propaganda to Turkey's mostly Kurdish populated southeastern Anatolia region.The two met on the sidelines of a UN summit on Monday.The satellite TV channel in question, Roj TV, has been broadcasting from Denmark for several years. In the meeting, Babacan stated that Turkey submitted proof of Roj TV’s separatist line, as requested by authorities in Copenhagen. Turkey says the TV station is linked with the PKK organization.“We have provided this evidence long ago and we now want you to take action” Babacan said.Moller said that an investigation was still underway and asked Turkey to be more patient.Babacan’s statements came on the same day when the chief of the Turkish Army, General Ilker Basbug warned against what he said was the rise of ethnic nationalism in Turkey."We will not let the formation of artificial distinctions and the introduction of these topics lead the country to polarization” Basbug said in a speech in the Army war collegeHe also criticized the United States for what he said was not acting against separatist Kurdish militants operating against Turkey from northern Iraq. Babacan also held separate talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmet Ali Aboul Gheit, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. The issue of Iraq and the Middle East peace process were high on agenda of the meeting between Babacan and his Egyptian counterpart Aboul Gheit. Aboul Gheit invited Babacan to Egypt, and Babacan accepted.Meanwhile, Babacan said at his meeting with NATO Secretary-General de Hoop Scheffer that Turkey is ready to make more contributions to NATO. On Tuesday Babacan met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Mahmud Zebari and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana on Tuesday.

Military Hypocrisy in Mothertongue Education Debate

2007-09-26T11:40:00.000+02:00

Military Hypocrisy in Mothertongue Education Debate
General Basbug opposes education in their mothertongue for "some ethnic groups", but many military and other schools encourage education in a foreign language medium.
Bıa news centre
26-09-2007
Gökce Gündüc
General Ilker Basbug, commander of the Turkish Ground Forces, has said: "It is one matter to accept and respect the wish of some ethnic groups to learn their own languages in addition to Turkish; accepting education and teaching in these languages is a different matter altogether."
Speaking at the opening of the academic year for military schools, Basbug has thus added his voice to the debate on a civil constitution.
Military schools: Foreign languages a priority
His comments strike one as hypocritical if one examines the website of the Turkish Armed Forces, which describes the military highschool syllabus:
"Military Highschools comprise four years, including a year of [language] preparatory classes and the education is mostly in a foreign language."
For instance, pupils in the first year of Maltepe Military Highschool have 14 hours of English a week. This drops to nine hours a week in second and third grade, and seven hours in twelfth grade. In the same school, Turkish Literature and Language classes are taught five hours a week in the first three grades and is incrased by one hour in the last grade.
According to the Turkish Armed Forces website, the aim of the education at military schools is "to educate officer candidates who can adapt to the social, cultural, technological and academic conditions of the Science Age, who have a developed awareness of the law, who respect human rights and freedoms, who know at least one, but preferably two foreign languages, and who have been educated in different branches of engineering."
Civilian schools: 4-8 hours a week
Civilian schools also aim at at least four hours of foreign language education a week. In so-called Anatolian highschools, pupils have eight hours a week in the first two grades.
Foreign language medium teaching in private universities
Many private universities and some courses at state universities are also taught in foreign languages, forcing many students to take at least a year of language preparatory classes. It is thus hypocritical that "some ethnic groups" are not allowed to learn or teach their languages at schools.
While religious minorities have their own schools, in which the children can learn Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, etc., the teaching of Kurdish was finally allowed at private language courses, but with many hurdles put in the way of anyone opening a course.
Mothertongue: "A basic building block of identity"
In a book entitled "Language Rights during the EU Process", published by the Helsinki Citzen's Charter, Pulat Tacar defines mothertongue as "the first language an individual learns in his/her family or social environment. The mothertongue reaches the subconscious, counts as a basic building block of identity and is one of the most powerful connections between individual and society."
Tacar also differentiates between assimilation and integration, saying: "The priority for pre-modern countries is to form and protect a state. The leaders of these countries believe that if they do not strenghten the central state, the country will fall apart. This is why they interpret ethnic, linguistic and religious variety or differences as a threat to the country's unity and integrity. Assimilation tries to dissolve cultural variety through direct or indirect pressure."
Integration, on the other hand, is defined as "creating a social unit with another group, coming together in order to gain a super-identity". (GG/NZ/AG)

Babacan reproaches his counterpart on ROJ TV

2007-09-26T09:37:00.000+02:00

Babacan reproaches his Danish counterpart on Roj TV controversy
The fact that Danish authorities still haven't withdrawn the broadcasting license and pulled the plug on a Danish-based television station that Turkey says is a mouthpiece for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is creating problems in bilateral relations between Ankara and Copenhagen,TurkishForeign Minister Ali Babacan warned during a meeting with his Danish counterpart. Per Stig Moeller
The meeting between Babacan and Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller took place on Monday in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Babacan reiterated Turkey's request for closure of Roj TV, which has been a source of tension between Turkey and Denmark for the last three years. When Moeller voiced a long-used argument by Danish officials, saying that there has been an ongoing investigation into the issue, Babacan "reproached" the Danish minister and asked why the investigation had taken this long despite the fact that Turkish authorities long ago handed over to the Danish side documents and evidence proving the relationship of the station with the PKK, diplomatic sources told the Anatolia news agency on Tues-day.
26.09.2007

2 comments on: Turkey Tells Denmark"Shut It down"

2007-09-25T21:27:00.000+02:00

2 Comments on : Turkey tells Denmark: “Shut It Down”
Skender said...
"Moller said that an investigation was still underway and asked Turkey to be more patient."What is there to investigate? Accusations of separatism? Since when is that a crime?
9/25/2007 11:02 AM
kepiblanc said...
The investigation is not about Turkey/Kurdistan but the Kurdish Radio Station - ROJ - which is accused of promoting terrorism - or so say the Turks. The outcome is a given: ROJ is protected by Danish law and will be allowed to carry on.
9/25/2007 11:28 AM

Source : http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/09/turkey-tells-denmark-shut-it down.html

Turkey Tells Denmark:"shut It Down"

2007-09-25T21:04:00.000+02:00

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Turkey Tells Denmark: "Shut It Down"
by Dymphna
AKI is reporting that Turkey is miffed with Denmark for broadcasting a Kurdish language television channel. Turkey claims it’s sending out “separatist propaganda” to Turkey’s Kurds.The report fails to mention that Turkey doesn’t permit the use of the language of the Kurds and has been squelching it for generations:
The request was made by Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan in his meeting with his Danish counterpart Per Stig Moller in New York, on the sidelines of a UN summit on Monday.The satellite TV channel in question, Roj TV, has been broadcasting from Denmark for several years.In the meeting, Babacan stated that Turkey submitted proof of Roj TV’s separatist line, as requested by authorities in Copenhagen.“We have provided this evidence long ago and we now want you to take action” Babacan said.Moller said that an investigation was still underway and asked Turkey to be more patient.
The news report says that Babcan’s statements were an echo of that of General Ilker Basbug, who is singing the age-old tune about “the rise of ethnic nationalism.”“Rise”? The Kurds have never given up in their quest for a Kurdish state. Remember the failed 1920 Treaty of Sèvres?- - - - - - - - -
The breakup of the Empire following World War I and the emergence of the modern Turkish state led to attempts on the part of the Kurds to secure their own nation state. There was no general agreement among Kurds on what its borders should be, due to the disparity between the areas of Kurdish settlement and the political and administrative boundaries of the region.The outlines of a “Kurdistan” as an entity were proposed in 1919 by Serif Pasha, who represented the Society for the Ascension of Kurdistan (Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti) at the Paris Peace Conference. He defined the region’s boundaries as follows:“The frontiers of Turkish Kurdistan, from an ethnographical point of view, begin in the north at Ziven, on the Caucasian frontier, and continue westwards to Erzurum, Erzincan, Kemah, Arapgir, Besni and Divick (Divrik?) ; in the south they follow the line from Harran, the Sinjihar Hills, Tel Asfar, Erbil, Süleymaniye, Akk-el-man, Sinne; in the east, Ravandiz, Baskale, Vezirkale, that is to say the frontier of Persia as far as Mount Ararat.”
As it turned out, the Kurds got nothing, but they’ve never given up. And Turkey remains just as adamant about their removal, eighty years later:
“We will not let the formation of artificial distinctions and the introduction of these topics lead the country to polarisation” Basbug said in a speech in the Army war college.So every year, in the Spring, Turkey masses its troops on the northern Iraqi border to get rid of these "artificial distinctions" (as if culture and language are artifical) and skirmishes with the Kurds. The Turks usually end up with more casualties, but more Kurds are routed from their homes and their lives are disrupted. Meanwhile, in Turkey itself, the Kurdish language and culture of Turkey's own Kurdish citizens continue to be suppressed. It’s no wonder the Turks want Denmark to follow suit.Basburg doesn’t like the U.S. either: we’re not doing enough against the “separatists” in Northern Iraq to satisfy Turkey. Actually, I don’t think we’re doing anything about them at all. It’s not in the job description, and besides we have a full plate in Iraq already. The northern Kurdish areas are relatively and prosperous now that Saddam has been dispatched.If only the rest of Iraq were as quiet as the Kurdish areas. On the other hand, the foreign terrorists are in no hurry to go up against the Peshmerga soldiers. The terrorists may be violent and callously murderous, but they’re not stupid. They pick off the primitive tribes in northern Iraq like the Yezidis- the ones who are least likely to be able to defend themselves.If the rest of Iraq were like the Kurds in the north, we could go home

DTP PARLIAMENTARIAN ON ROJ TV

2007-09-13T20:26:00.000+02:00

DTP PARLIAMENTARIAN ON ROJ TV

On Wednesday evening 12.september.2007 Bengi Yildiz the Kurdish Deputy of Batman participated in ROJ TV’s weekly show Rojev, and answered the questions of ROJ TV moderator Amed Dicle, as well as questions from viewers.
Many viewers from Batman area and other constituencies phoned in and put their questions to their elected deputy. The viewers put forward their desire that elected members of Democratic
Society Party (in its Turkish acronym DTP) should do their utmost efforts for finding a democratic solution for Kurdish issue in Turkey.
The show lasted 90 minutes.

Ros til Politiken.Men...

2007-09-12T22:40:00.000+02:00

Ros til Politiken. Men…
Skrevet af Birgit Fleckner 12. Sep 10:46
Vigtig er også artiklen om de 53 borgmestre, der i Tyrkiet er tiltalt for at sende et brev til Fogh med opfordring til at lukke det kurdiske Roj TV. Vi husker alle Erdogan, der i vrede forlod et pressemøde i Statsministeriet, da han opdagede, at en journalist fra Roj TV var til stede.

Roj TV letter Trial Waites for Danish Answer

2007-09-12T22:22:00.001+02:00

Roj TV Letter Trial Waits for Danish Answer
A trial concerning the letter that 56 mayors sent to Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen will continue after response from Denmark.
bıa news centre
12-09-2007
Erol Önderoglu
On 30 December 2005, 56 mayors had sent Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen a letter in which they asked for the Kurdish Roj TV channel to remain open. 54 of the mayors were of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and two of the Social Democratic People's Party (SHP).
Prison sentences demandedThe mayors are now on trial for "knowingly and willingly helping a terrorist organisation", or more precisely, for "helping the organisation by preventing the taking away of a visual propaganda medium of the terrorist organisation". The prosecution is asking for sentences of between 7.5 and 15 years for 53 mayors. Three mayors have been acquitted.The defendants are being tried under Articles 314/3 and 220/7 of the Turkish Penal Code.
Indictment: Roj TV threatens Turkey
The investigation into the letter was initiated by the Diyarbakir Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on 2 January 2006. In the indictment which was prepared after a six-month investigation, it is said that Roj TV spreads "propaganda of the organisation".
The indictment also says, "Although the letter expressed a legal and democratic right, it ignored the fact that the organisational views of Roj TV contain broadcasts which threaten Turkey."
Denmark's answer needed
The court case was continued yesterday (11 September) at the Diyarbakir 5th Heavy Penal Court. In the short hearing, it was decided to ask for the original answer of the Danish Media Secretariate concerning the status of Roj TV. The court decided to write to the Ministry of Justice to ask for Denmark's answer. The hearing was postponed until 20 November.
The defendants were represented by their lawyers Muharrem Erbas and Sezgin Tanrikulu at the hearing. The lawyers argued that the hearing was more like a trial of Roj TV than of the defendants. (EÖ/AG)

SF overvager retssag mod tyrkiske borgmester

2007-09-09T20:51:00.000+02:00

Inland
9. sep 2007 kl. 15:41

SF ender en observatør til Tyrkiet for at holde øje med retssagen mod de 53 borgmester, som skrev til Anders Fogh Rasmussen om tv-stationen ROJ.

53 borgmestre skal for retten i den østtyrkiske by Diyarbakir tiltalt for at have skrevet et brev til Anders Fogh Rasmussen. SF sender en observatør til Tyrkiet for at overvære retssagen mod 53 tyrkisk-kurdiske borgmestre, der risikerer 15 års fængsel, fordi de har sendt et brev til den danske statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (V). I brevet opfordrede de den danske regering til at undlade at inddrage sendetilladelsen til den kurdiske tv-station ROJ, der sender via satellit fra Danmark.

Principiel betydning

Det er hovedbestyrelsesmedlem og folketingskandidat for SF Serdal Benli, som selv har kurdiske rødder, der rejser til Diyarbakir for at overvåge retssagen. »Denne sag har en enorm principiel betydning. Dels er den jo tæt knyttet til Danmark, dels er den ekstra principiel, fordi Tyrkiet gør sig forhåbninger om at blive optaget i EU. Hvis borgmestrene dømmes, må man sige, at landet bevæger sig væk fra demokrati, ytringsfrihed og en politisk udvikling, der er forenelig med Europas«, siger Serdal Benli. ROJ er ulovlig i Tyrkiet, men når alligevel ud til millioner af kurdere fra hovedkvarteret ved Rådhuspladsen i København. De tyrkiske myndigheder har flere gange bedt Danmark om at inddrage sendetilladelsen, da den ifølge tyrkerne laver propaganda for PKK.

Ingen belæg for terrorstøtte

SF’s partiformand Villy Søvndal, understreger, at ROJ er blevet tjekket igen og igen, uden at der er fundet det mindste belæg for, at tv-stationen tilskynder til terror. »De 53 borgmestre har benyttet deres ytringsfrihed i forsøget på at holde en kritisk tv-station i live og dermed sikre en vigtig røst i den tyrkisk-kurdiske konflikt«, siger Villy Søvndal. Retssagen mod borgmestrene, der er medlemmer Det Demokratiske Samfundsparti (DTP), er kun en ud af flere mod kurdiske politikere i Tyrkiet. Den er blevet udsat flere gange, men er nu berammet til tirsdag.

Acquittal after talking to ROJ TV

2007-08-24T10:50:00.000+02:00

Acquittal after Criticising Military Operations
A lawyer and a politician who spoke to Roj TV, the Kurdish satellite television which is not allowed in Turkey, have been acquitted for criticising military operations in the Tunceli area as not solving the problem.
bıa news centre
22 Ağustos 2007, Çarşamba
Erol Önderoglu
Özgür Ulas Kaplan, president of the Tunceli Bar Association, and Hüseyin Tunc, province chairperson of the Labour Party (EMEP), have been acquitted after criticising the increase in military operations in the region in a programme on the Kurdish satellite channel Roj TV. Roj TV is broadcast from Denmark and Turkey has repeatedly called for its closure.
Up to 7.5 years demanded
Tunc and Kaplan had been tried under Article 7/2 of the Anti-Terorrism Law and up to seven and a half years imprisonment had been demanded. Kaplan expressed satisfaction at their acquittal:
"The decision is positive. In any case, there should be no complaints filed for such speeches. Because I did not spread the propaganda of any organisation in my speech and did not incite to violence. They were words within the framework of the freedom of expression."
Call for economic, democratic and social programmes
The Malatya Heavy Penal Court acquitted the defendants at the third hearing on 16 August, arguing that there were no elements of a crime. The defendants were absent at the hearing.
In late 2006, several political party and municipality representatives held a press briefing, at the end of which Kaplan and Tunc spoke to Roj TV per telephone, expressing their desire for military operations in the are to stop.
Kaplan told Roj TV about the clashes in Tunceli. He said that the years of military management had not brought any results, and had expressed the need for economic, democratic and social programmes.
Anti-Terrorism Law amended
According to amendments made on 29 June 2006, Article 7/2 of the Anti-Terrorism Law calls for a heavier punishment: "A person spreading propaganda for a terrorist organisation will be punished with between one and five years imprisonment.
Should the crime be committed using the press or the media, the punishment is increased by half. In addition, press and media owners and others responsible will be fined with a daily fine from 1,000 to 10,000 days. For those responsible in broadcasting and publishing , the upper limit is 5,000 days." (EÖ/AG

Under investigation for talking to ROJ TV during the election campaign

2007-08-12T23:23:00.000+02:00

According to a dispatch from Cihan Newsagency on 9 August, The Public Presecutor Office in Sakarya has lodged an prosecution investigation against Mr. Mehmet Bayram an independent candidate in Turkish general elections which was held on 22 July.
The afro mentioned candidate is investigated for a telephone participation in a live program of ROJ TV concerning the elections. Although the show in question was aired in Turkish, but still ,the prosecutor office sees that as a case to investigate.

Mayors risk jail in language row

2007-07-31T16:51:00.000+02:00

Mayors risk jail in language row
Tuesday, July 31, 2007

DIYARBAKIR – TDN with wire dispatches
Prosecutors are seeking jail terms of up to three years for two mayors and 17 councilmen in southeastern Turkey who introduced Kurdish and other languages in office, court officials said yesterday, the Agence France-Presse reported.
The accused include Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir and Abdullah Demirbaş, who was removed from his post as mayor of Diyarbakır's multi-ethnic Sur municipality last month after the city council in January allowed the use of Kurdish, Armenian, Arabic, Assyrian and English in municipal services. The charge sheet accused the defendants of "abuse of office" and sought prison sentences ranging from one to three years. The trial of Baydemir, Demirbaş and the 17 city councilmen who voted for the municipal bill is scheduled to begin in November.
Diyarbakir's governor asked a district court to scrap the multilingual services. According to the Constitution, Turkish is the sole official language and no other languages can be used in government offices and municipalities. Ankara has in recent years legalized broadcasts in Kurdish and allowed private institutions to teach the Kurdish language. The law, however, still requires Kurds to use only Turkish in official communications and politics.

Turkish as a foreign language:
Meanwhile, a group of deputies supported by the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in the elections, including the former head of DTP Ahmet Türk, entered “Turkish” as the foreign language they could speak when filling out their information forms to register in Parliament, media reports said. The short biographies of the deputies were not put on the Web site of Parliament. Meanwhile, the biographies of other deputies who registered on Sunday with Parliament were not launched on the Web site either, so as not to give the impression that only the DTP-supported deputies were left out, the daily Radikal reported.
Ahmet Türk said the entry was an error, not ill-intentioned, daily Milliyet reported. Türk went to Parliament and corrected his form. Parliament officials stated that as Turkish is the only official language in Turkey, it could not be referred to as a “foreign language” in Parliament.
The former Democratic Party (DEP) deputies wrote “Kurdish” as the foreign language they could speak on the information form in 1991, but this information was not included in Parliament records

Baydemir's dossier goes to chief prosecutor

2007-07-15T15:07:00.000+02:00

Baydemir's dossier goes to chief prosecutor
Friday, July 13, 2007
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News
The Council of State yesterday approved a decision by the Interior Ministry to launch a probe against Osman Baydemir, mayor of Diyarbakır for using the Kurdish language during municipal activities, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Turkey's administrative court sent Baydemir's dossier to the office of Diyarbakır's chief prosecutor.
Interior Minister Abdülkadir Aksu permitted authorities to launch an investigation into claims that the mayor of Diyarbakır was writing letters in Kurdish in his office and was putting up posters in Kurdish. Baydemir's lawyers did appeal against Aksu's permission but the Council of State turned down the appeal unanimously.
Meanwhile Baydemir's recent interview with Roj TV, drew criticism here. Baydemir, while defending himself Wednesday, said he was doing the same thing for 10 years and there is nothing new about it.

Veronika says:

2007-07-12T19:29:00.000+02:00

I really like this blog. You show a spirit of continuity which is very important.
Veronika

Dear Veronika!
Please write to us longer comments.
Save ROJ TV Team

Diyarbakir,ŞIirnak mayors being investigated

2007-07-11T15:10:00.001+02:00

Diyarbakır, Şırnak mayors being investigated for conducting Kurdish propaganda

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

An investigation has been launched against the mayors of Diyarbakır and Şırnak, Osman Baydemir and Ahmet Ertak, for Kurdish propaganda in interviews given on television.

Baydemir is accused of making statements in support of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in an interview he gave to Denmark-based Roj TV. He is claimed to have described the PKK as �armed opposition.� Turkey says Roj TV is a PKK mouthpiece and has asked for it to be shut down. Denmark's failure to do so has caused tension between the two countries.

Şırnak Mayor Ertak is accused of calling for support to be given to the PKK in an interview he gave to France-24 news channel. He later denied making such a comment.

Ertak said he spoke in Kurdish to the French channel and that his statements were mistranslated. He denied saying, �The PKK supports Kurds and we support it. The PKK needs to be supported.�

Ertak said he would never say such a thing, accusing the channel of tampering with his comments. Frederic Helbert, the interviewer, told the Doğan News Agency that Ertak's statements surprised him, arguing that the translations were correct.

Two inspectors from the Interior Ministry will investigate the actions of the two mayors

Diyarbakir mayor, Dicle apear on ROJ TV

2007-07-11T14:55:00.000+02:00

Diyarbakir mayor, Dicle appear on ROJ TV angering Turks
The New Anatolian / Ankara
09 July 2007

The mayor of southeastern provincial capital of Diyarbakir Osman Baydemir and prominent Kurdish politician Hatip Dicle appeared on ROJ TV once again preparing the scene for a new controversy.Baydemir called the PKK "Kurdish armed opposition." Baydemir also accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being inconsistent. Dicle who is a former parliamentarian who was expelled from the house and sent to jail for ten years on charges of his links with the PKK said independent Kurdish deputies will enter the Parliament after the July 22 elections and will work for a "demoratic solution (of the Kurdish problem)." Dicle said he and other Kurdish deputies had entered the Parliament in 1991 and had cleared the way for the current deputies to struggle for their rights. "They have a huge crowd behind them (Kurds of Turkey). We were like the donkeys sent to the minefield. We cleared the mines (by ending up in prison) and today the new deputies will now have an easier time opening up the fields for cultivation. They are facing a historical task."Dicle said the people were concerned as they heard the slogans in mass rallies say "we are all Turks, we are Kemalists."Besides Baydemir former Human Rights Association chief Yusuf Akatas and Prof. Cengiz Gulec also participated in the program.Turkey has repeatedly called on Denmark to ban ROJ TV. The issue of closing ROJ-TV in 2006 created a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Denmark. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan boycotted a news conference with the Danish prime minister in Copenhagen to protest the presence of Roj-TV journalists there. Also the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen requested Denmark revoke the station's broadcasting license but to date the Danish government has refused to do so, citing freedom of speech. Later, the U.S. intervened and urged Denmark to close down the channel, sending Copenhagen a secret letter which has been included in a file on the channel.However Danish police have been investigating whether ROJ-TV has any ties with the PKK, something the station has repeatedly denied.In 1995 a political wing of the PKK opened its fourth European office in Copenhagen, sparking protests from the Turkish Embassy. The office later closed because of a lack of funding. In 2000 Turkey protested that a Kurdish-language satellite TV station, Mesopotamia TV, was allowed to broadcast from Denmark to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.Baydemir was put on trial when he previously defended ROJ TV. He was one of the fifty-six pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) mayors who wrote to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen last year asking him to keep ROJ-TV on the air.The mayors, including Baydemir, faced charges of "aiding and abetting a terrorist group."

PKK PROPAGANDA BY MAYORS FROM DTP

2007-07-10T21:17:00.000+02:00

Tuesday,10 July 2007

PKK propaganda by mayors from DTP

The Şırnak and Diyarbakır mayors have uttered inconsiderate words.The mayor from Şırnak, Ertak, said on the France-24 channel: "we support the PKK." Baydemir defined the PKK as "armed Kurdish opposition."
"The PKK is armed opposition"
The Diyarbakır mayor from DTP, Osman Baydemir, referred to the PKK as "armed Kurdish opposition," during a show on Roj TV.The Diyarbakır mayor from DTP, Osman Baydemir, has caused reactions with his statements on Roj TV. Turkey has made a number of attempts to close Roj TV; Baydemir attended the show with the former DEP deputy, Hatip Dicle, and former chairman of İHD, Yusuf Alataş. Baydemir said the recent events in the region are being observed closely and mentioned the PKK as armed Kurdish opposition. Baydemir evaluated the PKK's retreat to the camps in Northern Iraq as a starting date. Baydemir stated there have been two major events after 1999 and added: "the armed Kurdish opposition started a strategic change and sent its militants outside of Turkey. This is a period which could be considered a starting point. Turkey was included in the EU process in Helsinki with the background determined by this."

SOUTHEAST MAYOR SAYS KURDS,PKK SUPPORTING EACH OTHER

2007-07-10T20:58:00.000+02:00

News Diplomacy

10.07.2007

Southeast mayor says Kurds, PKK supporting each other

The mayor of the southeastern city of Şırnak, located on the Iraqi border, was seen praising the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging a campaign against Turkey for over two decades, speaking to the France-24 news channel in a Friday interview during the weekly "Reporters" show. Şırnak Mayor Ahmet Ertak, speaking to France-24 in Kurdish said: "The PKK supports the Kurdish people. And we support the PKK. The PKK should be supported." Ertak continued: "We will go until the very end for democracy, justice and our cause. I am addressing Turkish authorities: We will respect you as long as you respect us and our culture. If the Turkish army stops operations, the PKK will lay down arms."
Ertak was voted mayor as a candidate of the Social Democrat People's Party (SHP) in the local elections in March 2004.
Footage featuring images of Turkish security forces was shown during the interview and the show also claimed that 20 million Kurds were looking for freedom in Turkey, and that the Turkish army was a state within a state. The program added that the Turkish military was not in reality pursuing an incursion to northern Iraq to root out the guerilla based there, but that such expressions were a "policy based on forestalling the Islamists in power."
Earlier the pro-Kurdish TV channel Roj TV, which broadcasts from Denmark, showed an interview with Kurdish leaders, including Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir, who referred to the PKK as "armed Kurdish opposition." Baydemir was speaking as a studio guest for a political program on Roj along with former deputy of the now banned pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) Hatip Dicle, former Human Rights Association (İHD) President Yusuf Alataş and academic Cengiz Güleç.
Former DEP deputy Dicle expressed his opinion that this year's independent deputies from the Democratic Society Party (DTP), a continuation of the DEP, would emphasize "peace" as their first word in Parliament. The participants expressed concern about increasingly nationalist and populist calls from political parties emphasizing hostility to different ethnic identities.
Speaking about recent developments and Turkey's threats of a military incursion into northern Iraq, Diyarbakır Mayor Baydemir said two major developments had taken place in Turkey after 1999. Referring to the PKK, he said: "The armed Kurdish opposition changed its strategy and removed weapons from its methods, and its militants to outside Turkey. This is a milestone of a process. It was with the ground this laid that Turkey was included in the European Union process." Baydemir also expressed concern that Turkey's citizens were experiencing a lack of confidence in each other. Turkey has long staged efforts to get Denmark to ban Roj TV.

France-24 is a French government-funded global 24-hour satellite and cable TV news, based in Paris.
10.07.2007 Today's Zaman İstanbul

ROJ TV COMMENTS SPARK INVESTIGATION

2007-07-10T20:44:00.000+02:00

Hurriyet
Tuesday, July 10, 2007 21:45
English

Roj TV comments spark investigation into Diyarbakir's Baydemir

The mayor of Turkey's southeastern city Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir, has made some striking statements regarding the PKK while speaking on Roj TV, a television station whose closure Ankara has been pushing for for years.
Roj TV, which broadcasts out of Denmark, hosted not only Baydemir, but also former DEP MP Hatip Dicle and others, has been the focus of much Turkish state criticism. Baydemir referred in his comments last night on Roj TV to the PKK as the "armed opposition" of the Kurdish people. An investigation has reportedly been opened into Baydemir for what state prosecutors are calling his actions in spreading propoganda.

Dom over tyrkiske borgmestre er udsat

2007-06-27T17:16:00.000+02:00

26. jun 2007 kl. 10:55
Dom over tyrkiske borgmestre er udsat
Dommen over de 53 tyrkiske borgmestre, der risikerer op til 15 års fængsel for at have sendt et brev til statsminister Anders Fogh, er igen blevet udsat.

En dom, der kan koste 53 tyrkiske borgmestre helt op til 15 år i fængsel, er igen blevet udsat.

Denne gang til 11. september, og dermed falder dommen efter det tyrkiske valg 22. juli. Det fortæller DR's udsendte Erkan Özden, som har overværet retsmødet i Tyrkiet.

De 53 borgmestre anklages for at have udtrykt støtte til terrorisme ved i et brev i december 2005 at have opfordret den danske statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen til ikke at lukke den kurdiske tv-station ROJ. Den sender via satellit fra Danmark.

Manglende oversættelse udskyder sagen
Den tyrkiske stat mener, at stationen er del af den forbudte kurdiske terrororganisation PKK, og har derfor krævet den lukket. TV-stationen har overvejende kurdere som seere, heriblandt i Tyrkiet.

Igen er det en teknisk detalje, der er årsag til udsættelsen. Retten har afgjort, at en kendelse fra det danske radio- og tv-nævn må indgå i sagen, men retten kræver kendelsen oversat direkte fra dansk til tyrkisk. Kendelsen foreligger kun oversat fra engelsk til tyrkisk.
nyheder@pol.dk

Kurdistan Nature in Spring!

2007-06-21T10:53:00.000+02:00

Source:www.rewge.com

The Islamic Republic prevents people receiving ROJ TV and MMC in Urmia

2007-06-19T13:52:00.000+02:00

The Islamic Republic of Iran to prevent People from receiving ROJ TV and MMC in Urmia

The Basij forces in the past few days have started an intense onslaught to remove Satellite dishes in villages around Urmia. This is targeting the Kurdish populated parts of the city itself, including Islamabad and Koshatgah as well as the villages like upper Welende and Lower Welende , Enher , Balou and some others. In order to prevent the streaming of Kurdish satellite TV stations in Kurdish populated parts of Urmia the regime spreads disruption signals targeting in particular ROJ TV and MMC frequencies.
Source:The Web Log
Place of raising free human beings and High Spirits.
Tuesday 12.June.2007

Turkish Media Ramps up Anti-Kurdish Attacks

2007-05-25T22:51:00.000+02:00

by Martin Zehr
Turkish Media Ramps Up Anti-Kurdish Attacks
May 25, 2007 01:42 PM EST

As the sectarian warlords seek to undermine governments around the region, the Turkish media and the military in Turkey seek to escalate the level of criticisms leveled on the Kurdish Regional Government. It is seeking to define the Kurdish liberation movement as equal to the political Islamist terrorists, like al-Qaeda. It has sought to define the PKK as a terrorist group, rather then a national liberation struggle with broad-based popular support. In spite of the accusations of PKK involvement in the recent bombing in Ankara the PKK leadership has denied any involvement. Even initial reports in the New Anatolian, could not establish any link between the bomber of the shopping mall and the PKK. The article stated: "Asked whether Akkus, the suicide bomber, was a member of any organization, Onal said that they could not find out such a link and it was not clear if Akkus was affiliated with the PKK."
Beyond attacks on the PKK in Turkey, the Turkish media is trying to discredit the Kurdish Regional Government, so it can justify military operations against the people and the nation of southern Kurdistan. The media, such as the Turkish Daily News, seek to deny the legitimacy of the Kurdish Regional Government to justify military operations into Kurdish Autonomous Region. Such actions would constitute a violation of Turkish-Iraqi borders and would be an escalation of Turkish military operations against Kurdish peoples.
Those media outlets that are not following along with the program, such as ROJ TV, the Kurdish Satellite Channel, have recently been exonerated by the Media Secretariat of Denmark. In a statement, ROJ TV stated: "We welcome the decision of the Media Secretariat of Denmark dated May 4, 2007. This decision shows that the complaints filed by the various Turkish organizations are untrue and unfounded. ROJ TV has not been found to have violated the rules and guidelines of broadcasting."However, it is quite unfortunate that, despite being unsuccessful, such attempts cripple the already fragile democracy in Turkey. The Kurdish Satellite Channel is not the cause of the Kurdish question in Turkey, Iran or Syria. Therefore, the Kurdish question can not be resolved, made to go away, disguised or denied by attacking the only television station that voices the reality of the Kurdish people in these countries. "The trial of the 54 Kurdish mayors for writing a letter to the Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen so that ROJ TV is not closed down continues in Diyarbakir. This letter has outraged the Turkish state and government and all 54 Mayors are being charged with being members of a terrorist organization and 7.5 to 15 years of imprisonment is claimed. This alone is an example that law in Turkey is unfortunately being oriented through political motives."
This issue is deserving of a mass and popular support of recognition for the Kurdish nation and peoples. One thing not needed right now is another invasion and a new Turkish-Kurdish military conflict. People in the United States should particularly send letters to their Congressional delegation and support the withholding of any military aid to Turkey until it withdraws its troops from the border region and engages the KRG in direct negotiations. The Turkish government should be pressured to drop the charges against the 54 Kurdish Mayors. Other stories in Turkish press have sought to create an illusion that there is no unity among Kurdish peoples for national independence and that the KRG is seeking to turn over members of the PKK to the Turkish military. In the New Anatolian, it was alleged that Abdullah Ocalan, founder of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), had renounced the matter of a unified Kurdistan: In this article Selim Sadak a former Kurdish Deputy imprisoned for 10 years in 1994 after being kicked out of Parliament by the Turkish government by the Turkish government in 1991 was purported to have stated: "He [Ocalan] has given up the idea of a united Kurdistan. This is a brave move. If anyone else agreed to his the people would not have listened to them. But they agreed to Ocalan."
The article did go on to quote Sadak regarding the Turkish government punitive actions action legitimate Kurdish political representatives within Turkey: "He said the attitude of the authorities are pushing the country towards polarization. He said while the deputies in Parliament could not agree on many constitutional amendments they managed to bring together 430 votes when it came to approving a constitutional amendment which was designed to block the election of Kurdish independent deputies. "The authorities are still debating whether the former Kurdish deputies who served prison sentences can run for the parliament. There are no legal obstacles but they are trying to create hurdles. These are double standards," Sadak stressed that the laws are not applied to everyone equally. "Look at the case of the Cizre mayor (of Kurdish origin) who is in prison awaiting trial on charges that may bring him a two year jail term form making a speech. This man came to office winning 67 percent of the votes. They put him in jail, pending his trial which will take place today in Diyarbakir. Then there is the former Minister Koray Aydin who is at court facing a 146 year jail term but he has not been put in prison pending his trial. Is this equality?"
There are many things that are not clear. One thing is clear, and that is that statements from the Turkish media have their own agenda. Statements made by the KRG should be referred to in order to confirm or deny such stories officially. There continues to be an expression of a wide variety of views on Kurdish ezines. This is also important in the conversation, so that open input remains a fundamental principle. Likewise, there need be no panic regarding the contents of various articles until they are confirmed. It is becoming clearer every day that the intent of such rumors and stories is to undermine the unity that exists in all of Kurdistan today.
People referring to KurdishAspect.com will benefit from their timely reports made daily. it continues to demonstrate responsible journalism and the highest calibre of integrity in behalf of the Kurdish people and nation.
Martin Zehr is an American political writer who had an article on the Kurds printed by the Kurdish Regional Government, as well as are posted on Kurdish political news forums, such as Kurdish Aspect www.kurdishaspect.com/doc041007MZ.html ,www.kurdishaspect.com/doc041107MZ.html , and http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc051307MZ.html The article on "Kurdistan:Under Construction" is also found on The Conservative Voice http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/24814.html and Kurdish Disagreements or Disputes? http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/25047.html

Iran Introduces Measures Against ROJ TV

2007-05-25T17:52:00.001+02:00

Iran introduces measures against Roj TV, confiscates satellite antennas
Iran has carried out an operation aimed at Kurdish station Roj TV, with all those having a satellite antenna enabling them to watch the channel, which broadcasts out of Denmark, facing a fine or even imprisonment.

In news reported on the Firatnews Web site, Iranian police are said to have confiscated thousands of satellite antennas. Those found in possession of the reception equipment could end up in court and liable for a $5,500 fine or imprisonment. The watching of satellite television has been prohibited since 1995 in Iran; before then Western music and movies were banned.
Turkey submitted three different applications for the closure of Roj TV back in June 2006, under the justification that it was inciting violence and spreading racism. But the Danish Media Secretariat, which issued Roj TV the necessary licence for broadcast, rejected all three of Turkey’s applications and allowed Roj TV to continue broadcasting.
.
(Source: Today’s Zaman)

Empirical-what-you-see-you-get

2007-05-23T15:53:00.000+02:00

Empirical-what-you-see-you-get

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Iran has carried out an operation aimed at the Danish based, Kurdish ROJ TV.
Thousands of satellite dishes enabling Iranian Kurds to watch the channel have been confiscated and those found in possession of the reception equipment could end up in court and liable for a $5,500 fine or imprisonment.

Source: http://empirical-what-you-see-you-get.blogspot.com

Dish Network Satellite

2007-05-22T19:06:00.000+02:00

dish network satellite

Iran introduces measures against Roj TV, confiscates satellite ... -
Today's Zaman
Iran introduces measures against Roj TV, confiscates satellite ...Today's Zaman, Turkey - 2 hours agoThe watching of satellite television has been prohibited since 1995 in Iran; before then Western music and dish network satellite movies were banned. ...
Source: news.google.com

Measures against ROJ TV by Iranian police

2007-05-22T12:38:00.000+02:00

İran Polisinden Roj TV'ye Karşı Önlem

Roj Tv’nin izlenmesini engellemek için İran’da ‘din polisi’ tarafından yapılan operasyonlarda şeriata aykırı olduğu gerekçesiyle binlerce çanak antene el konuldu. Çanak anten bulunduranlar 5 bin 500 dolara kadar para cezasına çarptırıldı. Uydu üzerinden kanalların izlenmesinden rahatsız olan İran, çanak antenlere karşı savaş açtı.

Mahabad, Urmiye, Bokan, Nexede, Seqiz ve Sine gibi Kürt kentlerinde son haftalarda binlerce çanak anten toplatıldı.

El konulan çanak anten sahipleri İslami kurallara uymadığı gerekçesiyle haklarında dava açılarak, para cezasına çarptırılıyor. Hem antenlerinden olan hem de para cezası çarptırılan bölge halkı çeşitli bahanelerle artan baskılardan yılmış durumda.

Geçtiğimiz hafta Nexede kentinde Roj Tv’yi izlediği için evine baskın yapılan Fewziye Emini, güvenlik güçleri hakkında dava açtı. Davası kabul edilmediği gibi Fewziye Emini para cezasına çarptırıldı.

İran hükümeti geçen yıl parlamentoya verdiği önergeyle birlikte çanak anten bulunduranlara hapis ve 5500 dolar kadar para cezası veriliyor.

Ülkede 1995 yılından beri uydu anteni üzerinden televizyon kanallarını izlemek yasak. Daha öncede batı müziği ve filmlerini yasaklanmıştı. Yine geçtiğimiz ay dizi filmlerde ve sinema filmlerinde mutlaka bir namaz sahnesi bulunması kararı alınmıştı.

20.05.2007 11:37:04 - Sansursuz.com

Source: Turkish site Without censor

Iran introduces measures against ROJ TV,confiscates satellite antennas

2007-05-22T12:28:00.000+02:00

Iran introduces measures against Roj TV, confiscates satellite antennas

Iran has carried out an operation aimed at Kurdish station Roj TV, with all those having a satellite antenna enabling them to watch the channel, which broadcasts out of Denmark, facing a fine or even imprisonment.
In news reported on the Firatnews Web site, Iranian police are said to have confiscated thousands of satellite antennas. Those found in possession of the reception equipment could end up in court and liable for a $5,500 fine or imprisonment. The watching of satellite television has been prohibited since 1995 in Iran; before then Western music and movies were banned.
Turkey submitted three different applications for the closure of Roj TV back in June 2006, under the justification that it was inciting violence and spreading racism. But the Danish Media Secretariat, which issued Roj TV the necessary license for broadcast, rejected all three of Turkey's applications and allowed Roj TV to continue broadcasting.
Meanwhile the "Balyoz" (sledgehammer) operation against the PKK in the East and Southeast of Turkey is ongoing. Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) operations in the area intensified this month, with 33 Kurds killed. Police activities in the city center resulted in the capture of 45 suspected PKK supporters thought to have aided in the concealment of the guerrillas.
22.05.2007
Emrullah Bayrak Diyarbakır

Kurdish Bird shot down ! From YOL to ROJ TV via David & Layla

2007-05-14T14:14:00.000+02:00

Kurdish Bird shot down!

From YOL to ROJ TV via David & Layla

David & Layla was an Official Selection in Competition at 23rd Annual love/ Amore International film festival at Mons in Belgium.

ROJ TV came to interview me and to cover the screening of the film at one of the sold out 600+ seat cinema. Afterwards I had the great honor and pleasure of being invited for an interview at ROJ TV station arranged by the charming, noble and witty anchor producer Hassan Ghazi.

The film festival organizers arranged for me to be driven to ROJ TV, a 45 minutes drive from the festival.

I was sharing a car with some festival jury members who were being driven to Brussels Airport.
We arrived at some complex by a river. Suddenly we all saw the Roj TV sign on a big modern building.My European colleagues were all impressed by this huge head quarters and asked what country ROJ TV belongs to?

The security guard called ROJ TV. A minute later Hassan himself came out to greet us and invite all for tea. But they had planes to catch.

Once inside, I was delighted to see so many Kurds, women and men, young and old, from all parts of divided Kurdistan and from diaspora, all working quietly and professionally together.

I felt I was in a dream: a micro vision of what a free Kurdistan could be like one day.

In between preparation for the interview, I had a kebab lunch with some polite and casual staff members in a huge restaurant belonging to ROJ TV. Then I had chai in a grand bar that was also an integral part of ROJ TV.After the interview ROJ TV graciously invited me to dinner and then to stay the night in a nearby hotel.

In the 1980’s, I lived in San Francisco to which lovely city I had immigrated after 16 years of studying and working in London.

In San Francisco, I was editor for a journal called Azadi Kurdistan.I had a marketing executive Job so I was able to also send monthly checks to Ibrahim Ahmed, the legendary leader and poet, exiled to London to support his literary journal published in Kurdish.

A few years later,when I was passing through London,Ibrahim Ahmed invited me to his home in the suburbs of London.My sister Dilkhwaz who was studying for a master degree accompaned me.I recall I chided her for wearing too modern,too tight a pair of Jeans and somewhat heavy make up.I said to her, we are visiting the home of our grand poet.I bet his wife is going be wearing modest daily Kurdish clothes.I wished that you my dear sister wore something more subdued, more poetic... Sure engough the wife of our humble poet wore a dark Kurdish cloth with tiny fine flowers reminding me ofmy mother's dress

Up to that time, Kurdish communication was confined to these small journals spread out in diaspora in Europe and America and read only by a few.

YOL

Suddenly we heard of a phenomenal Kurdish film called YOL wining Palme d’Or at Cannes in France, the most prestigious festival in the world. We learnt of thr film's legendary writer/director Yilmaz Guney who had directed (via his assistant) his epic film from inside Turkish prison. Then he had fled to Europe to finish the film’s postproduction

To me this was the first fantastic breakthrough for Kurdistan cause on world stage. A Kurd had managed to use film – the most powerful communication medium in the world to present the complex Kurdish tragedy to the world.

I stayed up that night ,wrote an amateur review of this film and published it in our Azadi Kurdistan in Dec 1983 entitled “YOL: A Monument to Human Endurance.” This review has since been re-published at KurdishCinema.org: Yol: A monument to human endurance
many,
including Devrim , Editor-In Chief of KurdishCinema.com, say this old, emotionally powerful review still holds true- moves people and brings tears to some eyes.

“Kurdish Bird shot down!”
Then in 1980's, one day an LA producer woman friend faxed me a little piece published in Variety – the Hollywood leading entertainment journal- with this intriguingly title of: “Kurdish Bird shot down!”

This is when I learnt of Med TV. A group of Kurds using their own funds had dared to create from scratch, the unimaginable: they have created the first Kurdish satellite TV!

They had envisioned and create the impossible: the first satellite TV for the independent voice of divided and oppressed Kurdistan.

Of course, this proved too much for Turkey the military occupier and oppressor of 20 million Kurds of its part of Kurdistan annexed by military force to Turkey and mislabeled as South East of Turkey(with Kurds called in official Turkish text books ‘Mountain Turks’ who had forgotten their Turkish language!)

After Yol, This extraordinary creation of an independent Kurdish satellite TV station became the second most important breakthrough for the cause of Kurdistan.

Soon, Turkey successfully lobbied the UK government to shoot down this young Kurdish bird as a “terrorist threat ”!

Then undeterred, other determined Kurds founded another more powerful Kurdish satellite TV station and started to broadcast again in the face of chauvinistic , supremacist Turkish government's attacks.

Furious and paranoid Turkish government started to lobby again to shut down the new Kurdish satellie station.

In fact Kurds had to create other Satellite TV stations, Eventually, protected by European Union from dastardly Turkish pressures, the much bigger ROJ TV was created with its present HQ near Brussels, now broadcasting 18 hours a day in all Kurdish dialects as well in Turkish, Arabic, Farsi and in English.

Birds of a feather... but of course, none of these Kurdish birds had any relations to each other!

Another Kurdish Bird shot down: KurdishMedia.com

The third most important landmark in the history of free Kurdish media has to be KurdishMedia.com This outstanding London-based internet, the ‘Voice of United Kurdistan’ is the brainchild of Dr Rebwar. Assisted by a few dedicated, self-sacrificing souls such as Peshraw, this site soon established itself as the most professional, the most objective, the most dynamic, the most reliable and therefor soon and the most visited Kurdish site on the internet.

KurdishMedia.com is the closest Kurdistan has to a BBC world radio. Yet sadly to-date neither wealthy Kurds nor Kurdish Regional Government offer much material help. The BBC (or al-Ahram or al-Jazeera!) could not exist and flourish without government support. Yet BBC remains independent and frequently criticizes British government officials and policies.

Similarly, for the sake of the larger noble services of ROJ TV and KurdishMedia, wealthy Kurds and Kurdish government need to understand, appreciate and support KurdishMedia and ROJ TV as independent public service channels, having the inalienable right to investigate and to criticize everyone and everything, including Kurdish personalities,artists, entities, Kurdish parties, the Kurdish government and Kurdish officials.

If any proof is needed for the continuing power of words KurdishMedia.com, is frequently under attack by hackers, most notably from the hired anti-free speech agents of Turkish government.

As of this article, the mighty KurdishMedia.com is still grounded now for weeks due to hacker attacks and lack of Kurdish financial support to rebuild a more secure site.

The world and its constituent societies cannot progress without freedom of speech including healthy self-criticisms.

It was indeed a grand pleasure, a dream come true, and a special inspiration to finally visit ROJ TV-the Kurdish CNN!-and its sincere, hardworking and dedicated staff.

Biji Roj TV! Biji KurdishMedia! Biji Azady! Biji Kurdistan!

Jalal Jonroy, writer/director, David & Layla. New York, May 2007

Decision of Danish Radio and Television Board

2007-05-14T11:29:00.000+02:00

NON-BINDING ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Radio and Television Board

ROJ TV
Att.:
Manouchehr Tahsili Zonoozi
H C Andersens Boulevard
391553 Copenhagen V

Copenhagen, 3 May 2007

Decision regarding complaint from the Radio and Television Supreme Council
On 30 July 2006, the Radio and Television Board received three complaints from the Turkish radio and TV authority, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTSC), concerning programmes or parts of programmes broadcast by ROJ TV, cf. the following. The complaints are referred to as Letter 1 (Complaint 1), Letter 2 (Complaint 2) and Letter 3 (Complaint 3), cf. appendices 1, 2 and 3.
The complaint With regard to the contested programme clips, RTSC is of the opinion that ROJ TV has violated provisions in the international conventions, agreements and Danish legislation listed below:
1. The European Convention on Human Rights
2. The UN’s International COVENANT on Civil and Political Rights
3. The European Convention on Transfrontier Television
4. The Convention on the Rights of the Child
5. The EU directive “Television without Frontiers”
6. Executive Order No. 338 of 19 April 2006 on satellite, cable and
short-wave broadcasting (previously Executive Order No. 1174 of
17 December 2002 on satellite, cable and short-wave radio and television broadcasts).
The complaints were accompanied by 3 CDs and DVDs of the contested programme clips.
In a letter dated 22 August 2006, the Board asked if ROJ TV wished to address the complaints. In a letter dated 18 September 2006, ROJ TV replied to the public hearing notice regarding the complaints, cf. appendix 4. The correspondence received in response to the public hearing notice contained five DVDs with copies of selected complete programmes.

Per e-mail on 29 August 2006, the Board requested that RTSC send a written document specifying the times the contested programme clips were broadcast. On 2 November 2007, a letter submitted by RTSC was received listing the exact times, cf. appendix 5.
In a 20 October 2006 letter, ROJ TV was requested to send copies of additional programmes to the Board as well as indicate whether the news broadcasts, which are sent in three different languages, had identical content (i.e. did they contain the same news but were simply broadcast in three different languages).
ROJ TV answered this question affirmatively in a 2 November 2006 letter containing an additional five DVDs.

Rules

The Radio and Television Board’s regulatory power regarding satellite registrations was established in Act No. 338 of 11 April 2007 to consolidate the law on radio and television broadcasts and in Executive Order No. 338 of 19 April 2006 on satellite, cable and short-wave broadcasts. The Board does not have direct regulatory powers under the agreements and rules in points 1-4 above, cf. page 1. The provisions regarding the violations listed in the “Television without Frontiers” directive were implemented in section 7 of Danish Executive Order No. 338 of 19 April 2006.
The provisions in section 7, sub-sections 1-3 of Executive Order No. 338 of 19 April 2006 on satellite, cable and short-wave broadcasts (which are an implementation of articles 22 and 22a of the EU directive “Television without Frontiers”) are worded as follows:
"1. Registered companies that send radio and television broadcasts may not broadcast programmes which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, in particular programmes that involve pornography or gratuitous violence.
2. Other programmes that are likely to impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors may not be broadcast except where it is ensured by selection of the time of the broadcast or by any technical measure that minors in the area of transmission will not normally hear or see such broadcasts. Furthermore, when such programmes are broadcast in unencoded form, they must be preceded by an acoustic warning or be identified by the presence of a visual symbol throughout their duration.
3. The broadcasts may not contain any incitement to hatred on grounds of race, gender, religion, nationality or sexual orientation." In the following, the Board will treat the complaints on the basis of the above-mentioned rules and make its decision in relation to the provisions set down in Act No. 338 of 11 April 2007 to consolidate the law on radio and television broadcasts and in Executive Order No. 338 of 19 April 2006 on satellite, cable and short-wave broadcasts.

License granted to ROJ TV by the Board
ROJ TV was granted license on 9 December 2003 based on a 24 October 2003 application for license.
ROJ TV’s application for license includes, for example, the following:

That broadcasts will be aimed primarily at Kurds.

That the aim is to describe the existing situation for Kurds spread out around the world.

That programmes will primarily deal with social and health conditions, political topics and debates as well as entertainment programmes that preferably will be sent on the weekends.

That broadcasts will under no circumstances be in conflict with the conditions stipulated in section 11 of the Executive Order and that no programmes will be broadcast that can be remotely construed to approximate the description given in section 11 (section 11 in the previous Executive Order contains the rules regarding the protection of minors and the prohibition of incitement to hatred and is the
equivalent of section 7 in the present Executive Order, cf. the above).
A standard license was issued and states, for example, that:

Rules for the protection of minors must be observed,

Programmes must in no way incite hatred on grounds of race, gender, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.

Evaluation of the complaints

In general The Radio and Television Board has examined the clips
submitted in the three complaints, and in order to make a decision about the complaints based on the submitted CD and DVD, the Board had the contested clips translated into Danish.
The three complaints are treated together in the following because the Board finds that the content of the complaints and the contested clips share so many features that the basis for the Board's decision is the same for all of the issues involved.
Below, the complaints are examined based on section 7, sub-sections 1-2 and section 7, sub-section 3, respectively. In addition, the Board has a number of supplementary comments, which combined with their evaluation of the complaints in relation to the above-mentioned provisions form the basis for their decision.
Section 7, sub-sections 1-2:
In some of the clips, ROJ TV reports information about demonstrations and events as well as requests to participate in them.
There are scenes containing violent episodes in the contested clips, but in all of the incidences, the Board is of the opinion that they represent the violence that actually exists in Turkey and in Kurdish areas. These violent scenes form the basis for the news clips about activities and episodes in the areas in question and, in the Board's opinion, are not emphasised in an unwarranted or exaggerated way.
Even though reporting this information can have an unpleasant effect on the Turkish authorities, it does not, in the opinion of the Board, violate radio and television legislation.
Based on this and the question of whether the clips in the three complaints violate section 7, sub-sections 1-2 (which concerns a ban on broadcasting programmes that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, in particular programmes that involve pornography or gratuitous violence and which states that programmes that can impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors may not be broadcast except where it is ensured by selection of the time of the broadcast or by any technical measure that minors in the area of transmission will not normally hear or see such broadcasts), the Board is of the opinion that
none of the clips contain gratuitous violence. All of the clips, with the exception of a music video, cf. Complaint 3, are ordinary news broadcasts or debate programmes that principally do not diverge from what can otherwise be viewed in similar programmes on DR or TV2, which is why, in the Board’s opinion, they are not in violation of section 7, sub-sections 1-2.
Moreover, it is the Board’s assessment that the programmes are not aimed at minors.
The music video in Complaint 3, which is not part of a news or debate programme, is not judged to be a typical music video aimed at minors and the young.
Section 7, sub-section 3:
In the Board’s interpretation of section 7, sub-section 3 of the satellite and cable Executive Order of 21 April 2005 when addressing a complaint about ROJ TV, the Board emphasised that “incitement to hatred” is to be understood as direct requests. Thus, the fact that a person, organisation, etc. has a certain opinion does not alone signify incitement. In addition, it is not sufficient that it is commonly known that the person or organisation has that opinion.
Furthermore, in its interpretation of “incitement to hatred”, the Board emphasises that statements or information that can be interpreted or perceived by some parties as incitement or a request to incitement must be released with the intention of inciting or encouraging hatred (intention) to be covered by the provision. As a result, solely passing on information is not encompassed by the term “incitement”. A far-reaching interpretation would inhibit a free press from notifying and informing about the conditions and events in society and in the world that it deems relevant to communicate. This also means that based on the Board’s assessment,
the possible consequences of passing on information (for example, communicating the news) are not covered by the provision because passing on information and facts about an issue or event must be expected to have a variety of effects on people who have different preconceived notions about an issue or subject.
The contested clips all contain telegrams that are read aloud, quotes from other sources and coverage of or direct interviews with sources. Thus, it is not ROJ TV that is being represented.
The statements in the contested clips do not contain, in the opinion of the Board, incitement to hatred due to race, nationality, etc. In more than one clip, democracy, democratic solutions, democratic revolution and the like are even mentioned. Other statements are of a more ambiguous nature, but the Board has not determined that an incitement to hatred exists in the clips.
In summary, the Board is of the opinion that the clips concerned inherently resemble news clips or debate programmes, where information, news and viewpoints are passed on as a part of news and debate programmes, and that they do not contain incitements to hatred. As a result, it is the opinion of the Board that no violation has occurred of section 7, sub-section 3, which prohibits incitement to hatred. As far as the music video in Complaint 3 is concerned, the Board is of the opinion that it does not incite to hatred and that it does not represent ROJ TV’s views.
Supplementary comments:
In addition to the contested clips, the DVD for Complaint 2 from RTSC contains recordings from a variety of television stations in Turkey. The pictures show riots, fights with the police, Molotov cocktails being thrown and demonstrations. RTSC argues that ROJ TV’s broadcasts are to blame for these incidences.
The Board is of the opinion that the complaint does not contain documentation showing that ROJ TV’s broadcasts were the cause of the riots, etc. in Turkey and in Kurdish areas.
For Complaints 1, 2 and 3, the Radio and Television Board hereby issues the following: Decision
ROJ TV has not violated section 7, sub-sections 1-2 of Executive Order No. 338 of 19 April 2006 on satellite, cable and short-wave broadcasts, cf. the above rules, and ROJ TV has not violated section 7, sub-section 3 of Executive Order No. 338 of 19 April 2006 on satellite, cable and short-wave broadcasts, cf. the above rules, and this decision cannot be brought before another administrative authority, and this decision can be brought before a court of law.
A copy of this decision has been sent to the Radio and Television Supreme Council in Turkey, the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the EU Commission.

NB: This is an uncertified English translation.

With kind regards
Christian Scherfig
Chairman
Appendices
Appendix 1: Complaint 1
Appendix 2: Complaint 2
Appendix 3: Complaint 3
Appendix 4: ROJ TV’s 18 September 2006 reply to the public hearing notice.
Appendix 5: RTSC’s list of programme broadcast times for the contested
clips.

Abdullah Akengin the mayor of Dicle asks for lifting bans on ROJ TV broadcasting in Tarbzon in the "Court"

2007-05-14T00:31:00.000+02:00

May 13
AKENGİN MAHKEME BAŞKANIYLA TARTIŞTI
DİCLE BELEDİYE BAŞKANI ABTULLAH AKENGİN ROJ TV NİN TRABZONDA YAYIN YAPMASIN İSTEYİNCE MAHKEMEDE GERİLİM YAŞANDI...

Roj TV’nin kapatılmaması için Danimarka Başbakanı Rasmussen’e yazdıkları mektup nedeniyle haklarında dava açılan 56 belediye başkanının yargılanmasına devam edildi.
Mahkemede, Diyarbakır’ın Dicle İlçesi Belediye Başkanı Abdullah Akengin’in, Roj TV’nin Trabzon’dan da yayın yapmasını istemesi ise gerginliğe yol açtı.

Mahkeme Başkanı Dündar Örsdemir’in “Neden Trabzon?” sorusuna akengin, “Trabzon’da çeteleşme var. Demokrasinin gelişimi için, Roj TV’nin orda da yayın yapması gerekir” yanıtını verdi. Örsdemir’in, “Çetelerle ilgili bilginiz mi var?” sorusu üzerine Akengin, “Benim yok” dedi. Tartışma, avukatların müdahalesiyle son buldu.

Savcı mütalaa hazırlamak için ek süre talebinde bulunurken, mahkeme heyeti duruşmayı erteledi. 56 belediye başkanı, “Terör örgütünün görsel propoganda aracından mahrum kalmasını engellemeye çalışarak örgüte yardım etmek”le suçlanıyor

Source : http://romantikliseli999.spaces.live.com/blog/

ROJ TV CLEARED OFF ALL COMPLAINTS MADE BY TURKEY

2007-05-11T17:41:00.000+02:00

May 10th, 2007

Press Release…..Press Release….Press Release…Press Release…Press Release..

ROJ TV CLEARED OFF ALL COMPLAINTS MADE BY TURKEY

We welcome the decision of the Media Secretariat of Denmark dated May 04th, 2007. This decision shows that the complaints filed by the various Turkish organizations are untrue and unfounded. ROJ TV has not been found to have violated the rules and guidelines of broadcasting.

However, it is quite unfortunate that, despite being unsuccessful, such attempts cripple the already fragile democracy in Turkey. The Kurdish Satellite Channel, ROJ TV is not the cause of the Kurdish question in Turkey, Iran or Syria. Therefore the Kurdish question can not be resolved, made to go away, disguised or denied by attacking the only television station that voices the reality of the Kurdish people in these countries.

The trial of the 54 Kurdish Mayors for writing a letter to the Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen so that ROJ TV is not closed down continues in Diyarbakir. This letter has outraged the Turkish state and government and all 54 Mayors are being charged with being members of a terrorist organization and 7.5 years to 15 years of imprisonment is claimed. This alone is an example that law in Turkey is unfortunately being oriented through political motives.

When we began our broadcasting we knew from the past experience of Kurdish media of all sorts that it was not going to be easy to reflect the realities of the region on to the television screen. However our determination to advance Kurdish and other peoples in the region through our broadcasts in Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, Persian and Assyrian languages of culture, health, women’s issues, children’s programs, music and promotion of harmony, respect and tolerance for one another, continues with strength.

Therefore ROJ TV wishes to continue to adhere with the international and Danish national standards and principles in its broadcasts that aim the advancement of the Kurdish people and other peoples in the region.

We in conclusion commend Denmark for preserving and uplifting its own democracy and principles despite the political pressures exerted.

Yours Sincerely

On behalf of
Mesopotamia Broadcast Board of Management
Manoucher T. Zonoozi

Danish Human Rights Committee

2007-05-09T20:04:00.000+02:00

Udland 6.maj 2007 kl:11:46
Dansk komité overvåger retssag om brev til Fogh
Dansk komité for menneskerettigheder frygter, at Tyrkiet vil overtræde grundlæggende retsprincipper, når der tirsdag falder dom over 53 kurdiske borgmestre.

En dansk komité vil holde skarpt øje med urent spil, når en domstol i Tyrkiet tirsdag fælder dom i en opsigtsvækkende retssag mod 53 kurdiske borgmestre, der risikerer 15 års fængsel for at sende et brev til statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (V).

I brevet bad borgmestrene Anders Fogh om ikke at lukke den kurdiske tv-station ROJ, som sender fra Danmark.

Den tyrkiske stat mener, at stationen er del af den forbudte kurdiske terrororganisation PKK, og har derfor krævet den lukket.

Sagen vækker bekymring hos formanden for Den Danske Helsinki Komité, Ole Espersen.

Frygter undertrykkelse
»Det er en straffesag anlagt mod over 50 folkevalgte borgmestre og med en meget høj strafferamme. Det er i sig selv opsigtsvækkende og kan betyde, at andre vil blive bange for at ytre sig kritisk. Derfor har vi sendt en repræsentant til Tyrkiet for at sikre, at anklageskriftet følger rimelige krav til præcision, og at sagen bliver ført på en retfærdig måde«, siger tidligere justitsminister Ole Espersen.

I Tyrkiet er borgmestrenes brev blevet set som en støtte til terrorisme, fordi PKK er på EU’s terrorliste, og fordi Tyrkiet er overbevist om forbindelsen mellem PKK og tv-stationen.

Ifølge Ole Espersen er den tyrkiske terrorparagraf dog uklar, og han frygter, at den kan blive brugt til at undertrykke politiske modstandere og mindretal som kurderne.
nyheder@pol.dk

Although the prosecutor had asked a sum of 795 years punishment for mayors, the trial is postponed for the time being!!

2007-05-08T17:50:00.000+02:00

Mynt Habar

Roj Tv davası

DİYARBAKIR (İHA) - Diyarbakır'da 54 DTP'li belediye başkanının, Danimarka Başbakanı Anders Fogh Rasmussen'e Roj Tv'nin kapatılmaması için gönderdikleri mektup nedeniyle yargılandıkları duruşmaya deva edildi.

Belediye başkanları hakkında toplam 795 yıl hapis cezasının istendiği davayı yabancı heyetlerde izledi.

Danimarka Başbakanı Anders Fogh Rasmussen'e PKK'nın yayın organı Roj Tv'nin kapatılmaması için mektup gönderen ve Diyarbakır Cumhuriyet Başsavcılığı'nca 21 Aralık 2005 tarihinde haklarında dava açılan DTP'li 54 belediye başkanının yargılanmasına devam edildi. 5. Ağır Ceza Mahkemesi'ndeki 6. duruşmaya belediye başkanları katılmadı. Avukatların hazır bulunduğu duruşmada, sanık avukatlarından Muharrem Erbey, geçen celsede verilen mütalaaya karşı savunma yapmak için süre istediklerini belirterek, "Ayrıca Danimarka Medya Sekreterliği'nin söz konusu kararı Türkiye'nin ilgili makamlarına göndermiştir. Bu kararda Türkiye'nin başvurusu hakkında bir karar verilmiştir. Söz konusu kararın ilgili kurumlardan celbedilmesini istiyoruz" dedi.

Mahkeme duruşmaya kısa bir ara verdikten sonra, sanık avukatları ile sanıkların savunmalarını hazırlayabilmeleri için süre verilmesine ve Danimarka Medya Sekreterliği'nden Roj Tv hakkında hazırlanan raporun Türkiye çevrilmiş metninin Adalet Bakanlığı Uluslar arası Hukuk ve Dış İlişkiler Genel Müdürlüğü'nden ve ayrıca RTÜK'ten istenmesi karar vererek duruşmayı 26 Haziran'a erteledi.
Savcılık söz konusu davaya ilişkin hazırladığı iddianamesinde, "Roj TV'nin, PKK'nın güdümünde faaliyet gösterdikleri gerekçesiyle İngiltere ve Fransa'da yayın lisansları iptal edilen Med TV ve Medya TV'nin devamı niteliğinde olduğunu" ileri sürmüştü. İddianamede, belediye başkanlarının gönderdiği mektupla gerçekte PKK'nın propaganda kanallarından birisinin yayınlarına devam etmesinin amaçlandığı iddia edilmişti. İddianamede, toplam 54 DTP'li belediye başkanı hakkında TCK'nın 314/3 ve 220/7 Maddesi'ni içeren “örgütüne bilerek ve isteyerek yardım eden kişi, örgüt üyesi olarak cezalandırılır" suçundan yargılanacak.

The postponement of the trial of Kurdish mayors for supporting ROJ TV

2007-05-08T17:24:00.000+02:00

Haber7com
08 Mayıs 2007
Roj Tv davasanda ek süre verildi

Roj Tv davasında mahkeme heyeti, Adalet Bakanlığı ile RTÜK'ten Danimarka makamlarının Roj Tv hakkında hazırladığı raporun Türkçeye çevrilmiş metnini istedi.
PKK yanlısı yayın yapan Roj Tv ile ilgili Danimarka Başbakanı Anders Fogh Rasmussen'e mektup gönderdikleri gerekçesiyle haklarında dava açılan 54'ü DTP'li 56 belediye başkanının yargılanmasına devam edildi.
Diyarbakır 5. Ağır Ceza Mahkemesindeki duruşmaya, tutuksuz yargılanan ve aralarında Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Belediye Başkanı Osman Baydemir, Batman Belediye Başkanı Hüseyin Kalkan, Şırnak Belediye Başkanı Ahmet Ertak, Tunceli Belediye Başkanı Songül Erol Abdil ve Hakkari Belediye Başkanı Metin Tekçi'nin de bulunduğu 54'ü DTP'li 56 belediye başkanı katılmadı.
Savcı, mahkeme heyetinden, bir önceki duruşmada verdiği mütalaa doğrultusunda karar verilmesini talep etti. Savcı, mütalaasında, Roj Tv'nin PKK'nın yayın organı olduğunu ve örgütün amaçları doğrultusunda yayın yaptığının tartışılmaz bir gerçek olduğunu vurgulamıştı. Mütalaada, sanık 53 belediye başkanının, “PKK'ya bilerek ve isteyerek yardım etme'' suçunu işledikleri, bu nedenle 15'er yıla kadar hapis cezasıyla cezalandırılmaları, 3 belediye başkanı hakkında da beraat kararı verilmesi talep edilmişti.
Sanık avukatı Muharrem Erbey, müvekkil sayısının fazla olması nedeniyle savunma hazırlayamadıklarını, bu nedenle ek süre talep ettiklerini söyledi. Erbey, Türkiye'nin Roj Tv'nin kapatılması için yaptığı başvurunun ardından Danimarka Medya Sekreterliğince bir rapor hazırlandığını ve bu raporun Türkiye'de ilgili kurumlara gönderildiğini belirtti.
Mahkeme heyeti, Adalet Bakanlığı Uluslararası Hukuk ve Dış İlişkiler Genel Müdürlüğü ile Radyo Televizyon Üst Kurulu'dan (RTÜK), Danimarka Medya Sekreterliğinin Roj Tv hakkında hazırladığı raporun Türkçeye çevrilmiş metninin istenilmesine ve sanıklara savunma yapmaları için ek süre verilmesine karar vererek duruşmayı erteledi.
Duruşmayı, Danimarka Büyükelçiliği Müsteşarı Soren Jacobsen ile Helsinki İnsan Hakları İzleme Komitesi üyesi Avukat Mikael Lyngbo'nun yanı sıra bazı yerli ve yabancı gazeteci de izledi.

Afgørelse vedrørende klage fra Radio and Television Supreme Council

2007-05-07T23:38:00.000+02:00

ROJ TV
Att.: Manouchehr Tahsili Zonoozi
H C Andersens Boulevard 39
1553 København V

København den 3. maj 2007

Afgørelse vedrørende klage fra Radio and Television Supreme
Council
Radio- og tv-nævnet modtog den 30. juli 2006 tre klager fra den tyrkiske
radio- og tv-myndighed Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTSC) over
programmer eller dele af programmer udsendt af ROJ TV, jf. i det følgende.
Klagerne er benævnt Letter 1 (klage 1), Letter 2 (klage 2) og Letter 3 (klage
3), jf. bilag 1, 2 og 3.
Klagen
RTSC er af den opfattelse, at ROJ TV i de påklagede indslag har overtrådt
bestemmelser i nedenstående internationale konventioner og aftaler samt dansk lovgivning:
1. Den europæiske konvention om menneskerettigheder
2. FNs internationale COVENANT om civile og politiske rettigheder
3. Den europæiske konvention om grænseoverskridende fjernsyn
4. Konventionen om børns rettigheder
5. EU's direktiv ”TV uden grænser”
6. Bekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 19. april 2006 om programvirksomhed ved hjælp af satellit, kabel og kortbølgesendemuligheder (tidligere bekendtgørelse nr. 1174 af 17. december 2002 om radio- og fjernsynsvirksomhed ved hjælp af satellit, kabel og kortbølgesendemuligheder).

Klagerne var vedlagt 3 stk. CD og DVD med de påklagede indslag.

Nævnet anmodede med brev af 22. august 2006 ROJ TV om eventuelle bemærkninger til klagerne. ROJ TV afgav med brev af 18. september 2006 høringssvar til klagerne, jf. bilag 4. Høringssvaret var vedlagt fem stk. DVD med kopier af udvalgte, hele udsendelser.
Med e-mail af 29. august 2006 anmodede Nævnet RTSC om skriftligt at præcisere udsendelsestidspunkterne for de programindslag, der er klaget over.
RTSC fremkom ved brev modtaget 9. november 2006 med en oversigt over de præcise udsendelsestidspunkter, jf. bilag 5.

Med brev af 20. oktober 2006 blev ROJ TV anmodet om at indsende kopier
af yderligere udsendelser til Nævnet samt om at oplyse, hvorvidt nyhedstimerne,
som bliver sendt på tre forskellige sprog, i sit indhold var identiske
(i.e. indeholdt de samme nyheder blot udsendt på tre forskellige sprog).

ROJ TV besvarede bekræftende på dette spørgsmål med brev af 2. november
2006 vedlagt yderligere fem stk. DVD.
Regelgrundlag
Radio- og tv-nævnets myndighedsområde er med hensyn til satellitregistreringer fastsat i lovbekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 11. april 2007 af lov om radio- og fjernsynsvirksomhed og i bekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 19. april 2006 om programvirksomhed ved hjælp af satellit, kabel og kortbølgesendemuligheder. Nævnet har ikke umiddelbart myndighedsbeføjelser inden for aftale- og regelsæt i ovenstående punkt 1-4, jf. pag. 1. Vedrørende overtrædelser af bestemmelser i direktivet ”TV uden grænser” er bestemmelserne i dette direktiv implementeret i § 7 i den danske bekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 19. april 2006.

Bestemmelserne i § 7, stk. 1-3, i bekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 19. april 2006 om programvirksomhed ved hjælp af satellit, kabel kortbølgesendemuligheder (der er en implementering af artikel 22 og 22a i EU-direktivet ”TV uden grænser”) har følgende ordlyd:

”Registrerede foretagender, der udøver radio- eller fjernsynsvirksomhed, må ikke udsende programmer, som i alvorlig grad kan skade mindreåriges fysiske, psykiske eller moralske udvikling, herunder navnlig programmer, som indeholder pornografi eller umotiveret vold. Stk. 2. Andre programmer, som kan skade mindreåriges fysiske, psykiske eller moralske udvikling, må ikke sendes, medmindre det ved valg af sendetidspunkt eller ved tekniske foranstaltninger sikres, at mindreårige i udsendelsesområdet normalt ikke ser eller hører udsendelserne. Når programmerne udsendes i ukodet form, skal der forud for dem gives en akustisk advarsel, eller de skal under hele deres varighed være markeret med et visuelt symbol. Stk. 3.Programmerne må ikke på nogen måde tilskynde til had på grund af race, køn, religion, nationalitet eller seksuel observans.”

Nævnet vil på baggrund af ovennævnte regelgrundlag i det følgende behandle klagerne og træffe afgørelse i henhold til bestemmelser fastsat i lovbekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 11. april 2007 af lov om radio- og fjernsynsvirksomhed og i bekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 19. april 2006 om programvirksomhed ved hjælp af satellit, kabel og kortbølgesendemuligheder.

Tilladelse til ROJ TV af Nævnet
ROJ TVs tilladelse blev den 9. december 2003 udstedt på baggrund af ansøgning
om tilladelse af 24. oktober 2003.

Af ROJ TVs ansøgning om tilladelse fremgår det blandt andet, at:

•Programvirksomheden primært vil være rettet mod det kurdiske folk.
•Målet er at give udtryk for den bestående situation for det kurdiske
folk, der er spredt over hele verden.
•Programmerne vil primært handle om sociale og samfundsmæssige
forhold, sundhedsforhold, politiske emner og debatter samt ligeledes
underholdningsprogrammer, der fortrinsvis vil blive sendt i weekenderne.
•Programvirksomheden vil ikke under nogen omstændigheder være i
konflikt med de forhold, som er omtalt i bekendtgørelsens § 11, og
der vil ikke blive udsendt programmer, der blot tilnærmelsesvis kan
karakteriseres på den måde som beskrevet i § 11 (§ 11 i den gamle
bekendtgørelse indeholder reglerne om beskyttelse af børn og forbud
mod opmuntring til had og svarer til § 7 i den gældende bekendtgørelse,
jf. ovenfor).

Tilladelsen er en standardtilladelse, hvoraf det blandt andet fremgår, at:

•Beskyttelsesreglerne for mindreårige skal iagttages.
•Programmerne ikke på nogen måde må tilskynde til had på grund af
race, køn, religion, nationalitet eller seksuel observans.

Vurdering af klagerne
Generelt
Radio- og tv-nævnet har gennemgået alle de indsendte klip i de tre klager,
og Nævnet har med henblik på at træffe afgørelse om klagerne ud fra de medsendte CD og DVD fået udarbejdet en oversættelse til dansk af alle de påklagede klip.

De tre klager behandles i det følgende samlet, idet Nævnet finder, at indholdet
af klagerne og de påklagede indslag har så mange fælles træk, at Nævnets begrundelser for afgørelsen er de samme for det samlede sagskompleks. Nedenfor behandles klagerne således efter § 7, stk. 1-2, henholdsvis § 7, stk. 3. Herudover har Nævnet en række supplerende betragtninger, der sammen med vurderingen af klagerne i forhold til de ovennævnte bestemmelser danner grundlag for afgørelsen.

§ 7, stk. 1-2:
ROJ TV gengiver i en del af indslagene oplysninger om demonstrationer, aktioner og opfordringer til deltagelse heri. Der indgår til dels billeder af voldelige episoder i de påklagede indslag, men det drejer sig efter Nævnets opfattelse i alle tilfældene om en afspejling af den vold, der faktisk findes i samfundet i Tyrkiet og i de kurdiske områder. Billederne af volden danner baggrund for nyhedsindslag om hændelser og episoder i de pågældende områder, og fremhæves efter Nævnets opfattelse ikke uberettiget eller overeksponeret. Selv om gengivelse af disse informationer kan virke stødende på de tyrkiske myndigheder, medfører de efter Nævnets opfattelse ikke en overtrædelse af radio- og fjernsynslovgivningen.
På den baggrund er det Nævnets opfattelse, at for så vidt angår spørgsmålet,
om indslagene i de tre klager er en overtrædelse af § 7, stk. 1-2 (om forbud mod audsende programmer, som i alvorlig grad kan skade mindreåriges fysiske, psykiske eller moralske udvikling, herunder navnlig programmer, som indeholder pornografi eller umotiveret vold og om, at andre programmer, som kan skade mindreåriges fysiske, psykiske eller moralske udvikling, ikke må sendes, medmindre det ved valg af sendetidspunkt eller ved tekniske foranstaltninger sikres, at mindreårige i udsendelsesområdet normalt ikke ser eller hører udsendelserne), indeholder ingen af indslagene umotiveret vold. Alle indslagene med undtagelse af musikvideoen, jf. klage 3, har karakter af almindelige nyhedsudsendelser eller debatprogrammer, og i princippet adskiller de sig ikke fra, hvad der kan ses i tilsvarende programmer på for eksempel DR eller TV 2, hvorfor de efter Nævnets opfattelse ikke medfører en overtrædelse af § 7, stk. 1-2. Endvidere er programmerne efter Nævnets vurdering ikke rettet mod børn.
Med hensyn til musikvideoen i klage 3, som ikke er en del af et nyhedseller
debatprogram, vurderes den ikke at være en typisk musikvideo rettet mod børn og unge.
§ 7, stk. 3:
Ved Nævnets fortolkning af § 7, stk. 3, i satellit- og kabelbekendtgørelsen i
sin afgørelse af 21. april 2005 af klage over ROJ TV lagde Nævnet vægt på, at der med ”tilskyndelse til had” forstås direkte opfordringer. Dermed kan det faktum, at en person, en organisation eller lignende har en bestemt holdning, ikke i sig selv medføre, at der er tale om tilskyndelse. Heller ikke selv om det i omverdenen er kendt, at personen eller organisationen har denne holdning.

Endvidere lagde Nævnet ved fortolkningen af ”tilskyndelse til had” vægt på, at udtalelser eller information, der af nogen parter ville kunne forstås eller opfattes som tilskyndelse eller opfordring, skal være afgivet med det formål at tilskynde eller opfordre til had (forsæt) for at være omfattet af bestemmelsen. Således vil videregivelse af oplysninger ikke i sig selv være omfattet af begrebet ”tilskyndelse”. En videregående fortolkning ville forhindre en fri presse i at informere og oplyse om de forhold og begivenheder i samfundet og i verdenen, som pressen vil finde relevant at informere om. Dette betød efter Nævnets vurdering endvidere, at en mulig konsekvens af videregivelse af informationer (for eksempel nyhedsformidling) ikke i sig selv er omfattet af bestemmelsen, idet ren videregivelse af information og oplysninger om en sag eller en begivenhed må forventes at have forskellige virkninger hos mennesker med forskellige forhåndsopfattelser af sagen eller emnet.

De påklagede indslag indeholder alle oplæsning af telegrammer, citater fra
andre kilder, reportage eller direkte interview med kilder. Det er således
ikke ROJ TV selv, der udtaler sig.

Udtalelserne i de påklagede indslag indeholder efter Nævnets opfattelse ikke opfordringer til had på grund af race, nationalitet eller lignende. I flere indslag tales der ligefrem om demokrati, demokratiske løsninger, demokratisk revolution og lignende. Andre udtalelser har en mere tvetydig karakter, men Nævnet har ikke konstateret opfordringer til had i indslagene.

Sammenfattende har de omhandlede indslag efter Nævnets opfattelse alle karakter af nyhedsindslag eller debatprogrammer, hvor informationer, nyheder og synspunkter viderebringes som en del af nyheds- og debatprogrammer, og som ikke indeholder tilskyndelser til had. Der er derfor efter Nævnets opfattelse ikke sket en overtrædelse af § 7, stk. 3 om forbud modntilskyndelse til had. For så vidt angår musikvideoen i klage 3 indeholder denne efter Nævnets opfattelse heller ikke opfordringer til had, og for videoen gør det sig også gældende, at det ikke er ROJ TV selv, der udtaler sig.

Supplerende betragtninger:
Ud over de påklagede indslag indeholder DVD’en med klage 2 fra RTSC optagelser fra forskellige tv-stationer i Tyrkiet. Billederne viser optøjer, kampemed politiet, kast med molotovcocktails og demonstrationer. RTSC gør gældende, at ROJ TVs udsendelser er skyld i disse hændelser.
Det er Nævnets opfattelse, at der i klagen ikke er dokumentation for anbringendet
om, at ROJ TVs udsendelser er årsag til optøjer med videre i Tyrkiet og kurdiske områder.
For klage 1, klage 2 og klage 3 træffer Radio- og tv-nævnet hermed den

Afgørelse

at ROJ TV ikke har overtrådt § 7, stk. 1-2, i bekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 19.
april 2006 om programvirksomhed ved hjælp af satellit, kabel og kortbølgesendemuligheder, jf. ovenfor om regelgrundlag, og at ROJ TV ikke har overtrådt § 7, stk. 3, i bekendtgørelse nr. 338 af 19. april 2006 om programvirksomhed ved hjælp af satellit, kabel og kortbølgesendemuligheder, jf. ovenfor om regelgrundlagen

Denne afgørelse kan ikke indbringes for anden, administrativ myndighed.

Afgørelsen kan indbringes domstolene.

Kopi af denne afgørelse er sendt til Radio and Television Supreme Council i
Tyrkiet, Statsministeriet, Kulturministeriet, Justitsministeriet, Udenrigsministeriet
og EU-Kommissionen.
Til orientering kan det oplyses, at Nævnet vil få udarbejdet en ikke-bindende
oversættelse af afgørelsen. Så snart oversættelsen foreligger, vil
denne blive offentliggjort.

Med venlig hilsen

Christian Scherfig
formand

Bilag:

Bilag 1: Klage 1.
Bilag 2: Klage 2.
Bilag 3: Klage 3.
Bilag 4: ROJ TVs høringssvar af 18. september 2006.
Bilag 5: RTSCs oversigt over udsendelsestidspunkter for de påklagede indslag.

Peyamner News Agency on MS's Announcement

2007-05-06T22:38:00.000+02:00

National - Danish Council gives green light for Kurdish Roj TV broadcasts
6-May-07 [9:32]
The Danish Radio and Television Council on Thursday rejected Turkish complaints about Kurdish Roj TV broadcasts, saying that the content of stories aired on that channel had the characteristics of news reporting, not propaganda of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

In 2006, the Turkish Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) lodged three complaints against the broadcasts of Kurdish Roj satellite TV, which Ankara says is a mouthpiece for the PKK, on the grounds that the television station breached broadcasting principles by inciting violence and racism.

But the Danish Council said there were no grounds to stop Roj TV broadcasts, because it said, the channel aired news stories in the same way as other Danish television stations do.

Turkish sources said they had not yet seen the official document released by the Danish Council, adding that Turkey was already contacting Danish authorities through diplomatic channels to stop Roj TV broadcasts.

Speaking with the Turkish Daily News, Danish sources said Turkey could appeal the Danish Council's decision through the court, not through the administrative authorities.

Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.

More than 30,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for a Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.

(turkishdailynews com.tr)

Kurdisk tv-station frifundet for opfordring til uro

2007-05-05T12:08:00.000+02:00

Kurdisk tv-station frifundet for opfordring til uro
3. maj 2007 15:01 Indland| Den kurdiske tv-station ROJ, der sender fra Danmark, er igen blevet frifundet for beskyldninger om at opfordre til uroligheder og had.

Af: Frederik Roed (Journalist)

De tyrkiske myndigheder betragter ROJ TV som et farligt talerør for den kurdiske oprørsbevægelse PKK, der optræder på både EU's og USA's terrorliste. Og myndighederne har gentagne gange klaget over, at tv-stationen får lov til at sende fra Danmark.
Men torsdag slog det danske Radio og tv-nævn igen fast, at den kurdiske tv-station ikke opfordrer til uroligheder og had i Tyrkiet i sine tv-udsendelser, oplyser DR Nyheder.
- Samtlige af de nyhedsindslag, der har været genstand for vores gennemgang, er alle at sidestille med traditionelle nyheds- eller debatprogrammer, der kunne have være vist på TV 2 eller DR. De er overhovedet ikke i nærheden af at krænke danske standarder for racisme eller til at opfordre til had, siger nævnets formand, Christian Scherfig, til DR Nyheder.
Statsadvokaten for København har i halvandet år efterforsket bekyldningerne om ROJ TV's tætte forbindelser til PKK uden at nå frem til en tiltale. Sagen er for tiden sendt til yderligere efterforskning hos Københavns Politi.
Radio og tv-nævnets afgørelse kommer kun få dage før, at der falder dom i en sag i Tyrkiet, hvor 53 kurdiske borgmestre står anklaget for at støtte terrorisme, fordi de har sendt et brev til Anders Fogh Rasmussen (V). I brevet opfordrer de statsministeren til ikke at lukke ROJ TV.
Borgmestrene risikerer 15 års fængsel.

TV-nævn frifinder kurdisk tv-station

2007-05-05T11:58:00.000+02:00

TV-nævn frifinder kurdisk tv-station

Tyrkiske myndigheder beskylder den kurdiske Roj TV for at opfordre til had, men det
danske Radio- og tv-nævn afviser nu alle beskyldninger mod kanalen.
Den kurdiske tv-station Roj TV opfordrer ikke til had.

Det slår det danske Radio- og tv-nævn ifølge DR fast.

Tv-stationen, som er kurdisk og sender over hele Europa og i Mellemøsten, er ellers blevet beskyldt for at opfordre til uroligheder.

Men beskyldningerne er uden grund, siger formand for nævnet, Christian Scherfig.

»Samtlige af de nyhedsindslag, der har været genstand for vores gennemgang, er alle at sidestille med traditionelle nyheds- eller debatprogrammer, der kunne være blevet vist på TV2 eller Danmarks Radio. De er overhovedet ikke i nærheden af at krænke danske standarder for racisme eller til at opfordre til had«, siger Christian Scherfig til DR.

Det var de tyrkiske tv-myndigheder som i juli 2006 sendte hele tre klager til Radio- og tv-nævnet, der har givet Roj TV sendetilladelse.

Talerør for forbudt parti
Roj TV har længe været en torn i øjet på de tyrkiske myndigheder, som betragter kanalen som talerør for det forbudte kurdiske arbejderparti PKK, der står på både USA og EU's terrorlister.

Den påståede sammenhæng med PKK var grunden til, at Tyrkiets premierminister Recep Tayyip Erdogan boykottede et pressemøde, da han i november 2005 var på besøg hos statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Ifølge DR har statsadvokaten for København i halvandet år efterforsket beskyldningerne om Roj TV's forbindelser med PKK, uden at nå frem til en tiltale. Københavns Politi efterforsker nu sagen.
nyheder@pol.dk

Danish Council gives green light for ROJ TV broadcasts

2007-05-05T11:17:00.000+02:00

Danish Council gives green light for Roj TV broadcasts
Saturday, May 5, 2007ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

The Danish Radio and Television Council on Thursday rejected Turkish complaints about Roj TV broadcasts, saying that the content of stories aired on that channel had the characteristics of news reporting, not propaganda of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
In 2006, the Turkish Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) lodged three complaints against the broadcasts of Roj TV, which Ankara says is a mouthpiece for the PKK, on the grounds that the television station breached broadcasting principles by inciting violence and racism.
But the Danish Council said there were no grounds to stop Roj TV broadcasts, because it said, the channel aired news stories in the same way as other Danish television stations do. Turkish sources said they had not yet seen the official document released by the Danish Council, adding that Turkey was already contacting Danish authorities through diplomatic channels to stop Roj TV broadcasts.
Speaking with the Turkish Daily News, Danish sources said Turkey could appeal the Danish Council's decision through the court, not through the administrative authorities

Veritas Universalis

2007-05-04T23:51:00.000+02:00

Den kurdiske tv-station ROJ har ikke forbindelse til terrorisme
Published May 3rd, 2007

Den kurdiske tv-station Roj, der siden marts 2004 har sendt fra Danmark, er nu for tredje gang blevet frifundet for beskyldninger om at opfordre til uroligheder og had. ROJ TV sender til ikke mindre end 28 millioner kurdere i 78 lande.
Tyrkiet hævder, at stationen skulle have forbindelser til PKK og til terrorisme. Tyrkerne har enddog fået PKK optaget på både EUs og USAs terrorliste. De kæmper for et frit Kurdistan, hvilket kurderne indlysende skal have. Den tyrkiske besættelse af de kurdiske områder, bør bringes til ophør og Tyrkiet skal reduceres til naturlig størrelse.
Beskyldningerne kommer fra de tyrkiske tv-myndigheder, der i juli 2006 sendte tre klager til det danske Radio og tv-nævn, der har givet Roj sendetilladelse.
Men i alle tre tilfælde er klagerne blevet afvist, fortæller formand for nævnet, Christian Scherfig til dr.dk/Nyheder.
Nyhedsavisen skriver:
Samtlige af de nyhedsindslag, der har været genstand for vores gennemgang, er alle at sidestille med traditionelle nyheds- eller debatprogrammer, der kunne have være vist på TV 2 eller DR. De er overhovedet ikke i nærheden af at krænke danske standarder for racisme eller til at opfordre til had, siger nævnets formand, Christian Scherfig
Fra dr.dk/Nyheder:
Radio og tv-nævnets afgørelse kommer få dage før, der ventes dom over 53 kurdiske borgmestre. De står i Diyarbakir i Tyrkiet anklaget for at støtte terrorisme, fordi de i et brev til statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen har opfordret ham til ikke at skride ind over for Roj TV.
Borgmestrene risikerer op til 15 års fængsel.
Pressenævnet er ikke den eneste myndighed, der er koblet på ROJ-sagen. Københavns Politi er også i gang med at undersøge tv-stationen.
Link til ROJ-tvs hjemmeside.
Andre kilder: TV2,

Dr.Denmark Nyheder / Inland

2007-05-04T17:14:00.000+02:00

Du er her: dr.dk / Nyheder > Indland

Roj TV bliver af de tyrkiske myndigheder betragtet som talerør for den kurdiske organisation PKK, der optræder på både EUs og og USAs terrorliste.
© ROJ TV

ROJ-tv frifundet af tv-nævnet
03. maj 2007 14.00 Indland Opdat.: 03. maj 2007 14.49

Den kurdiske tv-station Roj, der sender fra Danmark er igen blevet frifundet for beskyldninger om at opfordre til uroligheder og had.
Beskyldningerne kommer fra de tyrkiske tv-myndigheder, der i juli 2006 sendte tre klager til det danske Radio og tv-nævn, der har givet Roj sendetilladelse.
Fakta om ROJ

•ROJ TV er en kurdisk TV-kanal, som sender over hele Europa og Mellemøsten.
•ROJ TV sender film, børneprogrammer, talkshows og underholdning, kulturprogrammer, dokumentarfilm og nyheder.
•ROJ TV kan nå ud til 28 millioner kurdere fordelt i 78 lande.
•ROJ TV har sendt fra Danmark siden marts 2004.
•Selskabet bag kanalen hedder Mesopotamia Broadcast, en medievirksomhed med base i København.
•Mesopotamia Broadcast er et dansk selskab som derudover laver TV-kanalen Mesopotamia TV (METV) og Radio Denge Mezopotamya.
•Mesopotamia Broadcast er et dansk aktieselskab.
•Læs mere på ROJ TV's hjemmeside.

Men i alle tre tilfælde er klagerne blevet afvist, fortæller formand for nævnet, Christian Scherfig til DR.
Alle indslag i orden
- Samtlige af de nyhedsindslag, der har været genstand for vores gennemgang, er alle at sidestille med traditionelle nyheds- eller debatprogrammer, der kunne være blevet vist på TV2 eller Danmarks Radio. De er overhovedet ikke i nærheden af at krænke danske standarder for racisme eller til at opfordre til had, siger han.

Roj TV bliver af de tyrkiske myndigheder betragtet som talerør for den kurdiske terrororganisation PKK, der optræder på både EUs og og USAs terrorliste. De tyrkiske myndigheder har gentagne gange klaget over, at tv-stationen får lov at sende fra Danmark.
Halvandet års efterforskning
Statsadvokaten for København har i halvandet år efterforsket beskyldningerne om Roj TVs tætte forbindelse til PKK uden at nå frem til en tiltale. Lige nu er sagen sendt til yderligere efterforskning hos Københavns Politi.
Radio og tv-nævnets afgørelse kommer få dage før, der ventes dom over 53 kurdiske borgmestre. De står i Diyarbakir i Tyrkiet anklaget for at støtte terrorisme, fordi de i et brev til statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen har opfordret ham til ikke at skride ind over for Roj TV.
Borgmestrene risikerer op til 15 års fængsel

Danish TV 2 , The News

2007-05-03T22:23:00.000+02:00

Nævn frikender kurdisk tv-station
03-05-07: 15:02 | af: pmol

Den kurdiske tv-station Roj, der sender fra Danmark er endnu en gang blevet frifundet for beskyldninger om at opfordre til uroligheder og had.
Beskyldningerne kommer fra de tyrkiske tv-myndigheder, der i juli 2006 sendte tre klager til Radio og tv-nævnet, der har givet Roj sendetilladelse. Men i alle tre tilfælde er klagerne blevet afvist, fortæller formand for nævnet, Christian Scherfig til Radioavisen
"De er overhovedet ikke i nærheden af at krænke danske standarder for racisme eller opfordre til had," siger han.
Roj TV bliver af de tyrkiske myndigheder betragtet som talerør for den kurdiske organisation PKK, der optræder på både EUs og og USAs terrorliste.
De tyrkiske myndigheder har gentagne gange klaget over, at tv-stationen får lov at sende fra Danmark.
Statsadvokaten for København har i halvandet år efterforsket beskyldningerne om Roj TVs tætte forbindelse til PKK uden at nå frem til en tiltale.
Lige nu er sagen sendt til yderligere efterforskning hos Københavns Politi.

DEMOCRATIZATION AND DTP

2007-05-01T17:45:00.000+02:00

DEMOCRATIZATION AND DTP
Posted in WOMAN by on the April 30th, 2007

“There are no magic answers, no miraculous methods to overcome the problems we face, just the familiar ones: honest search for understanding, education, organization, action that raises the cost of state violence for its perpetrators or that lays the basis for institutional change — and the kind of commitment that will persist despite the temptations of disillusionment, despite many failures and only limited successes, inspired by the hope of a brighter future.”
~ Noam Chomsky.
From Peace in Kurdistan Campaign, here’s the report referenced in Osman Baydemir’s letter. In this first part, the letter itself, the discussion centers around the democratization of the Kurdish areas at the local level and the role of the DTP. The report highlights the Ankara regime’s discriminatory efforts against the Kurdish people at the local level and DTP in particular, and the role of this official state discrimination, in practice, as far a the democratization process goes.
The fact that there is even a mention of a “democratization process” in Turkey implies that the existence of democracy is a questionable notion that is quite contrary to the usual PR campaign which holds Turkey as a “model” of democracy.
This report and the appendices, which will be published here in the upcoming days, should be read in contrast with the usual propaganda that is presented in the Western press in general, and the American press in particular. Such an example can be found in today’s Washington Times by resident Turkish PR expert, Tulin Daloglu.
Report on Local Government and Local Democracy Dynamics concerning the DTP Municipalities in Turkey
1 Introduction and Report Framework
On the road to EU membership, Turkey has made a strong commitment to meet European democratic standards guided by the acquis communautaire, and initiated a legal process in which EU common principles were translated into national policies. Consequently, significant legislative reforms at the level of local government (Law on Metropolitan Municipalities, Law on Municipalities, Law on the Special Provincial Administration, Law on Public Administration and Law on Unions of Local Administrations) and constitutional reforms lifting restrictions on human rights and cultural freedoms (e.g. on political expression, the use of languages other than Turkish in public media) were drafted. Accompanied by critical constitutional reforms, genuine local and regional governmental reform promised to carve up new spaces for enhancing the dynamics of local and regional democracy. Also as the Congress Report of 19961 noted, this reform trend seemed capable, ?even if applied in the same manner to the whole of the country? of ?contribut[ing] to create conditions for better exercise of democratic rights, including the Kurdish-speaking population in the South-East of the country?.
Turkey?s historic ?tradition of a highly-centralised unitary state?, already predicted and repeatedly affirmed to ?stand in the way of reforms needed by the modern Turkish state and society? by the Congress Rapporteurs2, proved to be a major obstacle to Turkey?s full commitment to a broader reform package of measures needed for the realization of effective and efficient democratic changes at the level of local governments.3 Given the delicate political nature of the reform process, Turkey?s willingness to establish a viable link between these reforms, and its ability to render them effective in practice were particularly important for the development of real democratic governance at the local and regional levels.
This report aims to give an up-to-date account of the actual implementation of the decentralization process and the interrelated promotion of self-improvement, subsidiarity, and effective local governance for the fifty-six DTP (Democratic Society Party) municipalities in Turkey. Ethnically marked as ?Kurdish? and thus historically relegated to the periphery of highly centralized governmental practices, DTP municipalities are a crucial window through which the functioning of local government in Turkey can be interpreted. Yet, in terms of local democratic dynamics, the political, cultural and economic situation in the provinces where most of the DTP municipalities are located4 poses a much more intricate and fragile picture, due to the presence of a long term socio-political conflict that is only partially shaped by, but hardly limited to, the highly centralized state tradition of Turkey. The fact that, despite their significant base of local support, no DTP members could become a member of the Turkish National Assembly during the 2002 elections?representation is contingent on a 10 percent election threshold?further highlights the critical role of the DTP municipalities as crucial actors/interlocutors for the development of local democracy in these areas.5 Furthermore, as shown by the socio-economic development index prepared by the State Planning Organization, almost all of the DTP municipalities are at the same time located in the socially and economically least developed provinces of the South-Eastern and Eastern Anatolian Regions of Turkey. Ridden by social and political conflict for the last 20 years, these two regions have historically been at the periphery of national socio-economic formations and development policies.
The intense legal, administrative and financial difficulties currently faced by these 56 municipalities provide a starting point for examining the challenges and trends of the actualization of local democratic and governmental reforms, because they highlight the relationship between DTP municipalities and central governmental institutions in Turkey. This report, part of a larger report concerning DTP municipalities, will focus on the legal issues (i.e. investigations and court cases) faced by the DTP municipalities.
2 Findings, Issues and Concerns
As noted in the 2005 Report on Local and Regional Democracy in Turkey, despite the strong wish for decentralisation in Turkey and the ambitious reform programme, still, the ?actual practice of decentralized government on the ground? remains highly unsatisfactory, particularly when ?measured by reference to legislation actually passed and implemented?
Concerns and recommendations laid out by the Congress6 are definitely shared by all municipalities in Turkey, and are experienced acutely by smaller municipalities with more restricted access to financial resources. Yet, it is the contention of this report that this arduous process of decentralization in Turkey is more heavily felt and has effects different in kind and degree for the DTP municipalities, which are ethnically marked as ?Kurdish? and thus are accordingly subjected to interrelated yet different discriminatory legal, political, cultural and economic governmental practices on the ground. Such policies are justified on the basis of a regnant perception that the interests and democratic demands of the Kurdish-speaking local people are also an imminent threat to national security. A content analysis of the legal, social and economic problems currently faced by these municipalities provides insights into the degree to which the principles of good local governance and self-improvement are ensured by the central government in these municipalities.
Legal Issues:
Currently, there are hundreds of investigations and legal cases filed against the DTP Municipalities. While the sheer number of the cases is an alerting fact on its own, the content and arguments of the cases themselves have a greater bearing on local democracy in the region.
First of all, to put into practice a form of law enforcement that is fair and impartial and respectful of basic human rights, and a form of law that observes the prevalent values of a society?in short, a form that promotes the rule of law?is one of the basic tenets of good local governance. A very important issue for local democracy is the ?principle of proportionality for any administrative regulation or act imposing a limit on self-government?, stipulated in the Article 8 of Charter.7 As noted previously by the Congress, it is very important to make sure ?that a proper procedure exists, including the rights of the defence,and that careful provision is made in legislation concerning ancillary or principal penalties affecting the actual exercise of elected office?.
However, the frequency of the official investigations into the DTP mayors especially in the provinces that were until very recently governed by the State Emergency Rule?which is to say, the provinces most effective in the politics of the region, is remarkable. For example, within the span of a three year term at the office (2004-2006), a total of 53 investigations and 7 courtcases were opened against Osman Baydemir, the mayor of the Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality (DMM, hereafter). The frequency of such investigations filed by the Ministry of Interior is perceived in the region, in one mayor?s words, as part of ?an effort to reduce elected local representatives? status to that of the officials appointed by the central government in Ankara?. Within this context, it should also be kept in mind that these perceptions are grounded in a regional history of previously abolished political parties and dismissed mayors.
The grounds on which these investigations are filed and justified are particularly effective in creating such an impression of the arbitrary and unproportionate use of supervisonary powers over elected mayors in the region. The most problematic aspect of these files is not simply having the existence of a legal basis for such cases, but the lack of constructive and positive reference to the existing laws. The obstructive and negative use of existing laws is most significant for the investigations and cases grounded on accusations directly related to freedom of speech and thought, and, thus, which are filed through a separate court system (CMUK, Code of Criminal Procedures). Overall, the investigations and cases filed at the CMUK points to the neglect of the principles such as democratization as well as respect to human rights and cultural freedoms that are promoted not only by the Congress but also officially approved by the Turkish government through the European documents such as the Charter of Local Self Government. An example well to the point is provided by the case filed against Abdullah Demirbas, the mayor of Sur municipality of Diyarbakir, on the grounds of ?making propoganda to promote the aims of the organization PKK? due to his speech titled, ?Municipal Services and Local Governments in the light of Multilingualism?, which was delivered at the European Social Forum in January 2006.8 Although the content of the speech, very well summarized by its title, does not include any single direct or indirect reference to the PKK, the very fact that the speech aimed to explore the relations between multilanguagism and local democracy and that it was delivered by a DTP Mayor was enough to render it as a form of ?PKK propaganda? in the eyes of central government authorities. Mayor Demirbas was acquitted on all charges on 19.09.2006.
The indictment of the Roj TV letter case (2006/350) was also written through a similar centralist point of view, which immediately criminalizes DTP Mayors? legal and democratic demands by associating them with the PKK and separatist tendencies but never contextualizes them in relation to Turkey’s ongoing process of democratization and negotiations with the EU.9 In the indictment, 56 DTP Mayors were charged with ?abetting and aiding an armed organization? due to their joint letter sent to the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen concerning the possible closing of Roj TV. The first court hearing was held on September 26, 2006.10 In his defense for the case, the DMM Mayor Osman Baydemir stated, The fact that a Kurdish channel broadcasts from outside of Turkey disturbs us, too. We believe that it is more appropriate to consider the possibility of a Kurdish TV broadcasting from within the borders of Turkey and in accordance with the legal legislations within the context of EU-Turkey relations. The letter was written to point to the fact that for democratic life and culture to flourish in Turkey the public media and press institutions should not be silenced, that the ban of Roj TV will not contribute to democratic life in Turkey.? The next hearing for this case will be held on November 21, 2006. While there are many ongoing cases at the CMUK?almost all regarding mayors?the mayor of Cizre has recently been found guilty and sentenced to a prison term due to his speech on Roj TV, and this being the result of a case handled through the CMUK.The misuse of municipal office and resources is a frequent theme/accusation directly aiming to question the providing of municipal services in these investigations. For example, in the case filed on the grounds of ?misuse of municipal office and resources? (2006/15), Sur Mayor Abdullah Demirbas was indicted on charge of ?unlawfully? building a memorial statue. The statue, named ?Statue for the Children of the World? and dedicated to stopping the violence against the children, was built after twelve-year-old Ugur Kaymaz had been killed by 13 bullets by the police in 2005, in Kiziltepe, Mardin. While providing cultural services and, included therein, building statues is among the lawful duties of a municipality, Mayor Demirbas, a teacher himself, is furthermore widely known among the local people by his sensitivity and sincere efforts towards protecting and improving the rights and lives of children in Diyarbakir.11 The file was dismissed as of the last week of May.
In a similar vein, in an investigation filed on July 8th, 2006, Viransehir Mayor Emrullah Cin was indicted on charge of ?misuse of municipal resources? due to the publication of bulletins about municipal services both in Turkish and Kurdish. Mayor Cin stated that Kurdish was the mother tongue of the majority of the Viransehir?s population (app. 120.000), thus in publishing bulletins also in Kurdish, the municipality aimed to better communicate municipal services to the public. Mayor Cin further noted that publication of municipal bulletins was not considered a crime anywhere in Turkey, and that the decision for publication was made by the municipal council and in accordance with the municipal law, and, furthermore, that the RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme Council of Turkey) laws also did not consider publication of such bulletins as a criminal activity, thus municipality acted fully in accordance with and in the limits of existing laws.
A recurrent theme in the investigations filed on grounds of ?misuse of municipal office and resources? is the providing of ambulance or burial services for the PKK militants. This particular issue is very important for ensuring that local governments can provide social services to their local citizens based on the promotion of principles of equality and responsiveness. Although militants families? are among the inhabitants of these cities, and although municipalities are obliged to provide such services once requested by a local citizen, with every such incident a new case is filed against the municipalities. In his defense for a relevant case, DMM Mayor Osman Baydemir noted, ?This responsibility, this duty [of ] providing ambulance services when requested by a local citizen] legally belongs to us within the borders of Diyarbakir. First and foremost, once met with such a request [coming from a local citizen], we are obliged to comply with the provisions of the relevant law. Furthermore, once met with such a request, under no condition it is our duty to do a search on the identity of the person who has lost his life, of the dead person. This is a humane obligation, a duty relating to conscience.? So far, 16 such investigations have been filed against the mayors and/or municipal personnel of 9 DTP municipalities. It should be noted that the previous dismissal of similar cases (e.g. DMM/2004, Gokcebag Municipality/2005) does not prevent new such cases (e.g. DMM/2006) from being opened. At the hearing of September 27, 2006, the DMM Mayor was acquitted from charges of misuse of municipal resources by the act of paying 16.5 YTL for the ambulance service. In a similar vein, despite the fact that condolence visits are well known to be a crucial component of the cultural traditions in the region, the condolence visits of DTP Mayors to the families of local citizens killed by security forces are also always subject to official investigation. The fact that Mayors? visits are always accompanied by visits to the families of local security forces injured or killed during the events as well is effective in the dismissal of such investigations (e.g. 2005/915, opened against Diyarbakir Metropolitan, Sur, Baglar, Yenisehir, Kayapinar and Dicle Mayors), yet this does not prevent new investigations with every such visit.
The indictments grounded on misuse of municipal office and resources? are further effective in creating a sense of misuse of supervisionary powers as a means of exerting undue political and administrative pressure over local governments, particularly when cases are opened in spite of investigation files that already includes expert/inspector?s reports or official documents suggesting that there is no ground for the accusations outlined in the indictments. For example, in an investigation (2006/8747) opened against the DMM Municipality, DMM personnel, including the Mayor, were charged on ?misuse of office? by unlawfully disqualifying a lower cost proposal during the tendering process of a DISKI (Diyarbakir Drinking Water and Sewage Directorate) Project. Although the inspector sent by the Ministry of Interior stated in his report that the decision to disqualify the aforementioned proposal was taken in line with the legal procedures and in profit of the municipality, that the price proposed by the company was much lower than the actual cost of the project application procedures (the difference between the winning proposal and the disqualified one was about 1 billion TL); the investigation was finalized into a court case.
Ensuring equality and responsiveness to the local people?s aspirations in providing social services and developing the region based on a clear vision and strategy with participation of the citizenry in all the processes of development so that they can acquire a sense of ownership and responsibility for the progress of their region are very critical issues in terms of local democracy dynamics and good governance. The investigations filed against the DTP mayors?on grounds of the use of Kurdish language while they are doing their public duties such as heading marriage ceremonies, or in official letters such as new year celebrations?frame the existing insensitivity to the principles aforementioned, completely ignoring the fact that both these mayors? and the majority of the local people?s mother tongue is Kurdish in these cities. Even though Kurdish has been officially recognized as a spoken language in Turkey since 1991, and although with certain restrictions, it can be used in public media as well, nevertheless, the use of Kurdish language by the mayors in public speeches or in public services remains a very ?sensitive? issue, often subject to some form of restriction or investigation by the central government authorities. While there are investigations opened solely for the use of Kurdish language in public speeches (e.g. DMM, Kiziltepe, Sur, Silvan Municipalities) or for use of Kurdish in municipal services (e.g. Viransehir Municipality example above), the use of Kurdish language in municipal services is sometimes directly restricted by the governorships. For example, Kayapinar City Council?s efforts to give culturally significant Kurdish names to the parks and streets of Diyarbakir were obstructed by the Diyarbakir Governorship because these names were said to either include letters that did not exist in the Turkish alphabet (e.g. ?w?) or showed parallelism with PKK discourses. The court case filed by the Kayapinar City Council against the Diyarbakir Governorship is still in process.
The Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality is the only metropolitan municipality governed by a DTP Mayor. It carries a further symbolic and visible importance due to Diyarbakir?s strategic cultural place in the historical, geographical and political landscape in the region and in Turkey. DMM is at the same time the DTP municipality that is subjected to the greatest number of investigations and cases, as also noted above. The mayor of Diyarbakir has been experiencing severe pressure with regard to freedom of speech.
The Public Prosecutor of Diyarbakir opened a case against Mr. Osman Baydemir in the 6th Heavy Criminal Court because of some of the content of his speeches during the incidents in March 2006 in the city center of Diyarbakir.12 In the indictment (no. 2006/417) dated 22.06.2006, the mayor is accused of ?aiding and abetting the terrorist organization PKK? and the prosecutor demands the mayor to be sentenced according to Article 250 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. During the March events, despite all the efforts of the mayor in bringing calm to the events, which were all realized in constant coordination with the provincial governor as also stated in the indictment, nevertheless, parts of his public statements were distorted, and consequently he was turned into a target for state officials and the national media. Furthermore, the mayor was physically attacked by the security forces on his way to the location of incidents, where, in dialogue with the Governor of Diyarbakir, he was going to try to persuade the demonstrating people to go back to their homes. The police officers, who assaulted the mayor?s bodyguard with batons, also threatened to kill him. Again during the events, the municipal ambulance was attacked by the police officers, and the driver of ambulance was heavily assaulted. Add to these, the Ministry of Interior launched three different investigations about Mr. Baydemir because of his public speeches during the incident, and these investigations have been already finalized into a court case the first hearing of which was held on October 3, 2006. The second hearing of the case will be held on December 26, 2006. On the other hand, the 35 investigations opened against ?public officials? on torture and killings of the civilians during the incident are still at the preparation stage. Furthermore, these investigation files include no specific names for these public officials, that is, they are filed against ?unknown perpatrators?, and there has been no known official effort to find the perpatrators of these torture and killing incidents as well. Thus, unfortunately, it has been expected that the preparatory stage of these investigation files will indeed never be completed, such that the files will either be dismissed or dropped due to prescription.
Another case was opened against Mr. Baydemir because of his interview with the journalist Cemal Subasi of the weekly Tempo?a very popular and well established mainstream magazine, with an audience of millions in Turkey. The interview was published on 16 January, 2006. In the interview, Baydemir expressed his various ideas about the Kurdish problem in Turkey. 15 sentences of this 2 pages long interview13 were interpreted by the Public Prosecutor as evidence of his aim to denigrate a particular group of people through the press by perpetuating divisions among citizens on the basis of social class, racial, religious and regional differences. The Public Prosecutor accuses Osman Baydemir of transgressing the limits of the right to criticize and freedom of expression granted by the Turkish Constitution, and be punished with the Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code due to his ?baseless criticisms? which gives the impression ?as if? the Turkish Republic carries out a policy of pressure and violence on Kurds and the values that represent these people. The public prosecutor wants Baydemir get sentenced in accordance with Articles 216/2 and 218 of the Turkish Penal Code.
Simply, the number of the investigations and cases opened both on grounds of municipal services and of freedom of thought and speech are greater in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions as compared both to the DTP municipalities located in the other regions of Turkey and to the non-DTP municipalities nationwide. Furthermore, the frequency of investigations is joined by the lack of constructive use or interpretation of the existing laws, especially in reference to principles such as democratization and respect for human rights and cultural freedoms ?a situation indeed valid for every citizen in Turkey in varying degrees, and very much due to an administrative and legal system that has recently gone through a major and rapid change in terms of content and in theory, but is not accompanied by a matching pace of change in terms of official mentality on actual ground. These two facts, united in the investigations and cases opened against the DTP mayors, form a legal and political context which translates into a ?psychological pressure? and a sense of ?discriminatory, unfair centralist attitude??in the mayors? own words?in the official and private lives of the DTP mayors. The situation is expected to detoriate significantly with the new Anti-terror Laws, after which ?DTP Mayors will not even be able to speak or move for fear of an investigation?, as a DTP mayor states.
3 Conclusion:
The present peace process and the concurrently ongoing social conflict affect the operation of the DTP municipalities in ways not decipherable through a simple analysis of the decentralization process in Turkey. Investigations and cases filed against the DTP Mayors in Eastern and Southeasterm Anatolia form only a part of a broader picture that points to a sense of discriminatory and unfair centralist attitudes towards the DTP municipalities in the region. There are financial and administrative difficulties such as procedural difficulties posed by the State Planning Organization on access to international funds.14 There are daily tensions between the municipal, military and other public officials such as the local military troops? marching with slogans and collecting trash in the city center of Hakkari with banners reading ?Instead of separatist politics, do your own job?. These too require detailed analysis. However, as noted before, this report is specifically written to highlight the political and administrative pressure exerted through the legal proceedings which have recently become extremely frequent and regular and thus have been almost normalized for the DTP municipalities in the region. It is the contention of this report that the present adverse situation with regards to the investigations and court cases launched against the DTP mayors in the region, on the other hand, can be overcome with proper, effective, efficient and immediate implementation of the local democracy and local good governance concepts on ground in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia.
Epilogue, written on March 15, 2007
After the conclusion of this report in October 2006, and especially after the National Security Council meeting in December 2006, pressures over Democratic Society Party (DTP) have systematically and radically increased; investigations, arrests and penalties against the DTP executives reached to unbearable levels. Many executive members of the DTP were sentenced, including the chair Mr. Ahmet Turk and the vice-chairs Aysel Tugluk and Sedat Yurtdas. Tens of DTP province offices were raided by the police, and over seventy members of DTP were taken under custody. More than 30 of these were arrested, including the branch chairs of DTP in the largest cities in the region such as Diyarbakir, Van, Batman and Mardin. Human rights activists are also under heavy pressure in the region. The Urfa and Diyarbakir branch chairs of the Human Rights Association (HRA) as well as Bingol?s former branch chair of HRA were sentenced. Several new investigations were launched and court cases opened against the mayors who are members of the DTP. Mayor of Kayapinar District of Diyarbakir was sentenced. The mayor of Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality Osman Baydemir will have at least 5 different court cases in March and April 2007. Finally, the Ministry of Interior appealed to the State Council to dismiss the mayor of Sur district of Diyarbakir, Mr. Abdullah Demirbas, and dissolve the Sur Municipal Council, claiming that by taking the decision to use multiple languages in delivering municipal services Mr. Demirbas and the Sur Municipal Council exceeded the bounds and limits of their duties and authorities, and violated the 3rd and 2nd articles of the Constitution. We worry that such developments are indicators of increasing pressure over the DTP mayors in the coming months of 2007, which would narrow down the sphere of democratic local politics in Turkey in general and in the region in particular.
1 Report on the State of Local and Regional Democracy in Turkey - CG (4) 3 Part II, Rapporteur: Halvdan SKARD, 1996: para.8.
2 ibid: para. 9; Follow up to Recommendation 29 (1997) CG/INST (8) 27: Information Report on Local and Regional Democracy in Turkey, Rapporteurs: Anders KNAPE, Hans-Ulrich STփKLING, 2001: para. 3.4 and 4.10; Local and Regional Democracy in Turkey - CG (12) 25 Part II, Rapporteurs: Anders KNAPE, Hans-Ulrich STփKLING, 2005: para. 3.9, 4.3, 8.4 and 10.2.
3 As also highlighted in the Congress Report of 2005 (para. 9.2), devolution reforms were subjected to criticisms on the grounds of their ?potential of distorting the unity and the integrity of the State as well as consistency and complementarity of public services?. As pointed to also in the same report, the President of the Republic voiced these views in his vetoes, for example in case of the draft Law on the Special Provincial Administration, by noting that ?changing the present system of public administration would be incompatible with such constitutional principles as unity of the State, integral unity of administration, administrative tutelage and public interest?. Such concerns were already translated into significant obstacles for the reform process, when they resulted in specific reservations made on the European Charter of Local Self-Government, in reluctance to ratify the Framework Charter for the Protection of and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, or in inability to formulate a specific law draft on local finance deemed absolutely necessary for local autonomy (2005: para. 6a).
4 Most of the DTP Municipalities are located in and around the provinces that were considered to pose a ?threat to national security? and thus were governed by the Emergency State Rule until 2002. These provinces are Elazig, Bing?Tunceli, Van, Diyarbakir, Mardin, Siirt, Hakkⲩ, Batman, Sirnak.
5 For example, during the 2003 elections, 8 of the 10 parliamentary seats in Diyarbakir were won by the DTP.
6 The report highlights the following as critical areas/issues for the local democracy in Turkey: the transfer of powers in accordance with newly adopted legislation; insufficient resources to ensure ?effective management? locally; heavy state tutelage over local authorities; the lack of a law regarding local finances and heavy dependence of smaller municipalities upon central government grants due to lack of independent resources; and need for greater decentralisation at the provincial level.
7 Congress Report on Monitoring the Implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, By Alain DELCAMP, European Local Government Association For Research (ELGAR)Paris
8 A translated copy of the original speech is provided in Appendix 1.
9 A copy of the original letter presented to the Prime Minister Rasmussen is provided in the Appendix 2.
10 A translated (in English) copy of the joint legal defense prepared and signed by the DTP mayors and submitted to the court is provided in the Appendix 3.
11 During Mayor?s time in office, one children?s library, an education center, a plastic arts workshop and eight open air parks were opened for children. A municipal children?s council was founded. All the primary schools in the district were given financial support to improve their libraries (4 of such libraries are finished). The local Children Festival of Sur Municipality was turned into an International one. Municipality also started to publish magazines and tale books for children.
12 A partial and selective transcription of these speeches were submitted as evidence in the indictment. A literal translation of these transcriptions in the indictment, as well as two press releases by Osman Baydemir which were used by the public prosecutor to support the indictment are attached in Appendices 4, 5 and 6. The incidents started when a large crowd of mourners refused to disperse after the funeral ceremonies of 4 of the 14 members of the PKK in Diyarbakir, who were reportedly killed by chemical weapons by the Turkish security forces on March 24th during a military operation in the rural area between Mus and Bingol provinces. The police attacked the crowd who refused to disperse after the funeral ceremony in Diyarbakir city center. Dozens of people were injured in the ensuing clash between the police and the demonstrators who wanted to march to the city center. On March 29th, the security build up reached immense dimensions with the transfer of the gendarmerie, special police teams and army units located in neighboring provinces into the city. While immense amounts of tear gas and pepper spray were used to disperse the crowds, 3 people were killed on the same day. This was the background on which the street clashes spread all over the city, also including the Dicle University Campus, and the confrontation/polarization between the state security forces and the demonstrators was transformed into unforeseen levels of violence. In the following days, the protests spread to the provinces of Batman, Mardin (Kiziltepe and Nusaybin districts), Urfa (Viransehir district), Siirt, Sirnak (Silopi District) and eventually to Istanbul. According to the data provided by the Human Rights Association of Turkey, as of April 6th, 563 people (200 of them under 18) were detained in Diyarbakir; 554 of the cases were referred to the Public Prosecutor and 382 of those (91 of them under 18) were arrested. 13 people, 10 of them in Dioyarbakir, were killed all throughout the incidents. 4 of the killed were under 18. From the very first day the events started on, the mayor of Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality put forth much effort to ensure prudence and steadiness in the city together with district mayors, executive members of Diyarbakir Branch of Democratic Society Party, NGO representatives and the Diyarbakir Democracy Platform. To this end, the mayor had two press releases. (Appendix). While pointing to the fact that the events stemmed from the inability to find a democratic solution to the Kurdish problem, he invited the security forces to steadiness and not use fire-arms when dispersing the demonstrators. Similarly, while inviting the demonstrators and the people of Diyarbakir to prudence and steadiness, he asked the demonstrators stop the protests; not to involve in violent activities under any conditions, and not to damage public property and stores. Besides, the mayor met with the demonstrators in more than ten different locations throughout the city and tried to persuade them return to their homes. Especially on the first day, March 28th, his efforts proved to be successful, even if partially. However, it was not possible to prevent the events that occurred on March 30th after the funeral ceremony of the three civilians who were killed on the 28th and 29th. Seven people more were killed on that day.
13 Sentences quoted from the interview, literally translated and presented as provided in the indictment, are as follows: ? Each ethnic identity should be able to join public life with their own identity? Common denominator could be the supra identity of being from Turkey on a geographical basis… Isolation of Abdullah Ocalan is unacceptable… Isolation will cause further deepening of the violence? Our region has been subjected to a policy of impoverishment? The victim of this will of course not be a single side. If we cannot overcome the ethnic identity conflict, eyes may be looking outward. Our region is not disturbed about the recent developments in Northern Iraq. Ocalan?s effect cannot be denied. When Ocalan was brought to Turkey in 1999, some armed people left borders of Turkey in line with hi announcements. It should be accepted that he has an influential place in a certain circle. This cannot be overlooked. Osman Baydemir wants Roj TV not be closed-off, wants the isolation policy on Abdullah Ocalan to be lifted. It is not possible to accept the current isolation policy towards Ocalan. Its continuatigon will deepen the violence.?
14 See Appendix 7 for further information.
Appendices to this report will be published on Rastspan> in the upcoming days.

Kurdistan in the making

2007-05-01T17:25:00.000+02:00

Kurdistan in the Making: Challlenges and Opportunities for Turkey in Northern Iraq
5/1/2007 (Balkanalysis.com)
By Mehmet Kalyoncu
Nowadays, amid the current presidential and nearing parliamentary elections, Ankara is preoccupied with the question of a cross-border operation against Kurdish PKK militants who have found refuge in northern Iraq. A provocative comment came from one of the Kurdish leaders in Iraq, Massoud Barzani: “if Turkey interferes with Kirkuk, then we will interfere with Diyarbakir.”1 Baghdad’s apparent tacit approval of his comments have strained nerves in Ankara more than ever as the Turkish military keeps a wary eye on developments in Northern Iraq.2
The provocative attitude of Barzani’s Kurdish Regional Government, and Baghdad’s failure to confront it, are also coinciding with heightened activities from the PKK in Turkey’s southeastern border area with Iraq. This has had the effect of blurring the distinction between the PKK threat to Turkey and Kurdish state formation in Northern Iraq, creating the impression that the two are naturally conducive to each other. In fact, they are not. The two are indeed interrelated, but will reinforce one another only if Ankara gets involved in northern Iraq militarily and isolates itself from the region economically and diplomatically.
The PKK threat is likely to be used by the Kurdish leaders as leverage against Ankara so long as it does not recognize the legitimacy of Kurdish state formation in northern Iraq. The PKK would seek to garner Kurdish popular support for the idea of the so called “Greater Kurdistan” in the southeastern Turkey as well as within the Kurdish Diaspora in the European capitals through alliances, with other diasporas traditionally not so friendly with Turkey.
The PKK ‘threat’ is, however, destined to die out, provided that Ankara fully engages in diplomatic and economic relations with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad, tries to make sure that the KRG is not dominated by a particular clan or family but is controlled by alternating governments through democratic elections.. At the end of the day, the formation of a Kurdish political entity in Northern Iraq may even serve Turkey’s deliberate diffusion into the Middle East, if handled properly by Ankara.
A Hostile and Unpredictable Kurdish Government is a Threat- Not Kurdistan
A democratic Kurdistan on good terms with Turkey can be a reliable ally in the Middle East. As a matter of fact, for Turkey, which is now all for more involvement in the Middle East, Kurdistan with a democratic government could be even vital to Turkish interests, provided that its leadership is available and accountable to the average Kurd, and hence subject to alteration through a democratic election process. The real challenge seems to be securing the Kurdish Regional Government’s future against the absolute domination of a particular clan, which is the Barzani clan at the moment. This clan has traditionally proven unpredictable and exhibited a mostly confrontational behavioral pattern.
Ankara can never have a stable and predictable relationship with the Kurdish leadership, at least so far as past experience would seem to indicate. The relations between the two have frequently swayed between cooperation and confrontation.
However, Opportunities Still Exist
Despite Ankara’s not so friendly experience with Massoud Barzani, Turkey and the Kurdish entity in Northern Iraq, be it defined as a state within clearly defined borders or an autonomous regional government, could develop mutually beneficial relationship in this chronically unstable region- so long as the Kurdish leadership turns truly democratic According to Richard Holbooke, a former US Ambassador to the UN, “despite their history, Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan need each other. Kurdistan could become a buffer between Turkey and the chaos to the south, while Turkey could become the protector of a Kurdistan that, though still technically part of Iraq, is effectively cut loose from a Baghdad government that may no longer function. In addition, Turkey has a major economic opportunity in northern Iraq; already, more than 300 Turkish companies and substantial investment are a primary engine of Kurdish growth.”4
Due to either this approach being favored by the United States, which has so far acted unilaterally in the region with almost no regard for Ankara’s concerns, or fearing possible nationalist unrest from the Turkish public, Ankara has so far reflexively disregarded the possibility of accommodating the process of Kurdish state formation in Northern Iraq. However, such a process, so long as it is guided by democratic values and remains somewhat predictable, may not be detrimental to Turkish national interests in the region after all.
Full engagement with the current Kurdish state-building process in Iraq from the very beginning would help Turkey gain confidence, not only in its own Kurds, but also in all Kurds of the region- the very constituency targeted by the PKK and other movements. In so doing, Turkey can build leverage against the possibly hostile Kurdish government(s) now and then in Northern Iraq, and the central government in Baghdad. In this regard, Turkey should take the lead in the region by helping the Kurds of Northern Iraq to modernize their community, establish institutions and help democracy take root in the new Kurdish state entity.
Turkey’s support to the Iraqi Kurds should also aim to create a broad middle class which would also develop an economic interdependence between Turkey and the Kurdish Iraqi state. Economic engagement could start with taxing the already ongoing trade between Turkey’s southeastern cities and the cities in Northern Iraq. Such an engagement should also aim to carry Kirkuk oil to the global markets through Turkish pipelines. In addition to pursuing full diplomatic and economic relations with the new Kurdish state, Ankara should mobilize civil society organizations in Turkey to be proactive in the making of the new Kurdistan, so that the ties between the Turkish and Kurdish publics remain strong, even if disruptions may occur occasionally between the governments.
Is the Military Option a Viable One?
The option of a military operation against the PKK camps in Northern Iraq might seem tempting, but is in fact highly risky, not only for Turkey but also for regional stability. The military might of Ankara of course cannot be compared to that of the PKK rebels, or even its possible allies in Baghdad. Based on that comparison and the record of 16 cross-border operations, some may tend to think that it would take only hours to annihilate the PKK 'threat'. However, it is no longer 1992, when the PKK was encircled by Barzani’s peshmerga units from the south, thereby helping the Turkish military to succeed quickly. Today, a military operation with some 40,000 troops against the PKK is no different from a scenario in which a conventional military power goes after a non-conventional enemy with high mobility, which would most probably retreat back and diffuse into the Kurdish civilian settlements. Once the Turkish military forces are tempted to chase the retreating fighters, it may be far too late for Ankara to realize just how far it has had to go into northern Iraq by the time the world media will have already condemned the operation as a Turkish invasion of Iraq.
The Last Thing Turkey Needs: A Hostile Kurdish Diaspora
Another risk associated with Ankara’s non-accommodating approach to the Kurdish state being formed in Northern Iraq is the likelihood that it would create a hostile Kurdish Diaspora in the Western capitals, and provide a medium for them to be lured by other anti-Turkish diasporas. Given Turkey’s bitter experience with the Armenian and Greek diasporas, the last thing Turkey needs is a hostile Kurdish Diaspora. However, the present attitude of Ankara toward the Kurdish state formation in a restructuring Iraq is likely to only create another hostile diaspora, this time a Kurdish one, mainly located in the European capitals.
It is to the best interest of Ankara to recognize that it cannot afford to ignore the ongoing modernization of Kurds in Western capitals and the expediting role of transportation and digital communication to help them organize. Most probably no later than a decade will proliferate Western educated Kurdish leaders who will be pursuing a Kurdish “independence” cause. A la Qubad Talabani who represents the Kurdish Regional Government in Washington, who is up for establishing a Kurdish Congressional Caucus and a Kurdish-American Business Council, and who interestingly called for an amnesty for the PKK, which is listed as terrorist organization by the US State Department.
Similarly is it inevitable that there will grow a second- and third-generation European Kurdish community which will be attached to the imagined “Kurdistan.” It should not be difficult for Ankara to understand that such a flourishing diaspora would easily find financial and intellectual support in Europe, given certain European states’ certified support for the PKK. According to Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in the recent past Greece, Bulgaria and Russia, in addition to Syria, Iran and Israel have supported the PKK in one way or another. In addition, the Danish government has long turned a blind eye to the Kurdish Roj TV broadcasting from Denmark, despite Ankara’s concerns over the TV channel being used as an outlet to convey the captured leader Abdullah Ocalan’s message.After all, not only should Ankara avoid making foes of those who could be friends, but also recognize the opportunities attached to the challenges unfolding in Northern Iraq.

NEGLECTING THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRATIZATION

2007-04-30T21:40:00.000+02:00

NEGLECTING THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRATIZATION

Posted in WOMAN by on the April 30th, 2007

“Those wanting to improve democracy in their countries should not wait for permission.”
~ Bulent Ecevit

More on the attempt to dismiss Abdullah Demirbas and dissolve the Sur Municipality by the Ankara regime, from Peace in Kurdistan Campaign. Keep in mind the usual PR that sells the lie of Turkey easing cultural restrictions on Kurds:

Intense legal and administrative pressure on Sur Municipality and Mayor Abdullah Demirbas!

On January 5, 2007, the Turkish Ministry of the Interior appealed to the State Council for the dismissal of Mayor Demirbas and the dissolution of the Sur Municipal Council due to the municipal council?s decision to provide multilingual municipal services for the local public.

On October 6, 2006, the Sur Municipal council approved a decision to provide multilingual municipal services for the local public.1 The proposal on multilingual municipal services had been referred to the Municipal Council Presidency on September 29, 2006 by the Municipal Directorate of Cultural and Social Affairs,2 upon the evaluation of the public survey results3 which stated that 24% of the local residents spoke Turkish in daily life, 72% spoke Kurdish, 1% spoke Arabic and 3% spoke Syriac and Armenian languages. The proposal was first evaluated at the Municipal Commission on Education, Culture, Sports and Tourism. In the commission?s report dated 06.10.20064, ?the need for a more participatory understanding of municipal service provision? was emphasized. It was stated that ?Surici, our municipal service area, covers the neighborhood wherein majority of the traces belonging to the multireligious and multi-linguistic civilizational heritage in the historic city of Diyarbakir are located?in the light of the scientific data provided [survey results]?in order to provide healthier and better municipal services for the local people and to render educational, cultural and artistic activities locally more accessible?additionally, regarding that the municipal service area is also a touristic site frequently visited by foreign tourists?the proposal for the provision of municipal services in multiple languages hereinafter is determined to be appropriate?. The report was then referred to the Municipal Council, where both the directorate?s proposal and the commission?s report were read, discussed and then approved through a council decision by 17 votes in favor, 7 against and 1 abstention.

According to the registered minutes of the relevant council meeting,5 Mayor of Sur Mr. Abdullah Demirbas stated the following on the aforementioned proposal and the report during the meeting:

?My friends, as you all know, our Municipality is on its way to becoming a touristic city, one of the nominee locations in that sense. Our city, with its 7000 years of history, has hosted many great civilizations in the past. In the current conjuncture, the importance of knowing and speaking multiple languages grows more everyday; and especially for us, the local governments whose duty is to provide services directly to the public, the understanding of multilingual service delivery is even more important. When we look through this perspective, of course our official language is Turkish, nevertheless, I believe that we should not discriminate between our services; and I think that initiating an understanding of multilingual municipal service provision will be beneficial.?

Mayor Demirbas, a teacher himself, is furthermore widely known among the local public for his sensitivity towards educational and cultural issues and for his sincere efforts in the protection and promotion of the rights and lives of children and of the historical, cultural and linguistic richness in his municipal service area. While there are currently two ongoing large-scale EU projects and many small-scale municipal projects towards the renovation and promotion of the multi-ethnic historic and cultural heritage of the Surici district, the Sur Municipality has already pioneered the publication of children?s books and municipal services in multiple languages during the Mayor?s term in office. 6 Furthermore, all these services were met with great public interest and appreciation.

The local, legal and administrative context in which the Ministry of Interior?s action for the dismissal of the Mayor and the dissolution of the Council was taken is very alarming for the local dynamics putting forth effort to promote democracy and cultural freedoms in the region and in Turkey. First of all, to put into practice a form of law enforcement that is fair and impartial and respectful to basic human rights, and one that observes the prevalent values of a society?in short, a form that promotes the rule of law?is one of the basic tenets of good local governance. A very important issue for local democracy is the ?principle of proportionality for any administrative regulation or act imposing a limit on self-government?, stipulated in the Article 8 of Charter.7 As noted previously by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, it is very important to make sure ?that a proper procedure exists, including the rights of the defense, and that careful provision is made in legislation concerning ancillary or principal penalties affecting the actual exercise of elected office?.

According to the existing legislative framework, Ministry of Interior does have the legal right to take an action towards dismissing a locally elected mayor and dissolving the municipal council in certain circumstances. Yet, in a normally or properly working democracy, in the case of a suspected municipal council activity, it is always possible to first initiate a preliminary investigation into the action and proceed through legal and legislative means and ways (e.g. court proceedings), and then consequently to take the action necessitated by the due process. In this case, however, Ministry of Interior directly appealed to the State Council with the inspector?s report, without recourse to the prior legal and legislative process. It should be reminded that in the municipal council?s decision, in accordance with and in limits of the existing law, there is no provision stipulating use of any language other than Turkish in official correspondence.8 Therefore, this issue should be strictly framed through the use and limits of supervisionary powers on the actual exercise of elected office within the context of cultural freedoms.

Overall, the situation facing Mayor Demirbas points to the neglect of the principles of democratization as well as respect for human rights and cultural freedoms that are promoted not only by the European Council but also officially approved by the Turkish government through the European documents such as the Charter of Local Self Government.9 Cases like Mayor Demirbas? are particularly effective in creating an impression of the arbitrary and unproportionate use of supervisionary powers over elected mayors in the region. The most problematic aspect of these files is not simply the existence of a legal basis for such cases or actions, but the lack of constructive and positive reference to the existing laws.

Especially after the enactment of the new Anti-Terror Law in June 2006, the criminalization of the DTP Mayors? legal and democratic demands and actions by associating them with the PKK and separatist tendencies has almost become a regular legal and administrative practice. As clearly seen in the sheer number of investigations and court cases launched against DTP mayors,10 the centralist point of view gradually exerts a greater legal, administrative and psychological pressure over the provision of municipal public service in the region. This situation furthermore contradicts Turkey?s ongoing process of democratization and modernization in the context of negotiations with the EU, rendering the much-touted promotion of local democracy dynamics in the region ineffective and non-existent. Within this context, it should also be kept in mind that these perceptions are grounded in a regional history of previously abolished political parties and dismissed mayors and in the context of the current political tension which has led to the detention and/or arrest of almost 70 high level DTP administrators solely within the last two months.

We call upon the international community to recognize the present legal, administrative and psychological pressure exerted over the DTP mayors and the rising political tension in the region. Strongly believing that this situation can be overcome with proper, effective, efficient and immediate implementation of local democracy and local good governance concepts on the ground, we invite the international community to take immediate and effective action to this end.

1 Municipal Council decision no. 61, dated 06.10.2006.
2 File no. M.21.7.Sur.804/307, dated 29.09.2006.
3 In 2006, in order to analyse and evaluate the needs and the life conditions of the local residents of Surici district, a widely representative public survey was conducted by the Sur Municipality. Survey results were later turned into a book published in 3 languages (Turkish, Kurdish and English).
4 Commission Report dated 06.10.2006, undersigned by the head of the commission and 4 other members.
5 Official Records of the Council Meeting, dated 06.10.2006, undersigned by the Mayor and the two clerks.
6 See Appendix 1 for a list of the activities of the Press Unit of the Sur Municipality.
7 Congress Report on Monitoring the Implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, By Alain DELCAMP, European Local Government Association For Research (ELGAR) Paris
8 Sur Mayor and the Municipal Council are indicted on charges of exceeding the bounds and limits of their duties and authorities, and violating the 3rd and the 42nd Articles of the Constitution, which are respectively on the unity of state, on its official language, flag, national anthem and capital city, and on the rights and duties to education.
9 See Appendix 2 for an exemplary list of investigations and court cases launched against the DTP Mayors related to promotion or use of Kurdish on various occasions. Turkey has neither signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the European Council, of which she is a member, neither the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
10 For example, while Sur Mayor Demirbas has 12 investigations, Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Osman Baydemir has more than 60 investigations and 7 courts cases launched against him during his 3 years term in office (2004-2007)

Appendix 1: Media and Press Activities of the Sur Municipality

1. Publication of a tri-monthly children?s magazine titled ?Semamok?, which has contents both in Turkish and Kurdish. 5000 copies are made and distributed for each issue.

2. Publication and distribution of 8000 copies of a fable in Kurdish.

3. Publication of a book titled ??Games and Handicrafts for Children?? in Turkish and Kurdish, especially regarding the related lack of publications for school age children. Distributed primarily to teachers and parents on the occasion of October 5th Teachers? Day.

4. Publication of 15.000 promotional brochures on the Surici district in 6 languages, still ongoing distribution in Turkey and abroad.

5. Preparation of a promotional movie on Surici district, titled ?A Door of Peoples?? in three languages (Turkish, Kurdish and English), and its ongoing distribution to local, national and international institutions.

6. Preparation, publication and distribution of the municipal activity and service report for two years in Kurdish and Turkish (2000 copies).

7. Preparation, publication and distribution of a CD on the municipal activity and service report for the two years in Turkish, Kurdish and English (2000 copies).

8. Preparation of the municipal public survey on needs and life conditions of the local residents for publication into a book in 3 languages (Turkish, Kurdish and English); distribution of the 2000 published copies to relevant institutions.

9. Organization of the reception held to launch the first computer operation system in Kurdish, Linux Ubuntu; distribution of 1000 Ubuntu software CDs free of charge; publication of 2000 more copies due to strong public demand.

10. With the project to publish 12 tales book in Kurdish, under the title ?One tale for each night?, every month 5000 copies of one tales book will be published and distributed to children and parents. The first of these books will be published this month.

Appendix 2: Some of investigations and court cases launched against the DTP Mayors related to promotion or use of Kurdish on various occasions

* On March 20, 2006, a case was filed against Mayor Demirbas on the grounds of ?making propaganda to promote the aims of the terrorist organization PKK? due to his speech titled, ?Municipal Services and Local Governments in the light of Multilingualism?, which was delivered at the European Social Forum in January 2006. Although the content of the speech, very well summarized by its title, did not include any single direct or indirect reference to the PKK, as was also later affirmed by the court; the very fact that the speech aimed to explore the relations between multilingualism and local democracy and that it was delivered by a DTP Mayor was enough to render it as a form of ?PKK propaganda? in the eyes of central government authorities. Mayor Demirbas was acquitted from all charges on September 19, 2006. Public prosecutor?s consequent appeal to the Supreme Court is still in process.

* On February 7, 2007, following the release of the Kurdish translation of Ubuntu, a free software program available in 167 languages, with the support of Sur Municipality, an investigation was launched against Mayor Demirbas and three municipal administrators on charges of ?misuse of municipal resources?.

* On October 10, 2006, Ministry of Interior launched an investigation against Mayor Demirbas due to the children?s games and handicrafts book published by the Sur Municipality. The children?s book, which was written in both Turkish and Kurdish, was published on the occasion of Teacher?s Day.

* In March 2006 an investigation was launched against Mayor Demirbas due to his use Kurdish in his speeches during a wedding ceremony in Diyarbakir.

* On April 19, 2007, Osman Baydemir, Mayor of Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality, will appear before the court on charges of violating the law that obliges state agencies, civic groups and private institutions to use Turkish letters. Mayor Baydemir risks 6 to 12 months of imprisonment for using the Kurdish letter ?w? in his greetings cards of New Year?s Day. The letter ?w?, which exists in the Kurdish alphabet, does not exist in Turkish.

* On April 2, 2007, 56 DTP mayors will appear before court on charges of ?abetting and aiding an armed organization? due to their joint letter sent to the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen concerning the possible closing of Roj TV. Mayors face the risk of 7.5 to 15 years of imprisonment. Currently, local TV stations are permitted to broadcast in Kurdish at most for 45 minutes a day and 5 hours a week in total. In terms of the content, programs are restricted to address only the audience group of adults, and broadcast of language training programs is strictly banned. In terms of the actual broadcast process, TV stations are stipulated to undertake such programming only with the condition of either providing a simultaneous Turkish translation or subtitling during the broadcast or broadcasting the same program in Turkish language immediately after the original broadcast.

* On March 5, 2007, Ministry of Interior sent inspectors to Diyarbakir for a preliminary investigation against Democratic Society Party mayors due to the Newroz invitation cards published in Kurdish and sent to the officials in Turkey.

* In March 2007, a preliminary investigation was launched against Mayor Baydemir due to the publication of public brochures on health and cleanliness in Kurdish and Turkish for local people.

* In March 2007, a preliminary investigation was launched against Mayor Baydemir due to the baby names? book published in Kurdish.

* On January 17, 2007, an investigation was launched against Mayor Osman Baydemir due to the invitation cards sent to the officials in Turkey. The invitation cards, which were written in both Turkish and Kurdish, were sent on the occasion of the 6th Culture and Arts Festival in Diyarbakir.

* On January 12, 2007, a preliminary investigation was launched against Mayor Osman Baydemir due to the website of Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality, which is in Turkish, Kurdish and English.

* With an investigation filed on July 8, 2006, Viransehir Mayor Emrullah Cin was indicted on charges of ?misuse of municipal resources? due to publication of bulletins about municipal services both in Turkish and Kurdish. Mayor Cin stated that Kurdish was the mother tongue of the majority of the Viransehir?s population (app. 120.000), thus, in publishing bulletins also in Kurdish, the municipality aimed to better communicate municipal services to the public. Mayor Cin further noted that publication of municipal bulletins was not considered a crime anywhere in Turkey, and that the decision for publication was made by the municipal council and in accordance with the municipal law, and, furthermore, that the RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme Council of Turkey) laws also did not consider publication of such bulletins as a criminal activity, thus municipality acted fully in accordance with and in the limits of existing laws.

* On October 20, 2006, a preliminary investigation was launched against Kayapinar Mayor Zulkuf Karatekin due to the provision ‘Municipalities take the necessary precautions to teach their personnel Kurdish in order for them to better communicate with the public? stated in the collective agreement between the municipalities and the Union of Municipal and Local Governments Services Workers.

* Kayapinar Municipal Council?s efforts to give culturally significant Kurdish names to the parks and streets of Diyarbakir were obstructed by the Diyarbakir Governorship because these names were said to either include letters that did not exist in the Turkish alphabet (e.g. ?w?) or showed parallelism with socially discriminating, separatist discourses. The court case filed by the Kayapinar City Council against the Diyarbakir Governorship is still in process.

* There are investigations against Diyarbakir Metropolitan, Kiziltepe, Sur and Silvan Municipalities opened solely for the use of Kurdish language in public speeches.
ed in WOMAN by on the April 30th, 2007

2007-04-30T18:47:00.000+02:00

THE MODEL OF DEMOCRACY
Posted in WOMAN by on the April 29th, 2007

“Turkey’s democracy is an important example for the people in the broader Middle East, and I want to thank you for your leadership.”
~ George W. Bush to R. Tayyip Erdogan, June, 2005.

Mayors from Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast region walk towards the courthouse to attend their trial in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir September 26, 2006. REUTERS.
56 Kurdish mayors of the Demokratik Toplum Partisi (DTP) went on trial today in Amed, Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, for writing a letter to Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in order to urge Denmark’s continued support for the right of free expression and for the continued broadcasting of Roj TV from Denmark.

Let’s review. Here’s the letter and the names of all the mayors who signed it:

His Excellency Anders Fogh Rasmussen
DiyarbakIr, December 27, 2005
Dear Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen:

This letter is to express our concerns about the ongoing debates and developments around the situation of ROJ TV. As the members of Democratic Society Party (DTP) who are mayors of 56 municipalities located predominantly in the Kurdish-populated regions of Turkey, we are worried about the anti-democratic approaches through which the case of ROJ TV is being handled by Turkish government in the international arena. Unfortunately, we observe that there still exists a fundamental difference between Turkey and the European civilization in matters of freedom of press and expression.

That the ROJ TV broadcasts are aired from Europe is a disturbing fact for us, too. This has been a direct consequence of the constitutional and legal regulations that do not allow for free Kurdish broadcasting in Turkey. It was only thanks to the pressures in the process of Turkey’s integration with the EU that Turkey has granted limited rights for Kurdish language broadcasts, with state television airing 45-minute programmes on a weekly basis. Privately-owned local television stations wanting to broadcast in Kurdish, on the other hand, are still faced with legal and often arbitrary administrative obstacles. As it also well-known by the international community, restrictions on freedom of expression are situated at the heart of the authoritarian political tradition that has repressed any kind of difference in terms of culture, language and identity in Turkey.

We expect the Turkish government to abide by and fulfill the political criteria stated in the Copenhagen Document. So, rather than banning the ROJ TV, we hope that Turkey will eventually legalize, embrace and become a constituent of the voice of ROJ TV. We wish that one day ROJ TV will be able to broadcast from nowhere else but from Istanbul, Ankara or Diyarbakir, and will be only one among many other Kurdish TV stations that will be launched also with the support of Turkish government.

It is a well-known fact that ROJ TV has millions of audiences within and outside Turkey. Whether one agrees or not with the broadcasting policy of the TV station, the content and arguments of its programs, is something to be discussed, and should always be discussed given the fact that free flow of information and ideas is the lifeblood of political debates. But the banning of ROJ TV would not contribute to our efforts to create a truly pluralistic and democratic life in Turkey. We believe that, within the current state of politics, voice of ROJ TV represents a constructive and positive contribution towards the progress of freedom of _expression, that is, one of the essential foundations of European democratic civilization that cannot yet be fully guaranteed within Turkey.

For a truly democratic life to flourish in Turkey, ROJ TV should not be silenced. This is the sincere and common demand of the people we represent at the level of local governments. The elimination of the voice of ROJ TV would mean the loss of an important vehicle in the struggle for democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms of democratic civilization.

Kind regards,

1- Osman BAYDEMIR Mayor, Diyarbakir Metropolitan President, Union of South-Eastern Anatolia Region Municipalities

2- Husseyin KALKAN Mayor , Batman

3- Ahmet ERTAK Mayor, Sirnak

4- Metin TEKKE Mayor, Hakkari

5- Songol Erol ABDIL Mayor, Tunceli

6- Firat ANLI Mayor, Yenisehir

7-Yurdusev OZSOKMENLER Mayor, Baglar

8-Kutbettin TASKIRAN Mayor, Silvan Bayrambasi

9-Zulfikar KARATEKIN Mayor, KayapInar

10- Nadir BINGOL Mayor, Ergani

11-Abdullah DEMIRBAS Mayor, Surici

12- Sukran AYDIN Mayor, Bismil

13-Fikret KAYA Mayor, Silvan

14-Seyhmus BAYHAN Mayor, Lice

15-Abdullah AKENGIN Mayor, Dicle

16-Mehmet KAYA Mayor, Kocakaya

17-Esat ONER Mayor, Batman Gercus

18-Murat CEYLAN Mayor, Siirt Kurtalan

19-Seyfettin AYDIN Mayor, Siirt Gokbasi

20-Ethem SAHIN Mayor, Urfa Suruc

21-Emrullah CIN Mayor, Viransehir

22-Ismail ARSLAN Mayor, CeylanpInar

23-Huseyin OGRETMEN Mayor, Halfeti

24-Aydin BUDAK Mayor, Cizre

25-Resul SADAK Mayor, Idil

26-Muhsin KONUR Mayor, Silopi

27-Gulcihan SIMSEK Mayor, Van Bostanici

28-Hursit TEKIN Mayor, Semdinli

29-Faik DURSUN Mayor, Beytussebap

30-M.Salih YILDIZ Mayor, Yuksekova

31-Hursit ALTEKIN Mayor, Hakkari Esendere

32-Ayhan ERKMEN Mayor, Mardin Dargecit

33-Cihan SINCAR Mayor, Kiziltepe

34-Molla SIMSEK Mayor, Konya Cihanbeyli Gulyazi

35-Ramazan KAPAN Mayor, Mardin Derik

36- Nuran ATLI Mayor, Mazidagi

37-Mehmet TANHAN Mayor, Nusaybin

38-Ayhan ERKMEN Mayor, Kars Digor Dagpinar

39-M.Selim DEMIR Mayor, Batman Bekirhan

40-A. Kadir AZAOGLU Mayor, Kiziltepe Senyurt

41-A.Kerim ADAN Mayor, Mardin YalImlI

42-Zeyniye ONER Mayor, Savur

43-Demir CELIK Mayor, Mus Varto

44-Tahir KAHRAMANER Mayor, Malazgirt

45-Ali YILDIZ Mayor, Malazgirt

46-Orhan OZER Mayor, BulanIk Gedik

47-Mukaddes KUBILAY Mayor, Dogubeyazit

48- M.Nezir ARAS Mayor, BulanIk

49-Nusret ARAS Mayor, Igdir HoShaber

50- Leyla GUVEN Mayor, Adana Seyhan Kayadikili

51-Muzaffer YONDEMLI Mayor, AydIn Ovaeymir

52-Osman KESER Mayor, Adana YakapInar

53-Hasan KARAKAYA Mayor, Yaylakonak

54-Seyfettin ALKAN Mayor, Batman BalpInar

55- Burhan KORHAN Mayor, Batman Besiri

56- Fahrettin ASLAN Mayor, Besiri

The Turkish state is against everything the mayors said in that letter. Let’s not forget, either, that the mayors are representing their people, so this letter is a representation of the will of the Kurdish people.

A report on the opening of the trial can be read at the International Herald Tribune. The mayors are standing behind their letter and, if convicted, each one will receive up to 15 years’ imprisonment for aiding a “terrorist” organization. It looks like it’s a good thing there are Danish observers at the trial, because Denmark is the country which has yet to receive any proof from the Ankara regime to prove that Roj TV has any so-called terrorist links–after more than a year of trying.

Part of Turkey’s argument for alleged PKK ties to Roj TV is based on the fact that Roj TV regularly airs interviews with PKK leadership and reports on clashes in the region, but if that meant that Roj TV had ties to PKK, then we could say the same about American TV for all the videos it airs from Osama bin Laden. I won’t go into the fact that the Ankara regime hosts HAMAS delegations in Ankara, even though it’s widely known that HAMAS is on The List?. The US also recently hossted the terrorist leader of the terrorist Iranina state within its borders, as well as the former president of that same terrorist state, Mohammed Khatami.

But what’s a little terrorism among friends, eh?

Further along in the IHT article, we see who’s really in charge of Turkey:

The country’s powerful military is highly suspicious of the Kurdish mayors’ affiliation and is critical of their performance.

Since when is military control of civilian government a democratic mechanism? In democracies, politicians only have to worry if their constituents are critical of their performance or their “affiliations,” but in Bush’s model of democracy, Turkey, politicians have to worry if the Pashas are critical of their performance. Yet, remember, this is America’s model of democracy for the Middle East. Someone should tell them that most Middle Eastern countries are already emulating this model.

Let’s put it this way: For America, talk of democracy is the opiate of the people.

Under our shining Turkish democracy, many of these mayors are also facing charges for other “crimes,” like “violating the right to assembly”:

Baydemir faces other charges, along with DTP leader Ahmet Turk and some 32 civil group heads, for violating the right to assembly.

Diyarbakir police late Sunday filed a complaint against the mayor and those who attended a demonstration to protest the recent bomb attack in Diyarbakir that killed 10 people, including seven children.

The problem here is that there is no right to free assembly in Turkey, which is another reason why I cannot understand people who speak of “democracy,” and “Turkey” in the same breath while maintaining a straight face. The only right to assemble applies to government-sponsored assemblies, which usually deteriorate into lynching parties, while the police stand by and enjoy the show.

Yenisehir mayor, Firat Anli, spoke for his comrades before entering the court, from the AP, carried on the Houston Chronicle:

Appearing before the court in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast, the mayors pleaded innocent to the charges and defended their letter as “free speech.”

“We are standing behind each of the 405 words in our famous letter,” Yenisehir Mayor Firat Anli told the court, reading from the five-page statement. “If examined, our letter points to the need for maturity to tolerate opposition to freedom of speech and the establishment of a democratic living system.”

Who is it, then, who really wants to see democracy in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan? The US? The Ankara regime? The EU? Or these Kurdish mayors?

And what of the EU? They say the situation of human rights in Turkey is regressing:

Turkey can expect to get bad marks for human rights in an upcoming report to be released by the European Parliament, four members of the body’s subcommittee on human rights said yesterday at the conclusion of a fact-finding mission.

[ . . . ]

The impression is that the situation is going backwards, said Italian lawmaker Vittorio Agnoletto, who said he was particularly disturbed by an overwhelming military presence in southeastern Anatolian provinces like Hakkari.

When I was in Hakkari, I felt like I was in a prison, Agnoletto said. It is not possible to consider all the population of a region as terrorists.

So what is the EU doing about it? Nothing, other than the usual hand-wringing and whimpering. And what of the European literati? Who can tell me where all of them are? They always get themselves worked up into a lather over the prosecutions of famous novelists, but where are they now? Where is that same fanatic devotion to the right of freedom of expression for all of these Kurdish mayors, or for the Kurdish people? What about the question of democracy for Western Turkey?

Was that a pin that just dropped?

Turkey:Kurdish Parties

2007-04-25T17:58:00.000+02:00

Yigal Schleifer
Wednesday 25 April 2007 - 07:20

With parliamentary elections approaching later this year, Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish political party is finding itself at a crossroads, beset by increasing pressure from both within and without.
In recent weeks, the Democratic Society Party (DTP) has endured a crackdown, with dozens of its top leaders arrested or jailed and several of its offices raided by the police. An Ankara court in February sentenced party co-chairs Aysel Tugluk and Ahmet Turk to 1 1/2 years in prison after DTP workers distributed political pamphlets in the Kurdish language, violating Turkish law. Soon after, Turk was sentenced by another court to an additional six months for "praising" Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the guerrilla Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), by referring to him in a speech as "sayin Ocalan," the equivalent of "Mr. Ocalan" in Turkish. Tugluk and Turk are free pending an appeal.
Local DTP have also been caught up in the crackdown. For example, Metin Tekce, the DTP mayor of the city of Hakkari in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, was sentenced by a court on March 19 to seven years in jail after he said in a press conference that the PKK was not a terrorist group and that he was proud to be Kurdish. "The state is giving us a lot of trouble. They are coming after us systematically," says Osman Keser, the DTP mayor of Yakapinar, a municipal district of Adana, a large city near Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
"Anything we say now gets us in trouble," adds the mayor, who is among 56 other DTP mayors currently facing charges for having written an open letter in support of Roj TV, a Kurdish-language satellite network broadcasting out of Denmark. The Turkish government is trying to shut the channel down.
Although not currently in parliament, the DTP remains a powerful force in Turkish politics, particularly in the southeast region, where the party enjoys strong popular support and holds most of the mayoral offices. In recent years, as part of its on-going European Union membership drive, Turkey has relaxed many of its previously stringent laws governing Kurdish political life. But observers believe that the country’s hard-line military and judiciary, which have not been supportive of many of the government’s EU-related reforms, still see the DTP as a threat.
"The crackdown is a process of intimidation and judicial harassment of the party," says Reyhan Yalcindag, vice president of the Human Rights Association, a Turkish watchdog group. "As human rights defenders, we are very concerned."
Meanwhile, the party is facing a growing internal debate about how to best approach the upcoming parliamentary elections in November. The DTP is built on the remains of several outlawed pro-Kurdish political parties, which have not had representation in the Turkish parliament since the early 1990’s. Despite their traditionally strong showing in the southeast, the Kurdish parties have been stymied by Turkey’s high election threshold – the highest in Europe – that requires that a party receive at least 10 percent of the national vote to gain representation. In Turkey’s last election, in 2002, DTP’s predecessor received 6 percent of the vote, sweeping most of the voting districts in the southeast.
Turkey introduced the threshold as a way of keeping small parties out of parliament, which often led to the country being governed by fractious and unstable coalitions. But Kurdish politicians claim that the high threshold – the European average is closer to 5 percent – is meant specifically to keep a Kurdish political party out of parliament. For example, during the 2002 election, DTP’s predecessor, the Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP), won 56 percent of votes in the southeastern Diyarbakir Region, which meant it would have gained seven of the 10 seats reserved for area. But since only the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) passed the national threshold, the AKP got 8 of the seats with only 16 percent of the local vote, and the CHP got two with 6 percent. (A January ruling by the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, while noting that the threshold law results in unfair representation, concluded the law did not deprive voters of their rights).
Recent polls have shown the DTP winning just over 5 percent of the vote in the upcoming election, which would mean that it again would be shut out of parliament. This led to discussions within the party about running a campaign made up of independent candidates, who are not subject to the threshold law.
Analysts believe the party could place between 15 and 20 candidates in parliament if it followed that strategy. The chief concern is that the party might lose control over any independents who might get elected. "My feeling is that the real challenge in Kurdish politics within Turkey today is to find a sensible, moderate group of elites that are wiling to play the democratic game, which is to deliver services – either material or immaterial – to their constituency, in return for votes," says Ali Carkoglu, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Sabanci University and an expert on Turkish elections.
"So far, they are not allowed to do that, mostly because of pressure is coming from the security forces in the country [that] see a risk in having some representation of Kurds in the parliament," Carkoglu added.
Enhancing the DTP’s challenges is the fact that the ruling party, the liberal Islamist AKP, has been making inroads in the southeast. The region is one of Turkey’s more conservative areas, both socially and religiously, and the AKP has been able to present itself as a viable option to the Kurdish parties. Several of the party’s parliamentarians are Kurdish, most notably the minister of interior, Abdulkadir Aksu, which has helped the party make the claim that Kurds are part of the political system.
But critics say that the Kurds currently in parliament are little more than window dressing, unable to promote Kurdish interests once they get to Ankara. "The Kurds want to have a party that will bring their needs to the national agenda," says Dilek Kurban, a researcher with the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, an Istanbul-based think tank. "The current system allows those who get very few votes to go to Ankara and ‘represent’ the Kurds, and that only widens the gulf between Ankara and the Kurds."
Adds Kurban: "It has a cost for Turkey’s democratization and pluralism and it serves to alienate a large segment of the population."
Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.
Turquie Européenne 25/04/2007

Danish resistance,Turkish anger in row over ROJ TV

2007-04-10T12:49:00.000+02:00

News Diplomacy

Danish resistance, Turkish anger in row over Roj TV
A major crisis is likely to soon erupt over the refusal of Danish authorities to revoke the broadcasting license of Roj TV -- the Denmark-based TV network - despite insistent efforts on the part of Ankara towards that goal.
In response to diplomatic pressure from Turkey, the Danish government, citing broadcasting principles, has refused to sign the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and has also rejected Turkey's offer to sign a bilateral agreement on trans-border broadcasting. Although it is possible to shut down Roj TV through a bilateral agreement between the two countries, recent information reveals that the Danish government has long been ignoring Turkey's proposal.
In November 2005 Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan angrily boycotted a news conference with Danish Premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen to protest the presence of Roj TV reporters in the room, but the Danish premier defended their presence, saying there was extensive freedom of the press in his country. While Turkey's diplomatic act to make a point about the PKK's European arms was well received in Germany, the UK and France at certain points, Denmark has been resisting making any move in response to demands made by Turkey.
RTÜK: Nothing we can do
The Roj TV crisis between Turkey and Denmark is going deeper, according to head of the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) Zahit Akman, who replied to a question on the subject raised by Republican People's Party's (CHP) Ordu deputy Sami Tandoğdu. Akman stated that Roj TV was an international broadcasting agency, which means that the procedure to ban Roj TV broadcasts and enforce penalties has to be done according to international law. "Roj TV broadcasts from Denmark, and its broadcasting license is also from Denmark. Since Denmark is not a party to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, launching an initiative to stop Roj TV broadcasts under the provisions of that agreement is out of question."
Akman also stressed that Denmark has rejected all proposals from Turkey to sign a bilateral agreement on transfrontier broadcasts. "The European Convention on Transfrontier Television regulates transborder TV broadcasts across Europe. The right to broadcasting and broadcast-relay of any television station cannot be restricted unless one of the conditions violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The convention on transfrontier television authorizes states to decide on the limits of the freedom to broadcast. A provision in the convention stipulates that freedom of expression and the freedom to news and information can be utilized only within certain conditions and restrictions."
Following Akman's reply, the CHP's Tandoğdu criticized Denmark for being two-faced. "The definition of terrorism, and the treatment of terrorism by European countries that speak of human rights and freedom of opportunity, is nothing but hypocrisy. Europe continues to pay lip service to terrorists. Only when terrorism hits them, they know very well to suspend human rights and freedoms if required. Denmark's refusal to sign the Convention on Transfrontier Television in spite of the fact that all countries have done so is not something that we can explain by goodwill. Countries that have a two-faced treatment of terrorism will pay for that eventually. Freedom to broadcast cannot be an excuse to allow Roj TV broadcasting. Denmark should change this attitude immediately."
09.04.2007
ERCAN YAVUZ ANKARA

Government tries to block pro-Kurdish Television Channel

2007-04-10T00:32:00.000+02:00

International Freedom of Expression eXchange

Alert
Government tries to block pro-Kurdish television channel; 56 mayors face prosecution for opposing these efforts
Country/Topic: Turkey

Date: 09 April 2007

Source: IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET) Person(s): Target(s): television station(s) Type(s) of violation(s): harassed Urgency: Threat

(BIANET/IFEX) - Fifty-six mayors, most of them members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), are being prosecuted for sending a joint letter to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, urging that he reject Turkey's efforts to close down pro-Kurdish satellite television channel Roj TV. They face possible punishments of up to 15 years' imprisonment.
Fifty-four of the defendants are members to the DTP, while two are members of the Social Democratic People's Party (SHP). They are accused of "voluntarily aiding and assisting a terrorist organization" with reference to articles 314/3 and 220/7 of the Turkish Penal Code.
If convicted, they face from 7.5 to 15 years in prison. The public prosecutor has urged for the acquittal of three among them.
During the hearing, defense lawyers demanded further time for preparation. The court accepted the demand and delayed the trial to 8 May 2007 for the last statements.
The Office of the Public Prosecutor of Diyarbakir launched an investigation into the channel on 2 January 2006. It concluded that Roj TV broadcasts propaganda about the illegal Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK).
Turkey has been long trying to interrupt Roj TV's broadcasts by pressuring European states in which the station bases its studios and transmitters.
MORE INFORMATION:
For further information contact Nadire Mater at BIANET, Faikpaşa Yokusu, No. 41, Antikhane, Kat: 3, D.8-9, Cukurcuma, Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey, tel: +90 212 251 1503, fax: +90 212 251 1609, e-mail: bia@bianet.org, Internet: http://www.bianet.org

The statement of the DTP mayors to the Diyarbakir court in defense of their letter, written in support of ROJ TV

2007-04-05T14:01:00.000+02:00

(All emphasis in the original). 26.09.2006

Dear President, Honorable Members of the Court:

The indictment submitted to the court by the Prosecutor is worth considering on many grounds. At the outset, we expect the honorable Court to evaluate our words within the framework of the inviolability of the right to defense. The indictment is far from being a document of law. It is a sensational product of the socio-political process in which it was prepared and carries rather the quality of a report of complaint concluded by Inspectors of the Ministry of Interior. Furthermore, it is full of internal contradictions. In brief, the indictment constitutes an unfortunate error.
Dear President, the demands for the closing-off of the Roj TV station, the necessity felt by 56 Mayors to write a letter to the Danish Prime Minister Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the tragicomic trial today of over 50 Mayors with the demand of fifteen-year-long imprisonment sentence for each is one consequence of the anti-democratic attitudes towards the Kurdish question. However, unlike what the office of the Prosecutor has done, we shall not raise details of the Kurdish question before the Court today.
The Prosecutor asks for a total of 840 year-long imprisonment sentence for crimes we allegedly have committed in our 405-word-long letter. With a rough calculation, each word corresponds to over two years of imprisonment sentence. The indictment associates our letter with the overall political process that has evolved since the foundation of the PKK Kongra-Gel, and claims that our act of writing the latter constitutes a "conscious and intentional support for the "Organization". With such features, the indictment provides a fertile ground for political polemics. Without entering into any polemics, we reject the indictment and disclaim the accusations raised against us.
We, however, claim hereby each of the 405 words of our famous letter and repeat the opinions we thereby expressed. Serious consideration of our letter shows that rather than simply claiming a certain TV station, it advocates respect towards freedom of thought and expression for the institution of a democratic life and a matured tolerance towards voices of dissent. That opinions expressed within such a letter have been made the subject of a trial process is but tragicomic.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Abdullah Gul had stated the following on 25 December 2006 : "Those who claim that prohibitions by law still exist shall see when the verdicts are released that this is not true. Journalists used to be imprisoned for what they would write, and mayors for their poems. These are now a thing of the past" (The Daily Radikal). We did not chant any poems, but penned a letter that expressed the demands of the people whom we represent. Therefore, we are brought before the Court today.
Dear President, Honorable Members of the Court,
We would like to draw your attention to the last months of the year 2005. We decided to appeal to the Danish Prime Minister Mr. Rasmussen by a letter at a critical juncture of the Turkish-European Union relations. On the one hand, those who oppose Turkey's entry into the European Union had intensified their corresponding endeavors, on the other hand, the positive atmosphere that followed the speech the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan gave in Diyarbakir on the Kurdish question in August 2005 had completely dissipated. The Semdinli Events of November 2005 and the new Alti-Terror Bill had created intense contentions. In December, the Orhan Pamuk case intensified discussions within both the government ranks and between the government and the opposition parties over Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TPC). The National Security Council was expected to convene on 29 December within this context.
In addition, discussions over supra-identity/sub-identity put forward by Prime Minister Erdogan were heavily criticized by both the General Staff and the President of the Republic. All these processes increased and intensified concerns over a democratic and peaceful resolution of the Kurdish Question. Debates over the closing-off of the Roj TV station entered into the agenda amidst such tension and as a much discussed element of the cultural rights of Kurds. While the political atmosphere was getting ever tense countrywide, people in the region whom we represent as local governors were expressing their deep concerns and worries about the possible closing-off of the Roj TV. In response to such demands of our citizens to make use of their cultural and democratic rights and relying on the civic principles of freedom of expression and freedom, we decided to write a letter as local representatives.Driving our action was to help Turkey to overcome the narrow-minded and prohibitive attitudes towards the issue of cultural rights in its progress towards universal principles of the democratic civilization, and to achieve responsiveness to the demands and expectations of the people whom we represent. As you may know, the Roj TV station has an extensive audience in our region.
The Roj TV trial process started when the central government chose to dismiss democratic demands and authorize the Ministry of Interior for investigation. The indictment is based on reports prepared by Inspectors with the Ministry of Interior beyond the powers and duties conferred onto them by law. That is why this trial lacks a legal ground. Moreover, the issues that we raised in the letter had been conveyed both to the government and to other relevant political and administrative authorities in written reports that we prepared in the recent past. The views that had not constituted any crime then are now evidenced as reasons for the indictment of dozens of mayors.
We deem this trial to be an unfortunate result of the political process that required us to pen it in the first place. As the indictment also concedes, our letter has a squarely democratic content and is free of any elements of crime. During the same week that we sent our letter, 169 intellectuals of Turkey issued a declaration in demand for the abolishment of Article 301 of the TPC. In the same days, the Public Prosecutor of Beyoglu initiated an investigation against Joost Lagendijk concerning articles 301 and 288 of the TPC. We would like to suggest that the tense political atmosphere that we briefly mentioned above forms the contextual background of demands for the closing-off of the Roj TV, our letter regarding the issue, and its criminalization through a trial process. We believe that our letter should have opened the way for the furthering of democratic debates and openings instead of being made the subject of a trial process. It should have facilitated a process of hope, trust and mutual understanding that our society needs urgently.
Dear President, Honorable Members of the Court,
Since the Prosecutor refers to cultural rights in the indictment, we find it necessary to briefly express our opinions on the issue of cultural rights in Turkey. Bans on the right to exercise one's cultural rights for Turkish citizens of non-Turkish ethnicity are coeval with the foundation of the Republic. A review of the 1982 Constitution alone shows that the Kurdish citizens of the Turkish Republic have been constitutionally barred from exercising their many basic human and cultural rights during the last 25 years. The recognition of the "Kurdish reality" in 1991 by the then President Suleyman Demirel had relatively eased obstacles in front of the use of Kurdish language in daily interactions and in arts and cultural production. The Sixth and Seventh Harmonization Packages passed by the Parliament as part of Turkey's accession to the EU facilitated broadcasting in two Kurdish dialects for the first time in the Republican history. We declared on several occasions our deep regard for and appreciation of such democratic openings within the realm of cultural rights, and emphasized that these efforts should be supported by further reforms that would make it possible for all citizens of the Turkish Republic to fully enjoy their cultural rights. Such reforms should have been realized in response to the sincere demands and expectations raised by Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin and not due to pressures from the EU. We believe that the path for the achievement of social peace and sustainable development in Turkey and the institution of a dignified Turkish foreign policy would be possible if only Turkish citizens of different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds who have heretofore been barred from enjoying their basic rights are guaranteed their rights and conditions are provided to facilitate their effective participation in the process of democratic governance.
In very recent past people were sued for having Kurdish names. Some were tried in these courtrooms for using the letter "W". As the Prime Minister had also acknowledged in his Diyarbakir speech of August 2005, the state had committed errors due to certain taboo issues. Looking at the past, we can easily say that some taboos have been breached for good. We hope that this trial contributes to the overcoming of other taboos and fears.
Reforms passed within the framework of Turkey-EU relations are of partial nature. Yet the rights that they guarantee are circumscribed to an even narrower scope with administrative statues and in practice. Within the realm of cultural rights, democratic campaigns run and petitions signed in demand for elective Kurdish language classes and for the making of Kurdish an instruction language at primary schools were met with harsh reactions by the state and government bodies. Serious limits to radio and television broadcasting are still in force. Both the applications for broadcasting licenses and conditions of broadcasting are subject to seriously narrow conditionalities. While the limits on duration of programs in the cultural field such as music and cinema were abolished, those imposed on duration of news and discussion programs are still in force. Radio programs are limited to 5 hours per week with no more than one-hour-long daily broadcast, and television programs are limited to 4 hours per week with at most 45 minutes-long broadcasting per day. Serious limits are imposed on program contents. For example, only those programs that address adult audience are permitted, while programs that might contribute to language training, including cartoons, are administratively sanctioned. The general broadcasting statue requires that the programs should be broadcasted either with simultaneous Turkish subtitles or be followed immediately by Turkish versions. This arrangement makes live broadcasting in languages other than Turkish impossible and necessitates at least two days of preparation for a 45 minutes-long program. We hold that such practices that openly contravene the universal principles of democratic civilization and that may at best be described a tragicomic are ill suited for a Turkey in the 21st century.
Dear President, Honorable Members of the Court,
The indictment, using within the say of a contradiction between our letter and the initiatives of Mr.Prime Minister and government policies, violate legal terminology and the conventions of courtesy. The letter in question was penned so as to express the demands and opinions of our people and giving no base for any extremity. It was framed with a full consciousness of democratic responsibility, and, hence, has the quality to offer a framework for the solution of the problems related to the issue of cultural rights. In fact, within a democratic state of law, Mayors have the right, just like any other citizen or group of citizens, to deviate from the government policies. Where there is any such requirement that citizens have to submit to government policies, than that regime can be called anything but democracy. We do not have any aim other than expressing the thoughts that we deem right and fair. As responsible citizens and administrators, we shall continue to express our thoughts and share our opinions on matters that would facilitate the democratic and peaceful solution of the problems of the people whom we represent. We exercised our right to freedom of expression that has been expressed in universal human rights documents and the Turkish national Acquis. We are before the court for having exercised this right. While we intended by way of this letter to draw attention to the inviolability of the freedom of expression, to the impending necessity of promoting a culture of tolerance towards difference, in brief to the value of freedom of thought and democratic participation, we found ourselves criminals of expression. It is impossible in this regard to make sense of the confusions the indictment presents itself with. The indictment both states that the content of the text does not constitute a crime, and it wants 840-year-long imprisonment sentence for us, the defendants. As such the document pushes the limits of law to an extreme. We shall not ask the claimants be suspended or barred from duty, as it is sometimes the case with other trials. Yet we do ask this case be dropped. This case unfortunately shows that we have yet a lot to achieve for bringing our country to the consciousness of the rights and freedoms of the democratic civilization. Within this larger context, we see this indictment that raises unfair and baseless accusations against us as an instance of intolerance towards democratic rights and freedoms. We firmly believe that this honorable court shall restore justice by bringing this infringement on our rights to an end and protect the freedom of thought which forms the basis of all other rights and freedoms in a democratic country.
4. In conclusion;
As stated in our letter, we hold that the prohibitive and restrictive view towards cultural rights in general, and the Kurdish written and visual media in particular, should be superseded and that a more embracing and inclusive approach that listens to popular demands and claims fundamental rights and freedoms should prevail in our country.
The problem cannot be solved by the closing-off of the Roj TV station. As the indictment also mentions, other Kurdish broadcasting stations that operated abroad had been closed-off before the Roj TV was established. This means that darkening the screens is no solution. On the contrary, the solution of our problems requires that Kurdish-language programs be produced and disseminated within this ancient land that we inhabit without being hindered by law or by administrative measures. The solution of our problems would be enabled by the airing of such broadcasts from Istanbul, Ankara or Diyarbakir .
Our people sincerely demand that Kurdish language and culture which have long-been neglected and subjected to discriminatory practices be supported and encouraged by the State institutions. As the Prime Minister himself stated, this is the only way to redress the historical wrongs done to the Kurdish language and culture.
No television or radio station should be banned or shut down. No letters, no books, no poems, no cartoons, no movies should be punished. The punishment of peaceful products of humanity is the heaviest blow against democratic values.
Legal bans and administrative limits imposed upon the length and content of radio and television broadcasts should be abolished. One does not need to agree with the content of the programs. Yet the closing-off of an entire broadcasting station is something that we need to stand against according to the principles of democratic culture.
Enjoying the right to freely express one's thoughts is a sine qua non of democratic deliberation. What we call democratic culture flourishes upon mutual understanding and tolerance. Bans on the freedom of expression constitute the biggest obstacles before establishing a culture of democracy and devising means for a peaceful solution of our problems. We have but to overcome this obstacle.
The labeling of our most democratic demands as "terrorism" and the criminalization of our democratic and peaceful demands and actions with purely political decisions deepens the crisis of trust between the State and citizens of Kurdish origin. The restoration of a bridge of trust between the two shall be possible only insofar as the State responds to people's demands and takes necessary steps for their realization.
Albeit limited, the State institutions and Government authorities have so far realized significant reforms. Our endeavor is to integrate the demands of citizens for rights and freedoms into the ongoing process of democratization in our country, to complete the democratic reform process altogether and powerfully, and to take Turkey to the level of democratic civilization which it deserves.
We hope that the result of this trial that convened us here today beyond the limits of law and as a byproduct of the political atmosphere and the rising nationalist climate that surrounds our country shall in effect contribute to the democratic reform process.
Respectfully yours,

Turkish prosecutor demands up to 15 years' imprisonment for dozens of Kurdish mayors

2007-04-04T23:24:00.001+02:00

The Associated Press
ANKARA, Turkey: A Turkish prosecutor on Tuesday asked a court to imprison more than 50 Kurdish mayors for allegedly supporting a separatist Kurdish guerrilla group by asking Denmark's prime minister to keep a Kurdish television station on the air.
The prosecutor in his closing arguments asked the court in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast, to sentence 53 mayors to up to 15 years each on charges of aiding and abetting a terrorist group. The prosecutor asked the court to acquit three other mayors.
The court adjourned the trial until May 8 at the request of the defense.
The mayors have pleaded innocent and say that their letter was an act of "free speech." The trial is seen as the latest test of freedom of speech in Turkey, which has been under pressure from the European Union to strengthen the rights of its Kurdish minority and eliminate limits on free speech.
The mayors, mostly from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party. were indicted last year after writing a letter to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen asking him to keep the Roj TV station, which is banned in Turkey, on the air in Denmark , despite claims by Turkey that it is a propaganda machine of the rebel group Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.

Penalty for eight centuries to 53 governors

2007-04-04T23:22:00.000+02:00

SABAH Newspaper

At the action of "do not block out ROJ TV", a penalty of five year each was requested for 53 governors from DTP (Democratic Society Party).
The prosecutor Özcan at the action in Diyarbakır accused the governors from DTP (Democratic Society Party) that sent letter to the Prime Minister of Denmark in order for ROJ TV not to be blocked out, of supporting the terrorist organization PKK.
Sentence for 800 years to the 53 governors from DTP
56 governors from DTP (Democratic Society Party) tried for sending a letter to the Prime Minister of Denmark in order for ROJ TV not to be blocked out and a sentence of imprisonment for 15 years for each governor is demanded.
The prosecutor read his deliberated opinion about 56 governors from DTP (Democratic Society Party) tried for sending a letter to the Prime Minister of Denmark in order for ROJ TV not to be blocked out and demanded a sentence of imprisonment for 15 years for 53 governors and acquittal of three governors.
The public prosecutor emphasized Roj TV received satellite broadcast license from Denmark and conducted broadcast in line with the targets of terrorist organization PKK.

Prosecutor seeks 15 years in prison for DTP mayors

2007-04-04T23:21:00.000+02:00

The New Anatolian / Ankara 04 April 2007

Prosecutors yesterday asked a Diyarbakir court to give 15 years behind bars for all 53 mayors from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) on trial for a letter supporting a Danish-based, pro-terrorism broadcaster as well as to acquit three other DTP mayors.
None of the 56 mayors was present at yesterday's hearing. The defendants, including Diyarbakir Greater Municipality Mayor Osman Baydemir, Batman Municipality Mayor Huseyin Kalkan, Sirnak Municipality Mayor Ahmet Ertak, Tunceli Municipality Mayor Songul Erol Abdil and Hakkari Municipality Mayor Metin Tekci, are on trial on charges of aiding and abetting a terrorist group.
In his closing argument, prosecutor Muammer Ozcan said that Danish-based Roj-TV is spotlighting the Kurdish group's activities on its news shows while its discussion programs show top their representatives. "Keeping in mind that this channel is broadcasting the views and latest strategies of the group, it is clear that Roj-TV is linked to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the channel was used according to the needs and desires of the Kurdish group," he continued.
Ozcan also claimed that except Hasan Karakaya, all the defendants were candidates in the March 2004 local elections from the DTP at the direct order of imprisoned terrorist leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The mayors have pleaded innocent and say that their letter was an act of "free speech." The trial is seen as the latest test of freedom of speech in Turkey, which has been under pressure from the European Union to strengthen the rights of its Kurdish minority and eliminate limits on free speech.
In 2005 the issue of closing Roj-TV created a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Denmark. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan boycotted a news conference with Rasmussen in Copenhagen to protest the presence of Roj-TV journalists there.
Also the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen requested Denmark revoke the station's broadcasting license but to date the Danish government has refused to do so, citing freedom of speech.
The 56 DTP mayors in question wrote to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in December 2005 asking him to keep Roj-TV, which is based in Denmark, on the air despite a statement from the Turkish government asserting that the broadcaster is a mouthpiece for the terrorist organization.
The PKK has been listed by the European Union and the United States as a terrorist group.
The indictment against them, prepared by the Diyarbakir Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and sent to the Diyarbakir High Criminal Court in June, seeks sentences ranging from seven-and-a-half to 15 years in prison under Article 220/7 of the revised Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which stipulates the same sentences for people who deliberately aid and abet terrorist groups as group members.
The court adjourned the trial until May 8 at the request of the defense.

Dozens of DTP mayors face jail over Roj TV letter

2007-04-04T23:19:00.000+02:00

A prosecutor in the southeastern Anatolian province of Diyarbakır asked a court to imprison more than 50 pro-Kurdish mayors on Tuesday for allegedly supporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) "knowingly and willingly" by asking Denmark's prime minister to keep a pro-Kurdish television station -- which Ankara says has links to the PKK -- on the air.
Prosecutor Muammer Özcan, in his nine-page closing arguments, asked the court to sentence 53 mayors to up to 15 years in prison each on charges of aiding and abetting a terrorist group. The prosecutor asked the court to acquit three other mayors.
The court adjourned the trial until May 8 at the request of the defense lawyers for additional time to draw up their final defense. The mayors, who have pleaded innocent and said that their letter was an act of "free speech," are mostly from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP).
The mayors -- including Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir; Tunceli Mayor Songül Erol Abdil, the sole female provincial mayor in the country, and Hakkari Mayor Metin Tekçe -- were indicted last year after writing a letter to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asking him to keep Roj TV, which is banned in Turkey, on the air in Denmark, despite claims by Turkey that it is a propaganda machine of the PKK.
None of the mayors charged were present at Tuesday's trial.
Özcan said that PKK leaders often join the station's broadcasts by satellite telephone from their mountain hideouts in northern Iraq and that the station broadcasts images of PKK members training or attacking Turkish soldiers.
Mayors who participated in the March 2004 local elections under the umbrella of the Social Democratic People's Party (SHP) joined the DTP in December 2005 in line with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's directives, Özcan also argued.
The DTP is often accused by authorities and mainstream politicians of having links to the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU and Turkey. On Monday another DTP mayor was arrested for having allegedly praised PKK members in a public speech. Aydın Budak, mayor of the town of Cizre in Diyarbakır province, remained in custody pending trial for a speech he made on March 21 during the spring festival of Nevruz. In his speech Budak sent greetings to Öcalan and alleged that millions of Kurds see him as their leader.
Regarding the trial concerning Roj TV, the Justice Ministry last year sent a statement to the court in Diyarbakır and said Roj TV was a continuation of Med TV and Medya TV, whose broadcasting licenses were earlier revoked in France and Britain for being linked to the PKK. The executive chairman of the station is also a member of the executive board of the PKK and its offshoot Kongra-Gel, the ministry also said at the time.
Ankara has long been seeking to have Roj TV's broadcasting license revoked by Denmark, an EU member.
In November 2005, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan angrily boycotted a news conference with Rasmussen to protest the presence of Roj TV reporters in the room, but the Danish premier defended their presence by saying there was extensive freedom of the press in his country.

Today's Zaman 04.04.2007

Hîwaxiwazî baştirînekan bo êwey xoşewîstîn.

2007-03-23T00:47:00.000+01:00

Berrêweberî mallperrî KOORD.com

(Serçawey wêne: >>>> )

Season greetings to Save ROJ TV from KOORDcom
Congratulations on the Occasion of Newroz 2007
We wish you all the best
The Editor of KOORD.com Site

Season Greetings from Hewal Newsagency

2007-03-23T00:43:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends !

We greet you warmly on the occasion of Newroz.
Newroz is the fest of freedom, It is the festival for asking for freedom and equality.
We hope the new year turns into further struggle of Kurds for the sake of freedom and prosperity for Kurdistan and against the corrupts and dictators whom have taken power in their own hands in divided Kurdistan.

We wish you success

Hewall News Agency

Eight DTP party officials in Izmir arrested

2007-03-16T22:56:00.000+01:00

Police in Izmir detained 14 people in a raid carried out on DTP offices.

Güncelleme: 12:52 TSİ 16 Mart 2007 Cuma

IZMIR - A court in the Turkish city of Izmir late Thursday ordered the arrest of eight officials of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), including the party's head for the province and the branch leader in the town of Torbali.

Officials of Turkey's anti terror squad interrogated 14 people after raids on DTP offices on Wednesday.

The court released the other six persons detained. Among those released was a journalist for the Dicle News Agency who had been detained for passing on footage to Roj TV.Police carried out the searches after the Izmir DTP branch issued a press statement in support of the arrested DTP head for the party's Diyarbakir branch, Hilmi Aydogdu. Aydogdu was arrested for making a statement that an attack on the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk would be perceived as an attack carried out against Diyarbakir.

Police in Izmir also looked into claims that some members of the party were staging a hunger strike at the DTP Konak district branch in Izmir in support of the PKK.

A Cameraman of Dicle News Agency is detained by Police

2007-03-15T17:27:00.000+01:00

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Reports say the DTP Konak bureau in Izmir were searched by Police.The police also took a cameramen working for the Dicle News Agency into custody after the search of the DTP bureau was broadcast on Roj TV. ( as reported in Turkish press)

This is a vivid example, how disseminating news of oppressive measures is not tolerated in Turkey by authorities.

Save ROJ TV

All Women TV

2007-03-08T09:50:00.000+01:00

On occasion of 8 March the International Women's Day, there is an all day women programming on ROJ TV. Today every shows are produced and presented by women colleagues. This initiative may be unique in the world of Television.

Save ROJ TV Team

Ankara aims concern over broadcast at Denmark

2007-02-24T15:54:00.000+01:00

Saturday, February 24, 2007

FULYA ÖZERKANANKARA - Turkish Daily News

Turkey has launched a diplomatic move to express its concerns over a Danish television station's airing of propaganda for Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), further exacerbating existing tension over another Denmark-based TV station.
A 45-minute television program recently aired on Danish station TV-2 – first established as a state TV station in Denmark and later privatized – included an interview with Murat Karayılan, as well as snapshots from the daily lives of PKK members.
Turkish Foreign Ministry sources told the Turkish Daily News on Friday that Ankara cannot remain silent on such a sensitive issue and that it has already conveyed its uneasiness – over Denmark-based pro-Kurdish broadcasts – via the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen at the level of the Danish authorities.
Denmark-based ROJ TV has been a source of tension between Turkey and Denmark for the last three years with Copenhagen remaining insistent on not withdrawing its broadcast license or pulling the plug on the station. The pro-Kurdish channel also began broadcasting in Sweden last May via a cable television network. Ankara is pressing for the closure of ROJ TV and has stressed that on several occasions to Danish authorities.
Denmark has launched an enquiry into whether ROJ TV has links to the PKK and refuses to take action until their investigation is complete.
But sources from Copenhagen told the TDN that they don't see any linkage between the matter of ROJ TV and the recently aired program, saying that Denmark has considered the two issues as different cases. The same sources also said there is freedom of expression in Denmark and that they will evaluate the issue after watching the program in question

Bianet - "Controversial Ban on Radio Station in Turkey":

2007-02-21T23:49:00.000+01:00

Radio and Television Supreme Council ruled for a complete ban on the Voice of Anatolia radio station on grounds that it continiously broadcasted programmes that would cause discrimination and hatred among people of different ethnicity in the country.
ISTANBUL / 13 February 2007 / by Ayca Orer
Radio and Television Supreme Council banned the broadcast of Anadolu'nun Sesi (Voice of Anatolia) Radio.
The Council based its decision on grounds that the radio has continued diffusing programmes which "impelled the society to violence and ethnic discrimination as well as aiming at discriminations among peoples on differences of region, language, religious sects, social class or race".
We'll start to all possible legal procedures to revindicate this ruling, said the representatives of the radio station.
The station had been penalized with a temporary interception of broadcast for 30 days in 2004 for broadcasting a song by the dissident Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya.
Ankara 12th Administrative Court disapproved the RTUK ruling after three days but the same court witheld with the original penalty following the trial.
Source : Flash bulletin

Renewed investigation of Kurdish TV-station

2007-02-17T14:52:00.000+01:00

The public prosecutor has asked the police to investigate once
again the Kurdish TV-station ROJ-TV, which Turkey and the
USA claim is funded by the Kurdish organization
PKK. This happens after the Copenhagen Police twice already
within the latest 18 months has been investigating and submitted
the politically controversial case to the public prosecutor Karsten Hjort.

The public prosecutor has not been of the opinion, that the matter had been adequately clarified and also new pieces of information have been presented, says local attorney Jens Rasmussen.

The Kurdish separatist movement the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) has been put on the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union (EU), but ROJ-TV has denied receiving funds from the PKK.

The Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten) fears that the protracted investigation of the Kurdish TV-station is due to political pressure from Turkey and the USA.
/ritzau/

Translated from Danish language

Yet another investigation of Roj-TV

2007-02-17T14:50:00.000+01:00

14.01.2007 15.10 dr.dn Denmark 's Radio Interior

The public prosecutor once again asks the Police of Copenhagen to investigate the Kurdish Roj-TV station, which transmits from Denmark.

The public prosecutor did not find that the matter had been adequately clarified and also new pieces of information have been presented, says district attorney Jens Rasmussen. Turkey and the USA claim that the TV-station is funded by the Kurdish organization PKK and have therefore called on Denmark to ban it.

Two fruitless investigations

But despite two investigations within the latest 18 months the police has not found anything which the public prosecutor found would warrant a lawsuit.

When the Copenhagen Police i 2005 - the first time - submitted the case to the public prosecutor they did so with a reference to "its principled character and the public interest".

In case the renewed police investigation should bring forth results, which the public prosecutor finds fit to be taken further it will ultimately be up to the Attorney General Lene Espersen to evaluate the indictment.

The Red-Green Alliance fears pressure from abroad
The spokesperson of international affairs of the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), Rune Lund fears that the protracted investigation of the Kurdish TV-station could be due to pressure from Turkey and the USA.

Rune Lund has therefore asked the minister of foreign affairs to inform about the extent of meetings between the Danish ministry of foreign affairs and the USA.

Translated from Danish

Jay Jonroy's David & Layla in 23 International Love films festival

2007-02-14T16:12:00.000+01:00

In Mons – Belgium

In " Le Festival International du film d'Amour de Mons – 23eme edition" which is featuring various internationally known love films, Jalal Juwanroyi [ Jay Jonroy] is participating with his humorous and to certain circles controversial film " David & Layla".
The film depicts the existing prejudice between different "cultures" and pinpoints the reality of life ,which could be changed through dialogue and understanding.

On Tuesday 13 February the Kurdish director Jonroy met his audience at Imagis film Centre in Mons , describing how he tries to reconcile the cultures by letting his characters in the film to speak out their prejudice against each other.

In an interview extended to ROJ TV Jay Jonroy stateted" This is up to the audience to judge the work according to their point of view; but the important aspect is universal understanding which must be deduced from it". Jay Jonroy appears in a show on ROJ TV shortly.

Kurdish Broadcast Rights Slow to Be Implemented

2007-01-30T22:47:00.000+01:00

29 January 2007
Turkey's bid to join the European Union has ushered a flurry of reforms. Among them are measures that enable the country's long repressed ethnic Kurds to broadcast and publish in their formerly banned language. But the new freedoms have yet to be felt in some of the predominantly Kurdish regions. For VOA Amberin Zaman has details from the province of Hakkari that borders Iran and Iraq.
From a cramped apartment overlooking Hakkari's gritty main boulevard the mournful sound of a popular Kurdish pop song fills the airwaves. Its called "Esmer" or "Dusky One," and, like so many Kurdish tunes, it is about unrequited love. The apartment is the headquarters of Hakkari FM, the town's first and only radio station.
Hakan Tas, who founded the Hakkari FM nine years ago, says half jokingly that Esmer's lyrics reflect his relationship with government officials here.
Tas says most officials treat him and his colleagues as outlaws. The reason is simple, he explains: It is because his station broadcasts in Kurdish.
There is nothing illegal about that. Bowing to EU pressure, Turkey's conservative government approved legislation last year that paves the way for private radio and television to broadcast in Kurdish. The content of Kurdish language broadcasts is strictly vetted for possible "separatist" propaganda and cannot exceed 45 minutes per day.
Operating on a shoe string budget and staffed by volunteers, Hakkari FM, Tas says, sticks by these rules. Turkish authorities take a different view. Tas has been slapped with several court cases, some of them on charges of promoting Kurdish nationalism. He believes the legal assaults are calculated to muzzle his radio station.
Rojbin Tugan, is a prominent human rights lawyers and, like many here, a diehard fan of Hakkari FM.
She says the station plays a key role in keeping locals informed of their rights.
Tugan and fellow rights defenders have used air time to talk about a government compensation scheme, for tens of thousands of Kurds, who were expelled from their villages by security forces at the height of a Kurdish rebel insurgency in the 1990's.
In the neighboring town of Yuksekova, Necip Capraz and his younger brother Erkan run an award winning online newspaper called Yuksekova Haber. The website is considered as one of the most reliable sources of independent reporting from the far flung Kurdish region. Capraz says his aim is to provide an alternative viewpoint to the mainstream national press, which often espouses official thinking on Turkey's festering Kurdish problem.
Capraz boasts that his website is visited by an average one million readers a month. The paper achieved national fame in November 2005 when it broke news of the bombing of a Kurdish nationalist bookshop in the neighbouring town of Semdinli by rogue elements of the security forces, who are now in jail.
Capraz, who frequently receives anonymous threats, says that a fair share of his information comes from ordinary citizens. Naturally, he adds, such information is rigorously filtered and doublechecked before it makes its way onto the pages of Yuksekova Haber.
Source : VOA

The trial of Kurdish mayors for supporting ROJ TV continued today

2007-01-26T10:03:00.000+01:00

Manshet News, Northern Kurdistan
23.01.2007

Today another court sitting of the Kurdish Mayors of Northern Kurdistan Municipalities continued in Amed ( Diyarbakir ). They were indicted for writing a letter to the Danish Prime minister in support of Roj TV.

In this sitting, while reiterating his support Abdulla Akengin the mayor of Dicle in Amed told the Judge: “we are not considering our action as illegal but we rigorously
Demand that ROJ TV be able to broadcast in Amed, Ankara and Trabozan. This is for the sake of further democratization in Turkey and on the other hand to curb the heinous ideas and acts in Trabozan which resulted in Hrant Dink's assassination.”
This caused a quarrel between the prosecutor and the lawyer of Abdulla Akengin.

Turkey is accusing 56 Kurdish mayors’ members of Democratic Society Party (DTP), that by writing a support letter in support of ROJ TV, they are indirectly supporting PKK and engage in propaganda for it.

It must be stated that since a while in most of the towns and cities of Northern Kurdistan the signals of ROJ TV are disrupted

Source: Manshet News weblog

Joint Call for Dialogue on Kurdish Conflict

2007-01-17T22:04:00.000+01:00

Writer Kemal emphasized the historical bonds between Turks and Kurds in his opening speech of the two-day conference on Kurdish conflict. 500 academics, journalists and politicians gathered for a debate for a peaceful solution to the years long conflict.

BIA News Center
15/01/2007 Irfan AKTAN BİA (Ankara) - Kurdish and Turkish politicians, academics, activists, prominent writers and journalists gathered together for a two-day conference last weekend, titled "Turkey Looking for Peace".

The conference aimed at sparking a debate on the century old Kurdish conflict in southeastern Turkey.

While a unilateral ceasefire continues, the guerilla warfare of the pro-Kurdish group PKK marked the last 20 years of the history of Turkish Republic.

Writer Yasar Kemal emphasized the historical bonds between Turkish and Kurdish people in the opening speech of the conference.

From another respect, the reaction from Turkey to Kurds projections to determine their own future in northern Iraq is frivolous, he said.

Kurds-Turks, friends for thousand years

Addressing to 500-fold crowd, Kemal said:

"The Kurdish conflict caused a great cost for our country. Of those who fought, 30 thousand are dead. The conscience of this land is scarred with armed rangers, civilian fighters whose numbers reach up to 70 thousand.

Thousands of villages were forcefully evacuated, people scattered around the country. Murders whose perpetrators never surfaced became only normal, a part of the war. This war wore Turkey down. We became a country that fights its own people".

Kemal noted the growing nationalist sentiment in Turkey, saying, "There are racist who go undercover in a nationalist suit. They constantly repeat that 'there's no friend to a Turk other than a Turk'. One can't say something worse than this to a group of people. I want to relieve my nationalist friends from their misery:

Kurds and Turks have friends since 1071, when Turks entered Anatolia. Our rulers say that if Kurds get their independence in northern Iraq, this should be grounds for war. Why is that so? Whatever they say, I want to remind those racist nationalists that if you have one friend in this world it's the Kurds who sit on those oil reserves in the south. But Kurds in Iraq want a federation; this is what benefits them".

No military solution

Writer Vedat Türkali gave the opening speech on the second day of the conference and he insisted that a military solution wouldn't be the solution to the Kurdish conflict.

"For 28 times in our history, there were uprisings and they were repressed but the problem still stays on".

Reminding army chief of staff General Buyukanıt's words that "fight will go on until no terrorist is left on the mountains", Türkali said without a comprehensive solution there'd always be those who prefer to join the guerillas.

Ceasefire must stay

Turkish Physicians' Association (TTB) chair Gençay Gürsoy noted that this is the first time that a meeting on the Kurdish conflict realizes without any distraction.

This ceasefire period is precious and crucial for a solution and we've to insist for a political debate, only a total rejection of violence can sustain this environment, he added.

Turkey's Revolutionary Workers Unions Confederation (DİSK) chair Süleyman Çelebi said neither denial of differences nor an insurgence would solve the problem. Stating that a unilateral solution is impossible, he proposed leave of arms and the official recognition of the Kurdish identity.

"Solution rests in the country"

Democratic Society Party (DTP) co-chair Ahmet Türk voiced claims that PKK will end ceasefire in May and his hopes for a democratic and civil initiative for a solution to arise to disarray such claims.

Türk said that the government is unwilling to take initiative and PM Erdogan doesn't have a realistic idea of the problem. He urged the government to favor domestic relations instead of searching for ways to cooperate with the US for a military solution. "The solution rests with me and with you", he said.

Fair representation

Turkish Foundation of Human Rights (TİHV) chair Yavuz Onen and journalist Altan Oymen said that comprehensive policies are needed for peace.

Onen warned that the conflict is getting commonplace in all levels of the society while Oymen raised the issue of fair political representation in the parliament.

Journalist Ragıp Duran, Freedom and Solidarity Party (ODP) chair Hayri Kozanoglu, Gaziantep's former mayor Celal Dogan, Party of Labor (EMEP) chair Levent Tuzel, True Path Party (DYP) Diyarbakır provincial chair Galip Ensarioglu, Mothers for Peace member Emine Ozbek, journalist Berat Günçıkan, writer Altan Tan, journalist Dogan Tılıç and Prof. Dr. Melek Göregenli were among the participants of the conference.

Writer Memed Uzun's speech was read because of his absence due to health problems.

Declaration issued

By the end of the conference, participants issued a declaration outlining the political, social, economical and cultural suggestions for a solution

The declaration expressed hopes for an organization that would lead to the establishment of social peace through debate and dialogue.(İA/EÜ)

The broadcasting of ROJ TV is disrupted in Karliova

2007-01-13T21:13:00.000+01:00

Karliova (12.01.2007) The disruption of ROJ TV's broadcasting in particularly the news bulletins are continuing in Turkey. Recently in Bingol's district of Karliova and surrounding villages the broadcasting of news bulletins disruption has been escalated.

According to public sources, the broadcasting of ROJ TV, in Karliova district are disrupted by interfering satellite signals. It is said that the military appliances of local garrison is used for this end.
It is nearly 15 days the viewers have been trying to protect their TV dishes. In Kaliova and its vicinity the protected dishes are perceived vividly.

Source : ANF NEWS AGENCY

[Edited by "Save Roj TV" Weblog ]

Municipality Gives Muti-Lingual Services

2007-01-13T20:52:00.000+01:00

Sur Municipality approved the proposal to give services in Armenian, Syrian, Arabic and English as well as Turkish and Kurdish. Mayor Demirbas says it's important to consider local population's languages for furnishing better services.

BIA News Center08/01/2007 Nilufer ZENGINBİA ( Diyarbakır) - Diyarbakır's Sur Municipality begins giving out services in Armenian, Syrian, Arabic and English as well as Turkish and Kurdish.

Mayor Abdullah Demirbas told bianet that it's important to take into account the languages talked in the local population for better services.

Municipality assembly accepted the proposal with a majority of 17 over seven. Pro Kurdish Democratic Society Party holds the municipality while only one member of the ruling Justice and Development Party approved the proposal.

Demisbas said Diyabakır is home to 33 civilizations and while official writings are done in Turkish, other languages should be used in services.

This move opened up a debate as professors of law tell that this can result in a breach of the principle of equality if the municipality favors workers who speak those languages.

Other than that, Turkey had already recognized the right to learning and teaching in languages other than Turkish during reforms for EU accession talks.(NZ/EU)

ROJ TV Interview with Dr. Kamal Ketuly on the current issues of Faily Kurds in Iraq on 6th December 2006.

2007-01-06T23:23:00.000+01:00

The reception I received was very warm and welcoming from the various ROJ TV Staff whom I met. Mr Hassan Ghazi, organised my visit and interviewed me for the Ruwange Programme . During my tour of the various sections and the studios of ROJ TV I noticed a dedicated, professional staff as well as very up-to-date technical equipment and operations.

If, fellow Kurds follow the example of this type of dedication and organisation in a Kurdish establishment in Europe, we could have a better and brighter future for our Kurds and Kurdistan.

Faily Kurds in Iraq

Faily (or Phaily) Kurds are one of the ancient segments of the Ilamite Medes. They inhabit the lands of Southern Kurdistan and their land was divided between the newly created political states of Iraq and Iran after the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Their main areas in Iraq are stretching from Kirkuk in the north, Babylon in the west, Khanaqeen in the east and Amara in the south, with the biggest population concentration in Baghdad. Failys were prominent in the Trade and Commerce sector and assumed semi-dominant position within this sector. Estimates of their number vary between 2 and 3 million in Iraq and about half a million expellees outside the country. Most of the Faily Kurds are Shiaa Moslems and few still practice the ancient Kakai, Alialahi and Zoroastrian religions. (http://www.faylee.org/)

Failys were persecuted by the regime of Saddam for various reasons - their adaptability and social and economic mobility, openness and nonsectarian open-mindedness; their strong economic position; their support for the Kurdish national movement and democratic forces.

From 4th April1980 until 1989, Saddam ordered the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Failys and other Iraqi Nationals who were forcibly expelled from Iraq on flimsy and unsubstantiated pretexts of being of Iranian origin. The state of Iraq under Saddam unlawfully stripped them of their Iraqi citizenship; confiscated their movable and immovable property; took from them all their personal official and non-official documents including their passports; detained thousands of their young men and women as hostages, who disappeared without a trace until now. ( www.9neesan.com/iraqihostages)

Failys still await the restoration of their rights in the new Iraq. They aspire to a role in the political process in Iraq to regain and safeguard their rights and interests and to play a stabilizing part. Failys are not party to the ongoing very hot sectarian strife, they have no militia forces, and they have intermixed with and are on good terms with all sections of Iraqi society, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomans, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and other faiths.

Failys feel strongly that they are marginalized and outsiders and no political force in Iraq really bother to restore to them their constitutional and legal rights, despite repeated appeals. Shiites Arabs are suspicious of the Failys being ethnically Kurds. Kurds are not sure of the Failys because there are Shiites. Some Sunni Arabs see them as Iranians.

Faily Kurds demand from the newly elected state of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to honor its constitutional and legal responsibilities and political commitments to:
1- Restoration of Failys' Iraqi citizenship and citizenship rights.
2- The return of their official and other documents taken from them and compensation for what they have lost.
3- Returning their confiscated movable and immovable property.
4- Information on the fate of their detained and disappeared youth during Saddam regime and the where-about of their remains.
5- Presence in the current political process in Iraq by representatives of their own.
6- De-Arabise the Faily cities, towns and villages in Iraq and to respect and restate their Kurdish cultural rights.

Dr Kamal Ketuly
16th December 2006

Major Developments In 2006 In Turkey

2007-01-05T14:18:00.000+01:00

TurkishPress.com

Published: 12/29/2006

-Prosecutors filed two separate cases against Hatip Dicle and Selim Sadak, two members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), and demanded two-year prison terms for each, on charges of praising the head of PKK organization in an interview with the Roj TV, which broadcasts from Denmark.

BIA² Media Report: Army Shadow on Press

2006-12-29T15:22:00.000+01:00

59 years imprisonment demanded for 7 reporters covering conscientious objection and the Kurdish issue during the last three months. Number of 301 victims has reached 65. 5 people are on trailed under charges of violating the Law to Protect Ataturk.

BIA News Center

20/11/2006 Erol ONDEROGLU BİA (Istanbul) - The 2006 3rd Quarterly Media Monitoring Report prepared by the BIA² Media Monitoring Desk and covering the months of July, August and September has been released.

The 14-page report discloses factual details on the situation of the media in relation to rights and freedoms showing the growing burden on the Turkish press under the new Anti-Terror Law which has expanded the scope of offenses. The media also suffers from the debate around a possible peaceful solution to Turkey's Kurdish problem.

The "normalization" and "democratization" processes under the European Union reforms are subject to about-turn with military strategies and practices being enforced.

Interviewing representatives of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), allowing a voice to opposition Kurdish politicians, defending the right of being against war and conscientious objection are all regarded as offenses punishable with prison terms. The situation in its most recent form has turned journalism into a more dangerous occupation.

The 3rd Quarterly Media Monitoring Report attracts attention not only to the destructive effects on the media of the conflict environment but also to the plight of 65 people who, in the past year alone, have been put on trial under controversial penal code article 301 just for expressing their opinions. 25 of these 301 cases were launched in the past three months.

Back to the DGM days!

With the recent amendment to Turkey's Anti-Terror Law (TMY), the punishment of journalists covering conscientious objection and/or the non-violent aspects of armed organizations has been increased.

The cases are being heard not at courts of first instance but at "Specialized High Criminal Courts" that have replaced the State Security Courts (DGM) that were abolished in 2004 under the EU reforms.

Sebati Karakurt, Hasan Kilic and Necdet Tatlican of the mass circulation "Hurriyet" newspaper, "Milliyet" newspaper reporter Namik Durukan, "Birgun" newspaper employees Gokhan Gencay and Ibrahim Cesmecioglu and "Ulkede Ozgur Gundem" newspaper reporter Birgul Ozbaris are those now facing the resurrected "DGM days". A total of 59 years imprisonment is being demanded for them.

No change in a year

The BIA² Media Monitoring Desk which had previously disclosed that as of July 1, 2006, a total of 40 people faced charges under article 301, now states that the figure has increased to 65 defendants as of October 1. An increase of 25 new suspects charged under this controversial article in 3 months alone.

According to the Desk, there is no change in the situation compared to the same period of last year and pressures on the freedom of expression still continue.

163 people appear at courts, 77 of them journalists

The report focused on the situation of 163 people of which 77 are journalists and 84 are publishers. The remaining include mayors, writers, unionists and activists under trial as well as two people who have applied to the European Court of Human Rights.

The desk's previous report contained information on 56 cases launched against 67 individuals and the increase in the number of cases is attributed to the "aiding and abetting the PKK" charges brought forth against 56 mayors. There is also an increase in the number of trials.

The 3rd Quarterly Media Monitoring Report covers current issues under the titles "attacks and threat", "detentions and arrests", "trials and attempts", "European Court of Human Rights", "RTUK practices", "regulations and seeking rights" and "reaction to censorship".

According to the report, there are attempts to exert pressure on the Turkish media through high compensation demands coming from various circles including the Koza Gold Company, OYAK, MOPAK Paper Company, politicians and local authorities.

A total of 6 million 396 thousand YTL in damages is being demanded in cases filed against 30 journalists while 4 journalists have been put on trial charged with "insult" and threatened with prison terms, one of whom has already been sentenced.

Fate of arrested unknown under TMY secrecy

* In three months a total of 12 attacks took place against journalists and media institutions out of which 3 were against the www.ihdist.org , www.solgazete.net and www.bianet.org İnternet sites and 3 others targeted local journalists.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's unfounded allegations against the media were also referred to as attacks in the recent report. The number of attacks in this year's 3rd Quarterly Media Monitoring Report reflect a drop compared to the same period of last year where there were 23 attacks but an increase compared to the previous three months in 2006 where only 10 attacks were listed.

* While no detention incident was reported, there have been a number of arrests. "Ozgur Radyo" Broadcast Director Fusun Erdogan and "Atilim" newspaper Editor in Chief Ibrahim Cicek were among 6 journalists who were placed under arrest on charges of "having relationships with the Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) organization.

But because the Anti-Terror Law has imposed a six month secrecy on the case file, details of the allegations are not known.

* While "Isci Koylu" (Workers Peasants) magazine Editor in Chief Memik Horuz who was arrested in 2001 was the "only journalist held in prison in the capacity of press freedoms", the arrest and imprisonment of Dicle News Agency (DIHA) reporters Evrim Dengiz, Nesrin Yazar and Rustu Demirkaya has increased this figure to 4 in the past six months.

Increase in "Organization Cases"

* There is an increase in the number of cases opened against journalists and other political and civil society representatives who focus on the Kurdish issue. The increase is reflective in trials based on "aiding and abetting the PKK" charges.

"Ulkede Ozgur Gundem" newspaper Editor in Chief Huseyin Aykol is subject to a trial where a prosecutor demands 10 years imprisonment for him on allegations of "organizational membership" based on his interviews with PKK leaders on Kandil mountains. 56 mayors, on the other hand, are on trial for sending a letter to Danish Prime Minister Rassmusen urging him not to close down the Kurdish "Roj TV" under Turkish pressure.

301 targets associations

* In the past three months not only journalists but association members have also been charged under article 301. 25 new cases under this article include charges against Mersin 78's Foundation member Ethem Dincer and Ozgur Der official Burhan Kurbanoglu.

* Article 216 of the Penal Code which covers the offense of "incitement to hatred and enmity" was used in court cases launched against 6 people in the same period.

Again, in the same three months, Ankara Public Prosecutor Huseyin Boyrazoglu filed an appeal to overturned the previous acquittal decision for Professor Dr. Ibrahim Kaboglu, the former head of the Human Rights Advisory Board of the Prime Ministry and board member Prof. Dr. Baskin Oran on grounds that their views in the "minority report" subject to trial were not in the scope of freedom of expression.

"Ataturk" cases against five

* Prosecutions launched under the "Insulting the memory of Ataturk" law are targeting not only publishers and journalists but also translators.

Journalist-writer Ipek Calislar is on trial for interviews related to her bestseller book "Latife Hanim" together with "Hurriyet" newspaper editor Necdet Tatlican.

Publisher Fatih Tas, translators Lutfi Taylan Tosun and Aysel Yildirim are on trial and face 4.5 years imprisonment each for the Turkish language version of John Tirman's "Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade".

12 "Intervention in Justice" cases

* Allegations made against journalists and activists under Penal Code articles 277 and 288 as well as Press Law article 19 charging them with "intervention in justice" have increased in the past three months.

12 journalists are still on trial under this allegation including Milliyet's Lube Ayar, Yeni Asya's Faruk Cakir, Agos's Hrant Dink and Aydin Engin.

Censorship and bans

* "Legal censorship" against newspapers and magazines continued between July and October 2006. "Ulkede Ozgur Gundem" newspaper was banned from print for 15 days on grounds of "continuously giving room to PKK statements".

A court ordered the seizure of Kaos GL magazine's summer issue on the theme of pornography ruling that it was against "general public moral" and Kaos GL is now taking the verdict to the ECHR.

* Ozgur Der member Bahadir Kurbanoglu, Mersin 78's Association Chairman Ethem Dincer, "Agos" newspaper Editor in Chief Hrant Dink and Sarkis Seropyan, editor Arat Dink were subject to new charges alongside the "Birgun" newspaper for a report on Saudi businessman Yasin El Kadi and "Leman" magazine as well as its cartoonist Mehmet Cagdag.

The number of court cases which was three last year in the same period was recorded as 7 in 2006.

* Long-term pressure related to published cartoons also reached its conclusion with the "Penguen" magazine fined 5,000 YTL in damages in a suit filed against it by Culture and Tourism Minister Atilla Koc.

And now the good news...

* The Beyoglu 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance acquitted "Father and Bastard" novel author Elif Safak who was put on trial for "publicly denigrating Turkishness" under article 301.

* The Bagcilar 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance dismissed charges against "Radikal" newspaper journalist Murat Yetkin for his article titled "Turkey will be on trial in the case launched against Orhan Pamuk" basing its verdict on statue of limitations.

The same court took the same decision for journalist Nese Duzel who was on trial for "propaganda" due to an interview she conducted with Democratic Society Party (DTP) founding member Orhan Dogan.

* Due to it being the summer months, the number of cases dealt with at the European Court of Human Rights was lower than usual and Turkey was sentenced to pay 7,000 YTL in damages in two cases brought before the court based on verdicts passed under penal code article 312. (EO/II/EU)

Armenia: Yezidi Identity Battle

2006-12-26T15:22:00.000+01:00

Caucasus Reporting Service

Armenia: Yezidi Identity Battle
New textbooks highlight division within Armenia's Yezidi community.

By Onnik Krikorian in Yerevan (CRS No. 364 02-Nov-06)Yezidis in the western Aragatsotn region of Armenia have taken a dim view of government efforts, supported by the UN children's agency, UNICEF, to bolster minority education in the republic.

At the beginning of September, at an event staged in the Yezidi village of Alagyaz, government officials said that new textbooks in minority languages would be distributed to schools in minority-populated villages, while UNICEF said it would provide stationary and other supplies.
Less than a month later, however, Yezidis in Alagyaz and ten surrounding villages were complaining. Their language is the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish, but the books funded and provided by the government were instead written in Ezdiki. While the latter is still Kurdish by another name, the alphabet chosen for publication was in the unaccustomed Cyrillic alphabet instead of the more usual Latin or Arabic scripts.

"All schools have at present is old Soviet-era textbooks," said Gohar Saroava, a young journalist with the Mesopotamia newspaper in Yerevan and one of the few Muslim Kurds remaining in Armenia. Others, however, are more outspoken. "These [new] books are a shame and we don't want to have this rubbish," said Torkom Khudoyan, vice-president of the National Committee of Yezidis of Armenia.

Speaking to IWPR, both UNICEF and Hranush Kharatyan, head of the Armenian government's department for national minorities and religious affairs, confirmed reports that the new textbooks are being rejected, but said that it was outside their remit to intervene. Critics, however, argue that the situation should never have arisen in the first place and allege it is part a continuing attempt to promote a non-Kurdish identity among Armenia's Yezidis.
Yezidis are the largest ethnic minority in Armenia, with most having arrived in the country in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. Widely dismissed as devil worship, Yezidism in fact combines elements from Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Although the Yezidis are generally considered to be Kurds who resisted pressure to convert to Islam, there have been attempts to identify them as a separate ethnic group in Armenia since the last years of Soviet rule.

In 1988, an appeal was made to the Soviet authorities by some Yezidi leaders requesting that they be designated as an ethnic group. This coincided with the beginning of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorny Karabakh, as a result of which, thousands of Muslim Kurds fled Armenia, alongside ethnic Azerbaijanis. Yezidis, however, were spared.

In 1989, the request was granted, and in the last Soviet census conducted the same year, out of approximately 60,000 Kurds who had been formerly identified as living in Armenia, 52,700 were for the first time given a new official identity as Yezidis. The 2001 census put the number of Yezidis and Kurds in the republic at 40,620 and 1,519 respectively.

Hasan Tamoyan, editor of the Armenian-language Yezidikhana newspaper and head of the Yezidi programme on Armenian Public Radio, eagerly cites the last census as evidence that Yezidis are not Kurds. Tamoyan is also one of the authors of the controversial new school textbooks.
"There are over 40,000 people who identified themselves as Yezidis and only around 1,500 that identified themselves as Kurds," said Tamoyan. "Aren't you inclined to believe the official data? Is Kurmanji listed as a language in the census? The Kurdish language is not even mentioned. There is only the Yezidi language, Ezdiki."

However, few specialists on the Yezidis outside of Armenia agree.
"The Yezidi religious and cultural tradition is deeply rooted in Kurdish culture and almost all Yezidi sacred texts are in Kurdish," said Philip Kreyenbroek, head of Iranian studies at the University of Goettingen in Germany and a leading specialist on the Kurds and the Yezidis of Turkey and northern Iraq.

Dr Christine Allison, a lecturer at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, INALCO, in Paris currently conducting fieldwork among Yezidis in Armenia, agrees. "I have met more Yezidis in Armenia who believe they are also Kurds," she said, "and with the exception of two villages in Iraq, Yezidis speak Kurmanji Kurdish. Their oral and material culture is typical of Kurdistan and pretty much identical to non-Yezidi Kurds."

Nahro Zagros, an ethnic Kurdish PhD student from Iraq studying the ethno-musical traditions of Yezidis at the University of York, concurs. Zagros says that he also stumbled upon what many consider to be the artificial division of the community on a recent visit to Armenia. "The school in Shinkani has refused these textbooks, and teachers from Rya Taze, Alagyaz, Dirik, Orta Chia, Amri Taze and Jamushlow have also rejected them," he said.
The situation in Armenia also differs markedly from that in neighbouring Georgia, home, according to official statistics, to 18,000 Yezidis.

"There are problems in Georgia, but we [Kurds] are one nation," said Pir Dima, a Yezidi religious leader from Tbilisi visiting Armenia in September. "It's just that our religion is different. However, the problem in Georgia is nowhere near as serious as it is in Armenia. Yezidis here [in Armenia] don't want Armenians to know that they are Kurdish because Muslim Kurds killed Armenians as well as Yezidis [during the 1915 genocide]."
Rostom Atashov, president of the Union of Yezidis in Georgia, told IWPR his community uses the Kurmanji dialect and the Latin script. "We are both Yezidis and Kurds," he said. "We have one language and it is Kurdish, and if you look at where the Yezidis came from geographically, it is Kurdistan. In Georgia, we've never even debated this problem. Yezidis are Kurds, and we all believe that."

Atashov also says he believes that the division has opened up Armenia's Yezidi community to the appeal of organisations such as the Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, currently fighting a guerrilla war in Turkey. "The Armenian government doesn't want to recognise Yezidis as Kurds so the only people willing to help Yezidis in Armenia with establishing their identity are groups such as the PKK," he said.

And that certainly seems to be the case in at least six Yezidi villages in the Aragatsotn and Armavir regions of Armenia visited by IWPR this autumn. While many Yezidis openly identified themselves as such, all also said they were Kurmanji-speaking ethnic Kurds. They additionally expressed support for the PKK and displayed portraits of Abdullah Ocalan, the organisation's imprisoned leader, in their homes, cultural centres and schools.

In recent years, several PKK representatives have also openly visited Armenia to tour Yezidi villages. Last year, Yusuf Avdoyan, a Yezidi from the Armavir region of Armenia, was killed along with six other PKK members fighting in Batman, Turkey. According to the Kurdistan Committee in Armavir, his sister has now also joined the PKK and is currently fighting with them.

Some experts believe that the government has only succeeded in alienating the Yezidis through its education policies. One academic from Europe speaking to IWPR on the condition of anonymity said, "The state seems to be distinctly encouraging the Ezdiki faction and has not latched on to the fact that Kurmanji and Ezdiki, which were the same language for the entire Soviet period, are still the same. The most obvious and cost-effective compromise would be to produce Ezdiki-Kurdish schoolbooks in a mutually agreed alphabet."

Kharatyan says that she proposed a solution such as this to resolve this conflict over language, but was threatened by both sides of the Yezidi community instead. The government has since said it will monitor the distribution of the controversial textbooks, but the Kurdistan Committee is now printing its own textbooks in the Latin script for distribution to Yezidi schools during the second half of November.

Knyaz Hassanov, head of the Kurdish community in Armenia, told IWPR, "These books do not concern us. They are not important and we have decided to publish our own. The overwhelming majority [of Yezidis in Armenia] consider themselves Kurds, so if 1-2,000 do not feel the same it's not significant enough of an issue for us. Besides, it's also their right."

Source :Onnik Krikorian is a British-born journalist and photojournalist who has written on Yezidis in Armenia since 1998. He has a blog from Armenia at http://oneworld.blogsome.com/.
For Andrei Liankevich's vivid photo essay on the Yezidis, visit IWPR's Galleries of War & Peace.

Kurdish Human Rights Activist Saif Badrkhan's message to ROJ TV

2006-12-26T15:21:00.000+01:00

ROJ TV is the voice of the Kurdish people. It is the voice of peace, human rights, Kurdish culture and the oppressed people. The programs ROJ are professional and represent all aspects of life and needs of the Kurdish people. It is what the Kurdish nation needs to develop its culture and Identity. I feel very proud every time I watch or talk about ROJ TV.

Saif Badrkhan
USA

Report: The Yezidis Kurds from Tbilisi

2006-12-21T11:03:00.000+01:00

Article published in 20/12/2006 Issue

By Nicolas LANDRU in Tbilisi

Translated by Christian Nils LARSON (originally in French, first appearing in the December 12, 2006 edition)

On a sloping backstreet of Mtatsminda in Tbilisi , a basement marks the entryway of the Kurdish International Centre of Culture and Information. In this office, if any part of the community happens to gather for the holidays, it is often the guardian, Erika Mouradian, alone. This time, expectations of musicians to come from Armenia to liven up the Centre will have been in vain: visible and active during Soviet times, today's Yézidis Kurdish community in Tbilisi has severely diminished. Unstructured and divided, the community is without a doubt the weakest minority in Georgia.

The entryway to the Centre has only two tables and a television, but it is rich in decoration: a Kurdish flag and star; an iconic photo of Lalish—the Yézdis religious center in Iraq—containing religious symbols (a snow-flake, a peacock, three cupolas and an eternal flame); and immense portraits of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the charismatic figure behind the movement for the liberation of Kurds in Turkey, who was arrested by the Turkish secret service in 1999, condemned to death and then pardoned thanks to international pressure.

The events that occurred in Georgia at the same time as Öcalan's 1999 arrest are revealing of the Kurdish situation there. Several hundred people went out into the streets of Tbilisi in demonstration of their support for Öcalan, leader of the Kurdish cause. Another part of the community, otherwise having no interest in this fight, was opposed to the mobilization.

As for an illustration of the manner by which the Georgian society understands the problems of Kurds, the following incident should shed some light: it is often said that when the Chief of Police in Tbilisi learned that because of Öcalan's arrest the Kurds were protesting in the suburb of Samgori, the Chief of Police gave his forces the order to free the bandit. Criminals or street sweepers, the women who clean the streets of Tbilisi at dawn are almost exclusively Kurdish, the profession is so designated. Herein lies the universally confirmed image of Kurds in Georgian society. Moreover, whether it be a mere sad coincidence or not, in Georgian, the word Kurd is pronounced "kurti" and thief is pronounced "kurdi."

To the sound of Kurdish television

In the Centre, Erika has access to six Kurdish television stations including ROJ TV—which is broadcast from Denmark, and MMC-TV, which is based in Belgium . She is often brought news from Armenia, written in Armenian, Russian and Kurdish. There is no Kurdish newspaper published in Georgian. The Centre is entirely devoted to the Kurdish international cause: One Russophone newspaper is called Free Kurdistan, another is called Friendship and subtitled, "Öcalan, our leader."

While facing the constantly blaring television, Djemal explains the injustice Kurds face while all other nations have obtained a territory. The construction of a Kurdish State is her dream. At the announcement of Saddam Hussein's death sentence, who is accused of executing thousands of Kurds, Erika expressed a joy without limits. Justice had been done.

Another identifying mark of the international Kurdish cause among the Yézidis of Tbilisi is the name the Kurdish team took during an interfaith football tournament organized by the Georgian Football Federation and UNDP in December 2006. The Yézidi team called itself "Barzani" in reference to the greatest Kurdish tragedy in Iraqi history.
Kurds or Yezidis?

All the same, this Caucasian population's identification with the international Kurdish cause is far from apparent. The Center's main room, among Kurdish flags and portraits of Öcalan, Yézidi symbols are also proudly displayed. In the rear room there is a temple where adherents come to celebrate the saint's days. "It's our Kurdish religion" says Erika.

Moreover, the religious differences among Kurdophones, particularly in the Caucasus, seriously shake up identities. While the majority of Kurds in Turkey, Iraq or Syria are Sunni Muslins, the Yézidis practice an ancient religion which venerates the peacock, a symbol of the demon which became in angel, the flame and the sun, and curious syncretism of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Because the collective identities were formed long ago around religious principals, two distinct communities developed. In Georgia the 1926 census counted approximately 10,000 Kurds and 2,000 Yézidis. The Soviet authorities only recognized one Kurdish community. All the same, the majority of were deported by Stalin in 1944 and the Yézidis were counted at 18,329 versus 2,514 Muslims according to the 2002 census. Additionally and separate from the religious factor, Muslim Kurds, like those in Armenia, are well integrated in the Azeri community. They have often been counted as Azeris, and some of them currently present in Georgia even hold Azeri citizenship.

At the heart of the Yézidi community however, rifts are still important. Between "Ethnically Yézidi", "of Kurdish ethnicity and Yézidi religious", or simply "ethnically Kurdish", different groups, organizations and individuals represent all three options. In the small Centre of Mtatsminda, if the word "Yézidi" were not used, the principal cultural organization of the community in Georgia would be "The Union of Georgian Yézidis", which does not recognize a link with Muslim Kurds or the PKK movement. Armenian scholarly manuals mention the "Yézidi nation", but for this reason, several Tbilisi organizations have complained to the Armenian embassy. The community has little chance of arriving at a consensus.

Marginalization and weakening

With nearly 40,000 souls, Armenia is host to the most important Yézidi Kurish community in the Caucasus, which is also the most organized and most visible. In Georgia, they were counted at 33,331 in 1989 and 20,843 in 2002. Local associations however, estimate no more than 6,000.

Are these figures inflated to mask the disastrous emigration from Georgia? In the 1980's, the community was still highly visible in Tbilisi. The city contained one of the most reputed theatres of the Kurdish world. Excluded from public positions and the majority of professional tracks, without a port-parole or federal organization, the Yézidi Kurds, according to a report by the International Federation of Human Rights, occupy the most fragile social position in the country.

In the Mtatsminda Centre, the women speak of their sons in Russia and their daughters in Germany, France or Canada. In reality, the community literally melted after 1989 and the rate of emigration is the highest among Georgian minorities.

Another sign of the community's weakened state is that Yézidi Kurdish youth, without any future in Georgia, often try their hand in Armenia , although the economic situation there is in many regards worse than in Georgia .

Source : © CAUCAZ.COM | Article published in 20/12/2006 Issue | By Nicolas LANDRU

A young Kurdish film maker's impression about her visit to ROJ TV

2006-12-20T17:00:00.000+01:00

Recently I visited Roj TV at Denderleeuw, nearby Brussels in Belgium. If you'd close your eyes, you'd think you're in Kurdistan. True Kurdistan , because of the embracing mixture of Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan. Roj TV is like a free Kurdish isle in the heart of Europe. The catering is Kurdish as well as the music that fills the room from television right up to the soul. Nevertheless every culture is welcome: in the middle of all those Kurds, the make up-artist was from Belgium and a part of the guests are non-Kurdish as well.

Hesen Ghazi invited me to "Ruwange". I enjoy watching his program, especially when he invites young, inspiring individuals. So, being invited to the show was a great honour. We talked about my studies, my work and the future. But, to me, it was not just about myself. It was about the young Kurds, in Kurdistan and abroad. I wanted to inspire them. In the same way other guests at "Ruwange" inspired me. I wanted to show them that it's possible to follow your heart, that it's possible to focus on Cinema and that it's truly worth the hard work.

In Cinema, I'm just a nobody, at least: not anybody yet. But the believe in the things that I'll be able to do someday keep me going. And being able to talk about that "someday", in a show on Roj TV is a big encouragement into the right direction. Not only for me, but certainly for all those young people who think about a cultural or art study. Showing the possibilities can make a big difference.

My compliments to Roj TV, who's got an eye for cultural moving within Kurdish society. Because nothing exists, until you share it. Shows as "Ruwange" help making Kurdish (or Kurdish-related) culture exist, by sharing the existence of it with the viewers. And, by doing so, Kurds get more and more aware of the beautiful colours that are hidden within the darkness that overshadows their culture.

In life, you get nothing for free. However there are things that can make it easier, such as family, friends, following your heart and fighting for your final goal. Whether that's a free Kurdistan, opening a store, becoming a professional sports player, a doctor, or just to have the opportunity to tell your own story, I believe that you can achieve it as long as you keep on working for it. It's time to focus on the colours. Sure, that sounds like a big cliché, though it's nothing but the truth.

Ghazi gave me the opportunity to tell all Kurds what I believe in: Cinema. We showed the audience a short film, "Delalo", in rough cut. So, the version as it was broadcast

is different from the final version. That gave viewers the possibility to send me their comments. A few weeks after the recording of the show I finished the "Delalo". I would like to share the final version of "Delalo", as it was shown on the London Kurdish Film Festival, with all of you. I will upload it to the Internet this week.

Thanks to whole crew of Roj TV, for their warm welcome in Denderleeuw and of course the delicious food.

Regards,

Beri

Enjoyed much to see Gudrun Schyman on ROJ TV

2006-12-14T10:20:00.001+01:00

Feminism and the Kurds ! I think this initiative of ROJ TV to introduce The Feministisk Initiative, which is a new movement in Sweden was very timely and informative for Kurdish viewers. Most of the unresolved issues in the Middle-East to great extend depend on misunderstanding and misinterpretation. In Rengê Jiyanê, Gudrun Schyman explained in a very simple and reasonable way the true meaning of feminism. A new approach to the rights and plight of Kurdish women could be a guarantor for Kurds achieving their rights.

Nanewa

13.12.2006

A Message From Gudrun Schyman

2006-12-13T14:04:00.000+01:00

I was very inspired of my visit to you and I was happy to have the opportunity to take part in the TV-show for women. I hope the interest for feminism will grow in all countries and that more people will understand feminism as a global mow for democracy. Education is necessary and your program is an important part in this.

Regards

Gudrun Schyman

12.12.2006

Gudrun Schyman visited ROJ TV

2006-12-05T22:48:00.000+01:00

She was a guest of exclusively women Program RÊNGÊ JIYANÊ

The renowned Swedish feminist Gudrun Schyman appeared on ROJ TV's RÊNGÊ JIYANÊ, which is exclusively produced And presented by our women colleagues on Monday evening , December 4.

Gudrun Schyman is a former leader of The Swedish Left Party, and has Been a member of Swedish parliament for 18 years. In 2003 Gudrun Schyman Left, Left Party in order to devote all her energy and intellectual capacity to defending the women rights over party politics.

In April 2005 Gudrun started a new movement ;Feminist Initiative. In Sweden's last elections the formation failed to win any sit in parliament.

For further information visit Gudrun Schyman's homepage: http://www.schyman.se

Live Program Ends After Police Interference

2006-11-28T15:27:00.000+01:00

A public debate on problems of writers in Diyarbakir on "Gun TV" was cancelled after police appeared at the scene with a warrant allowing them to video the panel. TV producer Dogan says enforcement was "against freedom of press and broadcasting".

BIA News Center
20/11/2006 Erol ONDEROGLU

BİA (Diyarbakir ) - A debate focusing on the problems of writers in the Southeast province of Diyarbakir which was organized under the scope of the city's metropolitan municipality "Literature Days" activities was cancelled on Saturday when the police appeared on site with a warrant to video the panel.

Reacting to the incident, GUN TV producer Cemal Dogan said he had "difficulties in understanding the logic behind this attempt".

"What is the logic of trying to video a program that everyone, including the police, could watch live anyway?" he asked, noting that neither the warrant nor its enforcement were proper and branding them a violation of press and broadcasting freedoms.

Dogan told bianet that GUN TV was scheduled to broadcast the debate live on November 18 when the police appeared on site with a warrant and said they would be videoing the event.

"We had to show our attitude there" he said. "We did not permit the program to go ahead both because the municipality theatre hall was where we had set up our studios and because those in the hall would have been intimidated by the presence of police.

According to the programs announced Adil Kurt,the live broadcast of Gun TV lasted for only a minute when talks between the 4-man police team and organizers of the program and debate failed.

The police, Dogan added, were told they could observe the discussion without using their radios or camera but had informed them that they strictly needed to video the event as they had been ordered to do so.

One of the targets of Gun TV was to screen the first live television of such an event in Diyarbakir .

About 20 writers including author Migirdic Margosyan were present for the debate the live discussion which was organized as part of the municipality's November 16-19 activity of "Literature days for a more peaceful world". (EO/II

Our first anniversary

2006-11-27T00:19:00.000+01:00

And the time has come for us to celebrate our first anniversary. Save ROJ TV has been active for a year now, thought out this year we have enjoyed the support by our true callers. Save ROJ TV thank you all for a productive year.

The unfortunate is that we still have to defend our basic human right of free expression in 21 century. We all hope that time for reconciliation come soon, when the Turkish state face the reality of democratic peaceful process for solving its domestic problems.