[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5117]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 RELEASING FOUR KURDISH MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN EDWARD PORTER

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 10, 2000

  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I am supporting a resolution introduced 
today calling for the immediate release from prison of four Kurdish 
members of the Parliament of the Republic of Turkey. I want to thank 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) for sponsoring this 
resolution of which I am a proud co-sponsor.
  Currently, four Turkish parliamentarians of the now banned Kurdish 
based Democracy Party [DEP], Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan, and 
Selim Sadak, are serving prison sentences simply because they are 
Kurds. Leyla Zana, the first Kurdish woman ever elected to the Turkish 
Parliament, was chosen to represent the city of Diyarbakir by an 
overwhelming majority in October 1991. In 1993, she traveled to the 
United States to speak to officials about human rights abuses against 
the Kurdish minority in Turkey and to testify before the Congressional 
Human Rights Caucus. She was arrested on March 2, 1994 in the 
Parliament building and subsequently prosecuted for a so-called 
``separatist speech.'' Ever since then Ms. Zana, along with Hatip 
Dicle, Orhan Dogan, and Selim Sadak have been jailed for the simple act 
of speaking out for their people--the Kurds--the very people by whom 
they were elected.
  Turkey is a country which claims to be a democracy and is 
continuously taking steps to be accepted as a western partner, as seen 
with its current European Union candidacy. However, its recent actions 
do not show any concrete effort to abide by international human rights 
standards. In the last week, it has been reported that the Turkish 
military has been massing troops and tanks along the Iraqi border in an 
apparent pending offense against the Kurds. Equally as disturbing is 
the re-arrest of Turkey's most prominent human rights figure, Akin 
Birdal, for a speech he made in 1996 calling for a peaceful resolution 
to the conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdish Workers' 
Party [PKK].
  If Turkey wants to be treated as an equal partner with the west, it 
is time for it to treat all of its citizens with equal rights and a 
general respect for human rights. The time has come for Turkey to allow 
the Kurdish people the right to speak their language and practice their 
culture. Releasing these parliamentarians would show Turkey and the 
world that Turkey is ready to respect the human rights of all its 
citizens and that it is on the right path to be accepted by the 
international community.
  We must not continue to ignore or apologize for Turkey's outrageous 
behavior. Six years is far too long for these parliamentarians to be in 
jail, for speaking out for rights which are guaranteed under the United 
Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We must speak out strongly against 
these attacks and unfair acts and demand that Turkey end this lawless 
assault.

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