Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05ADANA47
2005-03-09 06:27:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Consulate Adana
Cable title:  

SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY FOR MARCH 8, 2005

Tags:  PREL PINS PGOV PHUM TU ADANA 
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090627Z Mar 05
UNCLAS ADANA 000047

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PINS PGOV PHUM TU ADANA
SUBJECT: SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY FOR MARCH 8, 2005


This is the Southeastern Turkey press summary for March 8, 2005.
Please note that Turkish press reports often contain errors or
exaggerations; AmConsulate Adana does not vouch for the accuracy
of the reports summarized here.

POLITICAL, SECURITY, HUMAN RIGHTS

HURRIYET (CUKUROVA): A dog with rabies bit an 11-year-old in
the Islahiye district of Gaziantep province, and the incident
has caused panic. Children are afraid to go to school, and a
local neighbor is accompanying them to school with a shotgun.
Several villages have reportedly been placed under "quarantine."

OZGUR GUNDEM: A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report stated that
Turkey failed to live up to plans to facilitate the return of
internally displaced people, mainly Kurds, to southeastern
Turkey. According to HRW, Turkey misled the EU about its
progress in facilitating the return.

CUMHURIYET / OZGUR GUNDEM: The Human Rights Association
started a probe into claims that a grave holding five bodies
exists in a Jandarma station yard in Yedisu district of Bingol.
Mustafa Bayram, who did his military service in that Jandarma
station in 2000, claims that five PKK members were caught during
an operation in April 2000, and were later (allegedly)
interrogated, killed and buried in the yard of the station.


CUMHURIYET: Mehtap Kizilkan, a social worker for the Diyarbakir
NGO KA-MER (Women Association),drew attention to the myriad
types of violence women face. She announced that forty-two
women, "escaping the threat of death," applied to KA-MER for
help in one year. In Van, 82 women have applied to the newly
opened Counseling Office of the Women's Association, 60 of whom
solicited help for being exposed to violence.

BOLGE: Despite campaigns to raise awareness on the issue of
education and children's rights, children in southeastern Turkey
are working in a variety of sectors instead of going to the
schools. According to surveys, 87,000 children between the ages
12-14 are (reportedly) working, primarily in agricultural
fields.

YENI SAFAK: The Turkish Parliament's Human Rights Commission
reportedly obtained a statement which Major General Yavuz Erturk
gave to the European Court of Human Rights in May, 1998,
regarding the disappearance of 11 villagers in the Kulp district
of Diyarbakir in 1993. In the statement, Gen. Erturk stated that
the Bolu Command Brigade was not conducting an operation in
Kepir hamlet of Kulp on the date when the incident was supposed
to have taken place.



REID