Letif Serhildan
Nizamettin Toguc, a Kurdish representative in Europe and the former member of Turkey’s parliament was on holiday with his family when he was arrested last week by the Italian police acting on a request by Turkey. He remains in detention while the Court of Appeal in Venice decides whether to release him pending extradition hearings. His lawyers have condemned the accusations against Mr Toguç as political in nature, adding that Turkey has yet to produce the complete dossier on which it is formulating its accusation.
Mr Toguç is a senior member of the Brussels-based Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) and the president of KON-Kurd, the union of Kurdish organisations in Europe. He has been a tireless spokesperson for Kurdish rights since his exile from Turkey. Mr Toguç served in the Turkish parliament as a member of the pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP), the third in a long line of pro-Kurdish political parties that were banned by the Turkish state since 1990. As part of a delegation to the Kurdish city of Batman in September 1993 to investigate numerous disappearances and political murders of Kurds by the so-called “unknown perpetrators” he was shot and injured. Two parliamentary colleagues were murdered in the attack, which has been blamed on state-sponsored terror groups. The following year, and within a year of the party’s foundation, the DEP was dissolved by a decision of the Constitutional Court in Turkey. Five of Mr Toguç’s colleagues, including Leyla Zana, had already been taken into custody. On the day of the Court’s decision in June 1994 Mr Toguç and a number of other Kurdish parliamentarians fled to Brussels. The European Court of Human Rights later ruled that Turkey violated the right to free elections the case of Nizamettin Toguç and his colleagues. http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?item=1&porta…oc-en
The timing of this arrest indicates a continuation of operations against Kurdish organisations and individuals in Europe that have been intensified at Turkey’s request in recent times. It follows the harassment and detention of numerous Kurdish community activists in Italy, France and Germany earlier this year, the detention of another senior KNK member and former Kurdish parliamentarian Mr Remzi Kartel in Spain last year and intense attacks by Belgian police against Kurdish satellite station ROJ TV in March.
No matter what happens to the Kurds or how many Kurdish representatives are arrested in and outside Turkey. The Kurdish people have seen countless numbers of bitters days throughout history but they have never submitted to tyrannical rules of the occupying powers of Kurdistan and they will continue to struggle for rights in the region. The Constitutional Court in Turkey dissolved the pro-Kurdish DTP (Peace and Democracy Party) in December 2009 but another Kurdish party BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) was founded following the disclosures of DTP. More than 1500 Kurdish politicians and diplomats are held in Turkish prisons but the Kurds carry on their struggle better than ever. Therefore the arrest of Mr. Tuguc in Italy would not stop the Kurds from making their way toward the achievement of the rights and the Italian government should not align itself with the anti-Kurdish policies of Turkish regime and free Mr Tuguc as soon as possible.