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The return of Turkey’s ‘dirty war’ against the Kurds

September 17, 2016 By administrator

kurd-depressedThe mystery of Kurdish politician Hursit Kulter has renewed concern the Turkish state is forcibly disappearing people with impunity. His case highlights an all-out assault on the Kurdish movement.

Where is Hursit Kulter? The last message the Kurdish politician sent to his family carried an ominous tone, one that has human rights organizations concerned he has joined hundreds of other people disappeared by Turkish security forces over the years.

“Forgive me with your blessings,” the 33-year-old texted to his family from the besieged city of Sirnak on May 27. “There is not much time left. Give my regards to everybody.”

As a provincial executive of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), Kulter was an advocate for Kurdish rights and autonomy. He had decided to stay with his people during an open-ended curfew implemented in March in Sirnak as security forces battled Kurdish militants.

Two witnesses reported seeing Special Operations teams take him into an armored vehicle on May 27. Several days later, a Twitter account believed to be associated with Special Operations in the region shared a post saying he was being interrogated. The tweet was later deleted and the account closed.

Turkish officials deny Kulter was ever arrested and claim to not know his whereabouts.

Southeastern Turkey has witnessed a surge in violence since a two-year ceasefire and peace process between the state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) broke down last year, leaving thousands of security forces and guerrillas killed and at least 300 civilians dead.

In response to PKK militants and armed youth groups occupying urban areas in the southeast and declaring autonomy, Turkish security forces used heavy-handed tactics and open-ended curfews to root out the rebels. Several towns have been heavily destroyed and more than a million people displaced.

Widespread abuses during months of counter-terror operations in southeast Turkey have been reported.

“We have received repeated and serious allegations of ongoing violations of international law as well as human rights concerns, including civilian deaths, extrajudicial killings and massive displacement,” UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said earlier this week.

The Turkish state has a troubling history of forced disappearances, extrajudical murders and torture during the height of the PKK conflict in the 1990s. During the so-called “dirty war,” thousands of people were extrajudicially killed, disappeared and tortured with impunity.

Kulter’s case raises concerns the state is again resorting to the method of forced disappearances as it prosecutes its war against the Kurdish movement. In Sirnak alone, more than 200 people were disappeared after being arrested in the 1990s. The last case in the province was in 2001, when two Kurdish politicians disappeared.

“Fifteen years later, it raises a lot of concern that a young Kurdish politician all of a sudden disappears when only security forces are present and nobody is allowed to go out on the streets,” Sebla Arcan of the Turkish Human Rights Association’s Commission for Enforced Disappearance under Custody told DW.

All applications for state authorities to investigate have gone unanswered, human rights organizations and Kurdish politicians say. An independent investigation is also not possible due to an ongoing curfew in Sirnak, despite the government calling an end to military operations in June.

“The government should explain what happened to Hursit Kulter. If he was arrested, then why the denial? If he wasn’t arrested, then his whereabouts should be investigated. Why does the government just remain silent?” Arcan said.

Adding to the sense of growing impunity, the Turkish parliament in June passed a law granting immunity from prosecution to members of the security forces conducting counter-terror operations.

Leyla Birlik, a parliamentarian from Sirnak for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is close to the DBP, said she is blocked by security forces from entering the city and judges, prosecutors, police and the governor ignore her calls for any investigation.

She told DW by phone from a internally displaced persons camp outside Sirnak that 70 percent of the city had been destroyed and 60,000 civilians forced out. Meanwhile, scores of wounded people were not allowed to be evacuated to a local hospital and were left to die during the curfew earlier this year. “This is in effect a form of extrajudicial execution,” she said.

Activists and social media users have sought to keep Kulter’s case active, for example, through a campaign asking #HursitKulterNerede (#WhereisHursitKulter). The Saturday Mothers, a group of families of the forcibly disappeared and human-rights activists peacefully protesting on Istanbul’s main pedestrian thoroughfare every week for nearly two decades, has also taken up his cause.

In some ways, Kulter’s case has fallen by the wayside, becoming one questionable event among many as part of the Turkish state’s vigorous effort to clamp down on the Kurdish movement.

The assault on the Kurdish movement has gained momentum with sweeping emergency powers granted in the wake of July’s failed coup attempt, as the state goes after all of its enemies with massive purges.

What last year started as a hardened military response to the PKK has since warped into military intervention in northern Syria in part to thwart Kurdish gains there and an offensive against Kurdish politicians at home, most recently this week with the replacement of 24 elected Kurdish mayors over allegations of ties to the PKK.

“The government has launched a multi-pronged assault against the PKK, its political affiliates, and sympathizers, carrying its military battle for the first time to Syria as well,” Amberin Zaman, a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center think tank, told DW.

“The aim is to weaken the Kurdish movement to the point where the government feels it can impose rather than negotiate a solution,” she said. “It is not going to work, it’s proven unsustainable in the past.”

Since 1984, nearly 40,000 people have died in fighting between the Turkish state and PKK, which fights for greater political and cultural rights for Kurds.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: dirty, Kurd, Turkey, war

German deputy accuses EU of making dirty business deal with Turkey over refugee issue

December 30, 2015 By administrator

Greens Party deputy Turkish-German Özcan Mutlu and Professor Koray Çalışkan from Boğaziçi University took over the vigil called “Wait for Hope” on Monday. (Photo: Cihan)

Greens Party deputy Turkish-German Özcan Mutlu and Professor Koray Çalışkan from Boğaziçi University took over the vigil called “Wait for Hope” on Monday. (Photo: Cihan)

A deputy of the Greens Party in Germany, Turkish-German Özcan Mutlu, has criticized the EU for turning a blind eye to violations of freedom of the press and other fundamental freedoms in Turkey in order to avoid the effects of the Syrian refugee crisis by engaging in a dirty business deal with Ankara over the matter.

In an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman on Tuesday, Mutlu stated that issues around media freedom and freedom of thought in Turkey have been put aside, along with the concerns felt by many in relation to judicial freedom in the country.

“The level of freedom of thought is very low in Turkey and the EU ignores the facts. In an atmosphere in which freedom of thought is lacking, I have high expectations of the EU to deal with these problems. As you know, the EU has certain core values which it has been built on. Several of these values are key for EU democracy. These are: freedom of thought, media freedoms and the principal of separation of powers. If there are concerns as to Turkey fulfilling these criteria when Turkey also wants to enter the union, then the EU is responsible for sharing its concerns with the Ankara administration. The union should tell Turkey that these vital values cannot be violated and ignored,” Mutlu noted.

Mutlu accused the EU, Germany and other members of the union of engaging in a dirty business deal with Turkey because of the Syrian refugee crisis, adding, “No criticism is leveled against Turkey over human rights violations. This is called a ‘double standard.’ On one hand it is observed that certain values in Turkey are trampled on, on the other hand the union prefers to ignore these violations due to the massive refugee influx it has continued to experience.”

Continuing with his comments about the current nature of Turkish-EU relations, Mutlu went on to say: “Is it possible to witness to similar things happening in the Cizre and Şırnak districts [in reference to ongoing military operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Southeast of Turkey, where thousands of Kurds have been forced to leave their homes and a number of locals have been killed] in Berlin and Paris? I direct my criticism against the EU for remaining silent in the face of such severe violations. This connivance by the union is so great that the European Commission postponed the publication of its annual progress report, which included harsh criticism of human rights violations in Turkey, amid negotiations with Turkey on how to stem the flow of refugees to Europe so that the report would not influence the election results.”

The report, which was originally scheduled to be published on Oct. 14, was released on Nov. 10, days after the general election. The report expressed great concern over media freedom, freedom of expression and judicial independence in Turkey.

“After the report was published, no satisfying debate was conducted. That’s why my criticism focuses on Brussels, Berlin and Paris,” he added.

Mutlu pointed out that, in a similar vein, German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid a visit to Turkey two weeks before the Nov. 1 election, an action which could have been portrayed as support for the Turkish government despite the violations in question.
‘Imprisoning journalists contradicts democratic principles’
Taking over the vigil called “Wait for Hope,” aimed at supporting the arrested Cumhuriyet editors Can Dündar and Erdem Gül in front of Silivri Prison on Monday, Mutlu’s request to meet with the two editors remained unanswered.

“One of the key principals of democracy is freedom of press and judicial independence. In this case, both have been violated. Dündar and Gül are now at the forefront, but there are over 30 other jailed journalists in Turkey, a situation that does not comply with democracy,” Mutlu concluded.

Source: todayzaman

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: dirty, EU, game, Turkey

Turkey’s dirty secret about al-Qaeda

January 14, 2015 By administrator

e-uslu-bBy: EMRE USLU,

Since 2012, political observers has been questioning Turkey’s relationship with al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist terrorist organizations.

Three interesting developments related to this took place in last 10 days. First, a suicide bomber attacked the İstanbul police. It was revealed that the suicide attacker came from Russia and is affiliated with an Islamic terrorist organization. Interestingly enough, the Turkish police, for the first time in its history, did not reveal the name of the terrorist organization. Three people were arrested for their connection to the attack, but no one knows who they are and what terrorist organizations they belong to.

Those who know how the police work and how counter-terrorism operations are conducted easily noticed that a suicide attack is not a typical terrorist attack. If it was a typical terrorist attack, police would have revealed the name of the organization, shared further evidence, etc. Instead of revealing the truth behind the attack, the police tried to cover up the real story behind the attack.

More importantly, the Turkish media, too, ignored the attack and acts as if no attack took place in İstanbul. We all know from the Uludere incident in which 34 Kurdish villagers were killed by Turkish warplanes, when the Turkish media ignores a terror-related incident, one needs to know Ankara doesn’t want them to investigate the incident.

All in all, the suicide attack in İstanbul seems to be related to the Turkish intelligence community, not to a typical terrorist attack.

Secondly, an anonymous Twitter user claiming to be part of a leftist group shared some documents about Turkey’s assistance to al-Qaeda. The documents indicate that Turkey was transferring weapons to al-Qaeda organizations inside Syria. The documents show that the trucks stopped by gendarmes were full of Russian weapons and heading to al-Qaeda militants inside Syria.

Soon after the documents were leaked on Twitter, Turkish authorities stepped up and got court orders to shut down Twitter and other websites that posted the documents. Such attempts indicate that the documents showed the dirty secret of the Turkish government and made it unhappy.

The weapon transfer to al-Qaeda was much-debated by the Turkish public but for the first time documents prove the allegations about these bizarre relations. Turkish authorities, instead of denying the allegations and proving that they did not help al-Qaeda, tried to cover up the story by attempting to shut down Twitter and other websites that published the document.

Third and more importantly, a witness revealing the dirty secrets of Turkey came out this week. Onder Sığırcıklıoğlu, a former National Intelligence Organization (MİT) agent who was assigned to coordinate anti-Assad activities in Hatay, spoke out about his activities. While working for MİT, Sığırcıklıoğlu organized the handing over of the Syrian colonel Huseyin Hormoush to Assad’s forces.

Sığırcıklıoğlu claims that he has witnessed many illegal activates, including helping illegal groups, transferring arms from Libya to al-Qaeda and bringing jihadists from abroad to Syria.

It is interesting to note that UN inspectors were investigating allegations that the Turkish state was transferring arms from Libya to al-Qaeda; now a former MİT agent speaks out about it.

The documents that show that the Russian weapon systems being transferred into Syria must be related to those weapons brought from Libya.

Seeing all three incidents in the same week is unusual. It seems that there is a serious battle going on behind the curtain; certainly one side of the battle is Turkish intelligence community, but we don’t know the other side.

It could be a sign of rivalry within the state apparatus as well as rivalry between Turkey and other countries.

No matter what the real reason is, revealing Turkey’s dirty secret about al-Qaeda the week of the terrorist attacks in Paris shows that Turkey will face a difficult time for its support to al-Qaeda.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Al Qaeda, dirty, secret, Turkey

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