Mr. Bertie Ahern
The President of the European Council
Ireland
Dear President,
Human Rights Association which has been founded in 1986 and which has more than 14.000 members and branches in 34 provinces is the biggest human rights organization. Our association has opposed/ opposes to violence, types and means of violence and war since its foundation. Our association supports the resolution of all problems both between and within the countries with peaceful methods and makes effort to this end.
It is known that there are extremely important democracy and human rights problems in Turkey and insisting on solving the social and political problems by means of violence causes great destructions in the Turkish Society. Particularly, in the subject of resolution of "Kurdish Problem" which is one of the main problems in Turkey, thousands of people died, thousands were injured/became physically disabled, thousands of villages were evacuated and destroyed, millions of people were obliged leave their houses, villages, cities, thousand of young people were put into prison and other thousands were obliged to leave their countries as a result of insisting on violence methods instead of democratic society and pluralistic democracy principles.
As stated above, our Association which is against violence, types and means of violence and war under all circumstances considers whether the decisions taken and implications performed both in national and international field serve for the protection and development of human rights and for the requirements of peace and democratic society as criterion while evaluating the aforementioned decisions and implications.
Esteemed President,
Particularly since 11 September 2001, it has been reported that certain states prevent freedoms under the pretext of terror. The results we reached in the international seminar named "Interference for Suspension of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law on and after 11 September" which we held together with the International Human Rights Federation between the dates of 18-21 September 2003 in Turkey, were made public under the name of Ankara Declaration. Nearly 100 human rights defenders, doctors, jurists and international law experts from Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia and non governmental organizations, international organizations and government representatives from countries such as USA, Sweden and Yemen participated in the seminar. We would like to present three paragraphs from Ankara Declaration for your information:
"The participants of the conference define all attacks towards civilians as non justifiable and unforgivable and frankly condemn by keeping in mind the 11 September 2001 dated extremely tragic attack.
In addition, the participants also condemn the states for using the "fight against terrorism" as a pretext for suspending, violating or disregarding international human rights law, humanitarian law including the obligations of the occupying forces and refugee law after 11 September.
Participants attract attention that the fact that "terror" does not have a universally recognized definition causes definitions of which the limits are extremely wide at regional and international level, obscure and indefinite. They attract attention that such obscure definitions facilitate the consideration, of the legal usage of rights which are internationally recognized such as freedom of expression, freedom of association foundation and gathering, right to obtain information, right to have the right to comment in public issues, as illegal by the states."
United Nations has also reached the subjects attained by Ankara Declaration. In the 20 October 2003 dated United Nations Report, it was emphasized that freedoms were prevented under the pretext of terror in Arabian countries after 11 September 2001.
Our Association evaluates the decision of the European Union to prepare a common "terrorist organizations list" under the scope of fight against terrorism and "terrorist organization" determinations made in the framework of this decision in the framework of whether "it serves for the protection and development of human rights and for peace and requirements of democratic society or not". In the framework of these evaluations, we think that the European Union's announcement of the organization named Kongra-Gel as terrorist organization and its decision towards putting the said organization in the list is a decision which does not serve for peace and requirements of the democratic society and on the contrary, damages the relative peace atmosphere in Turkey. It is obvious that excluding an organization which has announced that it adopted democratic struggle method and would not use violence in the democratic struggle field and announcing that organization as a terrorist organization will not make any contribution to peace. The primary condition for preventing violence is to keep the democratic struggle channels always available for all kinds of opinions. We meet with anxiety that the European Union which accepts pluralistic democracy, democratic society, rule of law and human rights as fundamental values as a principle takes decisions, which contradict with its own fundamental values, with political worries and opinions.
Esteemed President,
We want to be sure that freedoms can not be prevented in Europe and Turkey under the pretext of terror. We think that protection and development of human rights and peace will be possible and probable by putting the principles and values of human rights law into life.
Yours Sincerely,
Hüsnü ÖNDÜL
President