XII. IS IMPRISONMENT OF SOME FORMER MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT OF KURDISH DESCENT INCLUDING LEYLA ZANA FOR THEIR "POLITICAL ACTIVITIES" AN INDICATION OF OPPRESSION OF THE KURDS?

The members of the Grand National Assembly of the Republic of Turkey are elected as the representatives of the Turkish nation as a whole irrespective of their ethnic origin for Turkish state is not based on ethnic discrimination and racist concept of nation. There should be no reason to transfer Kurdish-Turkish polarization, which does not exist in social life, into the Parliament. Meanwhile, it should be borne in mind that because of the nonexistence of ethnic discrimination in politics parliamentarians of Kurdish descent are not only from the banned pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) but also from the center parties holding majority in the Parliament.

Former parliamentarians of the banned DEP had been elected as the candidates of a center-left party in the 1991 general elections. Their parliamentary membership continued until the Parliament rescinded their immunity by general consent in March 1994. Those former parliamentarians from the banned DEP like any other member of Parliament had enjoyed the freedom which protects legislators from what may be arbitrary or politically motivated detentions or arrests and they had enjoyed freedom of speech which means that members of the Parliament shall not be held responsible for votes cast, speeches made, and opinions expressed in the course of legislative activities or for repeating and disclosing those activities outside the legislature. Both of these freedoms may only be removed by the Parliament itself.58 Constitutional court which acts independent from legislature and administrative bodies rejected the request, which is also a constitutional right, to invalidate Parliament’s decision to rescind the immunity of DEP members.

Turkish Court of Cassation in its examination of the appeal against the conviction of DEP members concluded that their speeches and expressions of views in the Parliament could not be considered for conviction because of the freedom of speech. Therefore, the argument that former parliamentarians from DEP were convicted due to their parliamentary duties and political activities does not confirm the facts.59

In the same decision of the Court of Cassation it was told that there was concrete evidence which exposed the relations between the PKK and its leader and parliamentarians from DEP outside the Parliament and in non-legislative activities. In addition, former parliamentarians from DEP who escaped abroad outspoke that they were adherent to the PKK.60 It is hard to understand the reactions, in the name of democracy and human rights, to the trial, and for some of them, the imprisonment of former DEP parliamentarians who were proved documentarily that they acted following the orders by the PKK, one of the most brutal Marxist terrorist organizations which aims at the destruction of democratic rights and freedoms.

In particular, it is proved that currently imprisoned former DEP members acted in common with the PKK and one of them, Leyla Zana was given political training in the PKK camp in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.61 On the other hand, other former parliamentarians of DEP, who were found to violate Article 8 of the Anti-terrorism law that is seen restrictive of freedom of expression and which punishes disseminators of the propaganda against indivisible integrity of the State with its nation and territory, were released. Also, with the amendments to that article that facilitate narrow interpretation and bring reduction in terms of sentences, some of the convicted had the chance to become free. This is an indication that Turkey has a Western style democracy with the potential for improvement.

While in December 25, 1995 general elections People’s Democracy Party (HADEP) in alliance with extreme leftist parties for which the PKK had openly declared its support could receive 4.17% of the total votes in Turkey and gained no seat in the Parliament, persons of Kurdish descent from other political parties were elected. This result shows that ethnically undiscriminating State policy has the support of the people.

58 Özbudun, "Constitutional Law" in Introduction to Turkish Law, p. 43.

59 Turkish Democracy Foundation, Human Rights..., p. 22.

60 "Naif Güneş from DEP said: ‘We are all adherent to the PKK’.", Hürriyet, 17 April 1995. "Former head of DEP, Yaşar Kaya said: ‘Kurdistan Parliament in Exile is not a body standing in the shadow of the PKK. Because functionally we have the typical characteristics of the PKK’", Türkiye, 10 September 1995.

61 As quoted from the decision by the 9th Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation in Yeni Sayfa, 25 November 1995.