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KURDISTAN ON FIRE
"Kurdistan on Fire" is part of the history of the tragic events that have taken place in the greater occupied Kurdistan with special emphasis on Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan from 1986-1990 as reported in the western, mainly American, media.
What you see and read here is only the tip of the iceberg. The scope of the Kurdish tragedy and the true extent of the destruction of Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan is impossible to know until after the fall of the present regime when, hopefully, a full inquiry can be made into the untold crimes of the regime of Saddam Hussein against the defenseless Kurdish population.
Iran, Turkey, and Syria have not been any more humane than Iraq to their own Kurdish population. The only reason that Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan is in the spotlight is that the Kurds there have been more active in their fight for freedom in the last few decades than their brethren in the other parts of Kurdistan. In Iran, the Shah kept the Kurds under tight control and Khomeini declared a "holy war" against them soon after the establishment of the Islamic Republic. Turkey does not recognize its twelve million Kurds as a separate nationality and considers them "mountain Turks who have forgotten their language" and miraculously learnt another. Turkey's policy of forcible assimilation is notorious. Syria's policy of Arabization of its share of the Kurdish prize is a long-standing one.
Even though the Kurds have been subjected to state terrorism and extreme violations of their basic human rights by the various states that have controlled their destiny ever since the dismemberment of Kurdistan and its annexation by force to Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria at the end of the First World War, they never imagined anything like the reign of terror under Saddam Hussein and his Baath Arab Socialist Party. For the Kurds, life under Saddam has been a hell; there is not a family or an inch of land that his savagery has not touched. The regime of Saddam has committed genocide against a people who have asked for nothing but to live in peace, dignity, and freedom in their own land.
Recently, an American television reporter remarked in disbelief about the "Intifada" in Palestine/Israel that since the beginning of the and 1 commented independence that fifty years!" suffering of made for freedom, for we are determination of all nations; truth and, thus, we would individuals and millions of others Kurdistan standing; long we independence.
Widespread Torture in Turkey Reported
United Pnsa International
London
Amnesty International said yesterday that it has received almost daily reports of widespread torture in Turkey, where it said authorities regularly force confessions out of men, women and children through beatings, sexual abuse, electric shocks and even crucifixion.
It said Turkey still had an “appalling human rights record" despite public relations campaigns by its embassies around the world to improve its image and despite official Turkish ratification of European and U.N. conventions against torture.
The 73-page report by the London-based organization, which monitors rights violations around the world, was one of the most scathing documents it has published on a single nation in rpcent years.
“Amnesty has received reports of torture from Turkey virtually daily during the past two months,” it said.
Since the Sept 12, I960 military coup, Amnesty said, an estimated 250,000 political prisoners have been detained, and most of them were tortured.
Thousands among them were imprisoned for nonviolent political or religious activities, and more than 60,00 political prisoners were jailed after unfair trials, it said. More than 700 people were sentenced to death, and at least 200 people died from torture while in custody.
“The authorities appear reluctant to take even the most elementary practical steps to eradicate human rights abuses and have failed to implement the provisions of the international conventions it ratified,” the Amnesty report said.
Examples of torture of prisoners, such as the case of Ozgur Cem Ths, a boy of 13, made chilling reading. He was taken to the police headquarters in Diyarkbakir, eastern Turkey, on June 30 because his cousins were suspected of supporting Kurdish guerrillas.
I was taken to the sixth floor of the police headquarters. I was blindfolded and handcuffed. They applied Yalaka* (a Turkish form of beating the bare soles of the feet with a stick) for 25 minutes.
“My hands were untied, and I wassuspended from hooks and electric shocks were applied to my penis. I told them I didn’t know where my cousins were.”
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