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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
g: PrO-hlamic Mayor Sentenced in Turkey
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~ Court Gives Istanbul Politician 10-Month Term Jor 'Inciting Hatred'
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By Kelly CoutUrier
Wa.\'h1ngtonPost S~rvic~
ANKARA - A state security court
Sentenced the mayor of Istanbul, Recep
Tayy,ip Erdogan, a prominent prc>-Islamiclpolitician,
to 10 months in prison
Tuesday for "inciting hatred" in a
speech he delivered last year.
. Mr. Erdogan, wh,ois widely expected
to become the next leader of the country'
s sizable pro-Islamic political party,
the Virtue Party, was sentenced for a
speech in which he recited the following
words from a folk poem to acrowd in the
southeastern town of Siirt last December:
"The mosques are our barracks, the
domes our heImets, the minarets our
bayonets and the faithful our soldiers. "
The ruling against Mr. Erdogan by the
Diyarbakir .S~ Security Court comes
amid a military-led crackdown against
the pro-Islamic movement in which sèveral
pro-Islamic mayors have been sentenced
to prison terms, religious education
centers bave been closed and
secular dress codes have been enforced.
The popular pi'o-Islamic Welfare
farty was banned in January for antisecular
activities, following the collapse
ttnder military pressure fast July of the
g')vernment it led,
NecmettiD Erbakan, the Welfare
Party leader and former prime minister,
was banned from politics for five years.
Most of the Welfare Party members
have now regrouped in the Virtue Party,
over which Mr. &bakan still exercises
great control, but which some say Mr.
Erdogan is set to take over.
Neither the Welfare Party nor its successor
Virtue Party have used violence,
but in the case last year against the
Welfare Party, prosecutors pointed to
several incendiary speeches by its members
as evidence of the party's antisecular
nature.
Mr. Erdogan, who said he would appeal
the ruling, had denied the charges
of provocation, saying he had merely
cited a poem in the speech.
If Mr. Erdogan 's sentence is upheld
by the court of appeals, he will be forced
to step down as mayor and will. not be
allowed to run for re-election.
The announcement of the mayor's
sentencing followed overnight police
raids in several cities and the arrests of
20 businessmen suspected in laundering
money for radical Islamic groups or
illegally transferring funds to them.
• Rights Campaigner Faces Jail
Turkey' s top human rights campaigner,
facing severallegal charges, denied
at his latest trial Tuesday that he had
aided Kurdish rebels, Reuters 'reported
from Ankara.
"I do not accept the charges against
me and want my acquittal," Akin
Birdal, chairman of the Human Rights
Association, told a court. "I believe
defending human rights is not a crime,
but a duty," he said.
Mr. Birdal is charged with encouraging
guerrillas by making a speech in
Rome last year in which he urged a
peaceful end to the 13-year-old Kurdish
conflict.
He faces several criminal charges related
to his criticism of Turkey's human
rights performance and the treatment. of
itSK\lIdish minority. He faces up to seven
years in jail in the latest case alone.
Rights Panel Chastises Iran
R~ut~rs
GENEVA - The UN Commission
on Human Rights called on Iran on
Wednesday to balt human-rights violations,
including torture, amputations
and stonings, and it expressed
concern over the "large number of
executions" in the country.
After intense debate and calls by the
Organization of the Islamic Conference
to recognize progress in Iran;the
53-member United Nations body
passed a European Union resolution,
23 to 14, with 16 absten,tions.
"In the past year, there.have been
changes in Iran, improvements in
some aspects of the human-rights situation
and statements by the government
suggesting more changes are on
the way," the Britishdelegate,
Audrey Glover, said on behalf of the
EU, "Any resolution on human rights
in Iran must recognize the good and
the bad."
But the delegate from Pakistan,
Munir Akram, speaking for the 55-
member Islamic group, rejected the
EU text as "condemnatory," adding:
"It is not the way to encourage further
progress in the promotion of human
rights in Iran. '!
The Iranian delegation ~inted to
initiatives taken by President Mohammed
Khatami, who took office in
August, said the EU motion fell short
of "recognizing the reality" in Iran.
Separately, the UN commission
adopted a U.S.-backed resolution on
the former Yugoslavia, condemning
violent repression in Kosovo and terrorism.
It called on Serbian authorities
to "put an end to the continuing repression
of and prevent violence
against the ethnic Albanian population.
"
The commission also condemned
the abduction of children in northern
Uganda, for which the Lord's Resistance
Army, a rebel movement, has
largely been blamed.
Turkish Politician Sees
Elections in March '99
ANKARA - Turkey will hold general
elections March .28, 1999, a party
leader said Thursday after a meeting
with Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz.
Deniz Baykal. whose Republican
People's Party has been givi;ng key outside
backing to Mr. Yilmaz's minority
government, insisted on early elections in
return for his party's continued support.
He said a new government would be
formed in October to take the country to
elections. General electionsf last,held in
December i995, were npt officially due
untiI2000.
The agreement comes a day after Mr.
Baykal's party backed a bill in Parliament
pushed by Mr. Yilmaz's rivals
to have an investigation opened into
allegations that the prime minister tried
to conceal some of his wealth.
Although Mr. Baykal insisted the
party voted for an inquiry as a malter of
principle, newspaper reports maintained
it was intended as a message to
Mr. Yilmaz.
(AP. Remers)
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