Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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