US Journalist Deported from Turkey After Reporting on Plight of Kurds

See the video of this interview on our homepage.

Twenty-five-year-old American journalist Jake Hess was arrested in Turkey nearly two weeks ago and deported back to the United States over the weekend. Turkey accused him of allegedly having ties with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Turkey and the United States classify as a terrorist organization. But Hess and his lawyer have maintained that Hess was targeted because of his writings. His recent articles for Inter Press Service have focused on Turkish soldiers deliberately starting forest fires, the depopulation of Kurdish villages, and Turkish-Iranian air strikes on Kurdish homes in northern Iraq. Read more

Turkey detains freelance journalist for alleged ties to Kurdish rebels

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) — Turkish authorities have detained American activist and freelance journalist Jake Hess in the southeastern, predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir.

At a court appearance Sunday, a prosecutor charged Hess with “taking orders from a terrorist organization” and called for his immediate deportation from Turkey, witnesses said.

Turkish officialdom regularly refers to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as a terrorist organization.

U.S. diplomats say Hess rejected their offer of assistance after he was taken into custody. Read more

Turkey Accused of Using Chemical Weapons against PKK

By Daniel Steinvorth and Yassin Musharbash.

German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians are demanding an investigation.

It would be difficult to exceed the horror shown in the photos, which feature burned, maimed and scorched body parts. The victims are scarcely even recognizable as human beings. Turkish-Kurdish human rights activists believe the people in the photos are eight members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) underground movement, who are thought to have been killed in September 2009. Read more

Turkey: Date of next hearing set in Ferhat Tunç’s case

The date for the next hearing in the case against musician and Freemuse Award winner Ferhat Tunç has been set to 30 September 2010//

also Court sentences band members to 10 months imprisonment for Kurdish song

The Diyarbakir Criminal Court oversaw the first hearing on 28 July and has announced that it will proceed the case against Ferhat Tunç on 30 September.

In the latest of a number of cases against the musician, he will be tried for his public remarks made at a concert during a Nature, Culture and Arts Festival held in the eastern city of Siirt on 15 August 2009. Read more

Turkish Embassy rejects Archbishop Tutu’s letter calling for a negotiated settlment of the Kurdish question

Cape Town and the Chair of ‘The Elders’ (a group of former world leaders which aims to tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems) called on the Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as the political head of Turkey, to use his office and his influence to bring a lasting end to the conflict in Turkey with regards to the Kurdish question.

The Archbishop complimented Mr. Erdogan and his government for the support given to the people of Palestine, saying “We regard your pronouncements as the right ones and a declaration that matters of conflicts between nations can be settled only through peaceful negotiated talks amongst apposing groups.” Read more

“The Kurds are a proud people and will fight for their freedom”

Can you smell this? It is the smell of war. It gets you on the throat, is everywhere”. The young man smells the air and invite us to do the same. War has a smell. Sour, intense. Is the smell left by the F16 flying over continuously. Is the smell of the car speeding away, of the dust of the street of this tormented city. Diyarbakir. The young man speaks in a soft tone of voice. He is calm. And one wonders how he can be considering that any day now from Ankara could come the news that he has lost his appeal and he could soon find himself in prison sentenced to 12 years for making propaganda for an illegal organization, namely the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). “No, I didn’t go to the march the other day – he says – because I am banned from going to demonstration for five years”. Read more

Kurdish Mayor prosecuted over his speech on Autonomy in Turkey

Dersim public prosecutor office launched a criminal investigation against the mayor of Diyarbakir over his speech on Democratic Autonomy for Kurdistan.

Osman Baydemir, the mayor of the biggest Kurdish city in Turkey, Diyarbakir is facing a criminal investigation over his speech on Kurdish problem and democratic autonomy which he delivered at Dersim cultural festival on 31 July.

What did Baydemir say at the festival? Read more

Diyarbakir mayor issues call for autonomous Turkish regions

Turkey should allow the creation of local legislatures apart from the national Parliament, Diyarbakir Metropolitan Mayor Osman Baydemir said Saturday during a speech in the eastern Anatolian province of Tunceli.

Nationalist Turkish attacks on Kurds in Dortyol escalate

Following the attack of the other day on a police patrol and the security directorate building in Dortyol district of Hatay province in which 4 police were killed nationalist Turks attempted to lynch the Kurds living in the town

So called ‘ülkücü’ racist groups attacked office of the pro-Kurdish BDP party and set fire on. The attackers also destroyed 50 businesses run by the Kurds including cafes, restaurants and jewellery shops.

20-year old Kurdish youth injured. Read more

A law suit meant to silence Kurdish-expert Besikçi

“The Glory of Science in Turkey” is being sent back to prison

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has labeled the planned law suit against internationally renowned Turkish sociologist and author Ismail Besikçi as a “scandelous attempt to silence a critical voice for the Kurds.” Starting Wednesday, he is expected to go before the 11th criminal division in Istanbul to face a charge of particularly serious crimes. The famous Kurdish-expert has been charged with creating propaganda for the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is banned in Turkey. The District Attorney’s Office is demanding a prison sentence of eight and a half years. “Besikçi is, however, involved with the 15 million Kurds in Turkey on a purely scientific basis. To punish him for his work is completely arbitrary justice,” said Dr. Kamal Sido, consultant for the Middle East at the STP. Besikçi published, within the context of his personal research, an article titled “National Self-determination and the Kurds” in the Turkish magazine, “Our Era.” The magazine editor, Zeycan Balci, is likewise threatened with eight and a half years in prison. Read more

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