• THIRD HEARING OF FORMER DEP MPs: STATE SECURITY COURT AGAIN REFUSES BAIL AND REJECTS ALL REQUESTS TO HEAR DEFENCE WITNESSES.  During the third hearing of the retrial of the former members of Parliament of the Party for Democracy (DEP) on 23 May, the Court persisted in continuing to hear the prosecution witnesses while rejecting the requests for release on bail of the prisoners as well as all requests to hear witnesses for the defence. As in the previous hearings, the retrial took place under heavy police control and was attended by many lawyers, Human Rights defenders, diplomats, journalists and Members of the European Parliament.

Luigi Vinci, an Italian Member of Parliament who came as an observer, condemned the Turkish authorities’ refusal of bail, declaring “This trial is politically highly symbolic. It would be a serious mistake [for Ankara] to under-rate its importance”. In his view, the State Security Court (DGM) that is trying the ex-M.P.s ought to have released them on bail. “The fact of refusing to release them so far is now having repercussions on Turco-European relations” he considered. He stressed that the European Human Rights Court, which had judged he first trial inequitable, had, thereby, called on Turkey, a candidate for membership of the European Union, to free the Kurdish ex-M.P.s.

The next hearing is set for 20 June. Leyla Zana and her three colleagues, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak, only owe their retrial to a decision of the Turkish Parliament authorising the retrial of people whose sentences had been condemned by the Strasbourg Court. This is the first such retrial since Parliament passed these new measures in January 2003.

•  KEY PROSECUTION  WITNESS  IN RETRIAL OF  DEP MPs, HIMSELF ON TRIAL FOR MAFIA CRIMES, CITES STATE COMPLICITY.  The former Truth Path Party (DYP) member of Parliament a chief of the Bucak tribe, Sedat Bucak, has appeared for the first time before the Istanbul N° 2 Assize Court for his part in the Susurluk scandal. (Editors Note: This was a car accident in the town of Susurluk, on 3 November 1996, that brought to light the collusion between the State, the Mafia and the police in Turkey). Charged with “concealing information regarding Abdullah Çatli, a warrant for whose arrest had been issued”, “forming a criminal gang” and “possessing weapons of a serious and heavy category” which could carry sentences of 11 to 20 years imprisonment, Sedat Bucak (who no longer enjoys parliamentary immunity, since his party failed to pass the threshold of 10% of the national vote needed to secure any seats in parliament) attended Court as a free man, surrounded by a horde of bodyguards, all members of his tribe.

“The events began in 1991, with my involvement in politics. At that time I met Leyla Zana and Sedat Yurttas, both elected on the DEP list. They constantly asked to meet me and suggested I should not take a stand on the side of the State. I immediately informed the General Secretary of the National Security Council (MGK) and started to act in accordance with the MGK’s directives. I also informed the Prime Minister at the time, Suleyman Demirel that Abdullah Ocalan wanted to meet me. S. Demirel asked me to go immediately to the Ankara Police Directorate. I went there, moreover, in Demirel’s official car. Mehmet Cansever, head of the Ankara Police Directorate, saw me in his office, together with many people from different intelligence organisations, and even from MIT (Editors Note: the Turkish Secret Service). It was they who decided my activities” declared S. Bucak.

The former M.P. also stressed the fact that he had been approached by many public figures, from the Prime Minister to junior ministers, not to mention the Army, to urge him to collaborate with the State. “When Demirel asked for my help, I replied that the Bucak tribe had always collaborated with the State, but that my uncle had been tried for this collaboration under the military coup regime, which was why I feared that the same might happen to me one day. At this, Demirel got annoyed and retorted “Listen to me, I am Prime Minister. As from now, I am your father as well as your uncle. Nothing will happen to you. Help them”.”

Questioned about his collaboration during the period of the Anti-Terrorist Laws, he declared that his role consisted of “bringing my people over to the side of the State to set up village guard units. Village guards members can be found in every family of my tribe, and all my struggle consisted of this”.

Questioned about his meeting the protagonists of the Susurluk affair, he declared “I had come to know Huseyin Kocadag before the 1980 coup, when he was police chief in Urfa. As for Abdullah Çatli, (Editors Note: a mafia gangster, also an Army hit man, who was killed in the accident) who I knew by the name of Mehmet Ozbay, I met him in Istanbul in 1994 at a dinner to which a number of senior State, Army, Intelligence Service and Police officials had been invited.” Confirming the many visits of A Çatli to his home in Siverek, Bucak added, “A. Çatli was always surrounded by senior State and Army officials. At that time, although a wanted man, A. Çatli never seemed to be worried by the State hunting for him and always carried guns in his bag”.
“I met Çatli again in Istanbul after a ’phone call when I returned from Siverek. Then we joined by Huseyin Kocadag and left for Yalova, then Izmir. We had that accident on our way back to Istanbul. I do not remember what happened after the accident  and I know nothing about the weapons” Sedat Bucak continued, although the boot of the car in which the accident occurred was full of arms.

Questioned about photos taken at Siverek with A. Çatli and many other senior State officials, he confirmed the existence of these photos but “for my own security and for the security of the State, I do not want to produce those photos” he retorted.

The Court adjourned the trial, ruling that Bucak was not required to be present at the following hearings.

• 6th REFORM PACKAGE FOR EU MEMBERSHIP DILUTED BY TURKISH MILITARY.  The 6th “reform package” for meeting E.U membership criteria, which was the subject of criticisms by the General Secretary of the National Security Council (MGK), was submitted to the Council of Ministers by the Turkish Minister of Justice, Cemil Çiçek on 22 May. Comprising 19 items, requiring the reform of 10 Turkish laws, the package remains, however, very equivocal on matters concerning the rights and liberties of Kurds, and is riddled with subterfuges. Thus, at the request of the Turkish General Staff, the article on the right to "propaganda in the Kurdish language" during  elections was withdrawn whereas the right to have Kurdish first names is said to have been authorised in the documents. The law on film, video and music works is also due to be altered and a representative of the MGK Secretariat will no longer have to sit on the control committee, renamed the “Censorship Committee”.  Furthermore, private TV channels are due to take charge of the Kurdish language broadcasts, whereas, according to the Turkish press, the Army would have preferred limiting these broadcasts to the Turkish National Channel (TRT).

The Turkish authorities also abrogated Article 8 of the Anti-Terrorist Act, covering “separatist propaganda”.  In the background the Turkish Minster of Justice nevertheless has found arguments to soften even the toughest resistances. “We are obliged to abrogate this because it has been condemned by the European Human Rights Court. Moreover, this can be offset by another clause in the Turkish Penal Code — for example Article 312” Mr. Çiçek is said to have declared, according to the 22 May issue of the daily Radikal. Furthermore, the Bill on the reform of the Turkish Penal Code, submitted to the Turkish Parliament by Mr. Çiçek last week, envisages a new article, N° 356, which supplements Article 125 of the same code regarding “crimes against the State”, which was one of those used in the trial of Abdullah Ocalan. “Whosoever shall make propaganda for carrying out crimes as described in the first section (today Article 125) is liable to 3 to 5 years imprisonment”. Thus the abrogation of Article 8 becomes a hollow exercise.

• COURT OF APPEALS PRESIDENT DECLARES CONSTITUTION PREVENTS IMPARTIAL JUDGEMENTS.  In the course of a symposium organised in Ankara on 21 May by the Law Faculty on the subject of “the right to impartial trials”, the President of the Turkish Court of Appeals, Eraslan Ozkaya, stated, in his opening address, that it was impossible to talk of impartial judgements in Turkey so long as Articles 140, 144 and 159 of the Turkish Constitution remained in force as well as the Code of the High Council of Magistrates, in particular certain clauses of the latter Code. He stressed that the principle of impartiality is governed by the 1982 Constitution and certain legal provisions, but that the 1982 Constitution was much more coercive in matters of individual freedom and the right to impartial trial than the 1961 Constitution. According to Mr. Ozkaya, the 1982 Constitution, drawn up in accordance with philosophical principles limiting individual rights and freedoms, consequently is damaging to impartiality of judgement. “So long as these provisions have not been abrogated, Turkish justice will continue to lose credibility” he declared.

The symposium took place in the presence of the Turkish Minister of Justice, Cemil Çiçek, of the Public Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals, Nuri Ok and of his predecessor Sahib Kanadoglu, and of judges of the Turkish Court of Appeals.

• GERMANY HAS 600,000 RESIDENTS OF TURKISH ORIGIN.  According to the Turkish daily Hurriyet of 22 May, Germany has 600,000 inhabitants of Turkish origin. The Turkish Embassy in Berlin announced that over 100,000 of them obtained naturalisation after the reform in year 2000, and that this makes for an electorate of 470,000 people.

• MASSOUD BARZANI RECEIVES A TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTRY DELEGATION.  On 24 May, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Massud Barzani, welcomed a delegation from the Turkish Foreign Ministry in his stronghold of Salaheddin. Consisting of Ambassadors Ecvet Tezcan and Selim Karaosmanoglu, as well as the Director of the Iraqi Desk of the Foreign Ministry, Kerim Uras, the delegation received a warm welcome from Mr. Barzani who declared that “a new page is opening with Turkey”. E. Tezcan, for his part, declared that “democracy and freedom really exist” [in Kurdistan”].

“It is time to improve our cooperation. (…) We have plans to open consulates in Suleymanieh and Irbil. The invitation came from Northern Iraq” the Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul had declared on 18 May.

• ARMED FORCES CHIEF  DENIES PRESS REPORTS OF “COUP D’ETAT ” THOUGHTS.  The Turkish politico-Media scene has been shaken by a controversial item of news published by the Kemalist daily Cumhuriyet on 23 May. According to this, the Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, is said to have advised the Prime Minister, during a recent meeting, that certain “young officers” were dissatisfied by the reforms proposed by the European Union which, in their opinion, would encourage Islamist activities.

Questioned on the subject, the Turkish Prime Minister denied these allegations, without succeeding in convincing public opinion, which well remembers the Army’s intervention in February 1997, generally described as a “post-modern coup d’état” by the Army, which forced the resignation of the then Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan.

Then, on 26 May, the Chief of Staff convened several dozen journalists for a briefing on the question. The principal Turkish papers put General Ozkok’s statements on their front pages. “Don’t rubbish me! ” headlined the daily Hurriyet, adding “the Chief of Staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, refutes the fresh embarrassment of public opinion in the last few days, by the news that “some young officers are irritated" and “Don’t rubbish me” he said”.  The daily paper Milliyet headlined other of the General’s words “There aren’t any young or old ones”, “in the Army there are no differences between the young and old officers. If there is any irritation, it is not confined to a certain rank but to the Turkish Armed Forces as a whole”.

In the cause of the audience granted to the journalists, General Ozkok thus said: “There are no antagonisms between doves and hawks inside the Army. I curse these allegations. … I don’t even want to hear the term coup d’état spoken. … Stating that there is harmony with the government does not mean carbon copy agreement … We have our deep preoccupations and sensitivities. And the fact that some people implicated in reactionary activities occupy positions in the State hierarchy increases this unease. The Turkish Army and all the other bodies are watching the activity of these individuals…”

“I am the Commander in Chief of the Turkish Armed Forces. Rubbishing me weakens the Army, whereas it is needed, and no one wants that…” he concluded.

• CLASHES AT GIRESUN AND IN DERSIM (TUNCELI) BETWEEN TURKISH SOLDIERS AND MEMBERS OF TIKKO AND OF PKK.  Three members of an underground Maoist organisation were killed in clashes with Turkish forces at Giresun (on the Black Sea coast, near the Georgian border) while one soldier was killed in the course of a clash with Kurdish fighters in Dersim, according to the Turkish authorities on 21 May.

The incident at Giresun took place at a place called Alucra, when activists of the extremist TIKKO (Workers’ and Peasants’ Liberation Army of Turkey — illegal) opened fire in answer to a call for their surrender, according to the authorities. In Dersim a clash took place near the village of Ataclar between troops on a search and destroy mission and a group of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).