Hunger Strike in North Kurdistan (Turkey)

[Lepzerin]

There has been virtually no mention of the hunger strike in the United States, which I've been disappointed by. Both because of the elections and simply because the United States as a whole doesn't concern itself with Kurds as it's not tied to Israel. Has it come up at least in Europe? I'm at least encouraged that some of the politicians there have at least given mention of the issue, as have some journalists as I read from the rudaw article posted above.

[Qonyeyi]

There has been virtually no mention of the hunger strike in the United States, which I've been disappointed by. Both because of the elections and simply because the United States as a whole doesn't concern itself with Kurds as it's not tied to Israel. Has it come up at least in Europe? I'm at least encouraged that some of the politicians there have at least given mention of the issue, as have some journalists as I read from the rudaw article posted above.

Most left wing parties in Europe has given their open support for the demands of the hunger strikers. The right wing is silent. There is however very very little mention of it in the news. Most of it is in the newspapers and facebook sites. Here in Denmark, one Kurdish MP, two Danish MPS and two Kurdish local famous politicians have given her open support to the hunger strikers. The Kurdish lobby here has been able to get the hunger strike in the newspapers 1-2 times a week the last 2 weeks.

[brendar]

Its great to see kurds from South Kurdistan within the different cities, hawler, slemani, duhok, kirkuk, ranya.....are all supporting the Kurds in the North. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the revolution in Fascist turkey.

[Anthea]

ENGLAND KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING

The Guardian UK paper online

Will Erdogan do nothing to save the lives of Kurdish hunger strikers?

If you knew that more than 700 of your citizens might die soon, what would you do to stop it? That is the question that the Turkish government and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, faced with the massive hunger strike by Kurdish prisoners, now in its 58th day, need to answer.

But the answer so far seems to be "nothing". Very few in the west seem to be aware of the issue, with international media focused more on geopolitical concerns and the ongoing Syrian crisis. Yet they have a question of their own to answer: can Turkey still be held up as a role model for the Arab spring movement as it becomes more and more apparent that the Turkish government is apathetic towards the democratic rights and demands of its almost 20 million-strong Kurdish minority?

The hunger strikes started on 12 September with 65 prisoners. The official number has since reached 716, with claims from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy party (BDP) that elected officials from the party might join the ranks if their demands continue to be ignored.

Consisting largely of Kurds jailed after being linked to the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), the urban wing of the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), a guerilla group recognised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU, the hunger strikers have three key demands. These are an end to the solitary confinement of Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK, in jail since 1999 and without any access to his lawyers for almost a year now; the right to defend themselves in Kurdish in courts; and the right to study in Kurdish.

Erdogan, who was himself jailed for four months in 1998 for quoting a poem, has ignored these demands and shows no obvious empathy for the prisoners, who have now passed the critical 40-day threshold. They face permanent damage to their health, if not death, in the upcoming days. In several statements made in the last couple of days Erdogan has accused them of "blackmail" and "staging a political show".

On Tuesday, Erdogan continued to blame the BDP and PKK for manipulating the strikers, and did not comment on the deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç's statement that the government "will submit to parliament a reform allowing defendants to use languages other than Turkish in court".

Police have taken aggressive measures towards pro-Kurdish demonstrators marching in solidarity with the strikers, firing tear gas on and detaining participants. Erdogan's attitude is even more alarming given the fact that Turkey's collective conscience still bears the memories of two previous major hunger strikes in 1996 and 2000, the latter of which resulted in more than 100 deaths.

Turkish activists who witnessed the 2000 tragedy as mediators between the government and strikers are again trying to mobilie the public. International scholars such as Judith Butler have called for "serious dialogue with the prisoners". The European Commission and Amnesty International have also expressed concern.

Nevertheless, the general Turkish public is reluctant to call for efforts to end the strike let alone support the demands of the strikers. This is because they cannot differentiate between the PKK, which calls for autonomy in southeastern Turkey and whose 30-year-old armed struggle with the Turkish army has claimed more than 30,000 lives on both sides, and the civil rights demands of the Kurds.

The escalating conflict along the Turkish-Syrian border further complicates the situation: as the PKK increases its political and military influence in Syria's Kurdish areas and fights for an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria, the Turkish government seems to be taking a step back from its domestic "Kurdish opening" because it fears that process will strengthen the separatist claims of the PKK.

Erdogan gained international praise for supporting the democratic demands of the people of the Middle East as they stood up to their regimes. But he should not miss the opportunity to lead a truly democratic Turkey. He should expand the government's narrow reforms, which have included a Kurdish TV channel and elective Kurdish classes in schools, to broader civil and political rights, and start the negotiation process to end the ongoing military conflict with the elected Kurdish deputies of the BDP.

The deputy prime minister's recent statements and the meeting held between the justice minister and President Abdullah Gül, who seems to have a more progressive view on the Kurdish issue, are good indications that a bigger crisis might be averted soon. There are even reports that the strike might come to an end if Öcalan's lawyers are granted permission from the justice ministry to see him in the next couple of days. But if Erdogan is not to say "I did nothing to save the lives of 716 of my citizens", he should act quickly.

[dyaoko]

a good article on Middle East Research and Information Project :
Behind the Kurdish Hunger Strike in Turkey'

To hear Mazlum Tekdağ’s story is enough to understand why 700 Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Turkey. His father was murdered by the state in front of his Diyarbakır pastry shop in 1993, when Mazlum was just nine years old. His uncle Ali was kidnapped by an army-backed death squad known as JİTEM (the acronym for the Turkish phrase translating, roughly, as Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit) two years later. Mazlum never saw his uncle again, but a former JİTEM agent later claimed they tortured him for six months before killing him and burning his body by the side of a road in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır.

Such experiences have moved thousands of Kurds in Turkey to join the armed rebellion of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK,..

read the full article here :
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero110812#.U ... I.facebook

[Anthea]

Thank you dyaoko, I have just read the article and found it very interesting and informative.

Behind the Kurdish Hunger Strike in Turkey'
To hear Mazlum Tekdağ’s story is enough to understand why 700 Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Turkey. His father was murdered by the state in front of his Diyarbakır pastry shop in 1993, when Mazlum was just nine years old. His uncle Ali was kidnapped by an army-backed death squad known as JİTEM (the acronym for the Turkish phrase translating, roughly, as Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-Terror Unit) two years later. Mazlum never saw his uncle again, but a former JİTEM agent later claimed they tortured him for six months before killing him and burning his body by the side of a road in the Silvan district of Diyarbakır.

Such experiences have moved thousands of Kurds in Turkey to join the armed rebellion of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK,..

Having read the articile myself I think people should read it AND I think we should try to paste in on English speaking sites

read the full article here :
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero110812#.U ... I.facebook

Part of the article states:
There is evidence, moreover, to suggest that Turkish society was ready for a peace agreement.

I used to know several Turkish people STOP THROWING STONES AT ME They hate me because I have Kurdish friends

I disagree with that statement, I strongly believe the average Turk wants Turkey to KILL every single Kurd. The Turkish media has spent YEARS telling its Turkish population how evil Kurds are and how Kurds are trying to STEAL TURKISH LAND

There can be NO peace for Kurds in Turkey because Turkey has murdered THOUSANDS of KURDS and destroyed HUNDREDS of TOWNS and BURNT vast areas of LAND

There can ONLY be peace for Kurds in an INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN

I BELIEVE THAT THE HUNGER STRIKERS SHOULD BE STRIKING FOR AN INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN

[Anthea]

HUNGER STRIKE IN NANTES

France's Nantes on Tuesday in the city of Commerce launched the hunger strike in a tent that opens on November 8, in the square on Thursday ended a mass walk. Commerce Square until hundreds of people coming together Place Rouel square they marched. Walkers Nantes AKM (Alevi Cultural Association) and TKPML and sympathizers. Walking along the anti-Turkish slogans and frequent Dungeon direnişçilerini chanted slogans saluting the State. The action ended in Rouel.

IN PARIS, STUDENTS SIGN STAND

France's capital Paris Saint Denis University students, the PKK and Turkey applied to China, was in solitary confinement and prisons since September by the 12 prisoners from PAJK continues to draw attention to hunger grevlerine November 5, opened the stand since Monday.

Ektinlik ends today. Within the scope of the activity, as well as students studying at the University Union and Kürdistanlı from different parts of the world and are exposed to exploitation and injustice in their country was contacted with students.

Booth application form from the drop-down Thursday, gathered up to 1,500 signatures. Saint-Denis University students, China continued on isolation and attract attention to the different actions that are grevlerine dönüşümsüz hunger for an indefinite period of time.

Kürdistanlı also supports students ' Association members at the booth ACTİT. In particular, he is also active in the hunger strike in support of an emergency presented A. veteran of the Turkish Revolutionary Democrats showed interest in the stand.

The UNEF University branches with S.U.D Communist Party of sendikalarından students from the African students visited frequently, gave active support to stand.

THE KURDS WILL MAKE ACTION IN OSLO

Norway's capital of Oslo for three days on hunger strike in front of the central station toward the evening hours today while the Parliament building as much of a walk. Many of the Kurdish parties and the action is expected to be the party's messages read Norwegian.

On Thursday, the head of the Red Party Rodt Bjørnar Moxnes, Norway Norway Foreign Minister by writing a letter to the hunger that you intervene with Turkey for grevcisi prisoners and demands.

IN ZURICH, HUNGER STRIKE

Also in the city of Zürich from Switzerland's Zurich Halk solidarity in order to strike this hangover. The action started at 14.00 in community home polling station.

SWEDEN KURDISH COUNCIL CALL

Sweden Kurdish Council September 12, since that makes Turkey's prisons hunger strike since the Kurdish People and friends to dayanışmaları on November 10, will be held in Stockholm on Saturday to participate in the show.

Made by the Council and democratic mass organizations of Kurdish origin said in a statement sent to prison is the main language, the most basic demands of the Kurdish people, prisoners, education and advocacy with the Kurdish Public leader Abdullah Öcalan and their hunger for tecridin for the removal of the grevinin period, when two months.

Tutsaklarda said that the serious health problems that are specified by the head views on:

"Turkey is totally legitimate for the prisoners, if hunger grevindeki she does not take steps to meet the demands of developments can result in a worse trajediyle. The achievement of a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish problem to the tragic developments in ways that complicate the solution. "

MOUTHS BANTLAYACAKLAR

For these reasons, all living in Sweden Kürdistanlılar, revolutionary, democratic and human rights of all persons, institutions and organizations, since they are being asked to participate in the rally to be held on the Saturday of precision.

In a statement to a dinner at the demonstration to protest at the silence about the hunger grevleriyle demonstrators at the mouths of red tapes and kurdelelerle by.

November 10, to be held on Saturday in Stockholm's Norra Bantorget square demonstration will begin at 13.00. Speeches to the demonstrators will walk here in Sweden Parliament.

SORRY bad translation

[brendar]

Kurdish lawmakers from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) are ready to go on hunger strikes in a bid to support the demands of Kurdish prisoners who have been on mass hunger strikes for nearly two months across the Turkey’s jails.
The Kurdish MPs form BDP decided to join the hunger strikers whose demands have not yet been fully met by Turkish government.
The hunger strikers’ demands include better condition for jailed PKK leader Abdulla Ocalan and permission to use the Kurdish language in education and in courtrooms.

Gultan Kisanak BDP co-chair and other Kurdish MPs are to hold a meeting on Saturday and announce the start of their hunger strikes in a press conference to join the hunger strikes as it entered its 60th day by the Kurdish jailed activists.

Kisanak said that there will be a rally on Sunday morning and then walking to the jails. And they will turn off all the lights by tomorrow evening under the slogan of “ Do not darken the prisoners’ lives”.

http://pukmedia.co/english/index.php/77 ... er-strikes

[brendar]

Kurds around the world spread their message via currency bills!

[brendar]

...

[Rando]

erdogan is the biggest piece of shit on earth.

[alan131210]

he wouldnt dare coz he would bye-bye the EU join for good.

[Bestoun]

Turkey could bring back death penalty: Erdogan

ISTANBUL,— Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday Ankara would consider bringing back capital punishment in terror related crimes, a decade after it abolished the practice.

“The authority (to forgive a killer) belongs to the family of the slain, not to us,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by Anatolia news agency.

“We need to make necessary adjustments.” Given that the death penalty existed in China, Japan, Russia and the United States, Turkey needed to review its position, he said.

Already last week, the premier had raised the issue, citing popular support for such a move over the case of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of Turkey’s armed Kurdish rebellion.

Ocalan was charged with treason and sentenced to hang in 1999. But the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in October 2002 after Turkey abolished the death penalty under pressure from the EU, which Ankara wants to join.

Erdogan’s suggestion to put the issue of the death penalty on parliament’s agenda comes amid a hunger strike by some 700 Kurdish prisoners. They want better jail conditions for Ocalan,www.ekurd.net who has been kept in solitary confinement for a year and a half, and the lifting of restrictions on the use of Kurdish language.

Some of those protesting have been fasting for 61 days but Erdogan has dismissed the protest as “a show, blackmail, bluff.” On Saturday, several lawmakers from the parliament’s pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) joined the hunger strike.

Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish state in the south east of the country. By 2012, more than 45,000 people have since been killed.

But now its aim is the creation an autonomous region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who constitute the greatest minority in Turkey. A large Turkey's Kurdish community, numbering to 23 million, openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

The PKK wants constitutional recognition for the Kurds, regional self-governance and Kurdish-language education in schools.

PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees, lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish constitution.

The rebels have scaled back their demands for more political autonomy for the Kurds.

Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish language and private Kurdish language courses with the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish politicians say the measures fall short of their expectations.

The PKK is considered as 'terrorist' organization by Ankara, U.S. Also the PKK continues to be on the blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its political wing on the European Union's terror list.

Source: http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/mi ... ey4315.htm

haha and erdogan is saying kurds are trying to blackmail Turkey..

[Anthea]

Turkey could bring back death penalty: Erdogan

Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish state in the south east of the country. By 2012, more than 45,000 people have since been killed.

27th November 1978 was the date the PKK was formed and I am SURPRISED that nobody else spotted the mistake

[alan131210]

Nov 13(Reuters) - When Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged the existence of a "Kurdish problem" to a rally in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Mayor Osman Baydemir was among thousands who stood to applaud a momentous declaration. For decades, Turkey had refused even to recognise Kurds as a separate ethnic group.

Seven years later, Baydemir, shaking with anger, blames Erdogan's government for the worst fighting between the army and Kurdish rebels in years. Raising the stakes in his confrontation with Ankara, he has joined a hunger strike by Kurdish prisoners.

"When the prime minister said, 'The Kurdish problem is my problem too,' I was among those who stood up and applauded him. But we were fooled, our hopes were falsely raised," he says.

"We are living through the Kurdish cause's most critical period ... Ours is perhaps the last generation willing to extend a hand and negotiate."

Baydemir says the prosecution of thousands of Kurdish politicians and activists since 2009 and more recently the government's slow response to the hunger strike have sapped hopes for a solution to a three-decade conflict with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - deemed a terrorist group by the EU and Washington as well as Turkey.

The Kurdish conflict has taken some 40,000 lives, mainly Kurds, and burns at the heart of Turkey. It brakes the southeastern economy, draws criticism from abroad on rights policies and stirs anger in the Turkish heartland with images of soldiers' coffins returning, draped in the red Turkish flag.

Baydemir, 41, among the most prominent of Kurdish politicians, says his goal is to stop the violence. He is nothing if he is not dogged.

The mayor faces hundreds of criminal cases - too many to count, he says - for things he has said or done, including attending the funerals of PKK militants that has brought him charges of "spreading propaganda for a terrorist organisation".

ERDOGAN'S BOLD STEPS

"All of my life I have stayed away from violence and the instruments of violence, and have seen a legal, democratic struggle as the only means to achieve change," Baydemir says, his hands shaking as he gesticulates with anger.

"But I have had it up to here with the prosecutions, the government's attitude, the judiciary, the media's stance and the majority of Turks who view the Kurdish people's justified cause through a nationalist lens."

Where 37 fellow mayors languish in jail, Baydemir, outspoken as he is, has been spared arrest; perhaps because of his popularity or perhaps because of the symbolic importance of Diyarbakir, a city of 1.5 million people and the regional centre of Turkey's heavily Kurdish southeast.

"The government has shut all legal, democratic channels. This sends Kurds the message: 'Head to the mountains,'" Baydemir says, referring to PKK camps in northern Iraq and the highlands of southeastern Turkey where it fights Turkish soldiers.

Erdogan would see things quite differently.

He has taken steps leaders before him would never have dared in a country that had outlawed even the use of the Kurdish language until 1991.

As part of efforts to meet EU membership criteria, Erdogan allowed Kurdish television broadcasts and, most recently, elective Kurdish language courses at state schools.

In 2010, he risked the wrath of a conservative establishment by endorsing secret talks with PKK representatives. The talks failed, and the PKK has abandoned a ceasefire.

The last 18 months has seen the heaviest fighting in more than a decade between the PKK and the Turkish army. Since June 2011, when Erdogan was re-elected to a third term, more than 800 people have been killed, the deadliest fighting since PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and jailed in 1999, according to estimates by the International Crisis Group.

Does Baydemir, then, hold the hope of a mediated political solution, as his supporters argue? Or are he and his party tools of the PKK, as Erdogan has suggested?

HUNGER STRIKE

Critics say Baydemir and other officials of his Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have failed to hold the PKK accountable for violence. The EU has urged the BDP to distance itself explicitly from the insurgents. The BDP, for its part, says it shares no overt links, just a common grassroots.

"The BDP is failing those who voted for them to contribute to a political solution of the Kurdish problem," said Hilal Kaplan, a columnist for the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper.

"Baydemir is different. He has always questioned the PKK's effectiveness. But he and others on hunger strike are thumbing their noses at the state just when it was ready to negotiate."

Many Turks fear the PKK campaign, combined now with Kurdish rebel activity in Syria and the emergence of a strong autonomous Kurdish entity in northern Iraq, could threaten the unity of Turkey and lead to broader ethnic conflict in the country.

Serafettin Elci, an elder statesman in the Kurdish movement, described Baydemir as a tempering influence, an alternative to the lure of the PKK's promise of forcing change with the gun.

"His genuine aim is to stop the clashes, end the armed struggle and establish a lasting peace between Kurds and the state," said Elci, who served as a cabinet minister in the 1970s and returned to parliament in 2011 in a bloc with the BDP.

Baydemir announced last Saturday he was joining a hunger strike launched 64 days ago by prisoners and now involving some 1,800 people. The protesters, taking sugar water and vitamins, demand expansion of Kurdish language rights and access to lawyers for Ocalan, now held in an island prison off Istanbul.

A death now, says Baydemir, could only further complicate efforts towards a solution.

The government said last week it would send a bill to parliament to allow defendants to testify in Kurdish in court, a key demand, but cabinet has yet to approve it.

Most of the inmates on hunger strike are either convicted PKK members or accused of links to the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), which the state says is a PKK offshoot.

Many of the KCK defendants, including politicians, lawyers, journalists and others in prison for as long as 3-1/2 years without conviction, belong to the BDP, which Erdogan calls the PKK's "political extension."

Baydemir, who studied English in the United States before becoming mayor in 2004, accuses the government of prosecuting those who seek a political alternative to the PKK. That, he says, is the fundamental reason for the escalation in violence.

"We have a powerful prime minister. If he wants to solve the Kurdish issue, he will," the mayor said.

HOUSE UP FOR SALE

In 2010, a court barred Baydemir from traveling outside Turkey, but he has thus far escaped the lengthy pre-trial detention of his peers. Some 190 elected officials are in jail, including 37 mayors. Six BDP lawmakers are also behind bars.

"Authorities have probably decided against detaining Osman because he is so well-liked by the Kurdish public. There is a sensitivity towards Diyarbakir," said Raci Bilici, a successor of Baydemir as secretary of a human rights organisation.

Baydemir publicly lashed out at Erdogan following the arrest of Kurdish politicians in December 2009, and, referring to the BDP's oak tree emblem, asked: "Which branch of the oak tree poked what part of your body?"

Erdogan sued for defamation. Under a court ruling, a quarter of Baydemir's monthly salary is now sequestered to pay Erdogan compensation totalling some 50,000 lira, with fees and interest.

Facing another 50,000 lira suit from Erdogan - this time for calling the prime minister a "facist" following the arrest of another Kurdish mayor earlier this year - Baydemir has put his house up for sale in anticipation of the verdict.

"Osman may be prone to the occasional, very harsh outburst," Elci, the veteran Kurdish activist, observed.

"But at heart he is a dove."

Kurdish mayor in Turkey confronts PM Erdogan | Reuters