According to Firat News Agency the Human rights group Justice for Children is organizing a series of initiatives under the slogan: “Children have no patience left for waiting! The Turkish government has to keep the promise that they gave to the children victimized by the Law on Struggle against Terrorism!”
The human rights group Justice for Children had said last Monday that the press conference they held in Istanbul was their last warning to the Turkish Government and the Parliament about the children victimised by the Law on Struggle Against Terrorism. The group declared that unless the Parliament decides on a definite and dependable agenda for solving the problem before the summer holiday which starts the following week, they are going to take harder measures.
Tulin Ozen – a Golden Orange International Film Festival award winning actress – Mehmet Atak, Berfin Zenderlioglu and Ismail Yildiz stated that Turkey’s and the World’s agenda could change any time, but this could not be an excuse for destroying the lives of the children victimized by the Law on Struggle Against Terrorism that are now more than 4 thousand in number and asked “Is this the only subject that the Turkish Parliament finds no time to work on? Is the Parliament so weak and little? Then, why it is named as the Grand National Assembly?”
The members of Justice for Children underlined that the Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, had also agreed that the previous draft law was insufficient for solving the problem, and therefore had assigned Bekir Bozdag – a deputy from the ruling party- to prepare a sufficient new draft regarding the issue. Likely, Erdogan had assigned Bulent Arinc, the vice prime minister, for managing the process and putting the new draft law into effect. It is also reminded that although on April 22, 2010 Bekir Bozdag had announced “a new, sufficient draft law will definitely be put into effect by the end of May”, nothing had changed, and the problem of the children victimised by the Law on Struggle Against Terrorism was not scheduled in the Government’s agenda for June 2010, and following Bozdag’s announcement this time Beshir Atalay, the Minister of Internal Affairs, declared that the draft law would be in effect before June.
The human rights group Justice for Children declared that unless the Parliament decides on a definite agenda for solving the problem during the following week, they will have to take much harder measures. It is stated that in such a case the group will directly apply to international organisations and file a complain about the Turkish Parliament and certain governmental institutions. It is also mentioned that starting a hunger strike at Taksim Square is in the possible agenda of Justice for Children, and it will be supported by certain ministers and deputies of European and Latin American countries, certain representatives of international institutions, and activists like Noam Chomsky, Slovaj Zizek, Immanuel Wallerstein, Ingrid Newkirk, Guillermo Farinas, Shirin Ebadi, Glenda Jackson, Carlos Latuff.
The group warned the Government that, if needed, they will also start a simultaneous marching from 32 cities to Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.
Following the initial comment of Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that ‘’whether men, women or children, the security forces will react with disproportionate force’’, several amendments were made to the country’s anti-terror law, it is possible to charges children as terrorists and put them away for up to 50 years in jail. There are currently 2,622 minors serving time in Turkish prisons on the charge of terrorism.
In 23 of April 2009, an anti-terror police attacked and beat one of our children to death, the policeman was not punished:
In 2008, a policeman broke the arm of a Kurdish child in front of the cameras during the Kurdish festival Newroz: