‘New’ Turkey, Same Old Injustice

Human rights reform in Turkey suffered a serious and disgraceful setback last week when the state security courts again delivered a guilty verdict against Kurdish political dissident Leyla Zana and three other Kurds, all of whom were once members of the Turkish parliament.

Winner of the Sakharov human rights prize in 1995, Zana, along with her colleagues, has been imprisoned since 1994 for nonviolent expressions of opinion against the Turkish state. Their retrial was widely seen as a litmus test of Turkey’s resolve to reform its horrific human rights record. It was a test that Turkey failed miserably.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2001 that the original trial of Zana and her co-defendants was unfair; the four were accused of having links with the then-separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party. But in a country that had been torn apart by a violent Kurdish-Turkish civil war from 1984 to 1999, a retrial was unthinkable until last year, after Turkey’s newly elected government courageously passed a series of democratization packages.

Turkey is hoping to begin talks in December to join the European Union, and the reform packages, if enforced, have the potential to bring true democracy to a republic that has historically been dominated by the military -- and to bring Turkey in line with EU standards. The Zana retrial, however, should give the EU pause.

From the beginning, the retrial was a mockery of justice. Denounced by human rights groups, it dragged out for over a year. The three-judge panel openly favored the prosecution and rejected many demands of the defense, including the right to thoroughly cross-examine witnesses. Zana and her colleagues -- referred to as “convicts” by the court from day one -- were denied bail and protested the proceedings by boycotting many of their own hearings. Welcome to the new trial, same as the old trial.

The Kurds of Turkey have suffered extraordinary repression at the hands of the state since shortly after the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The right to teach the Kurdish language or to speak it in public places, hold Kurdish cultural events, organize Kurdish political parties -- all have been largely denied as Turkey tried to force the assimilation of its largest minority group. As recently as 1991, the Kurds could not even call themselves Kurds without risking arrest and torture; they were said to be “mountain Turks who have forgotten their language.” And in the wake of the civil war, tens of thousands of Kurds have been incarcerated and tortured, and hundreds of thousands burned out of their villages by the Turkish military.

The 2002-03 democratization packages took important steps toward righting some of these long-standing wrongs. In addition to allowing retrials, the reforms granted limited Kurdish broadcast rights, the right to teach the Kurdish language and greater freedom of the press. Even more important, the reforms curbed the power of the Turkish military and promised to punish authorities found guilty of torture -- a widespread problem in Turkey’s police and prison systems.

But the reforms will do little good if they are not enforced. Daily reports coming out of Turkey tell of continuing unlawful arrests, systematic torture by the police, impunity for those who inflict such torture, and the repression of freedom of expression. Kurdish language classes have begun in only a few cities; the new broadcast rights are far from widespread; some proper Kurdish names have been newly banned; and now, Leyla Zana and her colleagues have been re-convicted and their 15-year sentences reaffirmed. Attempts have also been made to ban the main pro-Kurdish party and to permanently shut down the Turkish Human Rights Foundation.

All parties stand to gain if Turkey can meet the standard of the European Union. The Turks would gain a more full-fledged democracy, Europe would gain a rich cultural and economic partner and Turkey’s 14 million Kurds would finally gain more equal rights, which would in turn lead to greater stability in the entire region. And the membership of a Muslim state in the predominantly Christian EU could also help mute the seemingly inevitable clash of East-West civilizations.

But France declared its opposition to Turkey’s membership in the EU even before the second Zana verdict, and many observers believe that Turkey’s acceptance is far from a done deal. The Turkish government urgently needs to follow through, press its new laws into practice and reverse its deplorable human rights record. It should begin -- again -- by overturning last week’s outrageous verdict through the appeal that Zana and her colleagues intend to file.

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Christiane Bird is the author of “A Thousand Sighs, a Thousand Revolts: Journeys in Kurdistan,” to be published by Ballantine Books next month.