Syrian Revolution News Round-up / Day 318 (SNC)
Revolutionaries Capture Iranian Agents and the Regime Commits Another Horrific Massacre / Death toll reached 62 today, including 11 children, 32 were from Homs alone.
The revolutionaries in Homs belonging to the Farouq Brigade announced that seven Iranians were captured; five of them were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard including one officer. These five armed men were snipers working under the supervision of the Air Force intelligence branch in Homs.
KDP Leader Pushes for Opposition Role in New Kurdish Government
27/01/2012 RUDAW EXCLUSIVE – ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan – In an interview with Rudaw, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) politburo leader Fazil Mirani pressed for the opposition to end their political boycott and join the new Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) cabinet and said the region’s ruling parties “must be more open toward the other political parties.” He said the new government’s top priorities will include tackling corruption.
Rudaw: Why did it take so long to transfer the post of prime minister from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to the KDP?
Kurds and sway / ANALYSIS OF THE SYRIAN KURDISH OPPOSITION
Tony Badran, January 26, 2012
If there is one group in Syria that embodies the trans-national currents running through Syrian society, and which is likely to have increasing influence in the post-Assad era, it’s the Kurds. Sitting at the intersection between Turkey, Syria and Iraq, the Kurdish minority, it is commonly recognized, will play a critical role in the success of the Syrian revolution and in the shaping of the post-Assad order.
It is also known that the Syrian Kurdish political scene is notoriously fragmented, with the traditional Kurdish parties harboring misgivings toward the Arab opposition groups as well as toward Turkey. These various cleavages have afforded the Assad regime an opening it sought to exploit.
Early on in the uprising, Bashar al-Assad moved to neutralize the Kurdish areas. He issued a decree naturalizing the registered stateless Kurds (the so-called ajanib, or “foreigners”) and repealed Decree 49 of 2008, which regulated land use and ownership in the border regions, and which was unanimously seen as anti-Kurdish.
Jordi Tejel, an expert on Kurdish affairs at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, with whom I spoke by email, agrees that these concessions were made “preventatively, in order to hinder or at least minimize Kurdish participation in the Syrian revolution.”
SLAVOJ ZIZEK : A PORTRAIT OF THE PHILOSOPHER AS A COMPLETE IDIOT
Zizek also criticized the recent bill adopted by the French Senate penalizing Armenian genocide denial for falling into the mistake of political correctness, which only served to reproduce racism.
“The problem with political correctness is that if you legalize things that are already in your habits […] it is counter-productive in the long term. Even with the Holocaust it is problematic in this sense. Some even wanted to regulate the numbers. Five million were killed, but if you said 4,900,000 Jews were killed you would get penalized. For me, this is the big fiasco of political correctness,” said Zizek.
Ottoman model for Kurds
Ziziek also said the Ottoman model may be ideal for the situation of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. “Wouldn’t it be an almost ideal solution to have an autonomous Kurdistan containing part of northern Iraq, part of Syria and still a part of Turkey?” he asked, adding that the current situation would only lead to permanent tensions.
AWENE PRESS KURDISTAN IRAQ: Asos Hardi’s case referred back to the criminal court
26 Jan 2012 News and Comment by The Kurdistan Tribune: – For a second time the case of Asos Hardi, director of the Awene Press and Publishing Company, has been referred to the criminal court in Sulaymani. This follows the decision by the court on 5 December 2011 to release Aumar Fatah Hussain, a member of the PUK politburo, and his nephew Bahez Abdulbaki, who is part of his bodyguard, on the grounds of having insufficient evidence to prosecute them for the brutal assault on Asos Hardi last August. Asos Hardi’s lawyer, Karzan Fazel, appealed against that decision and the court has now decided to refer the case for a second time to the criminal court. Both alleged attackers have to be present in front of the court in accordance with article 31/406 of prosecution law.
In the past Turkey was a gendarmerie state: Now it is a police state / Gulenists and the AKP will close the BDP, the main Kurdish party
By Dr Aland Mizell: KURDISTAN TRIBUNE 27.2. 2012 - While most of the world is busy focusing on the Arab Spring, a possible war on Iran, the US and Europeans debts, world financial markets, and the price of oil, Turkey and Gulenists’ police are busy jailing all the Kurdish intellectuals, journalists, elected leaders, students, and writers. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is strongly backed by the Gulenists, and their media is conducting a dirty campaign against the Kurdish political party, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), with a clear motive. It is part of the strategy of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Gulenists against the Kurds’ only representative party, the BDP, with its 36 democratically elected MPs.
“THE WEST DOES NOT UNDERSTAND US!”
PRIME MINISTER ERDOĞAN: “So-called Journalists are Police Murderers and Molesters”
BIANET 27.1.2012 – After the release of the RSF World Press Freedom Index, PM Erdoğan announced that his government had opened the way to freedom of expression. The PM said that people in the west were not able to understand the arrests of journalists because western journalists did not incite a coup.
TIHV submit report to Parliament on murders by unknown
27 January 2012 – Human Rights Foundation estimates number of murders by unknown could be as high as seven thousand – Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) Executive Board member Coşkun Üsterci has presented a report on murders by unknown people to the Subcommittee of Human Rights of Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM). The report states between 1990 and 2011 there have been 1901 murders by unknown people certified but warned a realistic estimate would be six to seven thousand. Üsterci underlined that human rights violations increased between 1990 and 1994. Üsterci said “When we ask why human rights violations increased in these years, we are faced with the reality of the Kurdish issue. Serious rights violations occurred as the state adopted paramilitary and war methods.” Üsterci demanded to lift the time limitation rule form crimes violating the right to live and added that case files dating from 1992-1993 would be condemned to remain unsolved unless immediately investigated.
EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS / Country with the most Convictions: Turkey
Source: ECHR / 27.2.2012 – - Bianet - The majority of judgements delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in 2011 concerned Turkey. Most of these decisions were related to violations of the right to a fair trial and to an effective investigation as well as long trial periods and ill-treatment.
U.S. ENVOY TO TURKEY FRANCIS RICCIARDONE
No US involvement in Uludere tragedy / Hurriyet – 27.1.2012 - Journalists at the meeting also asked whether the U.S. had played a role in the Uludere tragedy, in which 34 people were killed in a botched air raid in Southeast Anatolia after being mistaken for militants due to incorrect military intelligence. Opposition parties have blamed the U.S. for the killings, saying its Predators provide visual intelligence to the Turkish military.
“Regarding Uludere, I can say clearly and uncritically that the United States, both in general and in particular on the Uludere, does not get involved in Turkish targeting decisions. So we have nothing to do with the target selection in Uludere,” he said. “A target selection is a question that’s up to the Turkish side entirely. And certainly Turkey does have its own capabilities regarding targeting.”