"Don't Touch My Internet!"

Tens of thousands of protestors took to the street yesterday to protest the government's plans to further regulate the Internet. (For more on the new regulations, click here). From Bianet, which has challenged the new regulations in a case to be heard by the Council of State:

Hundreds of thousands of Turkish internet users took the streets in 31 Turkish provinces on Sunday (15 May) to demonstrate against the "Draft Bill on Rules and Procedures of the Safety of Internet Use" that was approved by the Council of Information Technologies and Telecommunication (BTK) in the end of February.

The participants of the protest action got organized via Facebook and Twitter. They walked along Istiklal Avenue all the way from Taksim Square to the Tünel district. Many groups joined the demonstration, among them also political parties, the Linux Users Association, the LGBTT initiative LambdaIstanbul, the 'Hands off the Internet' Initiative and websites like Kaldıraç, İnci Dictionary, Ekşi Dictionary, bobiler.org, Uykusuz, and the Ulusağ dictionary.

Labor unions also joined the protests.

CHP Supports Devolution in the Southeast Ahead of Elections

The CHP has announced four main planks to solving the Kurdish problem: devolution, Kurdish language education, lowering of the current 10% threshold parties must attain to enter parliament, and the establishment of truth commission-like institution to investigate crimes committed during the 1990s. The devolution proposal is the most racial of these given Turkey's long history of unitary government. The CHP is arguing that Turkey should fully implement the European Administrations Local Autonomy Condition to which Turkey has currently attached reservations. From Hurriyet Daily News:

CHP deputy leader Sezgin Tanrıkulu said the Kurdish problem could be solved within the unitary structure of Turkey by empowering local administrations with the full implementation of the European Local Administrations Autonomy Condition.

Tanrıkulu revealed the democratization targets of CHP in a meeting to a group of journalists in Istanbul. CHP has proposals for four main democratization issues in Turkey in its election statement, Tanrıkulu said.

“Turkey is one of the countries that has signed the European Local Administrations Autonomy Condition, however Turkey has attached annotation for seven of its articles. We want these annotations removed. If these annotations are removed, then there would be no question of democratic autonomy for the Kurdish people, the whole issue can be solved within the unitary structure of Turkey,” said Tanrıkulu.

The CHP is also in favor of having everybody to learn their mother tongue in the school, said Tanrıkulu. “Not only should our Kurdish citizens, but everybody in Turkey should have the chance to learn their mother tongue at the school, if they want to. The most important thing is accepting this as a fundamental right,” said Tanrıkulu.

“We will overcome the obstacles that lie before our Kurdish citizens to live their identity freely by establishing a pluralist and libertarian democracy,” said Tanrıkulu.

Reducing the election threshold is another proposal of CHP in its “democratization targets.”

“CHP has already proposed that the Parliament reduce the threshold from 10 percent to 7 percent last year, however as our leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, it could be even reduced to 5 percent or less. Reducing or lifting the threshold in whole, is essential for the reflection of people’s will to the Parliament,” Tanrıkulu said.

Regarding the discussions on implementation of the presidential system in Turkey, Tanrıkulu said, “These discussions cannot go any further than being a fantasy.”

The fourth main proposal of the CHP in its democratization package is “creating a research commission for inquiry of unsolved murders.” “There should a research commission in international standards in order to enlighten the unsolved murders in Turkey,” said Tanrıkulu.

Tanrıkulu said the CHP wants a new libertarian constitution that would secure every aspect of the human rights issues, including the civil, political, social, economical, cultural rights for everyone. “However in order to reach these targets that the CHP drew for democratization, we don’t need a new constitution, we can make these changes even without a new constitution,” said Tanrıkulu.

There is still no reference here to removing the ethnic chauvinism in Turkey's current understanding of Turkish citizenship, which addresses all Turkish citizens as belonging to the "Turkish nation." Amending the constitution in this regard has long been a key demand for Kurds.

However, there is no doubt the CHP is giving the AKP a run for its money in meeting long-held demands of Kurds. Local autonomy for Kurdish municipalities has become a big issue since last summer, and the CHP's willingness to address the issue is big news.

Turkish Newspaper to Have Pages in Kurdish

The Turkish daily Radikal will begin publishing some of the pages its weekly magazine supplement in Kurdish. Content includes a feature on Kurdish broadcasting and excerpts from a new novel by a Kurdish author. The first edition will premiere in time for the Diyarbakir Book Fair, which I had the pleasure of attending last year.

Progress on the Domestic Violence Front

Turkey has signed a new Council of Europe convention to prevent and combat violence against women. As documented by a report released by Human Rights Watch earlier this month, Turkey has been plagued by domestic violence over the years thanks in part to problems implementing existing law. Turkey pushed very hard for the Convention to be opened for signatures at the Council's recent ministerial meeting. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Reaching a consensus proved difficult as many countries expressed resistance to the far-reaching provisions of the convention, but Turkey adopted a negotiation position based on international standards, Acar told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview.

“We did not hide behind any cultural, economic or political pretexts and we resisted those who wanted to water down the stipulations,” she added.

The convention is revolutionary in the sense that it accepts violence against women as a human-rights violation, according to Acar. “This is very important, because violence against women will no longer be seen as a social problem. This will strengthen women’s demands for access to judicial recourse as well as protection,” she said.

Also important is the fact that the convention has endorsed a wide-ranging definition of “violence,” Acar added.

“Violence is not only physical. It can be economic or psychological; stalking is, for instance, a type of violence,” she said. The convention also includes violence against immigrant women, a measure that was resisted by some countries.

The convention covers what are called “the 4 Ps”: prevention, protection, prosecution and policy.

“The fourth P is especially important for Turkey, since we lack an integrated policy on gender equality. This convention will be known as the Istanbul convention and that way Turkey will be known as a country championing the cause of combating violence against women,” Acar told the Daily News.

“Just as we endorsed a zero-tolerance policy on preventing torture, we need to endorse zero tolerance on violence against women. In this sense, this convention will be a new driving force for Turkish domestic efforts,” she said. “Because we really need a mentality change, especially as far as implementation is concerned. All the judges, prosecutors, police and health officials will have to be trained. And for that Turkey needs to ratify the convention as soon as possible to set a good example as well.”

And more from Bianet:

Some 20 to 25 percent of women across the European region suffer physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives, according to the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Convention.

The convention is the first legally binding instrument in the region that creates a comprehensive legal framework to combat violence against women through prevention, protection, prosecution, and victim support. It defines and criminalizes multiple forms of violence against women: physical, sexual and psychological violence, as well as forced marriage and female genital mutilation. The treaty also establishes an international group of independent experts to monitor its implementation at the national level.

The Convention addresses gaps in domestic violence legislation and implementation, such as weak laws, bad implementation of protection laws, lack of coordination, lack of access to justice, low funding for domestic violence responses, lack of shelters, and lack of prevention measures.

To implement the convention, countries will establish hotlines, shelters, medical and forensic services, counseling, as well as legal aid.

Progress at the top to be sure, but real change, of course, will be shown from below and Turkey's willingness and effectiveness to ensure that police officers and other state agents responsible for protecting women follow legal guidelines.

Torn Between Worlds

Hranuysh Hagopyan, Armenia’s diaspora minister, walks with acting Patriarch Aram Atesyan after an award ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday.  PHOTO by Hasan Altinisik / Hurriyet Daily News

A group of Turkish Armenians were recently honored in Istanbul in a ceremony involving Archbishop Aram Atesyan, and significantly, Armenia's minister responsible for dealing with the Armenian diaspora, Hranuysh Hagopyan. Many Turkish Armenian intellectuals, newspaper, and some of the honorees questioned whether the presence of the diaspora minister was desirable. From Hurriyet Daily News:

“I would prefer not to have a diaspora minister in Turkey,” author Mıgırdıç Margosyan told the Hürriyet Daily News before receiving his gold medal from Armenian minister Hranuysh Hagopyan.

“I’ve been living on the land that [we have] been living on for thousands of years. I am not in the diaspora. This is a terrible irony,” Margosyan said. The writer also directed his criticism toward the Turkish government, saying the lack of a Turkish state official at the ceremony was disappointing.

. . . .

After attending the Global Summit of Women in Istanbul, Hagopyan handed out medals to 15 Turkish Armenians, including Margosyan, composers Garo Mafyan and Cenk Taşkan and Alis Manukyan, the first Armenian female vocalist in Turkey’s State Opera and Ballet.

“We are living in the lands where we have to live. And we continue to pay our debt to these lands,” Mafyan, who is arguably the best-known popular music composer, told the Daily News. He added that he is ready to do everything he can to make sure dialogue continues between Turkey and Armenia.

“It is [still] very important to receive an award from Armenia for contributing to Turkish popular music,” he said.

Turks of Armenian descent or Turkish Armenians or Armenian Turks or however one would group them are a population of at least 60 million people. Most belong to the Armenian Orthodox Church, which has a Turkish Patriarchate in Istanbul apart from Yerevan. Some Turkish Armenians are Catholics, and there are yet others of Armenian descent that do not enjoy minority status under Turkish law and whose numbers are not counted in official government numbers. This "hidden" Armenian minority, consists of people, sometimes referred to as crypto-Armenians, who converted to Islam in the latter half of the nineteenth-century and early part of the twentieth-century when Armenians began to face sharp discrimination, and eventually, Ottoman state-engineered ethnic cleansing.

Under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Armenians, along with Greek Orthodox Christians and Jews, enjoy "minority status" based on religion. The status granted these minorities rights certain rights vis-a-vis the new republican Turkish state, and essentially granted two separate legal regimes: one for ordinary Turkish citizens, and another for the minorities granted status under the Treaty of Lausanne. (Syriac Christians, Alevis, Caferis, as well as ethnic groups, such as the Kurds, were denied such rights.)

However, some Armenians, Greeks, and Jews complain of being treated as second-class citizens. These minorities are still sometimes accused of collaborating with foreign enemies, and even in the context of receiving EU accession monies designed to protect and promote minority rights, face criticism from some nationalist circles for seeking to undermine the Turkish state.Armenians, in particular, have long faced suspicion of being linked to Armenian terrorist groups and secretly desiring the dissolution of the Turkish state, which many Turks are taught has two main enemies: the external enemies of imperial Europe, and the internal enemies, i.e. minorities who see the disintegration of the country. To make matters worse, Turkish Armenians often get caught in the middle of Turkey's politics with Armenia and other countries, such as when Prime Minister Erdogan responded to a genocide resolution in Sweden by threatening to expel Armenian immigrants in radio interview last March. (This is not to say that the poor Armenian immigrants were not more caught.)

At the same time, Armenians also face criticism from Armenians in Armenia, as well as from the sizable Armenian diaspora. As a result, Turkish Armenians are torn between Turkish citizenship, their relation to the diaspora, of which they are not a part since, unlike even the vast majority of Armenians living in Armenia, they did not immigrate. The vast majority of Turkey's Armenian population are the descendents of Armenians who migrated to cosmopolitan Istanbul following the hard times of the 1890s and onward under the Ottoman Empire (and before 1915), and so escaped the massacres at the end of the Ottoman Empire and the mass dislocation into Syria, the Soviet Union, and scores of other countries that followed.

Vahe Sarukhanyan, writing for Heqt Online, has an interesting piece up discussing Istanbul Armenians as the "Diaspora's Outsiders." An excerpt:

Sociologist [Arus] Yumul says that for the worldwide Armenian diaspora, the Istanbul-Armenian community is akin to a "lost lamb", an "outsider". She says that other Armenians have taken them to task for being non-active in Armenian affairs and for cow-towing to the government in Ankara. Yumul says she agrees with these assessments when it comes to the Ottoman period, but that after Turkish independence Armenians not only didn’t get involved in Armenian politics but also Turkish affairs. It was kind of a survival strategy she noted.

Yumul added that the community is slowly integrating into the larger Turkish society and that mixed marriages are paving the way.

"At one time Armenian parents resisted but this too has faded. The next generation will be more like a hybrid, free to chose whether they are Armenian, Turk..."

She was quick to add that this doesn’t mean that Armenians will disappear in Turkey.

However, the use of Armenian as a daily language of communication is also on the decline; the number of Armenians who can’t speak the mother tongue is growing. Parents send their kids to Armenian elementary schools but afterwards many go to private or foreign high schools so that they won’t have problems with the Turkish language in college.

The 1990s were a turning point for the community in many ways. Armenians, like the other minority communities, began to voice their concerns, speak about the discrimination they faced, and even raise the taboo subject of the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Twenty years ago, all this was unthinkable. What the next twenty will bring for the community remains a big question mark.

More evidence that Lausanne is outdated, and that its continued legal character is becoming more and more anachronistic as Turkey opens up . . .

On another note, Kadir Has University has announced plans to start teaching courses in Armenian. The classes are offered in the context of improving regional relations with Armenia.

For more on the Treaty of Lausanne's lasting impact in Turkish politics, see my post from 2008, "Article 301: An Anti-Imperialist Discourse." For the treaty's misused application in relation to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, see this past post. For more on Turkey's Armenian minority, click here.

Attack on the Prime Minister's Convoy

DHA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

Prime Minister Erdogan's convoy was attacked yesterday while traveling through Kastamonu. One police officer died during a firefight that ensued with the assailants. The police in Kastamonu are blaming the PKK. The prime minister was not traveling with the convoy, and it appears that the attackers did not necessarily know the police-protected convoy belonged to the prime minister.

"He Loves You, He Beats You"

Human Rights Watch has released a report on domestic violence, a problem that has been gaining increased attention in recent years. As HRW reports, police too often neglect their responsibilities to protect women against violence, which has led to a plethora of stories of women who ended up dead despite their efforts to seek police protection. Following a June 2009 decision of the European Court of Human Rights, it is a state obligation to protect women when they report such violence. As HRW's report documents, problems with implementation of the ruling continue. From the report's summary:

“It always happened at night,” Hamiyet M. told Human Rights Watch. For 24 long years, Hamiyet’s husband had abused her by severely beating her and raping her almost daily. When she finally summoned the courage to go to police in her town in eastern Turkey, they sent her home, twice. The beatings continued, in one instance proving so severe she wound up in hospital where she spoke with a police officer for a third time. Yet again, she received neither sympathy nor help. “Are we supposed to deal with you all the time?” the officer scolded.

Some 42 percent of all women older than 15 in Turkey and 47 percent of women living in the country’s rural areas—approximately eleven million women in total—have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a husband or partner at some point in their lives, according to a 2009 survey conducted by a leading Turkish university.

Female domestic violence survivors, lawyers, and local experts on family violence interviewed for this report described husbands and family members inflicting brutal and long-lasting violence on women and girls that in some cases lasted for decades, affecting several generations of women. Researchers documented women and girls as young as 14 being raped; stabbed; kicked in the abdomen when pregnant; beaten with hammers, sticks, branches, and hoses to the point of broken bones and fractured skulls; locked up with dogs or other animals; starved; shot with a stun gun; injected with poison; pushed off a roof; and subjected to severe psychological violence. The violence occurred in all areas where researchers conducted interviews, and across income and education levels.

In recent years Turkey has taken important legislative steps towards addressing violence against women. But despite these impressive advances, most notably Law 4320 on the Protection of the Family (“Law 4320” or “protection law”), remaining gaps in the law and failures of implementation make the protection system unpredictable at best, and at times downright dangerous. Furthermore, this legislative process is undermined by the government’s failure to better prevent abuse in the first place, change discriminatory attitudes, and effectively address the barriers that deter women and girls from reporting abuse and accessing protection.

This report focuses on the civil remedies available in Turkey to survivors of domestic violence. These options—which aim to provide immediate protection from harm, create space for a victim to decide her course of action, and prevent an abuser hampering criminal or divorce proceedings with intimidation or threats—take two main forms. The first is physical protection in shelters, the second is civil protection orders—emergency measures intended to stop further abuse, which is common in domestic violence cases, including instructions to an abuser to stay away from the house and refrain from violence against the victim.

The research found that implementation of Law 4320 regularly falls short because enforcement officers, judges, and prosecutors neglect their duties, often due to lack of expertise or will to deal with cases of violence against women and girls in a manner that is effective and sensitive to the needs and human rights of victims. Women who do report family violence to police risk being turned away, and face poor enforcement of protection orders: indeed, some women have been murdered after obtaining a protection order against their killer. Shelters are lacking, and those that do exist often exclude certain groups of women, restrict movement and communications, and are vulnerable to security breaches. Environments in which women are supposed to report violence—particularly police stations and family courts—often lack the private space necessary to do so. In addition, differing understandings of the law—specifically, the scope of eligibility for protection orders—undermine its effectiveness and can exclude the most vulnerable victims of domestic violence.

Implementing Law 4320 was supposed to be a priority of the Ministry of Women and Family. Last March Selma Aliye Kavaf, who heads the ministry, said many women who reported abuse were not properly protected because the police to whom they reported did not in turn report to the Ministry, and so proper procedures were not followed. As far as I can tell, little progress has been made here. Further, under Turkish law, each municipality with a population of over 50,000 people is supposed to have a women's shelter, though this is still far from the case (see this post from last March). For news coverage of the report from Hurriyet Daily News, click here.

Pressure on Municipalities Extends Beyond BDP

Izmir Mayor Aziz Kocaoğlu addresses thousands of people who came together in central İzmir Monday to protest the recent police raid on the municipality. DHA photo from Hurriyet Daily News

From Hurriyet Daily News:

Approximately 50 employees of municipalities in the Aegean provinces of İzmir’s Metropolitan and Karabağlar municipalities as well as Aydın’s Kuşadası Municipality, including high-ranking officials, were detained Monday morning on corruption allegations that included interfering with public tenders.

The move came after a report prepared by the Court of Accounts, indicating corruption claims worth 40 million Turkish Liras in the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality.

While the police search continued on Tuesday, some 10 people were released after investigation. The probe surrounding 34 İzmir Municipality officials still continues.

“It is a politically oriented move aiming to disperse a fear of empire not only in the İzmir and Aydın but also among overall CHP-run municipalities in the country prior to the elections,” former Health Ministry undersecretary Aytun Çıray, who is also the CHP’s deputy candidate for İzmir, told the Hürriyet Daily News.

. . . .

The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, members, meanwhile, emphasized the role of judiciary in the move. Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek on Tuesday said what happened in İzmir was a result of the court decision and the investigation carried out by İzmir Public Prosecutor Office could not be associated with the ruling government.

The AKP has announced that capture Izmir in the June parliamentary elections is a major goal for the party. Izmir, long seen as haven of trendy swimsuit-wearing, fish-eating "white Turks," has long been a CHP stronghold. The CHP has denounced the raids as political. Izmir mayor Aziz Kocaoglu has called for the release of those municipal officials detained in the raid.

Historic Low for Media Freedom in Turkey

PHOTO by Hasan Altinisik / Hurriyet Daily News

In commemoration of World Press Freedom Day, I have decided to take the time to briefly reflect on the state of media freedom in Turkey, an issue about which I have written about repeatedly (click here).

In October, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Turkey 138th of 175 countries assessed in its recent survey of press freedom in countries around the world. According to RSF, 47 members of the Turkish press are under arrest and waiting trial. Most of these work for Kurdish news outlets, and are being prosecuted under Turkey's Anti-Terrorism Law, which makes it illegal to make or disseminate what the law vaguely refers to as "terrorist propaganda." Since then, a record number of journalists have been arrested in conjunction with the Ergenekon investigation, including, most recently, Ahmet Şık and Nedim Sener, who the International Press Institute (IPI) honored last year with the World Press Freedom Hero Award.

In addition to the prosecution of journalists, Turkey is a world leader when it comes to its restrictions on the Internet. Though not China or Burma, Turkey's Internet policy borders on authoritarian and is getting worse. The government is planning a wide-scale Internet filtering system that will create user categories for all Turkish citizens and allow the government to better track their usage. Most disturbingly, under the new provisions, which are set to go into effect this August, the government will be able to censor content without users even knowing their government stands between them and the World Wide Web (see last Friday's post). And, if Internet was not enough, neither radio nor television have not escaped the Turkish government's heavy hand. Television broadcasts are routinely censored for being "morally objectionable," and a new law on broadcast media passed this February gives the government even more power to intervene.

Though many are focused on democracy in the Arab world at the moment, the rapidly declining state of media freedom in Turkey should make the world pay heed to the questionable state of Turkish democracy, what I have referred to here as a rising electoral authoritarianism that is polarizing the country in new ways and, if not curbed, has the potential of bringing the tremendous democratic gains of the past twelve years. While it is true Turkey chose a democratic trajectory after its application for EU membership was granted in Helsinki in 1999, since then Turkey's EU-driven democratization process has considerably slowed and many of the liberals that helped bring the AKP government to power in 2002 have fallen away from the party. If press freedom is any indicator of liberal democracy, liberalism is in a period of rapid decline. For more reflections on liberal democracy and the Turkish government's need to go beyond its current majoritarian understanding, click here.

For World Press Freedom Day events that have occurred in Washington this week, click here.

Another May Day in Taksim Square

PHOTO from Hurriyet Daily News

Today marks International Worker's Day, or May Day, a big day in Turkish politics since 1977 when 34 demonstrators were shot dead in Istanbul's famed Taksim Square. Last year marked the first time in years that the Istanbul municipality allowed May Day celebrations. Before then, the days before May Day were marked with curiosity as to just how bad the clash would be between the police and protestors. Following massive criticisms against the government following
a large crackdown celebrations/demonstrations in 2008, President Gul declared May Day a national holiday the following year.

Always a big day for the left, it seems this year there were some additional players around. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and socialist parties such as the Freedom and Solidarity Party, or ÖDP, were unsurprising sights at the May Day celebrations, as they have been participating in the May Day festivities for a long time.

This year, however, they were joined by members of the People’s Voice Party, or HSP, founded by Islamic-rooted politician Numan Kurtulmuş. Members of the group carried posters saying, “We want a deputy with a headscarf” and “Say no to subcontracted labor.” Party members attending the celebration included women wearing headscarves and young people wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the image of revolutionary Che Guevara.

Barbaros Risal, a young member of the party, said he has socialist views but feels close to the HSP. “Being left-wing means being on the side of the oppressed ones. In this context our rhetoric is no different from the Communist Party’s rhetoric,” said Risal.

Journalists demanding press freedom were also among the groups celebrating May Day in Taksim Square. “As journalists we are subjected to a lot of oppression in Turkey. Now we are here to voice our demand for press freedom and for the release of our colleagues who are in prison just because of their journalistic activities,” said Elif Ilgaz, a journalist who is a member of the group “Friends of Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener,” named after two recently arrested reporters.

This year's May Day also premiered a replica of the banner that hung in the square in 1977.

How Turks Perceive Kurdish Demands

TESEV researchers Dilek Kurban and Yilmaz Ensarioglu have a new study analyzing Kurdish demands and discussing possible policy solutions in light of a series of roundtable discussions the researchers had with Turks regarding their perception of Kurdish demands.

The report, entitled "How Legitimate Are the Kurds' Demands?: The Kurdish Question Through the Lens of Turkey's West," follows up on the 2008 report TESEV published on possible solutions to the Kurdish question. That report was published right before the government's announced "Kurdish Opening," and had the government paid it more heed, it would have most likely been saved the mess it encountered last year. From this latest report:

Until recently, the Kurdish Question was mostly limited to the relations between Kurds, actually one group of Kurds, and the state, and it had not yet become a social problem. Some recent events particularly in Turkey’s western provinces point to the likelihood of tension, even conflict, between Turks and Kurds. Reaching a solution while keeping social harmony intact will be possible if different segments of society take part in the process of discussion and solution, that is to say, if everyone is ensured to have a chance to communicate their take on a solution.

While the lion’s share of responsibility in this regard falls upon the shoulders of political circles including first of all the government, there is no doubt that the media, intellectuals, universities and especially non-governmental organizations also have important roles to play.

Accordingly, we opened to debate the 2008 TESEV report, which effectively compiled Kurds’ opinions and demands, in western provinces where Kurds do not constitute the majority of the total residents. To that end, we held five roundtable discussions, two in İzmir and one each in Mersin, Trabzon and Ankara, with participants living in those cities and in neighboring cities. We invited individuals from as many different ethnic, cultural and political communities as possible, and aimed to bring participants into a discussion on both Kurds’ demands on the basis of the 2008 report and their own respective approaches, objections, concerns and expectations.

The main goal of preparing and publishing the Report was to identify as accurately as possible how the voices of Kurds, the group with a primary stake in the question, are perceived around Turkey, which of their demands are considered reasonable and which are deemed unacceptable, and to act as an intermediary helping with the presentation of the opinions of non-Kurdish segments of society on the Kurdish Question to the public opinion.

I have yet to review it, but thought I would go ahead and post for interested readers.

The Forbidden Zone

The Turkish government via the Prime Ministry's Information Technologies Board (BTK) recently introduced a system in which websites bearing domain names carrying certain words will be automatically banned. Yesterday the government, through the Telecommunication Directorate (TIB) sent the list to Internet service providers ordering that website carrying these domain names be banned. From Hurriyet Daily News:

The affect of the decision could see the closure of many website that feature the banned words. For example, the website “donanimalemi.com” (hardwareworld.com) because the domain name has “animal” in it, a banned word and likewise “sanaldestekunitesi.com,” (virtualsupportunit.com) would not be able to operate under its current name because it has “anal” in it; also among the 138 banned words. Websites cannot have the number 31 in their domain names either because it is slang for male masturbation.

Some more banned English words are: “beat,” “escort,” “homemade,” “hot,” “nubile,” “free” and “teen.” Some others in English have different meanings: “pic,” short for picture, is banned because it means “bastard” in Turkish. The past tense of the verb “get” is also banned because “got” means “butt” in Turkish. Haydar, a very common Alevi name for men, is also banned because it means penis in slang.

“Gay” and its Turkish pronunciation “gey,” “çıplak” (naked), “itiraf” (confession), “liseli” (high school student), “nefes” (breath) and “yasak” (forbidden) are some of the other banned words.

Obviously there are problems with the list, and I do not think I have to mention that a website does not contain pornography just because an Internet domain site includes the word "gay."According to Yaman Akdeniz, who is at the lead of the fight for Internet freedom in Turkey, the government is in violation of the law. As draconian as Turkey's 2006 Internet regulation might be, there indeed seems little legal basis for what the BTK is doing.

“Hosting companies are not responsible for monitoring for illegal activities; their liability arises only if they take no action after being notified by the TİB – or any other party – and are asked to remove certain illegal content,” Akdeniz said.

The TİB cited the Internet ban law number 5651 and related legislation as the legal ground for its request. The law, however, does not authorize firms to take action related to banning websites.

“The hosting company is not responsible for controlling the content of the websites it provides domains to or researching/exploring on whether there is any illegal activity or not. They are responsible for removing illegal content when they are informed and there is the technical possibility of doing so,” according to Article 5 of the law.

On Thursday, following the heated debate surround the “forbidden” list, the TİB said the list was sent to hosting firms for informatory purposes. But the statement further confused the situation, as the body threatened companies with punishment if they did not obey its directions regarding the list in the first letter sent to service providers.

So, not only is the government violating rights to freedom of expression on a large scale, it is not even acting according to the rule of law -- at least not yet. The ban on domain names occurs at the same time the government is moving to implement a new regulation that paves the way for such infringements in the future.

As far as I can tell, the BTK is not citing recent regulation as the legal basis for its authority to demand internet service providers block access to these domain names, instead basing its authority on the 2006 Internet Law (No. 5651), which I have written about extensively. This law is draconian, but what is coming seems even worse.

The new regulations gives the government the authority to block and filter websites according to its own designs (independent of any court order), and importantly, not make its blocking and filtering practices public. Though the old regulation does give the TIB the authority to block access to websites, the authority blocking the website, whether the TIB or a specific court, is public information and the person trying to access the website encounters a message that the website is blocked. The TIB also acts on a set of criteria determined by the 2006 Internet law. For more on the old law, click here. If anyone can give me more information on the legal scheme here, I would much appreciate it.

Though Turkey has made considerable democratic progress in the past 10-15 years and in many ways improved its human record, this backsliding on media freedom raises serious questions about its democratic trajectory. Increasingly, the government seems to take the position that they can do anything they want as long as they are elected by a majority. Liberal democracy this is not. Electoral authoritarianism? Maybe.


UPDATE I (5/5) --  Bianet, a new portal from which I post regularly, is challenging the new regulations at the Council of State. Other websites are also following suit, and it might not be too much longer before the European Court of Human Rights is inundated with another round of freedom of expression cases in Turkey. Here is hoping the government repeals this insanity now and begins to work with experts on Internet law to pass a new Internet law that does not violate rights to freedom of expression and access to information, at least not on such a massive scale. For a bit of legal analysis from experts quoted in Hurriyet Daily News, click here.

A Second Bosporus . . . ?

IMAGE from Hurriyet Daily News

The Turkish government's plans to build a second canal right through the heart of Istanbul have raised more than a few eyebrows. The government first talked about this last fall, but yesterday announced a two-year study plan, after which construction would begin. Jenny White gives a summary of the project and asks a couple of really good questions at Kamil Pasha:

There will be a two-year “study period”. Then they’ll start digging. Goal to finish is 2023. Expected cost, a mere $10 billion. Istanbul will become an island and two half-islands. The canal site will be on state-owned land, but there will also be expropriations.

The idea is to allow the biggest tankers to go through the city in the new canal instead of along the Bosphorus, thereby avoiding potential environmental catastrophe in case of a ship crash, oil spill, floods, etc on the Bosphorus. Because the Bosphorus is an international waterway there are all kinds of hazardous materials traveling unhindered through the middle of the city. But the ships in the new canal would still be going through the middle of the city, admittedly without the treacherous currents that afflict Bosphorus traffic. The canal, unlike the Bosphorus, would be fully under Turkish control. Can Turkey legally ban ships from using the Bosphorus? What if the ships prefer that route instead of using the canal (especially if the canal is more expensive)?

Canal length: 45-50km. Depth: 25 meters. Width: 145-150 meters. The soil will be used to build a new harbor and a new airport. (click here)

Maybe it’s me, that I just can’t think big enough. But I also don’t trust the government’s reasons, rationale, and ability to do this properly with sufficient study and technical expertise. (eg what effect would this have on Istanbul’s earthquake susceptibility?)

Hmm, yeah? . . .


UPDATE I (4/30) -- Aengus Collins asks some more good questions of his blog Istanbul Notes.

Mr Erdoğan clearly wants to present himself as a visionary leader who is ready and willing to stamp the power of his imagination on the most significant city in his country. But there are many more imaginative things that he might have chosen to do, many other ways in which he might have sought to improve the lives of the city’s millions of inhabitants had he wanted to.

How about a serious attempt to remedy Istanbul’s criminal unpreparedness for the major earthquake that everyone knows is coming and that everyone knows will kill thousands upon thousands? How about an overhaul of the planning system to incorporate some awareness of the fact that the built environment isn’t an end in itself, but a means of furthering a wide range of human needs? How about overcoming the insanity that passes itself off as driving on Istanbul’s roads? How about a public library worthy of one of the world’s great cities? How about a commitment to retain what little green space is left here and perhaps recover some that has been lost? How about a concerted attempt to deal with the various countrywide factors that are driving crippling and unsustainable increases in the city’s population?

I think Jenny and Aengus have this covered, and so I will leave it at that.

Defense Lawyers Threaten to Boycott KCK Trial

DHA Photo from Radikal

Defense lawyers announced Monday that they will boycott the KCK trial currently ongoing in Diyarbakir unless the court allows defendants to use Kurdish when defending themselves in the courtroom. For background, click here. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Defense lawyers withdrew themselves at a Tuesday hearing from the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK, trial and gathered to discuss whether the action should be permanent or not.

The trial has been grid-locked many times over the suspects’ demand to give their defense in Kurdish despite the court’s consistent refusal.

The 21st hearing of the case started with suspect Songül Erol Abdil, the former mayor of Tunceli province, offering his defense in Zaza, which the court refused to hear, stating the statement was in “a language believed to be Kurdish.”

Abdil corrected the court, saying that the language was Zaza and offered the defense in writing. The court refused it once more, saying, “The suspect knows Turkish.” Defense lawyers said the action was illegal and that written statements must be translated and put into the case file.

After the same thing occurred with another suspect, the defense demanded that the statements be included in the case file in both Kurdish and Turkish, that the court make a decision of lack of jurisdiction and transfer the trial to the Constitutional Court and that all the arrested suspects be present at hearings.

The court tried to end the hearing after a recess without addressing the demands, leading about 100 defense lawyers to withdraw from the case, stating they cannot do their jobs.

UPDATE I (4/27) --The Diyarbakir hearing the KCK case has ruled that the Diyarbakir Bar Association will be asked to provide new representation to clients should the lawyers who have announced to boycott the trial not attend the next hearing. The Bar Association has said it will not do this. Hurriyet Daily News quotes Emin Aktar, a lawyer in the KCK case and current chairman of the Bar Association:

“The trial is already in a gridlock; six months have passed and not one defense has gone on record.” 

"It is meaningless for us to be there,” he added.
“The court will not even add defense in Kurdish to the [case] file, let alone allow it to be read,” he said, adding that according to the law, the defenses should be translated into Turkish and added to the case files.

“There are lots of wire-tapped conversations in Kurdish used as evidence against the suspects,” Aktar said. “You [the court] translated then and [added them to the file]. Then take those out too.”

The defense lawyers have also objected to the suspects being brought to trial in groups of six, rather than altogether, even though the courtroom is large enough to handle all of them and none of the suspects caused any disturbance or insulted the court when they were brought before it, Aktar said.

“It is against the universal concept of law. The indictment accuses them of being in an organization together, of being connected to each other somehow, so they should be tried together, but you will bring some of them to the hearings and not others,” he said. “You will start to read the evidence and those not present will not be able to answer the [claims] about them. And this would be called a trial.”

Moreover, Aktar said, the defense lawyers are unaware of which suspects will be brought to court beforehand and thus cannot prepare a defense. He called for the Justice Ministry to intervene to solve the problem or for the court to “give up on its stubbornness.”

It is highly unlikely that the Justice Ministry will intervene in the trial as doing so would constitute a major concession from the government and be perceived as a political victory for the BDP.

Kurdish Nationalism is Not Going Away

The backs of young men shouting slogans in support of Ocalan and the PKK at a festival organized by the Diyarbakir municipality. PHOTO by Ragan Updegraff

In the wake of the spate of violence sparked last week after the Elections Board (YSK) decided to bar 12 BDP candidates from running in June's parliamentary elections (the board decided on Thursday to reverse the decision), this Monday, as last, threatens more unrest as police acted to detain prominent BDP politicians.

Police detained 35 people Monday in the southeastern province of Hakkari, including the deputy mayor and other local officials, in connection with ongoing investigations into the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK.

The operations, reportedly carried out by police with special authority at city-center locations and at the “Democratic Solution Tent” set up by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, drew strong criticism from the party.

“This policy of the government is aimed at emptying out our party and [demoralizing] all those who love peace and democracy. This is psychological warfare,” said Mehmet Salih Yıldız, an independent candidate for Parliament supported by the BDP.

The 35 people who were detained in the operations include Hakkari Deputy Mayor Nurullah Çiftçi, Vice Mayor Hatice Demir, provincial council head Ferzınde Yılmaz, BDP provincial chairman Orhan Koparan, BDP central district chairman Kenan Kaya, the area “muhtar” (headman) and members of the provincial council and the municipality.

The suspects will be transferred to court after being questioned by the Hakkari police, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The recent operations in Hakkari are sinfificant in that they include top officials in the BDP-governed municipality, which is one of the most fervent BDP strongholds in the country. Since local elections in March 2009 in which the BDP captured large majorities in several southeastern provinces, the party has worked hard to govern these municipalities as relatively sovereign from Ankara. The party has focused on providing municipal services and using the municipality in novel ways to further its political agenda, including organizing political fora, such as the "democratic solution" tent in Hakkari, that challenge the AKP's approach to dealing with the problem.

And what is that approach? For many Kurds, more important than the "Kurdish opening" is what they see as the ruling party's attempts to suppress Kurdish political organization that challenges the AKP agenda. Though the "Kurdish opening," which was soon changed to a "democratic opening" and then to a project to promote "national unity and brotherhood," promised to offer solutions to long-existing problems, particularly in the area of cultural and minority rights, the opening gained little momentum and was largely dead by October. (For a history of the opening up to May of last year, click here.) After a very violent summer, there is little hope for the opening in the region and the AKP is facing record lows in terms of its popularity in provinces like Hakkari and Sirnak.

Monday's detentions will only further stoke nationalist sentiments and resentment against the AKP among Kurds already inclined to support the BDP. Combined with the complete and utter mess that defines the trials of alleged "KCK members" currently ongoing in Diyarbakir and Van, relations between Turks and Kurds will get worse before they get better. The BDP stands to gain votes as a result of the increased tensions, and in my analysis, the AKP is misguided if it thinks it can seriously "remove" (a nasty word) the Kurdish political actors it deems more unsavory.

Some leading AKP figures have attempted in the past year to distinguish between "bad Kurds" and "good Kurds," the main criterion for the separation between the two being the latter's support of the government. If the AKP thinks this a waiting game, that these players, attitudes, and demands will just go away with enough repression, it is sorely mistaken. As former Turkish security officials and long-time observers of the Kurdish question can testify, such an approach has been taken before, it has failed before, and it will fail again.

Hence, we have former Turkish officials like retired MIT deputy director Cevat Ones calling for  a serious reconsideration of the problem, a re-working of Turkish nationalism and the constitutional foundations of the Turkish state that accommodates the self-determination demands of nationalist-minded Kurds. Ones's words seem to be falling on deaf ears, but the problem is not going away. (See Nese Duzel's column in Taraf (in Turkish) for more on Ones.)