Children Tried Under Charges of Terrorism

Although the state for whatever reason cannot kill Kurdish children as easy as it used to, now it is imprisoning children as terrorists. If you are a 12 year old who is in the vicinity of the events where other 12 year old kids throw stones at the armored vehicles who crushed their parents, well guess what? You or any other children, "guilty" of throwing a stone or not can be in prison for decades. That is, if they don't put you among ultra-right-wing prisoners who are in prison because of robbery, rape, extortion, etc. and have you killed by them. This is what happened to Yasin Akyüz, who was strangled to death and he was just 15 years old. Did the officials even find out who did it? I am sure they looked into the mirror.

Bianet has a recent piece on trying children as terrorists:

[...]

The Anti-Terrorism Law was effected in 1991 and renewed in 2006. It states that children aged between 12 and 18 years accused for terror should be detained, interrogated and tried under the same conditions as adults. Tilbe Saran and Murat Garipoğlu from the organization Civil Platform object to the law, warning that with every day that passes by another victim of the law is being added.

So the Kurdish children can be killed at their homes, have their villages razed, beaten, forced to migrate, and when they actually show some character, the state wants to destroy them in prisons. Here is the most "interesting part" of the article:

According to the group's information 127 children are currently detained. 3000 children are on trial but the Ministry of Justice does not confirm a precise figure.

[...]

The ministry of justice of a nation state does not confirm a precise figure on its OWN citizens who are on trial or in prison? Seriously, what kind of a state, mind you an "advanced democracy" are we talking about here?! Ministry of just-ice seems to be a better term considering the cold blooded murders it has been carrying against Kurdish people.

Sun will shine and ice will melt. Only then things will be just.

The Zilan River Massacre: Part 2

This is Part 2 of the article on Zilan River Massacre that appeared in Gündem. You can read Part 1 on this blog as well.

Zilan River was filled with Corpses

Right after this massacre, the semi official newspaper of the state, Cumhuriyet daily, in its 16 July 1930 issue reported the massacre of Zîlan as below:

‘The villages of Agri that joined the bandits have been burned down and their residents were sent to Erciş. The number of bandits destroyed during the Zilan operation is over 15 thousand. The number of those who fell before a battalion and died is guessed to be over one thousand. Five brigands who made it to Zilan River surrendered. The war in this place has been very fierce. The Zilan river has filled up with corpses.’

Faik Bulut’s book titled ‘Kurdish Uprisings in Turkey’ which included some documents from the Archive of War History has also included the [Turkish] General Staff’s order dated 01 July 1930. The General Staff orders ‘All of the villages in the region of uprising that have participated in the uprising shall be completely burned down.’

Also, the General Staff’s order on 03 July 1930 says this: ‘… To show the people who rise up will be punished, the villages that participated in the Oramar events and the clans in the meadow must be identified and bombed with the air force.’

These documents [included in Faik Bulut’s book] further state that ‘On 02 July 1930 the following activities occured: Kaymaz, Haçan, Kölesor, Çilli ve Osmanlı villages were bombed by airplanes; the villages in the Patnos region that joined the uprising were subjected to machine gun fire and bombings.

According to the government of the time ‘The actions [by state officials and forces] in the uprising cannot be considered as criminal’. The region was a 'fire at will’ zone. The law number 1850 on 20 July 1931 approved this:

Item 1: During the uprising in Erciş, Zilan, Ağrı mountain regions and following that due to the tracking and punishment operations in the jurisdiction of First Public Controller and in Erzincan’s Pülümür town, from 20 June 1930 to 1 December 1930, any individual or group actions of the military forces, government employees, and anyone who acts with or for them, including watchmen, paramilitary [korucular], and regular citizens, related to getting rid of the uprising and events associated with it are not criminal.

Item 2: This law is in effect on the day of its publishing.

Item 3: The representatives of judiciary and internal matters are charged with the implementation of this law.

After the massacre, the Zilan River was declared a military zone closed to the public. After a while, a Government Farm was started there. Later, immigrants from Afghanistan, Turkmen, were brought and settled in the region. There are still villages in the region whose inhabitants are completely Turkmen.

The Zilan River is one of the most painful episodes of the painful struggle of Kurds. Thousands of people, from swaddled babies to old people were killed.

We believe that those who think they can finish Kurds by killing them have been wrong. Those who committed massacres after Zilan River, in Halepçe [Halabja], Qamişlo, Dersim, Lice, and other places and times, could not finish the Kurds’ struggle for freedom. Kurds, because of their struggle for freedom, have faced these massacres and paid heavy prices. Without a doubt, the sacrifices made by the Kurdish people will not be in vain and this people, in the end, will gain their freedom.


Sources:

İdris ERTAŞ - Tarihe Kazınmış Belgeler; Soykırımlar-III /
Ahmet Kahraman - Kürt İsyanları -
Tedip Ve Tenkil-
M. Remzi Bucak - Bir Kürt Aydınından İsmet İnönü'ye Mektup
Sıddık Güler - Dicle Haber Ajansı
Mehmet Ali Aslan - Kürt Trajedisi

There other eye witnesses who survived the massacre. Here is what another one says:

I think İsmet İnönü gave the order

Kakil Erdem, who is currently 94 and lives in Kündük village, was 17 years old at the time of the massacre. He is one of the few witnesses who survived. He goes on:

“The soldiers were stabbing pregnant women and cutting their babies out. I watched them behead people. They skinned heads of three of my relatives before my eyes. I saw them beating two brothers to death with wood.”

Erdem says when the massacre started, he ran towards the mountains and watched the events from where he hid. “Thousands of soldiers from the 7th Army Corps came to the villages. They surrounded the 72 villages in Zilan. They killed everyone in these villages; men, women, old, young, children, babies, everyone was killed. İbrahim Bey and Derviş Bey were commanding the unit. As they were killing people, we had to run and hide. Some people hid in the wheat fields and beneath their things. Then we all escaped to the mountains. We stayed hungry for days. We went back to the village after the soldiers left. They had killed 35 relatives of mine. I watched them beheading many people. My oldest brother is alive, he saw these too.”

Erdem responds to some allegations which say that the government of the time did not know about the events: “I think İsmet İnönü gave the order. Derviş Bey is father of Alparslan Türkeş. As I think of them, I get chills. I never forgot that massacre. They killed those they captured. Most of the people who died in this massacre were those who fought [side by side with Turks] in the war of independence. They had fought for this country. I did my military service in Sarıkamış. The people we fought together against the enemy later came and killed us.”

What kind of brotherhood is this?

The Zilan River Massacre: Part 1

Below is Part 1 of the translation of the article appeared in Gündem. Many thanks to a Zarokek Roj (child of sun) who helped with the translation.

The Zilan River Turned Red

The Kurds, during the First World War at the beginning of 20th century, sent hundreds of thousands of Kurdish soldiers to fight side by side with Turks at every front Turks were fighting. Kurds did that to protect Islamic values, their freedom, and because they considered Turks brothers.

After the war was over, the response the Kurds have received were promises that were not kept [by the Turks], the splitting of their homeland into five pieces, the denial of their identity, and bans. In response to this injustice, uprisings break out at every corner of Kurdistan.

One of these uprisings is the one at Agri [Agirî]. After the Turkish state suppressed the Agri uprising, it started an all out annihilation campaign against Kurds at the Zilan River, in the Town of Erciş [Erdîş], Van [Wan] on 13 July 1930.

After the Agri uprising was over, the Kurds took refuge in the Zilan valley. The commander of the Army Corps, Salih Pasha, with the military operation, conducted a massacre against the Kurds taking refuge in the Zilan valley. The Zilan region was bombed with airplanes. The passages to the region get sealed off and tens of thousands of soldiers surrounded the region; the massacre began. From a new born baby to 90 year old elderly, people of all ages, male and female, were raked by machine guns and stabbed with bayonets.


The Bodies Rot

A total of 44 villages were set on fire and around 15 thousand people were tied to one another [and] massacred in the valley. A soldier who was part of the massacre tells the story:

“They made women, children, babies, everyone living in the region, thousands of people to get into the Zilan river. Then these people were surrounded by machine guns. They [the commanders] put us, the privates, on the machine guns. Behind us, there were corporals and sergeants who had their rifles aimed at us. Behind the corporals and sergeants, in the third row, there were commissioned officers waiting with their loaded pistols, ready to fire. If we didn’t fire, the noncommissioned officers were going to shoot us. If the noncommissioned officers didn’t shoot us, the commissioned officers were to shoot them and us. We pulled the triggers. Thousands of bullets spit fire on the people in the river. The horrible cries of women, children, old and young men echoed in the river. After a while the cries turned into moans. Then the moans ended too. Along with old and young men’s bodies, corpses of thousands of women, children, babies in swaddling clothes were left in the pool of blood. The corpses began to rot after a while.”


I was Under the Corpses

A few of the injured, fainted [and] remained under corpses. They survived. For years, they have been telling of this tragic story. Tayfun Susak, -he is known as Tayfunê Zîlan in Bulanik- tells the story:

“Soldiers under the command of Captain Derviş Bey [Captain Derviş Bey is father of Alpaslan Türkeş] attacked the seven villages on the Zilan River with the excuse that we were going to start an uprising. They started killing everyone. In a short time, bodies were all over the place. I fell when I was running. In a short while, I was under corpses. They thought I was dead. They piled corpses. I was under corpses. After the soldiers left, I came out. I was the only survivor in my family. My father, mother, and all my relatives were killed. Very few people survived. And those who survived, like me, they lost their sanity.”

Susak says he was arrested by the soldiers after the events. He continues: “Sometime later, the soldiers came back to the region and took the survivors to Muş, Agri, and Dogubeyazit. I was among them. We suffered hunger and torture in these places. Then I was made to care for soldiers’ livestock for a few years. After this, they took me to Elazig Mental Hospital. I stayed there for a long time. They were treating us like animals there. I suffered a lot in that hospital. After things got better in this area, they set us free. I wanted to go back to my village. When I went there, there was nothing left. Houses were destroyed too. So I came to Muş and settled in the town of Bulanik. Since I came here, I have been living on handouts.”

We shall not forget.

Read on to Part 2.

Newspaper Confiscated for Reporting Allegations of Police Rape

Court ordered confiscation of Azadîya Welat newspaper because it reported 10 claims of women being raped by the police in Amed since the arrival of new police chief to the city. The full story is here.

Kurds not only are not allowed to defend themselves they also cannot talk about the crimes committed against them by the fascist state's security forces. I am curious as to what happened to the animal who smashed a zarokê roj's head with the butt of his weapon or the thug who broke Cuneyt Ertus' arm. Perhaps it's time Kurds should assume the state's role in delivering justice since state doesn't seem to be capable of it.

High Tribunal Court Approves of Killing Kurdish Children

On Sunday 21 November 2004 Ugur Kaymaz, a 12 years old child, was helping his father loading his lorry when the police shot both of them dead. His father was gunned down with 8 bullets. Ugur had 13 bullets in his body. The child was repeatedly shot from his back at very close range. Nine bullets entered his little body through his back. The fact that Ugur was shot from very close range was documented by forensics doctors of the Judiciary.

On 18 June 2009, the High Trubinal Court ruled that the police who shot Ugur from his back together with his father have acted in self defense. How is it acting in self defense, let alone being justifiable by any means, to shoot a child from behind at close range with 13 bullets? What kind of "law" would allow and tolerate such abomination?

Think again... Is PKK really a terrorist organization? Don't you think the real terrorist is the Turkish state that shoots Kurdish children from behind, breaks their arms, smashes their skulls with butt of a weapon, tries and imprisons them as adults, AND sees such abomination justifiable?

The Turkish state is determined that it will either assimilate Kurdish children or annihilate them.

I have a question for those people who insist the PKK should lay down arms unconditionally. Are they willing to protect these children if the Kurdish defence forces lay down their arms? I didn't think so.

More DTP Members Detained

While the Terrorist Turkish State and its supporters keep insisting the PKK should lay down arms and Kurds should "seek for their rights in parliament" the party of Kurds is under constant attack. I suppose what the fascist state and its supporters are saying to Kurds is "seek for your rights from the prisons". 19 More DTP members were detained on 18 June 2009. The full story is in Bianet:

On 14 April, members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) were taken into custody. Since then, around 500 party members have been taken into custody and 267 have been arrested.

During operations in the provinces of Diyarbakır, Şırnak, Bitlis, Batman and Mardin, all in the southeast of Turkey on 17 June, 19 people were taken into police custody. Among them are municipal officials and academics.

The AKPasha Inc (which is having yet another crisis these says) is keeping on detaining key DTP figures. They are going to have to build more prisons because the ranks are being filled as we speak. Each time pashas and mullahs have a problem in their marriage, they attack Kurds. I say it's enough, Kurds shouldn't save the day for these thugs anymore.

State Disciplines Kurdish Children in Prison

Turkey has found a way to educate the Kurdish children. Zaroken Roj (The Children of Sun) are now being educated and disciplined in the prisons. They are tried as adults and subjected to adult sentences. Then the Turkish State and it's brain washed servants wonder why in the earth Kurds still won't feel as part of the state. Afterall the present Turkish state is a terrosit state and Kurds don't condone terrorism. The following article written on 22 April 2009, recently appreaded in Bianet.

[...]
The judges Menderes Yılmaz, Selahaddin Menteş and Ömer Adil Küçük hand down the sentences. Three children are convicted of "taking part in activities in the name of a terrorist organisation without being members of the organisation." This means they receive a sentence "as if" they were members: 6 years 11 months. Another child is also accused of spreading organisational propaganda and violating the law on demonstrations, leading to a sentence of 7 years and 5 months. The two children tried without detention receive a 10-month sentence each for violating the law on demonstrations. This is converted into a fine.
[..]

"Terrorism" and children

According to Article 250 of the Criminal Procedure Code, ratified in 2004, the State Security Courts were abolished and replaced by heavy penal courts with special authorities. These courts would deal with certain crimes. When the Anti-Terrorism Law was amended in June 2006, these special courts were given the authority to try children aged over 15 for crimes defined by this law.

An amendment to Article 13 of the Anti-Terrorism Law meant that sentences handed down to children aged over 15 could not be converted into other punishments or suspended. This meant that the Anti-Terrorism Law and the Criminal Procedure Code started treating children over 15 years old not as children, but allowing their trial and punishment just like adults.

Diyarbakır laws

When, after Öcalan's capture in 1999, fighting stopped, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which came to power in 2002, seemed to offer a solution to the Kurdish question with a series of reforms aimed at attaining membership in the European Union through democraticisation. However, by 2006, the government seemed to have taken steps backwards even from those limited reforms. It had become clear that it would not make any efforts in the recognition of the Kurdish question or in a discussion of a solution with Kurds.

The changes in the Anti-Terrorism Law came after events in Diyarbakır on 28 March 2006, when the police started shooting into a crowd of thousands of people in a funeral procession for four PKK members. Within five days, ten people died, five of them children. Hundreds of people were taken into custody.

When MPs discussed allowing the trial of 15 to 18-year-olds as adults, they assumed that they could prevent them from joining the PKK. The expected reforms from the government did not happen, and it was clear that it would turn to violence, not sparing children.

Hundreds of children detained, tried, convicted

And this is what happened. Answering the motion of DTP MP Selahattin Demirtaş, Minister of Justice Mehmet Ali Şahin (who left office on 1 May) told parliament that 13 children aged 12-15 and 724 children aged 15-18 had been put on trial under the Anti-Terrorism Law in 2006 and 2007. 319 of them were being tried in Diyarbakır courts. A total of 120 children were convicted under this law in the two years, 88 of them in Diyarbakır.

During the same period, 422 children were put on trial for "founding an organisation with the aim of committing crimes", following Article 220 of the Turkish Penal Code. 107 of these children were in Diyarbakır. In two cases in Diyarbakır, 20 children were convicted. 413 more children, 268 of them in Diyarbakır, were put on trial under Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code, for "membership in an armed organisation." 34 chidren, 28 of them in Diyarbakır, were convicted. Hundreds of children were handed down punishments with probation, a few were also acquitted.

The number of children affected grew in 2008 and 2009. For instance, a child was crushed by a police tank in Cizre in February 2008 and died. His friends, who took part in his funeral, were arrested. Children took part in Newroz celebrations, demonstrations to mark the birthday of Öcalan, funerals of PKK members or other protests concerning the Kurdish question; the police did not hesitate to act violently and to take them into custody.

[...]

After Adana, Diyarbakır...

According to the Adana branch of the Human Rights Association (İHD), 33 children have received a total of 129 years imprisonment for "membership in a terrorist organisation" in the first three months of this year. Now the Diyarbakır court has started handing down sentences. Lawyers fear that if the Supreme Court of Appeals does not take a different stance and ratifies the decrees, hundreds of children will spend a long time in prison.

Meanwhile, rights activists lobbying for children's rights have intensified. Many journalists have reacted to the issue in the media. The Call for Justice for Children gathered around 900 signatures in Istanbul, and the Justice for Children Initiative has united rights activists in Ankara, Izmir and Diyarbakır and the families of the children concerned. They continue to monitor cases and struggle for change.

During a visit of these activists to parliament in February, MPs from the AKP and the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) promised to bring up necessary legal changes after the local elections. However, judging by the police operation against the DTP and statements by ministers and the Prime Minister, it seems that the attitude of the government towards the Kurdish question has not changed since the local elections, if it has not become more hardened. Today's 23 April, the "Festival of National Sovereignty and Children" shows those Kurdish children who dare go into the streets, the meaning of "National Sovereignty."

My previous post contained the following in it:

"I became more aware," says the 16-year-old boy, who asked not to be named because of his upcoming court case, where he could face seven years in prison if convicted.

The Prime Minister recently announced that they may lift the ban on speaking in Kurdish in the prisons. So it seems education in mother tongue will be possible in the prison.