A BAD MOON RISES OVER TURKEY

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightning.
I see bad times today.
~ John Fogerty.

This weekend, Yüksekova and Hakkari led the way on payback for the new realities on the ground in Turkey.

Below is a video from Yüksekova showing the protests in the city this weekend. Please note that although it may be possible for some people to mistake the police in this video for Israeli security forces and the protestors as Gazans, this is not the case.

Although, it's also possible for some to ask me what the difference is between Turkish and Israeli security forces and I'd have to say, "None."

Here's a similar video (hat tip: Özgür Gündem), which shows a pack of Turkish--not Israeli--police severely beating one Kurd--not a Palestinian.

In Beytüşşebap, Molotov cocktails and stones were thrown at the Kaymakam's headquarters and the post office building. There were also clashes with police. My sources indicate that no DTP party members intervened to end the beating of two not-so-lucky police in Beytüşşebap. There's a tiny bit from ANF on that here: http://www.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=nuce&nuceID=18508 and something at Özgür Gündem.

The word from the region is that not only did the Kurds of Hakkari beat the shit out of two Turkish police, the people had also disarmed the police. In a moment of irony, if not for the intervention of DTP party members, the goat-smelling asses of these two police would have been torn to pieces by the crowd. You can see a video of those police getting what they so richly deserve, here.

Better luck next time.

Radikal had a number of photos from Hakkari, here. Below is a selection:

(I'm sorry, Mr. Police, but if you really love your fascist regime, you'll have to part with much, much more of your blood than that.)

In another item, I noticed that Radikal was reluctant to show the faces of two fascists who shot Şevket Aslan, a Kurdish youth who was attending a protest against DTP's closure in İstanbul Beyoğlu, but ANF had no such qualms. Here are the photos:





(Source: http://www.firatnews.com/gallery/index.php?rupel=galeri&gid=2491)

The images were captured by an AFP photographer. I hope they are spread around as much as possible so that these two hyenas can meet with an untimely end.

Human Rights Watch released a statement on DTP's closure. It says, "Blah, blah, blah, blah", which is exactly the same thing the ECHR is going to say about DTP's closure when their case finally makes its way through all the bullshit legal hurdles of the world's finest "democracies".

Excuse me for a moment while I vomit.

To end on a positive note, almost 800 new guerrillas have joined HPG in the last nine months (Source: http://www.firatnews.com/index.php?rupel=nuce&nuceID=18013). That's almost 100 new recruits per month. With any luck, by the spring we may see an increase in that average.

GUILTY OF THE CRIME OF KURDISHNESS IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

"Every time they asked me about my ethnicity, I answered, "Kurdish," and they beat me with a whip that looked like some kind of a hose."
~ Farhad Kamangar, Kurdish prisoner of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Last Friday, HRW issued its recent report on repression in East Kurdistan by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not that I agree with HRW's pacifist stance on everything particularly since, if you're a Kurd, the political avenue in the Islamic Republic is identical to that in Turkey--closed. But at least this is more documentation, more fuel for the fire. You can read the entire 42-page report here and here's something from the press release:

"Iranian authorities show little tolerance of political dissent anywhere in the country, but they are particularly hostile to dissent in minority areas where there has been any history of separatist activities," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division.

Kurds account for 4.5 million of the 69 million people in Iran, and live mainly in the country's northwest regions. Political movements there have frequently campaigned for greater regional autonomy. The main Iranian Kurdish parties with a long history of activism deny that they engage in armed activity and the government has not accused these groups of any such activity since the early 1990s.

"No one would contest a government's right to suppress violence," Stork said. "But this is not the case here. What is going on in the Kurdish areas of Iran is the routine suppression of legitimate peaceful opposition."

The new report documents how the government has closed Persian- and Kurdish-language newspapers and journals, banned books, and punished publishers, journalists, and writers for opposing and criticizing government policies. Authorities also suppress legitimate activities of nongovernmental organizations by denying registration permits or charging individuals working with such organizations with spurious security offenses.

One victim of the government's repression is Farazad Kamangar, a superintendent of high schools in the city of Kamayaran and an activist with the Organization for the Defense of Human Rights in Kurdistan. He has been in detention since his arrest in July 2006. The new report reproduces a letter Kamangar smuggled out of prison describing how officials subjected him to torture during interrogation.

On February 25, 2008, Branch 30 of Iran's Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death on charges of "endangering national security." Prosecutors charged that he was a member of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), but provided no evidence to support the allegation. In July, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence. Kamangar's lawyer has appealed to the head of the judiciary to intervene, the only remaining option for challenging the sentence.

The report notes that the recent round of repression began in August 2005 with the murder of Kurdish activist Şîrvan Qaderî, who was shot by the mullah's flying monkey security forces and then tied to the back of their vehicle and dragged through the streets until dead in the venerable Kurdish city of Mahabad.

What is also interesting in the report is the discussion of the Islamic Republic's constitution and that it is interpreted in ways similar to that in Turkey:

Iranian laws ostensibly protect freedom of expression and thought . . .

Article 15 of Iran's Constitution designates Persian as the "official and shared language of Iran" but allows for the "use of local and ethnic languages in groups' press and media and teaching of their literature in schools alongside Persian."[96] Article 19 of the Constitution states that "the people of Iran, no matter what ethnicity or tribe, have equal rights, and attributes such as color or race or language will not be a reason for privilege."[97] Despite these provisions, the cases covered in this report show that the editors and writers of Kurdish publications face violations of rights guaranteed by Iran's constitution and Press Law.

Article 9 of the constitution contains two seemingly contradictory provisions. On the one hand, it endorses prima facie violations of international human rights law and allows no option for balancing individual rights of freedom of expression or association with legitimate security considerations when it states, "No individual, group, or authority, has the right to infringe in the slightest way upon the political, cultural, economic, and military independence or the territorial integrity of Iran under the pretext of exercising freedom." The article goes on to state that "no authority has the right to abrogate legitimate freedoms, not even by enacting laws and regulations for that purpose, under the pretext of preserving the independence and territorial integrity of the country."[98] The authorities often rely on the first part of Article 9 to justify restricting freedom of speech in the Kurdish regions, while disregarding the same article's prohibition on undue restrictions.

[ . . . ]

The scope of Article 6 gives authorities broad legal cover to suppress freedom of expression. Section 1 prohibits publication of material that is "atheistic or contrary to Islamic codes, or promote subjects which might damage the foundation of the Islamic Republic."[101] Section 4 outlaws material that "creates discord between and among social walks of life, especially by raising racial issues."[102] Section 9 outlaws "quoting articles from the deviant press, parties, and groups which oppose Islam (inside and outside the country) in such a manner as to propagate such ideas."[103] Section 12 prohibits publishing anything critical of the constitution.

The Islamic Republic's constitution is also supposed to protect minority rights but, as in Turkey, this is merely cosmetics. Take this, for example and notice how Turkish it sounds:

Article 15 states that Persian is the official language of the country but stipulates that "the use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as for teaching of their literature in schools, is allowed in addition to Persian."[124]

Article 19 states that "all people of Iran, whatever the ethnic group or tribe to which they belong, enjoy equal rights; color, race, language, and the like, do not bestow any privilege." [125] Article 20 confirms equal protection under the law by stating that "all citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of the law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, in conformity with Islamic criteria."

Yeah, right everybody's equal! Well, we know very well that "Islamic criteria" don't count for a damn when the Muslims in question are Kurds.

The discussion includes "freedom of association" or the de facto lack thereof in the Islamic Republic's constitution, a lack which is justified by "security laws". All of these laws are interpreted broadly, as pointed out by the HRW report, so that they are virtually meaningless and a meaningless constitution is a hallmark of all fascist regimes. Such constitutions are nothing more than pieces of paper designed for show, to allow ugly regimes like those of Turkey or Iran a place at the table of so-called civilized nations.

A few years ago, a study published in the academic Journal of Religion and Society reported, "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies."

I wonder if higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator also correlate with higher rates of repression, human rights violations, and atrocities?

THE BULLSHIT AMERICAN MEDIA AND SIBEL EDMONDS

"And when I say the entire system being rotten, I mean Congress that is enthralled to corporate backers, and approving their aggressive foreign policy that enriches themselves, and does nothing to secure the American people or the interests of most American people."
~ Joe Lauria.

Here's the latest from Luke Ryland on the Sibel Edmonds case. The main theme of this work is the utter worthlessness of the American media, particularly with regard to Sibel's case, but the theme can be applied to many other cases as well, including that of the Kurds:

************

Last week, Scott Horton interviewed (audio) investigative journalist Joe Lauria. Lauria was one of the co-authors of the three-part (1, 2, 3) series on the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds for the UK's Sunday Times.

In the interview Lauria discusses the Sibel Edmonds case, the state of the US media, and the Military Industrial Complex in the context of his new book with presidential candidate Mike Gravel: "A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Mans Fight to Stop It".

In the interview, Lauria says that he spoke at length to the three FBI agents who were Sibel's immediate bosses at the FBI and that they "corroborated in general terms, that this story is true."

Lauria describes how he recently interviewed one of the FBI agents at his home for 90 minutes, and met another of Sibel's former bosses several times outside his house. The agents are unwilling to provide detailed corroboration on a lot of the details in the case because they fear being sent to prison, but their willingness to speak to Lauria about the case, and their supportive statements that "She's not crazy," provide generalized corroboration on the case.

The FBI itself is not happy that Lauria and the Sunday Times are still looking into the Edmonds case and they made a "formal complaint" with the Sunday Times (a British media outlet!) that Lauria stay away from the agents.

David Rose, author of the Vanity Fair article on Sibel's case, and the only other journalist who has been able to speak to some of the first-hand sources - from the FBI, Dept of Justice, and Congress - in Sibel's case, also reported how fearful his sources are:


"The people that I talked to about these tapes are extremely nervous. There is a climate in America now which is punitive towards people who are suspected of disclosing information without authorization to journalists. The approach of the Bush administration is to punish people who come forward."


The good news is that Joe Lauria and the Times have a lot more information about the case that they haven't yet published, and are still actively investigating - 8 months after their first article was published, and 6 years since Sibel first went to Congress. It is no wonder that the FBI is nervous and issuing formal complaints.

Case Background

Lauria gave a good summary of the nuclear black market element of Sibel's case:


"What Sibel revealed to us, and has been revealing little by little since January, is that she has heard that there was a nuclear procurement ring operating inside the US to procure nuclear designs and parts for the AQ Khan network, and it was done not through Pakistani intelligence directly, but through the Turkish embassy.

"Turkish businessmen who got the information and gave it to Turkish military attaches, who then turned it over to the ISI, and from there went on to the nuclear black market. To procure these parts and designs, high government US officials helped facilitate Turkish-Israeli PhD students to get into nuclear facilities in the US, they worked with the RAND corporation as well, some moles with RAND to help get this information. There was at least one American company, Giza Technologies, that was helping with parts, probably there were others, and this thing went on from 1995 at least until 2002, and it could still be going on - when this operation was shut down by the Dept of Defense and the State Dept.

"Now, Sibel tells us that high government officials inside those two departments - Defense and State - were involved in this ring. She has named them on her website - at least, she has not named them, she has photographs of people - other bloggers have named them."


US Media

Lauria excoriates the US media in the interview:

"Centrism is the philosophy of the American media - and that essentially backs the status quo, when you're a centrist, and this game of objectivity that they play is really limited by parameters that you're allowed to ask questions and to investigate and in a sense then you're transmitting these assumptions, and reinforcing every day that the US is really a functioning democracy

[...]

"The mindset of the American mainstream press does not allow certain ideas to easily filter through: the idea that high-ranking US officials might actually be facilitating this... It's entertainment all the time, the presidential campaign is entertainment, and do you actually think that these guys would actually go in there and make changes, whoever wins, when behind this wall of entertainment put forward by news media and the entertainment industry is a murky world of terrorism, nuclear procurement ring, of CIA, of the FBI working - and this rarely breaks through to the mainstream press...

"They rarely look at the entire system being rotten, not just one official here or there being rotten, and they pat themselves on the back. And when I say the entire system being rotten, I mean Congress that is enthralled to corporate backers, and approving their aggressive foreign policy that enriches themselves, and does nothing to secure the American people or the interests of most American people. That is not even in the discussion in the mainstream press, so this Boston Globe reporter was unable to conceive easily that a government official could have been nvolved."


Sibel's Comments

I asked Sibel for a comment about the interview, she replied:


"Again and again you see journalists in this country who think that their job consists of nothing more than phoning the FBI press office to ask for a comment. Only two journalists have spoken to actual first-hand sources about my case; David Rose who is British, and Joe Lauria working for a British newspaper. Why is it that only these two reporters were able to speak to sources at the Dept of Justice, at the FBI, and in Congress who are familiar with the details of my case?

"The agents that Joe Lauria spoke with are very familiar with all the details of the case because I worked directly with them. Yes, it is true that these sources are very nervous about speaking out because they fear the legal repercussions, however they shouldn't have anything to fear, because they know that it is illegal for the government to classify anything for the purpose of hiding criminality. As I've been saying from the beginning, Congress needs to hold hearings and put us all under oath where we are protected so long as we tell the truth."


It is time for hearings. All it takes is one congressman to hold hearings, or to read the classified information into the public record. Who will stand up?

************

A full transcript of Scott Horton's interview of Joe Lauria is at Luke's blog, Against All Enemies. Luke's recent work can be viewed at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak and, with comments, at DailyKos. In the interview transcript, there is much more on Sibel's case, The Times investigation into her case from the nuclear blackmarketing and proliferation angle, and how truly pathetic the bullshit American media really is.

In other news, it shouldn't be surprising to learn that a regime which already has two genocides under its belt is now hosting Sudan's war criminal, Omar al-Beshir during an Africa conference in Istanbul. The conference is being held because Turkey's campaigning for its first chance at one of the non-permanent UN Security Council seats in 2009/2010.

In another vain attempt to knock a sense of morality into the Ankara regime, Human Rights Watch issued a call for Turkey to do the right thing.

Some people never learn.

PREPARING FOR SUNDAY

"Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals."
~ Lucy Parsons.

The elections take place this Sunday, and for that reason, consider this post as a homework assignment to prepare yourself even if you're not voting. After all, you'll have to unwind the spin that's bound to come from the media on Monday. And, yes, it does have a test, as a matter of fact.

Do you know where you stand on the political spectrum? If not, take the test at The Political Compass. You'll find out whether you're right or left, fascist/authoritarian or anarchist/libertarian. You'll find out if you're standing on the spectrum next to Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, or George W. Bush. Then you can check out the reading list to learn more about your position on the compass.

Then go over to KHRP and check out their briefing for the Turkish elections--thanks to Hevallo for the head's up on that. The briefing is in .pdf on KHRP's homepage. It's a backgrounder in a nutshell:

The means deployed to prevent the Kurds in the Southeast from electing a pro-Kurdish representative for the national parliament distorts Turkey’s proportional electoral system and denies the Kurdish population the right to have their free will expressed and heard.

Obviously, there's no democracy here.

Some have said that the current "State of Emergency" in Sêrt, Culemêrg, and Şirnex is not really an OHAL as in the 1990s, but it is a de facto OHAL and that's the conclusion that KHRP has reached:

The security situation has deteriorated and the military has declared the south-eastern areas of Siirt, Hakkâri and Şırnak a High Security Zone since 9 June.

[ . . . ]

At the same time, KHRP has received reports of security forces intimidating villagers in the area which has been declared a High Security Zone, in order to make them abstain from voting for independent candidates. These reports must be taken very seriously as intimidation by security forces constitutes a flagrant violation of the principle that the people through elections should be able to freely express their will.

[ . . . ]

Targeted security cautions in the form of roadblocks and identity checks by armed officials frustrate the efforts of pro-Kurdish parties like the DTP to function freely. While Prime Minister Erdoğan has denied that the declaration of a High Security Zone in the provinces of Siirt, Hakkâri and Şırnak meant that the so called Emergency Rule Region (OHAL) was in place again, in practice access to the area by civilians has been heavily restricted. Reports of security forces intimidating voters in the region add to the concern that voters in the area will be prevented from expressing their will freely in the elections.

There you have it--a virtual OHAL--and it's only a matter of time before atrocities similar to those committed against the Kurdish people in the 1990s are widespread again. It's interesting to note that no one from the EU has condemned Turkey for the de facto OHAL, especially since it went into effect during the campaign period.

In addition to a description of the 10% threshold, the threat the main Turkish parties feel from the independent candidates, and the regime's response to that perceived threat, there's also a short discussion of the language issue with regard to campaigning:

According to Article 58 of the Law on Basic Provisions on Elections and Voter Registers it is strictly forbidden to use any other language than Turkish in “electioneering”. As part of its reform process, prohibitions on the use of other languages than Turkish have been loosened up, and in August 2002 laws were changed to allow limited broadcasting and education in languages other than Turkish. However, the prohibition on the use of any other language than Turkish in electioneering remains in force. Before the 2002 elections, several candidates and supporters in the Southeast had cases filed against them or were detained for speaking Kurdish at rallies or for playing Kurdish music.

If anyone still believes that things have changed since 2002 or before, with regard to the use of Kurdish language in politics, read about some of the recent incidents to the contrary, from the hevals at KurdishInfo.

With KHRP's short description of the facts on the ground regarding the language issue and campaigning, and with the list of abuses at KurdishInfo, take a look at this piece of information from The Economist:

In the Kurds' unofficial capital, Diyarbakir, Kurdish women were recently ululating appreciatively as Mehdi Eker, the farm minister, reeled off the government's achievements and goals: average annual growth of 7.3% (nearly four times the EU figure), a record $20 billion in foreign direct investment, $40 billion in tourism earnings by 2013. “We gave your children free textbooks, brought the internet to their schools, and water to all your villages,” said Mr Eker. He was speaking the most common Kurdish dialect, Kurmanji. Until the AK Party passed a raft of constitutional and judicial changes, he might have been jailed on separatism charges for doing so.

Sayın Eker failed to mention that AKP gave the green light for TSK to murder Kurdish children during the Amed Serhildan in March 2006, or to torture them in the aftermath. Naturally The Economist is lying about constitutional or judicial changes that allow the honorable Sayın Eker to speak Kurmancî while campaigning. The reason for the lack of jailing on "separatism charges" in the case of Mehdi Eker is that he is not one of the DTP candidates. This is the same kind of reality that convicts Ahmed Türk and Aysel Tüğlük for referring to Öcalan as "Sayın" but lets Erdoğan get away unpunished for doing the same thing.

Or compare the situation of DTP's Selahattin Demirtaş to that of Mehdi Eker:

"The fact that we were forced to stand as independents is in itself a manifestation of undemocratic practice," said Selahattin Demirtas, one of about 20 to 30 Kurds expected to make it into the 550-seat parliament.

His woes do not end there: Demirtas cannot address his electorate in Kurdish because Turkish is the only legal language of the election campaign.

"It is so hard to have a real dialogue with the people. Sometimes I feel I fail to get my message through," he said as he toured impoverished villages near Diyarbakir.

The 34-year-old lawyer still greets the villagers in Kurdish before switching to Turkish for his speech.

But the questions come in Kurdish: one man asks Demirtas whether he would help the jobless relatives of a local party activist if elected. One woman complains that their only source of water is the fountain on the village square.

Demirtas answers patiently -- in Turkish.

To compensate where his message may fail, a Kurdish-speaking imam steps in.

Read on and see what the Kurdish imam has to say about Islamist AKP.

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch issued its own press release and backgrounder on the Paşas' meddling in the months before Sunday's elections and the civilian Ankara regime's total failure to maintain momentum on human rights reforms--no problem there, actually, since the reforms are all cosmetic anyway. The HRW report contains more detail than KHRP's briefing, but the examples given are more of the same and it makes for very good pre-election reading.

Just so everyone can remember what is what and who is really who within the Model of Democracy.

On Sunday, vote the pomegranate to help guarantee the fulfilment of a thousand hopes for millions of the oppressed.

HRW AND SOUTH KURDISTAN

"Human Rights Watch has long urged political leaders and officials of both the KDP and PUK administrations to allow criminal prosecution of law enforcement officials accused of abusing detainees. In practice, criminal prosecutions of this kind in the Kurdistan region have been the exception rather than the rule, and the absence of political will in this regard has encouraged a climate of impunity in which security forces are able to commit abuses without accountability."
~ Human Rights Watch, "Caught in the Whirlwind: Torture and Denial of Due Process by the Kurdistan Security Forces".

Good news. HRW has issued a report on torture, detention, and related issues in South Kurdistan. The summary of the report can be read here, or you can browse your way through the entire report.

Why is this good? Well, because HRW admits that the two main Kurdish parties and the KRG were cooperative, and as this kind of information is publicized, we can hope that the human rights situation will improve in South Kurdistan. HRW notes the cooperation of Kurdish authorities, in contrast to the cooperation, or lack thereof, of the Baghdad government as well as of the US and UK military forces in country:

The Kurdistan authorities from both the KDP and PUK gave Human Rights Watch access to all Asayish detention facilities and allowed unannounced visits at times of our own choosing. With the exception of detainees undergoing interrogation or held in solitary confinement, Human Rights Watch received the full assistance of prison officials to interview any of the other inmates held at these facilities in conditions that allowed for confidential interviews. The Kurdistan authorities also facilitated the organization’s access to Asayish officials, prison directors, legal advisers and other relevant actors. This cooperation was in stark contrast to the approach of the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense, and to the US and United Kingdom (UK) military forces in Iraq, which since April 2003, have repeatedly denied Human Rights Watch’s requests for access to their detention facilities.

In spite of "severely overcrowded and unhygienic" conditions in Kurdish detention facilities, South Kurdistan would appear to remain a dumping ground for those detained by the Americans in other parts of Iraq. You would think the US could use it's worldwide network of rendition facilities to hold those they take into custody from Arab Iraq, instead of sending them to Kurdistan. Or perhaps they should consider building new detention facilities in the billion dollar permanent military facilities that the US is constructing in Iraq.

What appears to be problematic from the Kurdish side is the fact that, although Kurdish authorities indicate a certain level of cooperation, it seems that they are failing to follow through with corrections. In that case, it's obvious that more will have to be publicized about the situation in order to shame the leadership into actually cleaning up on the issues brought out by the report.

Now, I'll tell you what hacks me off about this report. There is no mention of what the situation is regarding political prisoners. If detention conditions so closely resemble those which characterized detention under the Saddam regime, or conditions which detainees and prisoners suffer in Turkish prisons, then the probability is high that political prisoners do exist in South Kurdistan. What is their number? For what reasons are they detained? Are they tortured? Do they simply "disappear"? Instead of including an investigation on this subject, the report appears to focus in its majority on Arab detainees.

Since the detention of Kamal Sayid Qadir, we know that there have been detentions of journalists and other dissenters or those critical of the situation in South Kurdistan. For that reason, HRW should have also investigated the question of political prisoners. If there is nothing negative to report on this subject, HRW could have verified the fact.

The publication of this report should also cause us to ask what HRW is doing, if anything, about documenting other abuses. What is HRW doing to investigate the situation of women and youth in South Kurdistan, or the very serious and widespread fact of political corruption? Are there other organizations that should be investigating these issues? Is someone going to document the scandal of the lack of basic services?

It is only when these kinds of problems become cases of public and international shame for the KDP and PUK that there is hope for the slightest improvement for the long-suffering people of South Kurdistan. It's time that HRW and other international organizations raised a ruckus about them. If not, these organizations run the risk of appearing to bash the American administration as an end in itself with no real concern for the Kurdish people. If that is the case, the credibility of organizations like HRW will fall like a GBU 28 falling toward its target through the clear blue sky.

Bombs away!