G20 – please send a letter to G20 for Canadian Action on the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey
Mission:To foster an international grassroots campaign with respect to the unfair and unjust treatment of ethnic communities and religious minorities in different parts of the world.
Canada will host the G20 Summit on June 25-27, 2010.
This presents an opportunity to engage Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and leaders of the G20 countries to ensure that ethnic communities and religious minorities are treated fairly and justly.
We, therefore, ask that you sign petitions on the “Action Links” (see below).
We also ask that your family and friends join us in this important campaign.
We believe that we have a collective responsibility to help our fellow man.
We ask that you submit the petition below to Prime Minister Stephen Harper so that these issues can be raised at the G20 Summit , in Toronto on June 26-27, 2010. Read more
Arrest of Kurdish citizens in Kobani, Syria
Mahmoud Youssef Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on 13 June 2010 by a patrol from Syrian airforce security in al-Raqqa. His belongings were searched, and property that he uses for his work in recording weddings was seized.
The same airforce branch arrested Mustafa Hosho Sheikh Ali on 4 June 2010, after he returning from the harvest. Four people from his family were arrested after the shootings in al-Raqqa at Newroz in March 2010, and their whereabouts are still unknown.
There is a continuing campaign of arrests and intimidation of Kurdish citizens by the Syrian authorities since the shootings at al-Raqqa in March 2010.
Media Institute of West Kurdistan Society – Kobani
15 June 2010
All Children have Rights – report re: Kurdish children in Turkey
Since 2006, thousands of children in Turkey, some as young as 12, have been prosecuted under anti-terrorism legislation solely for their alleged participation in demonstrations focused on issues of concern to members of the Kurdish community. While Amnesty International recognizes the obligation of the Turkish authorities to maintain order and to prevent damage to property during the sometimes violent demonstrations, Amnesty International is gravely concerned at the systematic violation of the rights of the child committed during the arrest, detention and trial of these children.1 While arrests and prosecutions continue, Amnesty International is also concerned that proposed amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Law2 aimed at improving the situation for children prosecuted as a result of their participation in demonstrations will not prevent further violations occurring.
States Parties recognize the right of every child alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law to be treated in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child’s sense of dignity and worth, which reinforces the child’s respect for the human rights
and fundamental freedoms of others and which takes into account the child’s age and the desirability of promoting the child’s reintegration and the child’s assuming a constructive role in society.
Article 40.1 Convention on the Rights of the Child
PKK returnees on trial in Turkey
The Kurdish rebels had said they were testing the government’s initiative Thirty supporters of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) are going on trial in south-eastern Turkey, eight months after they returned from exile.
The group, which includes eight former PKK insurgents, were initially released by the authorities after returned from Iraq in October.
They said their return was a test of the government’s promise of a new approach to the Kurdish conflict.
But the government has since hardened its stance towards the PKK.
In Turkey the slightest show of support for the PKK can, and often does, result in a terrorism charge. Read more
Call to Cyprus Government to stop deportation of Kurds to Syria
On 11 June 2010, twenty-seven people including women and children, were forcibly removed by authorities in Cyprus, back to Damascus airport. They had been on hunger strike along with many others for some time in Cyprus. Others remain in Cyprus.
On return to Damascus, they were each interviewed by the authorities, and were issued with a summons to report to intelligence security a week later.
… Read more
Kurds in Cyprus face deportation to Syria
The 27-day protest and hunger strike by the Kurdish community in Cyprus ended abruptly Friday morning as Cypriot police and security officers raided their makeshift camp, arriving in armoured military vehicles. The protestors were arrested, put into buses and transferred to detention centres.
250 Kurdish asylum seekers from Syria, including 65 children, had been living in bright orange and green tents pitched outside the Interior Ministry in Nicosia, the Cypriot capital, for almost four weeks to try and obtain refugee rights and bring attention to the condition of Kurds in Syria. Read more
Spanish campaign raises awareness of Kurdish political prisoners in Syria
In late January of this year a letter addressed to the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was registered at the Moncloa Palace, the official seat of the Ministry of the Presidency. The letter outlined the plight of Kurdish political prisoners in Syria and asked for Spain’s assistance.
…we respectfully request your intervention with the Syrian government, with whom the Spanish government has excellent political relations, to recognise the state in which political prisoners in Syrian jails find themselves, and to request the release of all prisoners of conscience, seeking especially to investigate reports of torture and ill-treatment and, in its relations with the Syrian authorities, demand that international norms are respected in the treatment of prisoners. Read more
Murdered Kurdish conscript Najm al-Din Hassan Daallo is the fifth victim of the Syrian army in 2010.
The body of Najm al-Din Hassan Daallo was returned to his family on 7 June 2010. He was born in Afrin in 1991, and had been stationed for his military service in the Syrian army in a military unit stationed around al-Raqqa.
He joined the service three months ago, and after he finished training he was deployed to the en-Essa battalion in al-Raqqa. Three days later, the army reported that Najm al-Din Hassan Daallo committed suicide during a night patrol.
The death of Najm al-Din Hassan Daallo brings the number of Kurds who have been killed during this year in mysterious circumstances to five.
This phenomenon is causing panic and distress amongst Kurdish families who fear for the fate of their children whilst they perform their obligatory service in the Syrian army.
Media Institute of West Kurdistan Society – Afrin
10 June 2010
Amnesty International: States must stop returning Iraqis
On 7 June, Amnesty International called on the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and the UK to stop forcibly returning Iraqis, as a joint return flight was planned for 9 June. “The decision to forcibly return Iraqis is in direct breach of guidelines set out by the UNHCR, which has urged governments not to return individuals to Iraq, until the security situation improves”, Amnesty International says. Amnesty urged States to grant international protection – or temporary humanitarian protection – to Iraqis, considering that “the Iraqi government is clearly unable to protect its own citizens, including those returned to the country from abroad.” UNHCR considers that “serious – including indiscriminate – threats to life, physical integrity or freedom resulting from violence or events seriously disturbing public order are valid reasons for international protection.” UNHCR calls on States to ensure that the situation in Iraq as a whole, including the important level of lawlessness, is factored into their assessments of asylum claims. Sources: – Amnesty International, ‘European states must stop the imminent forcible return of Iraqis’ – UNHCR, ‘UNHCR cautions against European deportations to Iraq’ – BBC News, ‘Iraqi asylum seekers deported amid safety fears’ – The Guardian, ‘David Cameron defends deportation of failed Iraqi asylum seekers’
Freedom House, ‘Worst of the Worst 2010: The World’s Most Repressive Societies – Syria’
Overview
Freedom House has prepared this report as a companion to our annual survey on the state of global political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World. We are publishing this report to assist policymakers, human rights organizations, democracy advocates, and others who are working to advance freedom around the world. We also hope that the report will be useful to the work of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The reports are excerpted from Freedom in the World 2010, which surveys the state of freedom in 194 countries and 14 select territories. The ratings and accompanying essays are based on events from January 1, 2009, through December 31, 2009. The 17 countries and 3 territories profiled in this report are drawn from the total of 47 countries and 7 territories that are considered to be Not Free, and whose citizens endure systematic and pervasive human rights violations.
Included in this report are nine countries judged to have the worst human rights conditions: Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Also included is one territory, Tibet, whose inhabitants suffer similarly intense repression. These states and territories received the Freedom House survey’s lowest ratings: 7 for political rights and 7 for civil liberties (based on a 1 to 7 scale, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free). Within these entities, state control over daily life is pervasive, independent organizations and political opposition are banned or suppressed, and fear of retribution for independent thought and action is ubiquitous. Read more
