An international peace
delegation organized by the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) and consisting
of 11 members from Europe and North America, including Members of European
Parliament and of the Council of Europe, academics, and journalists, has been
in Diyarbakir and Istanbul this past week.
The delegation has met with representatives from the Kurdish Freedom
Movement, political parties, trade unions, academics, journalists, and other
civil society organizations.
The
delegation includes: two current representatives from
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Miren Edurne Gorrotxategi
and Ulla Sandbaek; a current
Member of the European Parliament, Julie Ward; a former MEP, Francis Wurtz; a
former Minister of Justice and trade unionist, Ögmundur Jonasson; veteran
Foreign Correspondent, Jonathan Steele; the Chair of the Westminster Justice
and Peace Commission, Father Joe Ryan; three members of the Advisory Board of
the Transnational Institute for Social Ecology, Nathan McDonnell, Dimitri
Roussopoulos, and Federico Venturini; and a Lecturer from the University of
Cambridge, Thomas Jeffrey Miley.
The delegation
applied to the Turkish Minister of Justice, requesting a meeting with the
leader of the Kurdish Freedom Movement, Abdullah Öcalan, who has been
imprisoned and isolated in inhumane conditions on Imrali Island for eighteen
years now, and who is a crucial role player in the peace process. Unfortunately, the Minister of Justice did
not respond to our request.
The delegation
also attempted to visit the co-chair from the People’s Democratic Party (HDP),
Selahattin Demirtas, currently imprisoned unconstitutionally in Edirne. Its request was rejected.
Over the course of
the week, the delegation witnessed and gathered information about the dire human
rights’ situation in the country. It attended
the unlawful, politicized trial of an HDP MP from Diyarbakir; and it toured
Diyarbakir and met with many people who informed us about their experiences in
the year and a half since the unravelling of the peace process - the spiraling
of violence and repression, the military assaults, curfews, countless infringements
of civil rights, and human rights atrocities.
The
delegation will prepare a report about these disturbing findings,
which it plans to distribute widely and to present to the European Parliament,
the Council of Europe, and the United Nations, among other international
organizations.
The
report will highlight Turkey’s non-compliance
with the recommendations of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture
regarding the unlawful and inhumane treatment of Abdullah Ocalan.
The
report will also emphasize the unconstitutional imprisonment of the elected
representatives of the HDP, the country’s third largest political party, as
well the unlawful persecution and detentions suffered by many of its members. These unlawful detentions have escalated in a
most alarming fashion during our visit, with at least 834 people detained
between the 13th and the 15th of this month.
In addition to
this report, in coming weeks and months the delegation intends to travel to
Strasburg to meet with representatives from the Committee for the Prevention of
Torture and with members of the Committee of Ministers and other members of the
Council of Europe to inform them about and to urge them to act in response to the
Turkish state’s blatant disregard for European law and human rights norms.
The
Delegation
1.
Dr Thomas J
Miley, Cambridge University,
2.
Julie
WARD, Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the
European Parliament,
3.
Mr.
Jonathan STEELE, Veteran Foreign Correspondent and Author, UK,
4.
Ulla
SANDBÆK, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Member, Group of the Unified
European Left,
5.
Mr
Ögmundur Jonasson, Former Minister and former leader of the Federation of
Public Service Employees in Iceland and Board member on the board of
international trade union organizations.,
6.
Francis
Wurtz was a French Member of the European Parliament,
7.
Joe
Ryan, chair of the Westminster Justice and Peace Commission, UK,
8.
Federico
Venturini, School of Geography, University of Leeds; advisory board member of
Transnational Institute for Social Ecology, UK,
9.
Dimitri
Roussopoulos, co-founder of Transnational Institute for Social Ecology,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Dimitri,
10.
Nathan
Peter McDonnel, Assistant for Mr. Dimitrios, Canada,
11. Miren
Edurne GORROTXATEGI, Member of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assemble and
member of Spain Senat,
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου
Υφίσταται μετριασμός των σχολίων.
- Παρακαλούμε στα σχόλια σας να χρησιμοποιείτε ένα όνομα ή ψευδώνυμο ( Σχόλια από Unknown θα διαγράφονται ).
- Παρακαλούμε να μη χρησιμοποιείτε κεφαλαία γράμματα στη σύνταξη των σχολίων σας.