Kurds in Turkey
The Turkish consul general set a new standard for political fiction in his Oct. 23 letter when he characterized Turkey as free and open. Twenty million Kurds are forbidden from speaking the Kurdish language and references to Kurdish culture in Turkey are forbidden by law. To publish or speak or sing in Kurdish is a crime against the state.
Human Rights Watch reported last December that the Turkish military campaign is aimed largely at the civilian population in a massive effort of forced relocation and village destruction, displacing some 2 million people, destroying their homes and fields. Reuters estimates that over 18,000 Kurds have been killed and over 2,400 villages have been destroyed.
Even academic documentation of the treatment of the Kurds is punished.
In 1991, bowing to international pressure, 22 Kurds were elected to the Grand National Assembly. Eight spoke on the floor of the assembly for equal rights for the Kurds. One, Mehmet Sincar, was murdered. Seven were retroactively stripped of their parliamentary immunity and sentenced to jail for 3 1/2 to 15 years each.
RALPH FERTIG, Vice President
Humanitarian Law Project
Los Angeles
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