The European Parliament fully supports Leyla Zana
BITS & PIECES OF 5th EUTCC CONFERENCE 2009 BRUSSELS
Thursday, January 29, 2009
EU parliament supports Leyla Zana
Leyla Zana was condemned by the Court of the First Instance to 10 years in jail for defending the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in December 2008. The public prosecutor appealed and has called for 5 years’ imprisonment per speech, in other words 45 years. But Francis Wurtz – President of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left Group – announced that the European parliament support Zana.
During the EUTCC conference Wurtz announced that Leyla Zana was invited to a forthcoming meeting of the European Conference of Presidents. That an official European Parliament delegation is going to attend the lawsuit against Leyla Zana at the Court of Appeal, on 31 March next in Ankara. And that a letter will be sent from the President of the European Parliament to the Commissioner in charge of membership negotiations with Turkey about this serious affair.
“I am delighted at the decision by the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament which adopted as its own the idea that I expressed: “we must consider this lawsuit against Leyla Zana to be a lawsuit against the European Parliament,” said the relieved European politician, that has been supportive of Zana.
Leyla Zana was supposed to go back to Turkey on 29 January after the first day of the EUTCC conference about Kurds in the EU parliament, but she had meetings with European officials.
Recently also the Dutch government announced that they would monitor the court case against Leyla Zana, but that they cannot demand from the Turkish government to drop the charges. Since the court is independent from the government.
Posted by Wladimir van Wilgenburg at 4:25 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: EUTCC, Turkey
EUTCC aims to combats Turkish lobby
Some Kurdish nationalists questioned the successes of the EU Turkey Civic Commission’s work during their conference on 29-30 January (which is non-governmental organization). Until now they have organized five conferences about Turkey, EU and the Kurds. But what’s the goal of the organization? According to one of the founders the goal is to lobby for the ‘Kurdish movement’. But the EUTCC is mainly focused on the Kurds from Turkey and not other regions.
According to a KHPR press release the EU-Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC), aims to both promote and provide suggestions for Turkey’s bid for EU accession and to help guarantee respect for human and minority rights and a peaceful, democratic and long-term solution to the Kurdish situation. Founding members of the EUTCC include the Kurdish Human Rights Project, the Bar Human Rights Committee, Medico International and the Thorolf Rafto Foundation for Human Rights.
Every year the EUTCC organizes a conference in the European parliament about Turkey and the Kurds. EUTCC board member Mark Muller explained that the goal is to legitimate the ‘Kurdish complaints’. During these conferences activists, journalists and politicians come together to discuss with each other and share the different views. The conference is divided in subsections with different perspectives from human rights lawyers, experts, politicians and NGO’s (for instance constitutional reforms, economics, human rights, international relations, linguistic rights, etc).
The EUTCC also gives room to the PKK lobby to present their ideas. Examples were Roj TV journalist Amed Dicle and the KNK executive Adem Uzun who heavily complained about Europe’s policies towards the Kurds during their speech. This presents certain limits to the different views of the conference and results in a domination of the PKK vision on Kurds.
One pro-reform columnist of the Turkish newspaper Zaman was invited, but eventually didn’t come due to PKK-presence. Also Turkish politicians and intellectuals will think twice before they go to an EUTCC conference. This also might pose limits to convince the Turkish government of the EUTCC recommendations. EUTCC member Jon Rud is banned from Turkey for ‘posing a security threat to Turkey’ and sympathizing with the PKK. It’s likely Turkey will listen to EUTCC members as Jon Rud.
As a result the views presented at the conference are sometimes not very diverse. The famous Turkish journalist Cengiz Candar wasn’t very happy with the speeches of some European politicians that mostly showed the negative parts of reforms by the AKP government. “The tone of the conference didn’t make me very happen.” Candar therefore noted that Turkey is not like Darfur, Burma Zimbabwe. According to Candar this is not helping Kurds and Turkey to democratize.
But the actual goal of the EUTCC conference is to inform the EU establishment of the claims of Kurds. Not to make Turks like Cengiz Candar happier or to incite the Turkish government to reform. One of the EUTCC members said that the goal is that the EUTCC wants to have Kurds on the same level as the people representing Turkey. Since the Kurdish non-state actors don’t have the geopolitical and economical importance, this makes them weaker in negotiations and international relations.
At the end of every conference a draft resolution with recommendations is presented and debated by the public. After the conference the resolution is adapted according to criticism and new ideas accumulated through the conference. Eventually the resolution is sent to the EU-parliament, EU ministers in charge and the EU presidency to come ‘up with proposals to combat the strong pro-Turkish lobby. The resolution is also sent to journalists. ‘To get legitimacy in the struggle we wage.’
Next to this the resolutions are used for human right organizations like Amnesty, during trials, trial observations. Most of the resolutions are presenting constitutional reforms, dialogue, an end to military operations and more cultural rights. The EUTCC also surprisingly calls for the attention for the improvement of the prison condition of Abdullah Ocalan. One of the biggest conditions of PKK organizations.
This year the EUTCC will also sent a letter to the new Obama administration to convince them of the ‘Kurdish position’ on Turkish-Iraqi relations. They also successfully lobbied for Leyla Zana. As a result Leyla Zana will be invited to a conference of the presidents of the European parliament and an official EU delegation will go to the monitor the court case against Leyla Zana. A letter about Leyla Zana from the EU parliament will also be sent to the EU commission.
Wladimir van Wilgenburg
