Turkey: IHD raps government for Peace Train ban and detentions

Fri Sep 5 11:09:12 BST 1997

September 5 1997

IHD raps government for Peace Train ban and detentions

  _________________________________________________________________

 By Metin Demirsar / Turkish Daily News

Istanbul - Turkish human rights campaigners Thursday criticized Prime
Minister Mesut Yilmaz's government for obstructing a group of 171
foreign human rights activists from attending a World Peace Day rally
in southeast Turkey and preventing them from holding a news conference
in Istanbul.

The human rights activists, who returned to Istanbul this week after
attempting to attend Monday's rally in Diyarbakir, were harassed by
police during the whole duration of the trip and also in Istanbul,
campaigners said.

They also accused the administration of ordering the detentions of
nearly 1,000 people who attended the rally, aimed at ending the
13-year conflict between Turks and separatist Kurds in southeast
Turkey.

"This government has opened a war against a peace initiative with
unparalleled brutality," Ercan Kaner, head of the Istanbul branch of
the Human Rights Association (IHD) told a news conference. "There are
powerful forces in the government that want the conflict (in southeast
Turkey) to continue."

Kaner described the government as a pawn of the military-dominated
National Security Council, a shadow cabinet that advises the
administration.

The foreign human rights campaigners, mostly European, American and
African writers, intellectuals, clergy and parliamentarians, were
members of the so-called Musa Anter Peace Train, an initiative named
after a prominent Kurdish writer and intellectual killed by
unidentified gunmen in 1992.

They were supposed to travel to Diyarbakir from Brussels by train, but
ended up flying to Turkey instead when the government banned the train
from entering Turkish territory.

The participants travelled to the region by bus, but were held in the
garden of the headquarters of the special police in Sanliurfa
overnight and prevented from entering Diyarbakir province.

  The return trip

Police stopped the bus carrying the activists in Gebze as they were
returning to Istanbul Tuesday night and detained 20 mainly Turkish
human rights campaigners accompanying the group.

Many of the participants were also forced to find rooms in other
hotels when their reservations were mysteriously cancelled. Some 21
activists were detained at the MIM Hotel in Istanbul and many injured
in a melee with the police.

The foreigners were also prevented from giving a news conference in
Istanbul on Thursday.

Kaner was flanked by Dicle Anter, son of the late Musa Anter; Hikmet
Fidan, provincial head of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party
(HADEP); Mahmut Sakar, a lawyer and vice president of IHD; and Ismail
Sarioglu, a executive committee member of the Istanbul IHD office.

The government from the outset viewed the peace initiative with
suspicion, claiming it was organized by the Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK), a separatist Kurdish group fighting a bloody guerilla war in
southeast Turkey.

More than 20,000 civilians, soldiers and guerrillas have been killed
in Turkey since the PKK launched its insurgency for an independent
Kurdish state in the southeast in 1984.
  _________________________________________________________________

[LINK]Draft amendment would facilitate prosecution of prime ministers and
ministers for 'shameful crimes'

TDN Parliament Bureau

Ankara- The Motherland Party (ANAP), which is the coalition's senior
partner, is seeking a constitutional amendment, which would limit the
scope of the legislative immunity, of not only the deputies, but also
the prime minister and ministers.

Under the new rules, ministers, including the prime minister, would be
exposed to interrogation and prosecution by the Court of Appeals
prosecutor -- who is the country's highest-ranking prosecutor -- when
accused of the kind of crimes described as "shameful crimes" by the
Turkish law -- such as bribery, embezzlement, larceny, swindling,
counterfeiting, smuggling and committing irregularities in state
tenders -- and then tried at the Constitutional Court, which would
then be serving as the Supreme Court. Under the current system this
can be possible only with Parliament's permission.

Ulku Gokalp Guney, one of the deputy chairmen of ANAP group in
Parliament, noted in a press conference yesterday, that a draft
amendment to Article 83 of the Constitution -- which effectively
shields deputies from any kind of prosecution during their term in
office -- has already been on Parliament's agenda. In addition to
this, ANAP is suggesting a similar constitutional amendment, which
would limit the legislative immunity of the prime minister and other
ministers. This can be achieved by amending Article 100 of the
Constitution. He indicated that the ANAP proposal will be presented in
October when Parliament reconvenes. "Thus, the difficulty in the
stripping of legislative immunity will be overcome. This will
eliminate a problem which has upset the public," Guney said.

A change in the Constitution can be proposed by a minimum of 184
deputies. ANAP and its coalition partner, the Democratic Left Party
(DSP), have enough deputies for that. But to be actually legislated,
the proposed amendment must be debated twice in Parliament and adopted
with the votes of a minimum 330 deputies. If 330 deputies vote in
favor of the proposed changes, a referendum is held on this issue.
Only if a minimum 367 deputies vote in favor, can a constitutional
amendment be finalized without staging a referendum. But the ruling
parties have only 280 deputies. They would be able to amend the
Constitution only with full cooperation from another party, for
example the True Path Party (DYP). And the DYP is reluctant to do this
because the DYP leader, Tansu Ciller, is faced with a variety of
corruption charges herself.

The main opposition Welfare Party (RP) is definitely against such a
change because it has an ongoing verbal duel with the Court of Appeals
prosecutor, Vural Savas, who would be authorized with more extensive
interrogation powers as a result of the proposed changes. Savas has
brought a case to the Constitutional Court, demanding the RP's
closure. He and RP officials have hurled accusations at each other in
recent months. The deep-rooted "confidence crisis" between the RP and
the Court of Appeals prosecutor, rules out any RP support for the ANAP
suggestion.

Under the circumstances, it seems that the constitutional changes will
be very hard to pass. Though aware of the difficulties involved, ANAP
has obviously raised this issue because the DYP leader has been
publicly challenging the government about the charges against her.
This way ANAP will be showing the public that Tansu Ciller is not
sincere in her challenging words, and that she needs to keep the
legislative immunity shield on a continuing basis to be able to thwart
a genuine investigation.

-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
The Struggle for justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan
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