from UN News Centre

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35473&Cr=&Cr1=

29 July 2010 –More than 6,200 children attending a summer camp in the Gaza Strip run by the United Nations agency assisting Palestinian refugees have broken their own world record for the number of kites flown at the same time.

The feat comes exactly one week after more than 7,200 children bounced basketballs simultaneously for five minutes, doubling a 2007 record set in the United States.

“We still have to await final confirmation from the Guinness Book of World Records, but according to our figures the kids have done it. What an amazing achievement – two world records in a week,” said John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Both record-breaking events were part of the Summer Games programme organized by UNRWA in nearly 150 locations across Gaza over a period of six weeks, beginning on 12 June.   

Around a quarter of a million children participate in the Games, which include sports as well as recreational and cultural activities. This is the fourth year that UNRWA has organized the programme in Gaza, whose 1.5 million Palestinian residents have been languishing under a three-year-old Israeli blockade.

“Like children anywhere in the world, children here must have a sense of normality,” said Mr. Ging. “Despite the abnormality they face in their daily lives, today’s achievement has lifted the spirits of the entire population here in Gaza.”

Playing politics: summer camp for Gaza’s children

UN vies with Islamic Jihad and Hamas to keep hundreds of thousands entertained in summer

By Harriet Sherwood, Guardian UK, July 29, 2010

Palestinian girls at an UN Relief and Works Agency day camp on the beach in Gaza City. Boys have more options and many attend summer camps run by militant groups. Photograph: Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP The boys sitting in the shade of an awning erected on a Gaza beach are only half listening to the man addressing them through a megaphone.

After all, school’s out for the summer and there is football to be played and the sea to be swum in. Some of the 100 or so boys whisper among themselves, others are busy burying their own or a friend’s legs in the hot sand.

But when the man asks, “What is our slogan?” they snap to attention, responding in unison: “Resistance!”

This is summer in Gaza, Islamic Jihad-style. These boys are among 10,000 or so children that the militant organisation estimates attends its 50 camps. Hamas, the Islamic party which runs Gaza, claims another 100,000 children are attending 500 camps it organises; both are dwarfed by the 250,000 taking part in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s Summer Games across the Gaza Strip.    

Gaza’s summer camps are seen by militant organisations as an opportunity to influence a generation of children; to inculcate a duty to resist the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. UNRWA says it just wants the kids to have fun.

This year, the rivalry has taken an ugly turn with middle-of-the-night arson attacks on two UNRWA camps, one involving a death threat to the organisation’s head, John Ging. UNRWA says it doesn’t know who was responsible and has asked Hamas to investigate.

Down on the beach, Hasan Abdu, the Islamic Jihad official in charge of the summer camps programme, is telling the boys: “Anyone who makes concessions on Palestine is making concessions on the Qur’an. Palestine is our right. You are the men of the future – one of you might make history.”

When he asks who will join the resistance in the future, hands shoot up, showing the words are getting through despite the boys’ apparent inattentiveness.

The camp is named in honour of “the martyrs of the freedom flotilla”, in reference to the nine Turkish activists killed by Israeli forces while trying to break the blockade of Gaza. Many of the boys are wearing T-shirts adorned with a picture of the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla’s lead boat.

Zidan Obied, who is running this camp, explains the programme and philosophy. “We are expressing our principles as Islamic Jihad. We believe in the right of resistance and we are against peace negotiations.”

He runs through some of the daily activities: sessions on the history and geography of Palestine; readings from the Qur’an; arts and literature; drawing – “we teach them to draw maps of Palestine from the river to the sea”; lessons on the significance of Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa mosque; sports; volunteering activities such as tree-planting and clearing cemeteries; military-style marching and exercises.

This, of course, is for the boys. There are separate camps for girls, with “very limited” sporting activities. Instead they are taught crafts, such as embroidery.

“We are a conservative community, we try to avoid bad behaviour between boys and girls,” says Obied. “Dealing with girls is different.”

Many families are reluctant to allow their daughters to attend even segregated camps, whoever is running them, and across the board there is a disproportionate number of boys taking part in organised summer activities.

A few miles to the north of the Islamic Jihad beach awning, separate Hamas-run boys’ and girls’ camps are sharing the same seaside facility. The girls here are studying the Qur’an for five hours a day; the boys have a wide range of activities on offer, including football, computer skills, marching and a “sniper’s corner” where they are taught shooting as a sport.

The children are also taught about the history of the Palestinian struggle. In a society where politics and conflict is part of daily life, the notion that children should be allowed to enjoy childhood free from such burdens is incomprehensible.

“Of course we have a political agenda,” says Ahmed Nabil, a Hamas official helping to run the camp. “We believe the older generation has a duty to tell the younger generation about these issues. We are letting them play but also giving them a message. We must not let them forget that we are an occupied people.”

Israel claims the Hamas and Islamic Jihad summer camps are breeding a new generation of extremists. UNRWA declines to comment on other camps, but emphasises its own, contrasting, philosophy.

“In the highly charged, pressurised environment of Gaza, it’s important to have a space where children can just be children,” says UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. “We want to give the children a sense of fun and normality.”

UNRWA’s camps are better organised and equipped, not surprisingly given the organisation’s resources. Under brightly coloured streamers at camp number nine, there is a high-sided portable swimming pool, bouncy castle, trampoline and volleyball net.

The girls come in the morning, the boys in the afternoon – but both follow the same programme of activities, which sometimes involve a theme of teamwork and mutual respect.

Mohammed Zyara, running the boys’ activities at the camp, says: “Our main goal is to give them a good time, keep them away from troubles and politics.”

However, he says, UNRWA does not discourage children from attending rival camps. “I’m sure some of the boys go to one kind of camp in the morning, and another in the afternoon,” he says philosophically.

Back at the Islamic Jihad camp, the political lesson is over and the boys are playing in the waves despite the 80m litres of raw or partially treated sewage discharged into the sea off Gaza every day. Under the watchful eye of camp organisers, they chorus their support for Islamic Jihad, although many have also attended UNRWA camps this summer.

Hasan Sidan, a 13-year-old whose hair and clothes are caked in sand, reassuringly reflects the priorities of most boys his age. He likes the high jump best, and “the worst thing is when they are lecturing us”. Most of all, he says, he just wants to play on the beach and have a good time.

• Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Whether they are from Turkey, Ireland or Cyprus, those that participate reek of hypocrisy.

By DANNY AYALON, WSJ Europe, July 29, 2010

A couple of years ago, a Palestinian refugee camp was encircled and laid siege to by an army of tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers. Attacks initiated by Palestinian militants triggered an overwhelming response from the army that took the life of almost 500 people, including many civilians. International organizations struggled to send aid to the refugee camps, where the inhabitants were left without basic amenities like electricity and running water. During the conflict, six U.N. personnel were killed when their car was bombed.

Government ministers and spokesmen tried to explain to the international community that the Palestinian militants were backed by Syria and global jihadist elements. Al Qaeda condemned the government and the army, declaring that the attack was part of a “crusade” against their Palestinian brothers.

AFP/Getty ImagesA Palestinian refugee collects metal and plastic objects at a garbage dump in the Palestinian refugee camp of Beddawi near Tripoli.

While most will assume that the events described above took place in the West Bank or Gaza, they actually took place in Lebanon in the summer of 2007, when Palestinian terrorists attacked the Lebanese Army, which struck back with deadly force. The scene of most of the fighting was the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Northern Lebanon, which was home to the Islamist Fatah al-Islam, a group that has links with al Qaeda.

At the time, there was little international outcry. No world leader decried the “prison camps” in Lebanon. No demonstrations took place around the world; no U.N. investigation panels were created and little media attention was attracted. In fact, the plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon garners very little attention internationally.   

Today, there are more than 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon who are deprived of their most basic rights. The Lebanese government has a list of tens of professions that a Palestinian is forbidden from being engaged in, including professions such as medicine, law and engineering. Palestinians are forbidden from owning property and need a special permit to leave their towns. Unlike all other foreign nationals in Lebanon, they are denied access to the health-care system. According to Amnesty international, the Palestinians in Lebanon suffer from “discrimination and marginalization” and are treated like “second class citizens” and “denied their full range of human rights.”

Amnesty also states that most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have little choice but to live in overcrowded and deteriorating camps and informal gatherings that lack basic infrastructure.

In view of the worsening plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon, it is the height of irony that a Lebanese flotilla is organizing to leave the port of Tripoli in the next few days to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza. According to one of the organizers, the participants are “united by a feeling of stark injustice.”

This attitude exposes the dishonesty of the whole flotilla exercise. Whether it is from Turkey, Ireland or Cyprus, those that participate in these flotillas reek of hypocrisy. There are currently 100 armed conflicts and dozens of territorial disputes around the world. There have been millions of people killed and hundreds of millions live in abject poverty without access to basic staples. And yet hundreds of high-minded “humanitarian activists” are spending millions of dollars to reach Gaza and hand money to Hamas that will never reach the innocent civilians of Gaza.

This is the same Gaza that just opened a sparkling new shopping mall that would not look out of place in any capital in Europe. Gaza, where a new Olympic-sized swimming pool was recently inaugurated and five-star hotels and restaurants offer luxurious fare.

Markets brimming with all manner of foods dot the landscape of Gaza, where Lauren Booth, journalist and “human rights activist,” was pictured buying chocolate and luxurious items from a well-stocked supermarket before stating with a straight face that the “situation in Gaza is a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur.”

No one claims that the situation in Gaza is perfect. Since the bloody coup and occupation by Hamas of Gaza in 2007, in which more than 100 Palestinians were killed, Israel has had no choice but to ensure that Hamas is not able to build up an Iranian port on the shores of the Mediterranean. Until Hamas meets the three standards laid out by the international community, namely renouncing violence, recognizing Israel’s right to exist and abiding by previously signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Hamas will continue to be shunned by the international community.

While Israel’s policy is to continue to see that all civilian needs are addressed, it can not allow Hamas to rearm and use Gaza as a base to attack Israel and beyond. For this reason, Israel initiated a blockade, fully legal under international law, to ensure that no items can be appropriated by Hamas to attack innocent civilians. Organizations that wish to join the U.N. and the Red Cross to deliver goods or aid to Gaza are welcome to do so through the Kerem Shalom crossing or even through Egyptian ports. Those that refuse and seek to break the legal blockade to boost Hamas are interested in provocation. If Israel allows these confrontational flotillas to successfully open up a shipping lane for arms smuggling for an Iranian proxy, then the region will suffer from continuous conflict. Actions that embolden the extremists will be at the cost of the moderates and this will pose a grave danger to moving the peace process forward.

The latest flotilla preparing to leave from Lebanon fully exposes not only the hypocrisy but the danger of these provocative vigilante flotillas. The Lebanese flotilla, whose organizers claim injustice while ignoring the dire human rights situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon, amply demonstrate that these flotillas have nothing to do with humanitarian concerns and everything to do with delegitimizing Israel.

Mr. Ayalon is Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Systematically and methodically exposes the myths and lies about the Arab right to the land of Israel.

This is a phenomenal book.The research is impeccable and the narrative one of the most compelling I have ever read.This book dispels the untruths and reveals the real truth behind the creation of the State of Israel.This should be required reading for every college student studying the Middle East and for that matter for anyone who wants to be enlightened with the truth surrounding the State of Israel. I consider this one of the most important books ever written on the Middle East.

An exhaustively researched, refreshingly honest, and extraordinarily well-argued elaboration of the case for Israel. Dr. Grobman correctly observes that ‘one cannot reason with people who do not wish to be swayed by facts,’ but for those who are still open to rational discourse, this book proves from a variety of angles not only that Israel has a right to exist, but that all free people should stand with her.

Grobman’s well documented study traces the uninterrupted Jewish connection with the Holy Land from the biblical era to the present. It will undoubtedly become an important reference for scholars and laymen wishing to acquaint themselves with the truth about the Arab Israeli conflict. It is also provides readily accessible information to expose the lies and distortions promoted by those seeking to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state.

An excellent historical source for nearly 100 years of the Middle East Arab-Israeli conflict.

Available At Balfour Store

Gazans still awaiting world’s promises.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, Jerusalem Post, July 23, 2010

Five years after Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Palestinians living there are still waiting for the housing projects and factories the international community promised them.

The areas where most of the settlements once stood have yet to be transformed into apartments and working places for thousands of unemployed Palestinians who used to work in the Jewish communities.

Promises that the Gaza Strip would be turned into the Middle East’s Hong Kong or Singapore sound today like a joke to many Palestinians.

These promises were made on the eve of the disengagement by many governments and leaders all around the world, including Israel.

It’s hard today to find one Palestinian who would point to anything positive that has come out of the pullout. In fact, Palestinians across the political spectrum agree that the situation inside the Gaza Strip is not much better than it was before the disengagement.

The Palestinian Authority continues to argue that the unilateral disengagement was one of the reasons why Hamas is in power today. Not that the PA didn’t want Israel to leave the Gaza Strip.  

“The idea of an Israeli withdrawal [from the Gaza Strip] was good,” said a PA official in Ramallah.

“But the way it was carried out – unilaterally – was a mistake because it strengthened Hamas.” Indeed, Hamas continues to take credit for “driving” Israel out. Leaders and spokesmen of the Islamist movement insist that the suicide bombing campaign and the Kassam rockets were the main reason behind Israel’s decision to “run away” from Gaza.

Many Palestinians and Arabs seem to share the view that Israel fled because of the suicide and rocket attacks. This is perhaps one of the reasons why a majority of them voted for Hamas a few months later.

The January 2006 parliamentary election which brought Hamas to power was not only about internal reforms and financial corruption, but also about the conflict with Israel. Taking credit for the Israeli pullout, Hamas argued that violence was the only language it understood. The peace talks, Hamas explained to the Palestinians, did not bring them as much as the suicide bombings and rockets have.

“Unilateral disengagement sent a message to Palestinians that if you negotiate with Israel, you don’t get as much as you do as when you kill Jews,” said another PA official. “Ariel Sharon made a huge mistake when he refused to coordinate the withdrawal with the Palestinian Authority or any other party.” The PA official, who served as a close adviser to Mahmoud Abbas at the time, says that many Palestinians are still convinced that Sharon’s real intention was to undermine the PA.

“Sharon did not want the Palestinian Authority to succeed in the Gaza Strip and that’s why he refused to deal with us before the withdrawal,” the official claimed. “Sharon wanted to see Hamas in power so that he could tell the world that the Palestinians are not interested in a state and that their only intention is to destroy Israel.”

ACCORDING TO the PA and various sources in the Gaza Strip, Hamas is today much stronger than it was five years ago. If disengagement was regarded a moral victory for the movement, Israel’s departure from the Philadelphi Corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has enabled Hamas to smuggle in large amounts of weapons of various types.

Hamas became so strong that in the summer of 2007, exactly three years ago, its militias and gangs managed to kick the PA out of the Gaza Strip. PA and Fatah officials say that were it not for Israel’s hasty and unilateral withdrawal, Hamas would have never been able to build such a huge military force.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s new plan for a further disengagement, where Israel would stop supplying the Gaza Strip with water and electricity, has left both Hamas and the PA wondering about Israel’s true intentions.

The Palestinians’ biggest fear is that “disengagement 2” would solidify the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and make it permanent. They see the new plan as an Israeli attempt to create a separate Palestinian entity in the Gaza Strip that would be completely cut off from the West Bank.

“Israel wants to turn the Gaza Strip into a small Palestinian state,” charged Hamas legislator Salah Bardaweel. “This is a dangerous plan because it’s also designed to absolve Israel of its responsibilities as an occupation force.”

As far as the PA is concerned, the first disengagement was a disaster because it boosted Hamas’s popularity and paved the way for the movement’s victory in the 2006 election and its subsequent violent takeover of the Gaza Strip.

For Hamas, “disengagement 2” is bad because it would further isolate the Islamist regime. Hamas is worried that a complete disengagement would prompt the international community to stop holding Israel responsible for the miseries of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. It’s as if Hamas is saying, “Please Israel, stay here in one form or another because we need to hold you responsible; otherwise, the people will start asking us difficult questions.”

Shepherd on a Mission

By David Suissa

If ever there were an Israeli who could lead Israel to peace with its Arab neighbors, it might be the Israeli diplomat I met the other day in the lobby of the Century Plaza Hotel. This is your classic Zionist. He stands tall and proud of his country, doesn’t ignore its faults, has a deep understanding of the issues from all sides and craves peace.

Of course, it helps that he’s a Muslim. Not just a Muslim, but a Bedouin Muslim.

Ishmael Khaldi’s official position is policy advisor to the Israeli foreign minister, but he’s a lot more than that. He has become a one-man hasbara machine for the Jewish state, traveling around the world to make the case for the country he loves. When he encounters anti-Israel hecklers who spout slanderous words like “apartheid state,” he has an easy answer:

“If Israel was a racist state, a Muslim like me would never have made it this far.”

This notion of going far came early for Khaldi. Until he was 8, he walked four miles to school from his tiny Bedouin village of Khawalid in the western Galilee, then the same distance to get home again. He has fond memories of the family tent, where he lived with his parents and 10 siblings. He calls the tent an “extraordinary thing,” because it was made of goat hair, which he says keeps you “warm and dry in the winters, and cool in the hot summers.”   

It wasn’t just the memories of the goat-hair tents that marked him. It was also the ancient Bedouin lifestyle and the stories he heard from his grandmother, Jidda, who passed away in 2005 at the age of 96.

Khaldi recalls an early life that revolved around caring for animals, usually goats, sheep and cows. Because the condition of the land changed with the seasons, Bedouins were always on the move, looking for somewhere to nourish their flock. Their nomadic lifestyle lasted for thousands of years. Today, Khaldi says, many Bedouins have settled in more permanent dwellings in villages.

The turning point in Khaldi’s life came when he decided, at 17, to visit America. He spent three months in New York City getting by on “one miracle after another,” including one episode when he jumped onto subway tracks to get to the other side. “Bedouins always look for the shortest route,” he says.

He met religious Jews in Brooklyn and Queens who gave him room and board. He learned what it was to be a “Shabbos goy,” but he also remembers the joys of Shabbat and listening to the Torah portion of the week.

When he returned to Israel, higher education beckoned. Bedouins today do everything in their power to send their children to university, “even if I need to sell my clothes,” his father once told him. So he enrolled at the University of Haifa, where he got a degree in political science and arranged cultural tours for overseas students, mostly Americans, to his Bedouin village.

After completing his college degree, he followed his brothers’ footsteps in the national service and rose to second sergeant in the Israeli police force. He recalls his emotion when, after completing basic training, he was handed a Quran on which to swear his oath to his country, Israel.

He says that throughout history, Bedouins lived a life of tension with governing regimes, whether Ottoman, British or Arab. His own tribe developed a good relationship with the early Jewish pioneers in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. Bedouins and kibbutzniks always had a deep affinity for one another. His grandmother even learned a little Yiddish. So it was natural, he says, to want to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces and develop a loyalty to the Jewish state.

What I found fascinating about Khaldi is that at 38, with a graduate degree from Tel Aviv University and an important position in the Foreign Ministry, he’s still a nomad at heart. He’s always on the move, going from one country and city to another, telling Israel’s side of the story. He’s even found time to write a book about his story (“A Shepherd’s Journey”).

Israel’s story is his own, he says. No one stopped him from moving up. It was his choice to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to work to make enough money to buy a plane ticket to America. It was his choice to get an education and apply to work in public service. Israel is far from perfect, he says, but it gave him the freedom and opportunity to get where he is today.

Maybe his nomadic background has been a blessing. Nomads get attached to values, not to land or ideologies. They don’t build permanent structures; they don’t get bogged down if the land doesn’t produce. They’re used to being fluid, to moving on and looking for more fertile areas. And they never abandon their flock, or each other.

What better values for a diplomat? Loyal, practical, resourceful and travels light. Oh, and one more – respectful of his elders. This one, though, has landed him in hot water.

“My father keeps asking me when I will settle down, get married and start a family,” he says.

The only good excuse I can think of is that he’ll first need to take care of another matter – making peace between Muslims and Jews.
David Suissa is the founder of OLAM magazine, OLAM.org and a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. He can be reached at Suissa@olam.org

Indian States Worse Than Africa, A New Poverty Index Finds

The Link, July 17, 2010

http://www.thelinkpaper.ca/?p=1612

Amidst acute poverty across South Asia, the five states of Delhi, Kerala, Goa, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have the least number of poor people in India, according to a new measure of global poverty developed at the University of Oxford for the UNDP.

The new measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), has been developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

It will be featured in the 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report.

An analysis using MPI reveals South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have comparable intensities of poverty, according to an OPHI paper, Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries.

In terms of human lives, South Asia has the world’s highest levels of poverty.

Fifty-one percent of Pakistan’s population is MPI poor, 58 percent in Bangladesh, 55 percent in India, and 65 percent in Nepal.

The analysis states: “Delhi has an MPI equivalent to Iraq (which ranks 45), whereas Bihar’s MPI is similar to Guinea’s (the 8th poorest country in the ranking). 

“In terms of headcount, in Delhi and Kerala 14 percent and 16 percent of the population are MPI poor, in Jharkhand 77 percent of population are MPI poor and in Bihar, 81 percent.”

Other states with the least number of poor are Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat.

The analysis by MPI creators reveals that there are more ‘MPI poor’ people in eight Indian states (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million).

“…The population of the poorest state Bihar, with 95 million people, exceeds the sum of nine of the 10 poorest African countries,” authors Sabina Alkire and Maria Emma Santos say.

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News
Monday, July 19, 2010

A new report from the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, or TESEV, suggests more radical reforms than those in the reform package are necessary to solve the ongoing Kurdish problem.

A new report from the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, or TESEV, suggests more radical reforms than those in the reform package are necessary to solve the ongoing Kurdish problem.

“Towards the solution of the Kurdish Problem: Constitutional and Legal Suggestions,” written by Dilek Kurban and Yılmaz Ensaroğlu with aid of 17 experts, suggested alternatives for every law they argued should be changed.

In the foreword section, Etyen Mahçupyan, Director of TESEV Democratization Program, argued: “Building citizenship on Turkishness has degraded the concept of the Republic of Turkey to a Turkish state. The understanding of the indivisibility of the state resulted in no cultural identity apart from Turkishness being perceived by the state with the basis of equality.” The report itself argued the references to Turkish identity in many laws and constitutional articles does not comply with the multi-ethnical structure of Turkey.

The most radical suggestion brought by the report is that the first three articles of the constitution be changed. The articles of the constitution however, “cannot be changed; changing them cannot even be suggested,” according to the fourth article.       

The report pointed out that many articles of the constitution have several references to the “Turkish motherland and nation,” the “supreme Turkish state,” “Turkish history,” “Turkish culture” and “Turkish Language” which should not be included in a new constitution. The report underlined that for the constitution to have unchangeable articles conflicts with the principles of democratic governance and the mention of “loyalty to Atatürk nationalism” in the second article is not a universal value but reference to an ideology. Four alternatives were suggested to the first three constitutional articles in the report alongside other alternatives for other articles.

Apart from the constitution, the laws for political parties and the ways deputies are elected are considered to need changing to contribute to the solution of the Kurdish problem. The 43rd, 81st, 82nd, 101st and 103rd articles of the law for political parties should immediately be changed, according to the report, which defined the whole of the law as “incompatible with the principles of democracy and the law state.”

The 301st article of the Turkish Penal Law on “insulting Turkishness” is not the only one preventing freedom of speech in Turkey, according to the report. In fact many politicians and local administrators have been and still are on trial according to the 216th, 220th, 222nd, 314th and 318th articles. The 318th article refers to “alienating the public from the military” and any comment that criticizes the Turkish Military is considered in this light.

The Anti-Terror Law, or TMK, protects the security of the state at the expense freedom and the security of individuals, the report argued, adding: “Although a series of betterments were made in the TMK since 2002, when the EU reforms process started the changes in 2006 turned [the process] backwards.” The report indicated the TMK brings punishment to actions already determined in the Penal Law but with higher penalties, and argued it should be eliminated completely.

The report also says education law should also be changed, because it currently only reflects “the ideological and monist education understanding of the state.” The law on provincial governance has been the basis of changing the Kurdish names of many locations, as the surname law and the alphabet law prevent the Kurds from the free speech of their language, according to the report.

The report also included other suggestions and alternatives to current laws in Turkey that, they argued, currently block the solution of the Kurdish problem.

© 2009 Hurriyet Daily News
URL: www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=new-reforms-suggested-for-democratic-solution-to-kurdish-problem-2010-07-19

UN: Uzbeks Subject to Torture, Detention in Kyrgyzstan

VOA News, 20 July 2010

Photo: AP: Kyrgyz Interior Ministry forces soldiers rest after conducting house-to-house searches in a district inhabited by ethnic Uzbek Kyrgyz citizens in Osh, 22 June 2010.

A top United Nations official says security forces in Kyrgyzstan have detained, and in some cases tortured, hundreds of ethnic Uzbeks since the eruption of June’s deadly ethnic clashes.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said Tuesday that her staff had received information suggesting that local authorities are routinely ignoring abuses, such as illegal arrests, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees, leading to forced confessions.

The reports indicated that detainees were burned by cigarettes, had fingernails removed, or beaten with rifle butts and batons, among other abuses. At least one detainee died reportedly as a result of the mistreatment. 

Pillay said such actions violated domestic and international laws and threatened the tenuous peace in the south, where tensions remain high one month after an estimated 2,000 people were killed in clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz.

She said more than 1,000 people have been detained in the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad since June.

Authorities in Osh say they have received few complaints of torture, but a spokesman for Pillay said it is because victims and their families are afraid of reprisals.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agreed Friday to send 52 police officers to help restore public order in southern Kyrgyzstan, but no date was announced for the deployment.

The interim government led by President Roza Otunbayeva has struggled to maintain stability in Kyrgyzstan since taking power following the deadly April 7 uprising that ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.