Subject: Flash Bulletin!!
From: Internationale Initiative (info@freedom-for-ocalan.com)
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 02:44:53 CDT
International Initiative
Freedom for Ocalan - Peace in Kurdistan
P.O. Box 100511, D-50445 Koeln
Telephone: +49 221 130 15 59
Fax: +49 221 139 30 71
E-Mail: info@freedom-for-ocalan.com
Url: www.freedom-for-ocalan.com
Flash Bulletin 27. September:
www.freedom-for-ocalan.com/bulletin
1. "Captive guerrillas were executed", It was notified that fifteen un armed guerrillas who were in Karadag (South Kurdistan) undertaking political activities were executed by PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan).
2. "The mothers have taken front for peace", A group of women in Diyarbakir members of the Mothers of Peace Initiative, have gone to Suleymaniye, with the attacks of PUK, to stop the war amongst Kurds.
3. "MPs Condemn Any Kind of Military Confrontation in Northern Iraq", Members of Parliament from the Iranian Kurdish-inhabited provinces on Tuesday condemned any kind of military confrontation in northern Iraq and called on Iraqi Kurdish parties to resolve their differences through negotiations.
4. "The state to be pushed into 'secondary' position", Opinion by Mehmet Ali Birand
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1. - Ozgur Politika - "Captive guerrillas were executed":
It was notified that fifteen un armed guerrillas who were in Karadag (South Kurdistan) undertaking political activities were executed by PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan). It was informed that the PUK was in effort to joint attack the PKK, however the KDP (Iran- Kurdistan Democratic Party) did not take this desire warmly.
Again in this same area a 19 persons guerrilla group were handed over to PUK by complot from an organisation called Zahmetkesan.
>From information given by those close to PUK, Celal Talabani was preparing to enter Turkey with a delegation to pull Turkey into the war, however for some reason decided not to in the last minute.
2. - Yeni Gundem - "The mothers have taken front for peace":
A group of women in Diyarbakir members of the Mothers of Peace Initiative, have gone to Suleymaniye, with the attacks of PUK, to stop the war amongst Kurds. Kurdish representatives called for dialogue.
The group of women that seek to receive an answer to calls of peace from the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Celal Talabani. Have gone to South Kurdistan for a meeting with Celal Talabani.
3. - Theran Times - "MPs Condemn Any Kind of Military Confrontation in Northern Iraq":
TEHRAN / IRNA
Members of Parliament from the Iranian Kurdish-inhabited provinces on Tuesday condemned any kind of military confrontation in northern Iraq and called on Iraqi Kurdish parties to resolve their differences through negotiations.
In a statement, the MPs called on Islamic and international forums especially the Iranian Foreign Ministry to do all within their power to prevent bloodshed in Iraqi Kurdish region.
The statement said, "War-mongering will bring nothing but insecurity in the region as well as human and financial losses and displacement of women and children." The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which have controlled northern Iraq since 1991 are at loggerheads over sharing revenues of the province from customs and border fuel trade.
Fighting between the two factions in 1996 killed several thousand people.
The Western allies have set up no-fly zones over the southern and northern Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Iraq says 311 Iraqi civilians have been killed and over 900 wounded in the attacks since then, while more than 10 Western planes have been shot downed.
4. - Turkish Daily News - "The state to be pushed into 'secondary' position"
The draft new TCK is to introduce a new mentality. Until now the primary concern has been protecting the state. The state has been held 'sacred' while the human being was considered less important than the state. For the first time protection of the individual is becoming the primary concern
Opinion by Mehmet Ali Birand
The draft new Turkish Penal Code (TCK) which was examined in detailed during the Sept. 26 edition of the CNN Turk's new program Manset, which is broadcast at 5:00 p.m. every day, except on weekends, put the issue of how to cure an age-old bleeding wound on the agenda.
The draft, on which work has been continuing for 16 years, will replace the TCK currently in force.
Between Oct. 9-11 the Judicial Commission led by Professor Sulhi Donmezer will give the draft its final form and present it to the government.
In this world no such thing as a perfect law exists. This draft too will surely have its shortcomings. It too will be criticized. It will even be said that it is not liberal enough. However, it is a fact that for the first time a penal code capable of carrying Turkey into the 2000s has been drafted.
The country will be rid of anomalies such as the death penalty and Article 312 of the TCK. There will be no more handcuffed children in the 10-15 age group being dragged to prison. There will be an effort to reform juvenile delinquents by providing them with an education. State officials who practice torture will not be able to hide behind a protective shield. Punishments will not be meted out to everybody in the name of "national interests." It will be made clear what is meant by "national interests." The existing law will not be merely amended in certain parts. It will also be rewritten so that certain abstract references will be omitted in favor of clear descriptions of the crimes.
Thus judges will not be interpreting the same "crime" differently.
I think that the most significant aspect of the new draft is the new understanding it intends to introduce.
The new draft pushes the human factor into the foreground.
In the existing penal code priority is given to the protection of the state. The existing code lists first the "crimes against the state." The "crimes against the individual" are cited at the bottom of the list. The state is held "sacred" and the punishments available for "crimes against the state" are listed with great care.
The new draft has exactly the opposite kind of approach.
For one thing it holds the human being "sacred." It gives priority to the protection of the individual.
I wonder whether we will thus be able to get rid of our fixations.
We must get rid of them.
We must admit that the human being is more important than anything else, that the state is no more than an institution which operates in the service of the citizen, an institution which has the responsibility to make the citizen's life easier.
We have no choice other than abandoning the obsolete "etatist" mentality which is a relic of communist regimes. The era of getting somewhere by "worshipping" the state has ended.
The biggest to threat to the draft likely to come from Parliament
Those who receive their salaries from the state would more than anyone else desire to keep the state in the foreground and to preserve it as a "sacred" institution. New arrangements would pose a threat to those officials. They are likely to resist any such change because they do not want to lose the power they have in their hands.
They will argue that if the state is pushed into a "secondary" position and the "fear of the state" vanishes the country may split up. They will say that those circles who want to push the country in different directions will dynamite the foundations of the republic by making use of democracy and human rights.
According to their reasoning the only way of protecting the republic requires pressure and heavy punishments.
However, we must see that we can protect the republic, our indispensable secular and democratic system, only through social pressure and via nongovernmental organizations.
Those who want to keep the state a "sacred" entity at all costs will definitely try to trim the bill during the debates in Parliament. Also, there will be attempts, based on the personal connections of individual deputies, to water down the punishments envisaged for certain types of crimes.
The bill must definitely be saved from such a fate.
We must not allow it to be filled with holes.
After all these efforts we must not let Turkey be dragged back to the Middle Ages again.
Mehmet Ali Birand's article is translated by TDN staff
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