In March, Turkey’s state-run Islamic body announced that it would translate the Koran into Kurdish. Kurds, who comprise at least 12 million of Turkey’s 70 million people, are not a recognized minority in the country. Officially, they are not distinct from the Turkish majority, and expressions of cultural uniqueness are banned. They are discriminated against economically, subject to violence, and may even be jailed for using their language in large groups or on paper. The Koran translation step is thus a positive step, but a small one compared with the changes that will be necessary to bring Kurdish rights to acceptable levels.
Since Turkey began EU accession talks began ten years ago, the EU has published convergence requirements that Turkey must meet, and thus far the country has demonstrated at least some efforts to comply. The requirements include measures for the equality and economic inclusion of Kurds, the defense and education of women, drastically reduced persecution and abuse of the press, and significant reductions in violence perpetrated by the security forces. A look at these issues reveals that in each case the reform record is mixed.
On the first issue, although Kurds and other minorities are still not recognized by the government, the government has created a Kurdish-language channel on state television, along with other programming in languages spoken by unrecognized minorities. Establishing a TV network or enabling the translation of religious texts in Kurdish can be done with a wave of a pen from Ankara. Dismantling systemic de facto and de jure discriminations against Kurds cannot. In the early 1920s, as Turkey took the place of the Ottoman Empire, the principal of national unity was the dominating concern, and no linguistic or cultural differentiation was permitted between the country’s Muslim populations. Since then the government has echoed Brazil’s stance: “What racism? There are no races – we are all the same.” In Turkey, a strongly complicating factor has been the existence of a terrorist separatist movement, the PKK, which has been at war with the government for decades. The group’s activity has provided the government with a rationale for its discrimination. In the name of unity, use of the Kurdish language in official communications or political speeches can result in imprisonment, as can public or printed expressions of support – or even sympathy – for the PKK.
Excessive violence and lengthy prison terms are routine facets of Kurdish affairs in Turkey. In December, a journalist was sentenced to fifteen months in prison for writing that the PKK should not be considered a terrorist organization. While this may be morally objectionable – and groups as diverse as NATO and Human Rights Watch feel the same about the PKK – doing so makes for a questionable criminal offense. Also that month, a court decided that making pro-PKK speeches was functionally equivalent to membership, and convicted an MP of being part of a terrorist organization, for which he will serve ten years in prison. Even more shocking was the government’s violent response to last year’s illegal Kurdish New Year celebrations, which left three people dead and others severely beaten. As remains all too typical of police brutality in Turkey, no investigation was ever carried out. The law also permits children as young as 15 to be tried as adults, and in 2006-2007 almost 200 children under 18 were convicted. Despite the efforts of Ankara’s EU accession ministry, the government’s encouragement and condoning of abuses remains well-documented.
With respect to women’s rights, the European Commission’s enlargement commissioner praised a new women’s rights bill, but said it had yet to be implemented in any meaningful way. Women’s rights in Turkey have been subject to similar lip-service improvements, although conditions have improved somewhat. The EC concedes that the legal framework for protecting women’s rights represents real progress. Ankara has had difficulty convincing the rest of the country to follow the law, however. Especially in poorer, rural, religious areas tradition has tended to triumph over law. The ban on “honor killings” – where a woman or girl is killed by her brother or father to cleanse the family after she has been raped or has refused to marry – has resulted in a dramatic increase in so-called suicides, which run from family coercion to murder concealed with the help of local authorities. This is not to say that no progress at all has been made – the existence of these laws is certainly an improvement over their absence, and the gender gap in education has narrowed to 2.3%. Nonetheless, the country has far to travel by both EU and international human rights standards.
As far as media freedom, violence and politically-motivated charges and detentions against journalists and civilians actually increased markedly in 2008. In December, Turkey opened the negotiation chapter with the EU on “information society and media.” This has always been a sensitive topic in Turkey, whose laws on insulting Turkey, Turkishness, the government, or Ataturk have been used to imprison and intimidate countless journalists, authors, and other public figures. According to BIA Media Monitoring, International PEN, and Reporters Without Borders, 2008 saw a marked increase in censorship and charges against writers. The sincerity of Turkey’s commitment to European standards of freedom of speech is thus particularly questionable. Even more disturbing is a fine of nearly $500 million levied by the government on Dogan Media. It is hard not to connect the penalty to Prime Minister Erdogan’s months of verbal attacks on the company, which published detailed accusations of corruption against the PM and his AK party.
As many analysts have noted, Turkey’s hopes of joining the EU anytime in the medium-term seem rather implausible for reasons unrelated to internal rights, including the status of Turkish-controlled Cyprus and the fear of admitting a majority-Muslim state to the EU. However, the Turkish government would certainly help its cause, while at the same time moving toward compliance with international human rights treaties to which it is a party, by continuing the reform process. Some of the aforementioned progress in Ankara is unprecedented – the government has never before guaranteed women’s rights or promoted use of the Kurdish language. Yet they remain superficial. Thus, those concerned with tolerance and pluralism in Turkey must hope that where ethical-moral calls for change have failed, geopolitical interest will be successful.
