Homeland The Turkish Cypriots - Documentary
http://www.turkishcypriots.com.au/homeland_documentary.htm
Synopsis
Between 1963-1974 Cyprus endured events that changed the lives of its people and shaped the course of history.
This documentary is the voice of Turkish Cypriots who reveal their experiences with an honesty that resonates on the screen. They speak of how their lives and homeland was threatened when their Greek Cypriot neighbours' declared their intent for ENOSIS – a union with Greece.
Their neighbours' intention led to acts of genocide against Turkish Cypriots by EOKA, a Greek terror group, who staged a coup d’état on the Republic of Cyprus Government. This forced Turkey, a guarantor of the island, to intervene and restore stability on the island and Cyprus was divided into a Turkish North and a Greek South to ensure the safety of all citizens.
Years after the conflict, have the Turkish Cypriots moved on? Or have the horrors of the past overshadowed their present?
Homeland is about loss, fear, and the hope for ones homeland.
Running Time67 minutes
CreditsDirected By - Serkan HusseinProducer - Seren Gazi
Director of Photography - Timur Ali
Edited By - ATCAMusic - Buray Hoshsoz (Mekoo Productions)
On Behalf of the Association of Turkish Cypriots Abroad.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Saturday, 25 September 2010
After the journey — a UN man’s open letter to Tony Blair
An open letter of Hans von Sponeck to Tony Blair appeared in the London weekly The NewStatesman. It is a response to Blair's book "A Journey" which includes three chapters on Iraq. All three are full of deceptive and incorrect contentions. Hans von Sponeck could not keep his mouth shut.
Hans von Sponeck
Hans von Sponeck is a former UN assistant secretary general and was UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq from 1998 until he resigned in protest in March 2000.
Published 23 September 2010 The NewStatesman
Hans von Sponeck, UN humanitarian co-ordinator from 1998-2000, demands answers from the former prime minister to a simple question: Why is Iraq in such a mess?
Dear Mr Blair,
You do not know me. Why should you? Or maybe you should have known me and the many other UN officials who struggled in Iraq when you prepared your Iraq policy. Reading the Iraq details of your "journey", as told in your memoir, has confirmed my fears. You tell a story of a leader, but not of a statesman. You could have, at least belatedly, set the record straight. Instead you repeat all the arguments we have heard before, such as why sanctions had to be the way they were; why the fear of Saddam Hussein outweighed the fear of crossing the line between concern for people and power politics; why Iraq ended up as a human garbage can. You preferred to latch on to Bill Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act and George W Bush's determination to implement it.
You present yourself as the man who tried to use the UN road. I am not sure. Is it really wrong to say that, if you had this intention, it was for purely tactical reasons and not because you wanted to protect the role of the UN to decide when military action was justified? The list of those who disagreed with you and your government's handling of 13 years of sanctions and the invasion and occupation of Iraq is long, very long. It includes Unicef and other UN agencies, Care, Caritas, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and Nelson Mandela. Do not forget, either, the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in protest in Britain and across the world, among them Cambridge Against Sanctions on Iraq (CASI) and the UK Stop the War Coalition.
You suggest that you and your supporters - the "people of good will", as you call them - are the owners of the facts. Your disparaging observations about Clare Short, a woman with courage who resigned as international development secretary in 2003, make it clear you have her on a different list. You appeal to those who do not agree to pause and reflect. I ask you to do the same. Those of us who lived in Iraq experienced the grief and misery that your policies caused. UN officials on the ground were not "taken in" by a dictator's regime. We were "taken in" by the challenge to tackle human suffering created by the gravely faulty policies of two governments - yours and that of the United States - and by the gutlessness of those in the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere who could have made a difference but chose otherwise. The facts are on our side, not on yours.
Here are some of those facts. Had Hans Blix, the then UN chief weapons inspector, been given the additional three months he requested, your plans could have been thwarted. You and George W Bush feared this. If you had respected international law, you would not, following Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, have allowed
your forces to launch attacks from two no-fly zones. Allegedly carried out to protect Iraqi Kurds in the north and Iraqi Shias in the south, these air strikes killed civilians and destroyed non-military installations.
I know that the reports we prepared in Baghdad to show the damage wreaked by these air strikes caused much anger in Whitehall. A conversation I had on the sidelines of the Labour party conference in 2004 with your former foreign secretary Robin Cook confirmed that, even in your cabinet, there had been grave doubts about your approach. UN Resolution 688 was passed in 1991 to authorise the UN secretary general - no one else - to safeguard the rights of people and to help in meeting their humanitarian needs. It did not authorise the no-fly zones. In fact, the British government, in voting for Resolution 688, accepted the obligation to respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
I was a daily witness to what you and two US administrations had concocted for Iraq: a harsh and uncompromising sanctions regime punishing the wrong people. Your officials must have told you that your policies translated into a meagre 51 US cents to finance a person's daily existence in Iraq. You acknowledge that 60 per cent of Iraqis were totally dependent on the goods that were allowed into their country under sanctions, but you make no reference in your book to how the UK and US governments blocked and delayed huge amounts of supplies that were needed for survival. In mid-2002, more than $5bn worth of supplies was blocked from entering the country. No other country on the Iraq sanctions committee of the UN Security Council supported you in this. The UN files are full of such evidence. I saw the education system, once a pride of Iraq, totally collapse. And conditions in the health sector were equally desperate. In 1999, the entire country had only one fully functioning X-ray machine. Diseases that had been all but forgotten in the country re-emerged.
You refuse to acknowledge that you and your policies had anything to do with this humanitarian crisis. You even argue that the death rate of children under five in Iraq, then among the highest in the world, was entirely due to the Iraqi government. I beg you to read Unicef's reports on this subject and what Carol Bellamy, Unicef's American executive director at the time, had to say to the Security Council. None of the UN officials involved in dealing with the crisis will subscribe to your view that Iraq "was free to buy as much food and medicines" as the government would allow. I wish that had been the case. During the Chilcot inquiry in July this year, a respected diplomat who represented the UK on the Security Council sanctions committee while I was in Baghdad observed: "UK officials and ministers were well aware of the negative effects of sanctions, but preferred to blame them on the Saddam regime's failure to implement the oil-for-food programme."
No one in his right mind would defend the human rights record of Saddam Hussein. Your critical words in this respect are justified. But you offer only that part of this gruesome story. You quote damning statements about Saddam Hussein made by Max van der Stoel, the former Dutch foreign minister who was UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iraq during the time I served in Baghdad. You conveniently omitted three pertinent facts: van der Stoel had not been in Iraq since 1991 and had to rely on second-hand information; his UN mandate was limited to assessing the human rights record of the Iraqi government and therefore excluded violations due to other reasons such as economic sanctions; and his successor, Andreas Mavrommatis, formerly foreign secretary in Cyprus, quickly recognised the biased UN mandate and broadened the scope of his review to include sanctions as a major human rights issue. This was a very important correction.
Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, who in the years of sanctions on Iraq was his country's permanent representative to the UN, is not mentioned in your book. Is that because he was one of the diplomats who climbed over the wall of disinformation and sought the truth about the deplorable human conditions in Iraq in the late 1990s? Amorim used the opportunity of his presidency of the UN Security Council to call for a review of the humanitarian situation. His conclusion was unambiguous. "Even if not all the suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war."
Malaysia's ambassador to the UN, Hasmy Agam, starkly remarked: "How ironic it is that the same policy that is supposed to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction has itself become a weapon of mass destruction." The secretary general, too, made very critical observations on the humanitarian situation in Iraq. When I raised my own concerns in a newspaper article, your minister Peter Hain repeated what the world had become accustomed to hearing from London and Washington: it is all of Saddam's making. Hain was a loyal ally of yours. He and others in your administration wrote me off as subjective, straying off my mandate, not up to the task, or, in the words of the US state department's spokesman at the time, James Rubin: "This man in Baghdad is paid to work, not to speak!"
An open letter of Hans von Sponeck to Tony Blair appeared in the London weekly The NewStatesman. It is a response to Blair's book "A Journey" which includes three chapters on Iraq. All three are full of deceptive and incorrect contentions. Hans von Sponeck could not keep his mouth shut.
Hans von Sponeck
Hans von Sponeck is a former UN assistant secretary general and was UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq from 1998 until he resigned in protest in March 2000.
Published 23 September 2010 The NewStatesman
Hans von Sponeck, UN humanitarian co-ordinator from 1998-2000, demands answers from the former prime minister to a simple question: Why is Iraq in such a mess?
Dear Mr Blair,
You do not know me. Why should you? Or maybe you should have known me and the many other UN officials who struggled in Iraq when you prepared your Iraq policy. Reading the Iraq details of your "journey", as told in your memoir, has confirmed my fears. You tell a story of a leader, but not of a statesman. You could have, at least belatedly, set the record straight. Instead you repeat all the arguments we have heard before, such as why sanctions had to be the way they were; why the fear of Saddam Hussein outweighed the fear of crossing the line between concern for people and power politics; why Iraq ended up as a human garbage can. You preferred to latch on to Bill Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act and George W Bush's determination to implement it.
You present yourself as the man who tried to use the UN road. I am not sure. Is it really wrong to say that, if you had this intention, it was for purely tactical reasons and not because you wanted to protect the role of the UN to decide when military action was justified? The list of those who disagreed with you and your government's handling of 13 years of sanctions and the invasion and occupation of Iraq is long, very long. It includes Unicef and other UN agencies, Care, Caritas, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and Nelson Mandela. Do not forget, either, the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in protest in Britain and across the world, among them Cambridge Against Sanctions on Iraq (CASI) and the UK Stop the War Coalition.
You suggest that you and your supporters - the "people of good will", as you call them - are the owners of the facts. Your disparaging observations about Clare Short, a woman with courage who resigned as international development secretary in 2003, make it clear you have her on a different list. You appeal to those who do not agree to pause and reflect. I ask you to do the same. Those of us who lived in Iraq experienced the grief and misery that your policies caused. UN officials on the ground were not "taken in" by a dictator's regime. We were "taken in" by the challenge to tackle human suffering created by the gravely faulty policies of two governments - yours and that of the United States - and by the gutlessness of those in the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere who could have made a difference but chose otherwise. The facts are on our side, not on yours.
Here are some of those facts. Had Hans Blix, the then UN chief weapons inspector, been given the additional three months he requested, your plans could have been thwarted. You and George W Bush feared this. If you had respected international law, you would not, following Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, have allowed
your forces to launch attacks from two no-fly zones. Allegedly carried out to protect Iraqi Kurds in the north and Iraqi Shias in the south, these air strikes killed civilians and destroyed non-military installations.
I know that the reports we prepared in Baghdad to show the damage wreaked by these air strikes caused much anger in Whitehall. A conversation I had on the sidelines of the Labour party conference in 2004 with your former foreign secretary Robin Cook confirmed that, even in your cabinet, there had been grave doubts about your approach. UN Resolution 688 was passed in 1991 to authorise the UN secretary general - no one else - to safeguard the rights of people and to help in meeting their humanitarian needs. It did not authorise the no-fly zones. In fact, the British government, in voting for Resolution 688, accepted the obligation to respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
I was a daily witness to what you and two US administrations had concocted for Iraq: a harsh and uncompromising sanctions regime punishing the wrong people. Your officials must have told you that your policies translated into a meagre 51 US cents to finance a person's daily existence in Iraq. You acknowledge that 60 per cent of Iraqis were totally dependent on the goods that were allowed into their country under sanctions, but you make no reference in your book to how the UK and US governments blocked and delayed huge amounts of supplies that were needed for survival. In mid-2002, more than $5bn worth of supplies was blocked from entering the country. No other country on the Iraq sanctions committee of the UN Security Council supported you in this. The UN files are full of such evidence. I saw the education system, once a pride of Iraq, totally collapse. And conditions in the health sector were equally desperate. In 1999, the entire country had only one fully functioning X-ray machine. Diseases that had been all but forgotten in the country re-emerged.
You refuse to acknowledge that you and your policies had anything to do with this humanitarian crisis. You even argue that the death rate of children under five in Iraq, then among the highest in the world, was entirely due to the Iraqi government. I beg you to read Unicef's reports on this subject and what Carol Bellamy, Unicef's American executive director at the time, had to say to the Security Council. None of the UN officials involved in dealing with the crisis will subscribe to your view that Iraq "was free to buy as much food and medicines" as the government would allow. I wish that had been the case. During the Chilcot inquiry in July this year, a respected diplomat who represented the UK on the Security Council sanctions committee while I was in Baghdad observed: "UK officials and ministers were well aware of the negative effects of sanctions, but preferred to blame them on the Saddam regime's failure to implement the oil-for-food programme."
No one in his right mind would defend the human rights record of Saddam Hussein. Your critical words in this respect are justified. But you offer only that part of this gruesome story. You quote damning statements about Saddam Hussein made by Max van der Stoel, the former Dutch foreign minister who was UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iraq during the time I served in Baghdad. You conveniently omitted three pertinent facts: van der Stoel had not been in Iraq since 1991 and had to rely on second-hand information; his UN mandate was limited to assessing the human rights record of the Iraqi government and therefore excluded violations due to other reasons such as economic sanctions; and his successor, Andreas Mavrommatis, formerly foreign secretary in Cyprus, quickly recognised the biased UN mandate and broadened the scope of his review to include sanctions as a major human rights issue. This was a very important correction.
Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, who in the years of sanctions on Iraq was his country's permanent representative to the UN, is not mentioned in your book. Is that because he was one of the diplomats who climbed over the wall of disinformation and sought the truth about the deplorable human conditions in Iraq in the late 1990s? Amorim used the opportunity of his presidency of the UN Security Council to call for a review of the humanitarian situation. His conclusion was unambiguous. "Even if not all the suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war."
Malaysia's ambassador to the UN, Hasmy Agam, starkly remarked: "How ironic it is that the same policy that is supposed to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction has itself become a weapon of mass destruction." The secretary general, too, made very critical observations on the humanitarian situation in Iraq. When I raised my own concerns in a newspaper article, your minister Peter Hain repeated what the world had become accustomed to hearing from London and Washington: it is all of Saddam's making. Hain was a loyal ally of yours. He and others in your administration wrote me off as subjective, straying off my mandate, not up to the task, or, in the words of the US state department's spokesman at the time, James Rubin: "This man in Baghdad is paid to work, not to speak!"
My predecessor in Baghdad, Denis Halliday, and I were repeatedly barred from testifying to the Security Council. On one occasion, the US and UK governments, in a joint letter to the secretary general, insisted that we did not have enough experience with sanctions and therefore could not contribute much to the debate. You were scared of the facts.
We live in serious times, which you helped bring about. The international security architecture is severely weakened, the UN Security Council fails to solve crises peacefully, and there are immense double standards in the debate on the direction our world is travelling in. A former British prime minister - "a big player, a world leader and not just a national leader", as you describe yourself in your book - should find little time to promote his "journey" on a US talk show. You decided differently. I watched this show, and a show it was. You clearly felt uncomfortable. Everything you and your brother-in-arms, Bush, had planned for Iraq has fallen apart, the sole exception being the removal of Saddam Hussein. You chose to point to Iran as the new danger.
Whether you like it or not, the legacy of your Iraq journey, made with your self-made GPS, includes your sacrifice of the UN and negotiations on the altar of a self-serving alliance with the Bush administration. You admit in your book that "a few mistakes were made here and there". One line reads: "The intelligence was wrong and we should have, and I have, apologised for it." A major pillar of your case for invading Iraq is treated almost like a footnote. Your refusal to face the facts fully is the reason why "people of good will" remain so distressed and continue to demand accountability.
Hans von Sponeck is a former UN assistant secretary general and was UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq from 1998 until he resigned in protest in March 2000.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
CRIMES OF THE CENTURY –OCCUPATION AND CONTAMINATING IRAQ WITH DEPLETED URANIUM
CRIMES OF THE CENTURY – OCCUPATION AND CONTAMINATING IRAQ WITH DEPLETED URANIUM
A MUST READ
A MUST READ
Please click on:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37718347/Crimes-of-the-Century-Occupation-Contaminating-Iraq-with-Depleted-Uranium
Friday, 17 September 2010
President Gül received Iraqi Turkmen MP Taqi al-Mawla
President Gül received the Iraqi Turkmen Shiite MP, Taqi al-Mawla and his accompanying delegation, including former Turkmen deputy Mohammed Mehdi, at the Tarabya Residence.
Al-Mawla informed the President that they had been making efforts towards gathering all Turkmen deputies under the same roof of the Iraqi Parliament. President Gül expressed his pleasure to have heard this, maintaining that such a move would be very beneficial.
“HOLDING A CENSUS IN IRAQ COULD INSTIGATE CLASHES”
The delegation also championed that holding a census could incite ethnic and denominational clashes at present in Iraq, adding that they were trying to defer it.
Al-Mawla later referred to the problems of the Turkmens who had to evacuate their homelands after the military intervention in 2003 and suggested constructing new residences for them so that they could come back to their towns, drawing attention to the importance of providing the Tal Afar people with food, clothing and other daily needs.
UNIVERSITY ESTABLISHMENT IN TAL AFAR
President Gül, when al-Mawla mentioned their desire that a joint university should be established in Tal Afar, promised that Turkey would do whatever was necessary towards this and he further pointed out that in Iraq, which is going through a critical period these days, Turkmens should be in unity and solidarity, offering his good wishes for the Iraqi Turkmens.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
IRAQ FOREVER POLLUTED BY DEPLETED URANIUM (VIDEO)
Reporter Fouad HadyIRAQ FOREVER POLLUTED BY DEPLETED URANIUM
A must watch
PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO WATCH THE VIDEO AND READ THE TRANSCRIPT
http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/600687/n/Iraq-s-Deadly-Legacy
TRANSCRIPT :
(Excerpt)
IRAQ’S DEADLY LEGACY
It is seven years since the invasion of Baghdad and only now is the US withdrawing its forces from Iraq, but the Iraqi people themselves, meanwhile, are having to deal with what appears to be a more immediate and devastating legacy from the war - stories are now emerging of increased deformities in the country's newborn babies as well as a dramatic rise in the number of children with cancer. Dateline's Walkley Award-winning reporter Fouad Hady, an Iraqi-Australian, went back home to investigate. As you know, Dateline always warns it’s viewers when they are about to show images or sequences that they think you might find upsetting. Well, George Negus had a long look at Fouad's piece and it's definitely upsetting - confronting, in fact. Nevertheless, he urges you to stick with it. It says a lot about the ethical dilemma of modern armed conflicts like Iraq.
REPORTER: Fouad Hady
I'm travelling to Falluja - about two hours drive west of Baghdad - the scene of fierce fighting between Sunni insurgents and US forces in 2004. My driver is Mohammed, a mechanic who lives here, he remembers a happier time.
MOHAMMED, DRIVER (Translation): This is our city, Falluja. Every Monday and Tuesday it used to celebrate weddings, happy occasions, newborn babies and young men and women getting married…..
He says that has all changed now.
MOHAMMED (Translation): They don't have very high hopes of marrying and starting a family because they are scared to have children. This is the stricken Falluja city.
Mohammed and his new bride stayed in Falluja throughout the fighting. They say there is a terrible legacy.
MOHAMMED (Translation): She was two months pregnant when the battles with the American forces started. They were fierce battles and the American forces moved into the houses. There was heavy aerial bombing and armoured vehicles came in. A while later Zahraa was born disabled –she has six digits in her hands and feet – here are her hands and here are her feet. They are the effects – the doctors would not give us reports. She also had general paralysis and obesity, an allergy in the trachea, asthma, cross-eyed and also has mild mental retardation.
MOHAMMED’S WIFE (Translation): I had high hopes when I was pregnant with her - I was expecting her to grow up, play, to guide her, play with her, take her out, enrol her at school... In two years, all kids her age will start school, except for her.
MOHAMMED (Translation): We had a baby boy after her and when he was three or four days old, he died. He had an opening in the crown of the head, from the effects. It's not the only case in Falluja - there are not hundreds but thousands of cases in Falluja.
Mohammad and many others believe US bullets and bombs - which spread depleted uranium - have made Falluja toxic. He wants me to meet some of his neighbours.
REPORTER (Translation): What is your son’s condition?
WOMAN (Translation): My son’s condition is from the effects of the war – I was pregnant with him when Falluja was attacked – I was pregnant during the first attack and he was barely 40 days old during the second. So that is why this happened to my son Abdul Rahman. It is the effects of war – the bombs the Americans dropped on us. In general, Falluja’s women are not happing children.
REPORTER (Translation): Do you know women, like neighbours, friends…
WOMAN (Translation): All of them.
REPORTER (Translation): Do they miscarry or can’t they fall pregnant?
WOMAN (Translation): She miscarries - then can’t fall pregnant – my sister miscarried as well.
REPORTER (Translation): The same condition?
WOMAN (Translation): Yes, the same condition.
REPORTER (Translation): Do you know any neighbours in the same condition – miscarry and so on?
WOMAN (Translation): All of them.
The fighting in Falluja filled the cemeteries, so people were buried here in the sports ground and the locals say the curse of Falluja continues
REPORTER (Translation): What is this?
LOCAL MAN (Translation): It's for children who were born with deformities and incurable diseases. They grow to about five or six months of age and don't survive any longer. This whole cemetery is especially for children. These are the deformed children.
To continue please click on the link above
Amnesty International report: Iraq – “New order, same abuses” excerpts focussing on the Kurdistan Region
Report coverNew order, same abuses: Unlawful detentions and torture in Iraq
Amnesty International
Report Index: MDE 14/006/2010September 2010
Below are excerpts that focus on Kurdistan taken from the report ‘New order, same abuses’. The 57-page report, written in the context of the political vacuum that has enveloped the country since the March elections, is both scathing and disturbing. Scathing in its denunciation of the authorities (in the KRG, in Arab Iraq, and also the US military) for their role and complicity in the unlawful detentions, enforced disappearances and torture or other ill-treatment of thousands of people; and disturbing for the sheer extent of the abuses and for the seeming lack of effort to stop it. While Kurdistan fares much better than the Arab south, there are still many judicial and human rights issues that need to be resolved to overcome the entrenched culture of violence that has led to the partial incapacitation of the legal and judiciary systems.
From the report:
More than seven years after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the human rights situation remains dire. Despite some security improvements in the last couple of years, violence rages on and scores of Iraqis are being killed every month as a result.
The focus of this report is the unlawful detention, enforced disappearance and torture or other ill-treatment of thousands of people since 2003 by the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) in Iraq and the Iraqi authorities. Some have been held arbitrarily, without charge or trial, for seven years. Some remain held even though Iraqi courts or investigative judges have ordered their release for lack of evidence or adequate grounds to imprison them. Thousands are still in prison despite the 2008 Amnesty Law, which provides for the release of uncharged detainees after six or 12 months depending on the case.
In the Kurdistan region of Iraq, in the north, which is run by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and where the security situation has generally been much better than in the rest of Iraq, similar abuses have been reported, albeit on a far smaller scale. Scores of people have been detained without charge or trial, some for up to 10 years. Some have been victims of enforced disappearance, and some have been tortured.
This report is based on a wide range of research, including a fact-finding visit by Amnesty International delegates to the Kurdistan region of Iraq between 30 May and 10 June 2010. The delegates visited prisons under the control of the Asayish – the Kurdish security forces–in Erbil and Dohuk and talked to many detainees, as well as prison directors and senior Asayish officials. Some of the interviews with prisoners were held in private, while others were in the presence of guards. The delegates also spoke to many displaced Iraqis who had fled the violence, as well as human rights activists, women’s groups, journalists and representatives of various UN bodies and non-governmental organizations, and raised individual cases and general concerns during a meeting with the Interior Minister.
Those arrested in connection with serious crimes can be held for long periods. Article 109 of the Criminal Procedure Code has been used to detain people without trial for several years, including in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Despite the safeguards contained in Article 127 of Iraq’s Criminal Procedure Code (as amended), in practice detainees generally have not been able to access legal representation, according to numerous testimonies obtained by Amnesty International from former detainees and detainees’ families, and detainees held in the Kurdistan region of Iraq who were interviewed in prison by Amnesty International in June 2010.
Several factors appear to underlie the denial of this right, including the reluctance of some lawyers to represent and defend people suspected or accused of terrorism or other serious crimes, and fears that this could expose the lawyers themselves to reprisal or other attacks–an unsurprising concern in a context where a number of lawyers and also judges have been abducted and/or killed and others have been told that they will be killed if they continue to defend certain clients.
Scores of people have been detained without charge or trial in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, some for years. Some have been tortured or otherwise ill-treated, and some have been victims of enforced disappearance, as the authorities refused for years to provide their families with information on their fate or whereabouts.
Until early 2008 the KRG held hundreds of detainees without charge or trial on suspicion of belonging to or sympathizing with Islamist groups, in particular Ansar al-Islam. By September 2008 the majority of these had been “pardoned” and released. However, scores have remained in detention in prisons controlled by the Asayish, the KRG’s main security agency, in the three Kurdish governorates administered by the KRG – Erbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk.
Many of those detained in recent years were arrested because of their suspected membership of or support for banned organizations such as Ansar al-Islam as well as legal political parties, including the Kurdistan Islamic Movement and the Islamic Group. Some were active members of these organizations at the time of their arrest; others had reportedly ceased their involvement, some a long time before their arrest. Still others were detained, weeks or even months after they had surrendered to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)’s Peshmerga armed forces, in 2003 following armed clashes.
Families of a number of long-term detainees have been campaigning for their release. In mid-2009 they staged sit-ins outside the Kurdistan parliament building in Erbil. They also marched towards the KRG Presidency in Salaheddin, but were prevented by the security forces from getting near the building.
A number of the detainees who were interviewed by Amnesty International delegates who visited the Kurdistan Region in June 2010 said that they were from Mosul, outside the KRG, and had been detained by the Asayish or Peshmerga either in Mosul or nearby villages located in areas bordering the KRG which are disputed between the KRG and Iraq’s federal government in Baghdad. Some of the detainees said they had been detained by US forces and then handed over to the KRG.
Amnesty International was told by the directors of the Asayish in Erbil and Dohuk that many of the detainees being held without trial had been arrested before the enactment of the KRG’s anti-terrorism law in 2006 (Law No. 23 of 2006, Combating Terrorism in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq) and that they could not be prosecuted under this law for alleged involvement with Islamist armed groups as this would mean applying the law retroactively. Nor, they said, could such detainees be charged under the Iraqi Penal Code because it does not contain specific provisions criminalizing terrorism. In fact, however, the Penal Code sets out a range of criminal offences relating to the internal and external security of the state that could potentially be used if the KRG authorities wished genuinely to bring the detainees before the courts and allow them the opportunity to obtain their release (On 27 September 2003, the then Kurdistan National Assembly issued Law No. 21 amending Article 156 of the Iraqi Penal Code. The amended Article provides that anyone undermining the security and stability of the Kurdistan region can face up to life imprisonment.
In any case, the reasons cited by the directors of the Asayish, which the KRG’s then prime minister acknowledged to Amnesty International in 2009 is itself not fully accountable under the law, do not justify arbitrary detention, which is prohibited under international human rights law.
The Iraqi Human Rights Ministry documented 574 allegations of torture during 2009, including 56 against the Peshmerga. These documented cases across Iraq almost certainly represent no more than the tip of a very large iceberg. (Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights, 2009 Annual Report, p84).
During a visit to Dohuk Asayish Prison in June 2010, detainees told Amnesty International delegates that they were tortured following their arrest in Mosul before they were transferred to the Kurdistan region. ‘Ata’-Allah Ahmad Da’bul al-Shammeri, for example, told Amnesty International that his torture included being suspended from a ventilator, beaten repeatedly with a cable, and given electric shocks to different parts of his body. He said that he told his interrogators that he would confess to anything and sign even a blank sheet of paper. He then signed a statement. He told Amnesty International that he was innocent and that he believed he had been arrested because his house is near to where the car bomb incident took place. His trial started at the end of June 2010. International law prohibits the use of statements obtained by torture in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.
The human rights situation in Iraq remains extremely serious. Amnesty International recognizes that the government faces deadly attacks by armed groups who are intent on causing maximum civilian casualties. It also recognizes that it is the government’s duty to protect its population. However, the government can only do this while respecting its obligations under international human rights law and upholding the rule of law.
Even in the context of ongoing violence, there is no justification for keeping thousands of people in prisons and detention facilities without charge or trial, let alone keeping them like this for years. Many of the detainees have suffered torture and other ill-treatment by Iraqi security forces, and remain at risk of such abuses. Because of government complicity, tolerance or inaction in relation to such abuses, a culture of impunity prevails.
US forces, by transferring individuals to Iraqi detention facilities where they are clearly at risk of torture and other ill-treatment, may be complicit in these abuses and have breached their international obligations towards the prisoners.
To counter the impunity and to help protect human rights in Iraq, Amnesty International makes eighteen recommendations to the authorities in Iraq, including the KRG. These recommendations include assurance that all human rights violations end immediately, that all detainees currently held without charge be released, that all detainees be held only in recognized detention centers, and to publicly condemn the practices of torture and other ill-treatment and enforced disappearances, and declare unequivocally that such abuses will not be tolerated.
Here is the full report (.pdf) with a complete list of Amnesty International’s recommendations, details of the 2008 Amnesty Law, extensive endnotes and photographs.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
American led war crimes "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq"
American led war crimes "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq"
Never forget, never forgive the US-UK terrorist states' crimes in Iraq
Never forget, never forgive the US-UK terrorist states' crimes in Iraq
Monday, 13 September 2010
TELAFER ŞAİRLERİ, Dr. Şemsettin Küzeci
TELAFER ŞAİRLERİ
Dr. Şemsettin Küzeci’nin hazırlamış olduğu ‘Telafer Şairleri’ antolojisi çıktı. 12 şairin özgeçmiş, fotoğraf ve şiirlerinden örneklerin olduğu kitap Ankara’da MAS Matbaasında basıldı. Dizgi-mizanpaj ve kapak tasarımını Aybeniz Küzeci yaptı. ‘Türkmeneli Vakfı Kültür Merkezi’ (TVKM) adı altında yayınlanan kitabın ‘Takdim’ yazısını da TVKM Başkanı Dr. Mustafa Ziya yazdı. “Telaferin medarı iftiharı Şair Felekoğlu’nun ruhuna…”ithaf edilen kitabın önsözünü de Dr. Şemsettin Küzeci yazdı.
160 sayfadan oluşan kitapta “Abdurrahim Tahir, Cemil Şiho, Eyüp Anadoloğlu, Felekoğlu, Ganım Kasapoğlu, Hazım İlhanbey, Muhammed Meri Saitoğlu, Mehmet Şahin, Mikdat Havdioğlu, Mutasım Efendi, Rıza Çolakoğlu, Sadık Sazıgüzel” toplam 12 şair Alfabetik olarak yer almaktadır. Ayrıca kitabın sonunda Telafer’e yazılan şiirler bulunmaktadır. Bunlar; Telafer’in Ağıdı-Hüseyin Gümüş, Ağlasam Telafer Ağlasam- Nemciye Sarpkaya, Telafer Muzaffer-Oğuz Düzgün, Telafer-Halil Çolak, Başlara Yıktı Damı- Hasan Sancak, Şehit Mustafa Mehmet Telaferli-Sadun Köprülü ve Telafer-Reşit Bostancı yer almaktadır.
‘Felekoğlu’ diyor ki:
Atam ülkesi vatanım cennetim Telaferim
Her umağım uzun dilim İzzetim Telaferim
Mahvolur gönlüm gamı her dem hayalinde senin
Toprağın taşın seririm sohbetim Telaferim
‘Mehmet Şahin’ diyor ki:
Eğme başın, kurban olduğum kardeş
Dur hala nedir bu üzüntü nedir bu yaş
Her merde nasip olmaz böyle savaş
Kaldır başın sen Telafer’lisin
‘Oğuz Düzgün’ diyor ki:
TELAFER MUZAFFER
Telafer...
Gözlerime fer!
Telafer..
Mümin bir nefer!
Telafer...
Zaferdir zafer!
Telafer...
İslam`a miğfer
Telafer..
Türk`e atmosfer
Telafer...
Olmaz telef er
Telafer...
Dâim muzaffer
Telafer...
Dr. Şemsettin Küzeci’nin hazırlamış olduğu ‘Telafer Şairleri’ antolojisi çıktı. 12 şairin özgeçmiş, fotoğraf ve şiirlerinden örneklerin olduğu kitap Ankara’da MAS Matbaasında basıldı. Dizgi-mizanpaj ve kapak tasarımını Aybeniz Küzeci yaptı. ‘Türkmeneli Vakfı Kültür Merkezi’ (TVKM) adı altında yayınlanan kitabın ‘Takdim’ yazısını da TVKM Başkanı Dr. Mustafa Ziya yazdı. “Telaferin medarı iftiharı Şair Felekoğlu’nun ruhuna…”ithaf edilen kitabın önsözünü de Dr. Şemsettin Küzeci yazdı.
160 sayfadan oluşan kitapta “Abdurrahim Tahir, Cemil Şiho, Eyüp Anadoloğlu, Felekoğlu, Ganım Kasapoğlu, Hazım İlhanbey, Muhammed Meri Saitoğlu, Mehmet Şahin, Mikdat Havdioğlu, Mutasım Efendi, Rıza Çolakoğlu, Sadık Sazıgüzel” toplam 12 şair Alfabetik olarak yer almaktadır. Ayrıca kitabın sonunda Telafer’e yazılan şiirler bulunmaktadır. Bunlar; Telafer’in Ağıdı-Hüseyin Gümüş, Ağlasam Telafer Ağlasam- Nemciye Sarpkaya, Telafer Muzaffer-Oğuz Düzgün, Telafer-Halil Çolak, Başlara Yıktı Damı- Hasan Sancak, Şehit Mustafa Mehmet Telaferli-Sadun Köprülü ve Telafer-Reşit Bostancı yer almaktadır.
‘Felekoğlu’ diyor ki:
Atam ülkesi vatanım cennetim Telaferim
Her umağım uzun dilim İzzetim Telaferim
Mahvolur gönlüm gamı her dem hayalinde senin
Toprağın taşın seririm sohbetim Telaferim
‘Mehmet Şahin’ diyor ki:
Eğme başın, kurban olduğum kardeş
Dur hala nedir bu üzüntü nedir bu yaş
Her merde nasip olmaz böyle savaş
Kaldır başın sen Telafer’lisin
‘Oğuz Düzgün’ diyor ki:
TELAFER MUZAFFER
Telafer...
Gözlerime fer!
Telafer..
Mümin bir nefer!
Telafer...
Zaferdir zafer!
Telafer...
İslam`a miğfer
Telafer..
Türk`e atmosfer
Telafer...
Olmaz telef er
Telafer...
Dâim muzaffer
Telafer...
AybenizKüzeci
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Happy Eid - Eid Mubarak
Mübarek Ramazan Bayramınızı yürekten Kutlar Tüm islam alemine ve Türk Türkmen milletine hayırlı olmasını dileriz
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