Update On Kani Yilmaz And Repressio

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>
Subject: Update On Kani Yilmaz And Repression Against Kurds In Germany

From: RALF GOLDAK <rag at aber.ac.uk>

Translation: Ralf Goldak
Department of International Politics
University of Wales - Aberystwyth, UK

Lawyer Hans Eberhardt Schultz - Speech to Meeting of British MPs,
convened by John Austin Walker MP, House of Commons - October 26,
1995

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

     It has been a great pleasure to accept John Austin Walker's
invitation to speak at this important meeting. For the second
time in the course of a year I would thus like to report on the
developments in the case of Kani Yilmaz and to provide a brief
sketch of its background. As on the last occasion on which I
spoke in this House, my contribution has been translated from
German by friends of the Kurdistan Information Centre, so that I
am able to present this complex case with the necessary clarity.
Thank you for your patience, both for reading from a prepared
script and for my occasional mispronunciation.
     First of all, I would like to convey the regards of Kani
Yilmaz, whom I have just visited in the high security prison of
Belmarsh. I am retained as his defence counsel in Germany, where
he is being charged with ring-leadership of a so-called
"terrorist organisation within the PKK", and stands accused of
being personally responsible for a great number of attacks
against Turkish facilities during 1993. Today, Kani has been
imprisoned under conditions of near-isolation for one year. Yet
he considers his personal situation secondary in its importance.
His first concern remains with the dirty war in Kurdistan as he
focuses his entire political energy on bringing this conflict to
an end through a political solution.

What Has Been The Development Of The Proceedings To Extradite
Kani Yilmaz?

     The Bow Street magistrate sitting at the high security court
in Belmarsh has declared the extradition as fully admissible
after the German government had withdrawn a series of
particularly serious charges against him. The court decided that
a consideration of the lack of evidence for the charges brought,
which his British legal team had criticised, was outside its
remit. Privately, both the representatives of the crown
Prosecution Service and of the German Federal Prosecutor General
have told me that it would be unlikely that Kani Yilmaz could be
prosecuted for the charge of membership in a terrorist
organisation (Art. 129a of the German Penal Code), because no
such all-encompassing penal provision exists in British criminal
law. Yet they were not prepared to limit the official extradition
request accordingly. This has been one of the reasons why we have
appealed against the decision of the Magistrates, so that next
year, the divisional court will have to decide about the
admissibility of his extradition.

What Are The Chances Of Success?

     In my research on this case I have come across an earlier
case of an extradition request concerning a German national
(Astrid Puttnick-Proll), which in my opinion is an important
precedent for our case: in this case, the German government
decided not even to demand on the charge of membership in a
criminal organisation (Art.129 German Penal Code), despite the
fact that a German warrant of arrest on this charge existed,
because no corresponding provision exists in British criminal
law. If we consider Kani's case in the light of this precedent,
we can conclude that his extradition on charges of membership in
a terrorist association is not admissible. It is for this that we
will have to continue to struggle.
     Even if the appeal was to be unsuccessful, the political
situation remains the same as I have sketched it when I last
spoke to a meeting in this House in May: even if the extradition
of Kani Yilmaz is considered legally admissible, it remains the
perogative of the British government to comply with the request,
or to reject it. That means, if the court decides that the
extradition is legally possible, the government can reject it on
grounds of foreign policy or humanitarian grounds.
     The decision is thus not only a legal decision, but a
political and humanitarian one, which is subject to the
responsibilities of this parliament.
     Considering the development which the persecution of Kurds
has taken in Germany during the last 6 months, your work in this
question is now more important than ever before.

For The Present, I Can Only Give You A Brief Sketch Of The
Current Persecution Of Kurds In Germany

     The nation-wide and almost limitless criminalisation of
Kurds, on the basis of the ban imposed on the PKK and the ERNK in
November 1993, has seen a further dramatic escalation. Here are
some of the consequences in summary form:

- By now, 20 Kurds are imprisoned under conditions of isolation
as alleged te rrorists under Article 129a German Penal Code.

- In total, we can assume that there are more than 200 Kurdish
political prisoners, mostly detained in relation to a campaign of
blockading motorways and other charges in relation to prohibited
Newroz (or New Year) celebrations, and so on.

- Further Kurdish Associations have been banned or closed down,
among these the Kurdistan Information office, which was deemed a
substitute for the Kurdistan Committee; every single local
Kurdish association in Bavaria, despite the fact that they had
already been banned by the Federal Minister of the Interior in
1993 and had won the appeal against this action; and even the
Kurdish news-agency and Kurdish publishers were banned.

- All Kurdish associations are placed under blanket surveillance
and control, police raids, house searches and confiscations occur
almost daily.

- Time and again, peaceful demonstrations and events are banned
under the pretext that there is a "concrete danger that symbols
of banned organisations PKK/ERNK may be displayed". These are
flags, stickers, photos of Abdullah Ocalan, and so on.
Deployments of police in consequence, even against an originally
legal hunger-strike, are frequently characterised by great
brutality, resulting in serious injuries and the death of a woman
hunger-striker.

- Even German citizens from the Munich area were brought before
the state security division of the Munich District Court, alleged
to have supported the banned PKK by distributing the German
language publication Kurdistan Report.

     The political police, and the hard-liners in German politics
and the legal system are obviously fervently determined to
criminalise and discriminate the Kurds further in order to
boycott all attempts to find a political solution which includes
the PKK, thereby creating a general climate of prejudice which
places all attempts of a sober assessment of realities in
jeopardy. This despite the fact that court decisions taken in the
two most spectacular cases which served to justify the so-called
PKK-Ban in 1993 tell a quite different story: In the reasoning
for its decision on the occupation of the Munich Consulate in
June 1993, the Bavarian Supreme Land Court argued: No exercise of
control on this action by the PKK could be found, nor had this
even been alleged by the Federal Prosecutor General.
     Recently, the Wiesbaden District Court has cleared the
accused Kurds from the charge of aggravated arson leading to
fatality in an incident which ocurred in November 1994. And
during last week we have achieved that the proceedings for the
distribution of the Kurdistan Report were abandoned as a result
of protracted negotiations.
     These examples clearly show that it is worthwhile to fight
against these developments, even on the legal front in our
country.
     The development of this legal and political complex in other
Western European countries and the feedback this generated is a
factor in this struggle that cannot be underestimated in its
significance. The work for the freedom of Kani Yilmaz thereby
becomes part of a wider struggle; the struggle towards a
political solution to the war which is being waged by a NATO
member-state with the arms and the political support of Western
Europe against a non-state nation. 

H. Eberhardt Schultz



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