· SEPTEMBER ASSESSMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.
On 15 October, the Diyarbekir branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD) made
public its report on Human Rights violations in September. The Association,
through its spokesman Osman Baydemir, denounced the increase in violations
since the terrorist attacks of 11 September in the United States and
declared that "violations of the right to life, to security and cases of
torture have increased in an alarming manner ". The report is summarised as follows:

-       Number of "unsolved" murders or of  summary executions: 7
-       Number of victims of land mines: 2
-       Number of people taken into detention: 200
-       Number of people tortured or subjected to degrading treatment: 37
-       Number of publications banned in the State of Emergency Region (OHAL)  : 29
-       Number of theatrical plays banned: 1
 

·  SEZER DEMANDS REFERENDUM ON INCREASING MP SALARIES.
By calling for a referendum to ratify an amendment recently
adopted by the Turkish Parliament increasing the MPs salaries, the Turkish
President, Ahmet Nejdet Sezer upset the politico-media scene on 16 October.
Tension further increased when the Government decided, the next day, to
send the question back to the President for "for second thoughts " instead
of revising the amendment or starting preparations for a referendum. Thus
the Turkish Government has chosen temporarily to suspend the publication,
in the Official Gazette of the constitutional amendments that the President
has already endorsed, although these is no legal ruling that provides for
such action.

Article 175 of the Constitution, drawn up by the Army junta in 1982,
empowers the President to accept the amendments as a whole, to veto them as
a whole, to send it back to Parliament for another reading or, again, to
accept some articles and summit the others to a referendum. The
Constitution only allows two outcomes to such a situation: to accept the
President's decision by the Prime Minister ordering publication of the 33
Articles approved in the Official Gazette and so starting the 120 day
procedure for holding a referendum on the disputed article or else to
suspend publication while the amendment in question is readjusted, thus
invalidating the President's call for a referendum.

The Turkish government, by reinterpreting a clause of the Constitution,
declares, for its part that the President can only call for a referendum on
the Bill as a whole, and nor on a single clause. Analysts note, however,
that by suspending publication and sending the disputed article back "for
second thoughts " the government is contradicting itself, since, if the
constitutional amendments are to be regarded as indivisible, a referendum
would have to be held on the package as a whole.

The Turkish executive has been in crisis since the election of Ahmet Nejdet
Sezer, former President of the Constitutional Court, to the `Turkish
Presidency. In February 2001, the president and Prime Minister Bülent
Ecevit had even openly and publicly clashed during a meeting of the
National Security Council (MGK), The Turkish Government seems to be already
launching an anti-Sezer campaign in this media that support the coalition.
Some papers have started to highlight the President's salary. Thus the
Turkish daily Hurriyet, on 17 October, wrote that Mr. Sezer had "increased
his salary by 58%  ", others write that he MPs earn 3.2 billion LT ($2,000)
while the president has increased his salary to 6.3 billion, but without
specifying whether this is gross or net salary.
 

·TURKEY TRADING  PARTICIPATION IN TERROR COALITION
FOR FINANCIAL BACKING. Ankara has asked the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) for supplementary credits arguing that its participation in the
anti-terrorist campaign launched by NATO, of which it is a member, will put
more pressure on its public finances. The weight of the public debt is
enormous and the Turkish government will have to devote half of its 2002
budget to servicing it, that is $26.5 billion. Turkey still remembers the
painful consequences of the Gulf War, in which it was engaged alongside the
Allied Forces against Baghdad which, according to its own estimates, was
said to have cost it $50 billion. But, as Gulten Kazgan, Professor of
Economics at the private University of Bilgi, in Istanbul, points out "it's
a lost cause " because "the United States never repays the services it asks for".

The International Monetary Fund was reserved, on 17 October regarding the
granting of fresh credits to Turkey at a time when the country is suffering
more and more from the slowing down of the world's economy. Nevertheless,
it has not completely shut the door on a new gesture by the IMF, which has
so far released $19 billion to Turkey, which has committed itself in
exchange to carrying our severe programmes of budgetary austerity.

According to the Turkish Minister of Economics, Kemal Dervis, the possible
sending of Turkish troops to Afghanistan (Editor's Note: approved in
principally Parliament on 10 October) is most likely to aggravate still
further the economic crisis through which the country is going: "We are
entering a new phase of stowing down and are going to experience hard times
", quite aside from the effects of the involvement of the Turkish Army in
the theatre of operations. Officially no request for specific numbers of
men or equipment has been made to Ankara by the Americans, but the Turkish
press has raised the possibility of the participation of commandos to hold
the Northern Alliance forces.
 

· ONE YEAR OF HUNGER STRIKES IN TURKEY'S PRISONS. A year after its was
launched, on 20, October 2000, the movement of hunger strikes of detainees
who are members of clandestine extreme Left Turkish organisations is
continuing regardless. Seventy-two prisoners or members of their families
have died since a military operation against 20 prisons took place on 19
December last. An operation in which 30 detainees (and two gendarmes) were
killed. Since then 41 prisoners or members of their families have died from
their prolonged fasts, the latest having died on 18 October. And a hunger
striker has burnt himself to death during a police attack on the funeral of
one of them.

The movement, aiming at protesting against the setting up of isolation
cells for between one and three detainees, the co-called "type F" cells, in
place of the huge dormitories previously used, was intensified after the
introduction of the system in December and seems inextricable.
"The way out is to suppress the type F cells "declared Mehmet Bekaroglu,
member of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission. He suggests, failing
that, "to arrange premises and alter the regulations so that the detainees
could, in small numbers and for a limited period, have some activities
together ". But knowing that Ankara refuses any concessions, he hastens to
criticise a "State obsessed by security and careless of human lives ".

In the absence of any dialogue on the basic issues, since the Minister of
Justice, Hikmet Sami Turk, thunders that the 'reform' will be pushed
through to the end, there only remains a debate, which is agitating the
medical profession, on whether to act on those hunger strikers who have
lost control of their faculties so as to prevent any more deaths. The
Minister of Justice, moreover has started proceedings against the Medical
Practitioners Union for "failing to assist people attempting to commit
suicide " and has conditionally released hunger strikers for up to sic
months in the most incurable cases.

There are nearly 300 detainees in this situation, according to the Turkish
Human Rights Association, which calculates some 200 detainees are striking
"to death " in the prison. Twenty-five are also fasting outside ­ prisoners
or members of their families.
 

· 37  IN IZMIR HADEP OFFICES DETAINED /  3 DEAD IN SILVAN CLASHES.
 On 17 October, the Turkish police took 37 people in for questioning, mostly members
of the People's Democratic Party (HADEP) in the course of a raid on the party's premises
at Cigli, in Izmir province, during a political education seminar aimed at leaders of the
youth branch of HADEP. The police gave no reason for this operation.
According to HADEP, amongst those taken in were 30 leaders of the youth
branch of HADEP as well as other pro-Kurdish activists and guests to the seminar.

HADEP is regularly the target of harassment by the authorities who accuse
it of collusion with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). HADEP, which
argues in favour of more freedom and cultural liberties, rebuffs this
accusation. It is facing legal proceedings aimed at banning it for these
alleged links with the PKK.
 
'In another part of the forest' three Kurdistan Workers' Party fighters,
including a woman, were killed and two soldiers wounded in a clash during
the night of 16/17 October, in Diyarbekir Province.
 

· TURKISH AUTHORITIES FEAR US-UK ACTION IN IRAQ.
Speaking on the American news network CNN, Turkish Prime Minister Bülent
Ecevit declared, on 16 October, that he was definitely opposed to any
action against Iraq. Interviewed by Larry King, B. Ecevit said: "I hope
that there will be no action because this would greatly destabilise our
region, the Middle East, and could lead to the partition of Iraq which
could create problems for Turkey, its independence and its territorial
integrity ".

Moreover, relations between the Turkish authorities and Massoud Barzani's
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have been going through a period of
tension since the KDP refused to cooperate with the Turkish Army during
their interventions in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turkish authorities criticised
the KDP for its lack of coordination which, according to Ankara, was
responsible for the death, two weeks ago, of three members of the Turkish
Special Forces from a land mine explosion in the region of Berwari. The
KDP, for its part, retorted that there was no justifiable reason for the
intervention of Turkish troops in their region, especially as the PKK
presence is much more tangible near the Iranian borders, where the Turkish
Army never intervenes.

-End-