Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
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REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RwISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETÎ<br />
6 Turkish Probe August 24, 1993<br />
Has I,1klar or Democracy<br />
Been Ousted from Parliament?<br />
Fehmi 1~lklar, the <strong>de</strong>puty speaker of the Turkish<br />
Parliament and Diyarbakir <strong>de</strong>puty for the<br />
junior coalition government partner, the Social<br />
Democratic People's Party (SHP), was stripped<br />
of both of those titles when the Constitutional Court<br />
<strong>de</strong>cision against him was officially submitted to the<br />
Speakership office on Aug. 18.<br />
The Constitutional Court had <strong>de</strong>ci<strong>de</strong>d on July 14<br />
that 1~lklar, as the former head of the pro-Kurdish<br />
People's Labor Party (HEP), had violated the Constitution<br />
and the Political Parties Law by "dividing the<br />
nation into Turks and Kurds and had <strong>de</strong>scribed<br />
Kurds as an oppressed nation" in his speeches prior<br />
to the October 1991 elections. It had also <strong>de</strong>ci<strong>de</strong>d<br />
upon the closure of the HEP.<br />
Shortly before the October '91 elections, 1~lklar<br />
and other HEP <strong>de</strong>puties had agreed on an election<br />
alliance with the SHP and were elected to Parliament<br />
as SHP <strong>de</strong>puties. Eighteen Kurdish-origin <strong>de</strong>puties<br />
had later resigned from the SHP and rejoined<br />
the HEP. But 1~lk:ar, a former tra<strong>de</strong> union lea<strong>de</strong>r<br />
and a respected name of Turkish center-left politics,<br />
stuck with the SHP.<br />
The so-called <strong>de</strong>tailed verdict of the court ousted<br />
this elected and respected member of Parliament.<br />
"' haven't been taken to court because of any cor-<br />
ruption or theft charge, its because of what I thought<br />
and said," 1~lklar un<strong>de</strong>rlines, while corruption<br />
claims shake up both partners of the coalition.<br />
The court <strong>de</strong>cision which lifted 1~lklar's parliamentary<br />
immunity, opened the way to put him on trial<br />
for violating Turkish Penal Co<strong>de</strong> 125. The co<strong>de</strong><br />
concerns the "unity of the nation and state" and<br />
suggests punishment up to the <strong>de</strong>ath penalty for<br />
carrying out "separatist actions" and propaganda.<br />
Right after the <strong>de</strong>cision was submitted to Parliament,<br />
the chief prosecutor of the Ankara State Security<br />
Court (DGM), Nusr<strong>et</strong> Demiral, announced on<br />
Thursday that two separate court cases would be<br />
opened against 1~lklar.<br />
"I am worried for <strong>de</strong>mocracy," 1~lklar comments<br />
on the Constitutional Court <strong>de</strong>cision. "I've been in a<br />
struggle so far for people who were subjected to injustice.<br />
From now on that struggle will also be for<br />
my own rights." He says that inclu<strong>de</strong>s applying to<br />
international bodies like the European Commission<br />
of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice<br />
in the Hague.<br />
Many political observers believe it is not only 1~lklar<br />
but also freedom of expression which was ousted<br />
from the Turkish Parliament on the threshold of<br />
the 21 st century.<br />
;;;;~'J;t8~:~~:'~,;;:.f~;'):;,;:,;/':;:'>'_" ',: :" ;< " " ::-::::,,:/~; __ ,-,>-' " ,'_' •<br />
1::,esin Strikes B.ck as SIvas ~s Proceed<br />
~:;(':<br />
"\ ......••.. he Sivas trials concerning the July 2 funda-<br />
,.,. mentalist arson attack in this Central Anai,>.a.<br />
tolian city which claimed 37 lives entered a<br />
jlew phase last week. The first statements of mo-<br />
'ire than one hundred suspects were taken by a<br />
'SiVas court. Perhaps the fundamentalist slogans<br />
.:sh()uted In the, court by the <strong>de</strong>tainees, probably<br />
q()lJ~to affect the judges, caused the Court of<br />
.;,6,ppeals to shift the trials to Ankara for security.<br />
i ln the meantime, Aziz Nesin, the leftist writer<br />
dpublisher, has announced that he would publs~<br />
Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie's<br />
, troversial novel, "The Satanic Verses," in Tur-<br />
'tktsh: Nesin has been accused by the Islamist me-<br />
'dia of provoking the reaction of "Muslims" in Si-<br />
JYa~by publishing excerpts from the novel in the<br />
left~wing daily Aydmltk.<br />
,. .'~~sln's publication and his speech during the<br />
. Sultan Abdal festival, a celebration of the 17th<br />
ptury Alawi po<strong>et</strong>, prior to the massacre, were<br />
'~~erstood later ~s a reason for an Alawi-Sunni<br />
:,,99flfrontation in SIVas.<br />
::~;',,'Rüshdie accused Nesin after the massacre of<br />
,;'pnoting the excerpts as part of a secularist cam-<br />
7'~ign against Islamic fundamentalists in Turkey.<br />
He also had accused Nesln and other secularists<br />
in Turkey of using his book to provoke Muslim fanatics,<br />
which led to the arson attack against the<br />
Sivas hotel where Nesin and a group of intellectuals<br />
were staying at the time of the riot.<br />
Rushdie's novel was banned in Turkeyafter adverse<br />
public reaction when it was first published.<br />
He has spent four years un<strong>de</strong>r police guard since<br />
the late Ayatollah Khomeini <strong>de</strong>clared his book<br />
blasphemous and issued a <strong>de</strong>ath <strong>de</strong>cree, or fatwa,<br />
against him.<br />
Nesin says his renewed effort to publish "The<br />
Satanic Verses" will inclu<strong>de</strong> a campaign to lift the<br />
ban on the book, in the name of freedom of expression.<br />
And this time he says he has the backing and<br />
cooperation of Rushdie.<br />
Following two me<strong>et</strong>ings with Rushdie in the<br />
Rheinhotel Schulz in Koln, Germany, on Aug. 15-<br />
16, through the intermediation of the. German writer<br />
Gunther Walraff, Nesin <strong>de</strong>clared that they have<br />
agreed to take a joint stand against fundamentalism!<br />
accusing Western governments of treating<br />
the problem of religious fundamentalism with indifference.<br />
75