This Briefing Paper sets out the key areas that Turkey must address if it is to meet the political limb of the Copenhagen Criteria.  It serves as an update to the June 2006 KHRP briefing paper entitled ‘Implementation Gaps in Turkey’s Domestic Law’.

 

The use of mother-tongue languages is a crucial means for minority groups to express their cultural identity. The use of mother-tongue languages in education, both as the language of instruction and as an academic discipline, is a basic right which serves to protect and promote this aim. Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey  are obliged under international human rights law and standards to guarantee this right.However, to varying degrees, these States are failing to fulfil their international legal obligations in this regard, resulting in many individuals from minority groups being denied the enjoyment of this and various other fundamental rights.

This Briefing Paper provides an overview of the use of mother-tongue education in the States mentioned above and provides some key recommendations on how to tackle language right issues which hinder conflict resolution in that region.

This briefing paper presents the keys issues relating to the right to freedom of expression and the media in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia and Kurdistan, Iraq, as well as cross-regionally. It provides examples of violations of this right indicative of widespread practice and illustrates how violations of media freedom impact disproportionately on members of the Kurdish communities. Finally, it offers a number of key recommendations for how state authorities, civil society and the international community can address the problems relating to media freedom in the Kurdish regions.

 

Turkey has a large population of internally displaced people, stemming largely from the conflict in the 1980s and 1990s between the Government and the PKK.Continued insecurity in the predominantly Kurdish region of the south east, combined with development projects such as the Ilısu Dam, mean that this figure is set to increase over the next few years.This paper presents the key issues facing IDP’s in Turkey, what provision is being made for their compensation and return or resettlement, and the responsibility of the EU and international community in addressing the situation which is of critical importance.

The Turkish village guard system, which was resurrected in its current form in 1985, has been responsible for numerous human rights violations and other crimes. Currently the village guard system represents a major obstacle to the return of Kurds who were displaced from their villages during the 1990s but also the larger development of a peaceful political solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey.

The village guards continue to violate the rights of returnees and each other, largely with impunity. Often those who have been displaced and wish to return find that they face forcible recruitment into the village guard system or that the guards have illegally occupied their homes. This briefing paper explains the background and impact of the village guard system, and makes the case for its abolishment.

During fact-finding mission’s in both May and July of 2010, KHRP investigated the effects of continued cross border military activities by the Iranian and Turkish states, monitoring the human and environmental damage that has resulted.

From 16 to 18 June 2010, the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP), in conjunction with the Norwegian Bar Association (NBA), dispatched a trial observation mission to Istanbul.
Mission members Prof. Matthew Happold (University of Luxembourg) and Advocate Erik Osvek (Pro Legal Law Office) were charged with observing part of the trial proceedings
against human rights defender, Şebnem Korur Fincancı, the chairwoman of
(TİHV, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey) and the journalist Barış Yarkadaş.

Presentation made on 15 September 2010 by KHRP Managing Director, Rachel Bernu, at the European Parliament.

Presentation originally made on 27/04/10 by KHRP Legal Director, Catriona Vine, at York University's Centre for Applied Human Rights.

Response of the Kurdish Human Rights Project to the United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office Annual Report on Human Rights 2009, Released on 18 March 2010.

Presentation delivered to the Big Lottery Fund on 29 January 2009, reviewing KHRP's work from 2006-2009.

Speech Delivered by KHRP Chief Executive Kerim Yıldız at the Sixth International Conference on the EU, Turkey and the Kurds, European Parliament, Brussels, 3 February 2010

Speech Delivered by Mark Muller QC, Chairman of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England & Wales; EUTCC Board Member; & KHRP Honorary Secretary General, at the Sixth International Conference on the EU, Turkey and the Kurds, European Parliament, Brussels, 3 February 2010

Few infrastructure development projects have caused as much international controversy in recent years as the proposed Ilısu hydroelectric dam project in the Kurdish region of south-east Turkey.  If it were built, the dam would displace between 50,000-78,000 people, mainly Kurds; flood the ancient town of Hasankeyf and hundreds of other unexplored archaeological sites; severely impact the environment upstream and downstream of the dam; and significantly reduce the flow of water to the downstream states of Iraq and Syria, with the potential for exacerbating conflict in the region.   

Although funding was suspended in December 2008, after Turkey failed to implement the agreed conditions, Turkey remains adamant that it will complete the project. As this briefing paper highlights, construction work on the dam has continued intermittently and villagers in the immediate area of the dam site have had their land expropriated.  Turkey has also announced that it is approaching China’s export credit agency, Sinosur, for funding, although as at the beginning of December 2009, the Chinese Embassy in Ankara denied any Chinese company is involved in the project.

Compiling Trial Observation Reports – Based on ‘Advocacy and the Rule of Law in Turkey’

Lecture delivered by KHRP Managing Director Rachel Bernu to York University, 9 November 2009

While human rights violations are a part of everyday life for Iranians from all backgrounds, Kurds and other minorities are particularly vulnerable. With the Iranian authorities inclined to treat much minority activism – whether social, cultural or political – as linked to a separatist threat, individuals from these communities are frequently arbitrarily arrested and held incommunicado, often accused of vaguely-worded crimes relating to national security. This briefing paper gives an overview of the modern history of the Kurds in Iran, and the international and domestic legal framework in relation to the human rights situation that they and other Iranians face today. It goes on to explore patterns of human rights violations according to four key themes: discrimination on grounds of gender and ethnicity; arbitrary detention; torture and ill-treatment; and corporal and capital punishment. In the wake of the brutal crackdown that followed the disputed presidential elections in Iran in June this year, the evidence presented here underscores the need for the international community to ensure that human rights concerns are kept squarely at the forefront of diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

Speech delivered by KHRP at the  Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS on 29 April 2009.

Speech delivered by KHRP at a seminar entitled 'The Kurdish Human Rights Situation, a Lasting Peace and a Democratic Development' at the European Parliament, Brussels on 29 April 2009.

Speech delivered by the Kurdish Human Rights Project at the Alternative Water Forum, İstanbul, 21 March 2009