800 Kurdish Politicians Arrested in One Year
Yaman from DTP: 800 Kurdish Politicians Arrested in One Year
Peace and Democracy Group Chairman Yaman said: “The AKP government takes revenge by arresting mayors of the provinces they did not win in the elections”. He urged the government to stop the operations.
Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Group Chairman Nuri Yaman said in the party’s regular weekly general meeting that almost 800 Kurdish politicians were arrested in the course of political operations throughout the last year. Yaman reminded the latest incident when Nuri Günes, Mayor of Igdir (a province on the Armenian border) was arrested together with another seven people, among them members of the city council. “The Justice and Development Party (AKP) takes revenge by arresting the mayors of the provinces they did not win in the elections”, Yaman argued.
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Turkey and the Kurdish conflict:European Parliament, Brussels 3rd & 4th February 2010
January 30, 2010 by sks
Filed under News, Support Kurds, Turkey
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“Turkey and the Kurdish conflict:
Political dialogue & Peace-building”
European Parliament, Brussels
3rd & 4th February 2010 – Room ASP 1G2
(Interpretation available in EN – TK – FR – DE – PT – IT – DA)
Patrons
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, South Africa
Dr. Shirin Ebadi
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Iran
Bianca Jagger
Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador
Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, UK
Professor Noam Chomsky
Writer, USA
Yasar Kemal
Writer, Turkey
Leyla Zana
European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Rafto Prize Laureate, Turkey Read more
Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy
 Title |
Turkey: Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy |
| Publisher | EurasiaNet |
| Country | Turkey |
| Publication Date | 1 June 2009 |
| Cite as | EurasiaNet, Turkey: Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy, 1 June 2009, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4a532cbc2.html [accessed 31 January 2010] |
Turkey: Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy
Yigal Schleifer: 6/01/09
If Turkish prosecutors have their way, Yilmaz, a soft-spoken 16-year-old with a teenager’s pimply face, could spend up to seven years in jail for having joined a demonstration early last year in the town of Cizre, in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Yilmaz (the name has been changed to protect his identity) has already spent 13 months in jail awaiting trial, although he was recently let out on bail. Although he joined a demonstration that took place after the funeral of a young boy who had been run over by a police armored vehicle during an earlier protest, prosecutors say the event was organized by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and are charging the boy with supporting a terrorist organization.
“In each appearance in court, we were telling the prosecutors that we are children, that they should let us go back to our lives,” says Yilmaz.
Yilmaz is one of hundreds of minors, some as young as 13, who have been arrested and jailed in Turkey over the last few years under strict new anti-terrorism laws that allow for juveniles to be tried as adults. Some have even been accused of “committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization” for participating in demonstrations that prosecutors charge have been organized the PKK. Read more
Three years of detention, no convictions – for five Kurdish political activists in Syria
Syrian Committee for Human Rights – MAD reports that hearings took place at the Supreme State Security Court in Damascus of four young Kurdish men on 26 January 2010:
- Nazmi Mohammed,
- Yasha Qadir,
- Ahmed Darwish,
- Dilgesh Shamo Mamo,
[Tahsein Khairi Mamo was arrested with these four men but has not appeared with them in court on this occasion].
These young men were arrested on 29 January 2007 in the city of Aleppo by security forces. Their trial has now been postponed for an indefinite time without a reason. Read more
Kenjo was subjected to torture while in custody
On January 19, 2010, Xalid Mio Kenco fled across the border from Syria to Turkey illegally. He filed a petition for asylum at the UNHCR in Ankara, which is to be decided upon by April 7 of this year. Kenco is permitted to remain in Turkey until then.
In a telephone conversation with KurdWatch on January 28, 2010, Kenco stated that during his initial detention in al-Qamishli he was held in a solitary cell for seven days. The cell was so small that he was unable to stretch out to sleep. It was completely dark so that he could not tell the difference between his water bottle and the bottle he was given to urinate in. He was only allowed to leave his cell once a day to defecate. Members of the State Security interrogated him for a total of four days. During all of the interrogations, he was blindfolded and his hands were cuffed behind his back. He was berated and slapped, and his feet and other parts of his body were beaten with cables. He was also blindfolded, handcuffed and beaten during the ensuing two-day interrogation by the State Security in Damascus. Read more
Four men disappeared in Syria after political arrest 2 months ago
According to Syrian Human Rights Committee – MAD, almost two months ago political security forces raided the houses of Kurdish citizens in the area called Zor Ava, Damascus and arrested four people but there is no news of them:
Open letter to MEPs etc. – Arrest of Kurdish MPs in Turkey
Open letter to all members of the European Parliament and the Parliaments of the EU countries
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As a member of parliament you will surely join us in condemning the fact that two freely elected Kurdish members of the Turkish Parliament with large majorities have been removed overnight from this institution, their party forbidden and ten likewise freely elected Kurdish mayors taken away in handcuffs. It will surely also shock you to hear that a kind of pogrom atmosphere is being stirred up against their Kurdish colleagues, among them the Party Chairperson, Ahmed Turk, with the result that even the tenancies on their apartments in the capital of Ankara have been terminated. Read more
Call to Action: KURDISH POLITICAL ACTIVISTS DETAINED IN SYRIA
January 27, 2010 by sks
Filed under News, Support Kurds, Syria
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Four Kurdish political activists were detained on 26 December in Syria, and have been held incommunicado since then. They are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.
Hassan Saleh, Muhammad Ahmed Mustafa and Ma’rouf Mulla Ahmed – all senior members of the unauthorized Syrian Kurdish Yeketi Party in Syria – and Anwer Naso, also a member of the Yeketi Party, were arrested on 26 December by members of Political Security, one of Syria’s security agencies. Political Security regularly detains individuals perceived as opposing or being critical of the Syrian regime. Their detention came around three weeks after the men attended a Yeketi Party conference that called for autonomy in the Kurdish areas in Syria. Read more
Drought Blights Syrian Villages – Slow response to crisis prompts many to flee to big cities.
A severe shortage of rainfall that has lasted more than three years has crippled agriculture in northeastern Syria, where residents say conditions are still deteriorating in the absence of economic alternatives and an adequate government response.
People’s living conditions in the area are dire, said Ahmad al-Salem, an agricultural engineer who lives in a village close to the town of Qamishli.
He said that most of his fellow villagers have moved to Damascus or other big cities looking for new sources of income, many ending up with difficult labouring work. Read more
Two more Iranian Kurdish political prisoners sentenced to death
ORUMIYEH, Iranian Kurdistan,— Two Kurdish political prisoners, Mohammad Amin Abdollahi and Ghader Mohammadzadeh, residents of Mir-Abad in Bookan, were sentenced to execution by a second court held for them in Orumiyeh in Iranian Kurdistan (Eastern Kurdistan). The two prisoners were arrested in Mir-Abad of Bokan. They are accused of working with Kurdish anti-government groups. They were first sent to a prison in Bokan and then transferred to the Central Prison of Orumiyeh.
Mohammad Amin Abdollahi is 25 years old. In the first court held for him, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. On January 16, 2010, in the second court in Orumiye: he was sentenced to execution for “endangering national security” and “acting against God.”
