The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C., April 2, 2016: “The Kurds, an entity of approximately 18 million people, are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East. They occupy about 500,000 square miles in Iraq, Iran Syria, Turkey and the Russian Republic. In Turkey, the Kurds are currently a heavily persecuted minorities in Turkey where they represent one quarter of the Turkish population. The Turks, who murdered nearly a million Armenian Christians in 1916, population have consistently persecuted the Kurds since 1918 and as Kurdish attempts to form their own country increase, so does violent Turkish repression..
With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, an ally of Imperial Germany,in 1918, the victories allies planned an independent Kurdistan by the Treaty of Severes. This was never ratified and subsequently, the Treaty of Lausanne created the modern states of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, but Kurdistan was ignored. During Turkey’s subsequent war for independence, post-war Turkish leaders, promised Kurds a Turkish-Kurdish federated state in return for their assistance in that war. However, after the modern Turkish state was established, the Turks reneged on their pledge to the Kurds and began their escalating persecutions of them.
Ankara, under the pretext of creating an “indivisible nation,” adopted an ideology aimed at eliminating, both physically and culturally, non-Turkish elements within their new Republic. These entities were primarily Kurdish and Armenian.
A 1924 official Turkish policy forbade any Kurdish schools, organizations and publications. Even the words “Kurd” and “Kurdistan” were outlawed, making any written or spoken acknowledgement of their existence illegal.
According to Association France-Kurdistan, between 1925 and 1939, 1.5 million Kurds, a third of the population, were either forcefully deported or murdered.
While Kurdish persecution became more selective during World War II, largely restricted to Kurdish intellectuals, the overall policy of expulsion or extermination of the Turkiish Kurd population was firmly established
Under Turkey’s present regime, Kurds are subjected to deliberate harassment and terrorization. The most frequent legal justification for these arrests are Articles 141 and 142 of the Turkish penal code that “protect the economic institutions and social foundations of the nation” and prescribe 5-15 years imprisonment for those “seeking to destroy the political and legal order of the state.”
This is aimed at both the Kurdish and Armenian population of Turkey.
It is illegal for parents to give children Kurdish names; they must select Turkish names or face punishment.
In a raid on the village of Doganbey, the gendarmerie, whose garrison commander was quoted as saying, “We shall exterminate all Kurds,” tortured the imam (holy man) of the village for several hours. The inhabitants were then forced to speak Turkish. The women, who did not speak Turkish, however, could not understand the commands. When the village guard translated them into Kurdish he was beaten. When he tried to explain that he had to translate because the women spoke no Turkish, the commander ordered the villagers tortured because they did not speak Turkish.
Turkey is not content to persecute Kurds within its borders. In 1980 the Turkish Embassy in Denmark ordered the Union of Workers from Turkey to discontinue a Kurdish language course organized by the Copenhagen Evening School. The course was aimed at incorporating Kurdish in the home language teaching program in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and West-German schools. The Embassy Councillor asked, “Are you not Turkish citizens? You must not teach Kurdish to Kurdish children.”
Turkey is in clear violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights. As both a member of the UN and the Council of Europe, Turkey is mandated to respect the fundamental human rights of its minorities.
The Council of Europe has condemned Turkey for its “suppression of political parties and organizations, imprisonment and torture of political dissidents” and its judiciary processes that “guarantee no protection for the accused.” The Council has demanded that Turkey reinstate democratic institutions, including the right to free speech and safeguards for religious minorities and that it release political prisoners and permit a Red Cross examination of prison conditions.
Turkey’s current government justifies its brutal and repressive policies as being essential “for the restoration of democracy.”
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The persecution of Kurds is without contemporary equivalent in Europe, yet is condoned by the silence of Western powers who, in the recent past, continued to furnish Turkey with military and economic aid.As part of their encirclement policy aimed at Russia, the CIA has a strong presence in Turkey and has consistently reassured the current Turkish government that if Turkish attacks on Russia are met with a military Russian response, the US-controlled Nato will respond. That Nato has declined to become involved in Turkish affairs seems to have no effect on CIA blandishments. The shooting-down, by Turkish military aircraft of a Russian military plain involved in the anti Sunni Muslim IS campaign had its roots in the mistaken belief that the United States would support Turkey, with force if necessary, against any Russian reactions. That Putin took immediate economic retaliation against Turkey was unexpected and when the promised Western support was obviously not forthcoming, the Turks are now, according to a high-level German intelligence source, planning to sink block ships in the narrow Bosporus by Istanbul in order to prevent any commercial shipping from entering the Black Sea. The Turks are aware that Russia would immediately react with force to such an act and are hoping to force the US and Nato into action. And reports in the Western media about Turkish ongoing brutality towards the area’s Kurdish population are infuriating the Turks who are sternly demanding the immediate halt to such reports.” Continue Reading »