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PKK leader Ocalan will stay in prison until his death
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ANKARA,
October 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Kurdish leader Abdullah
Ocalan escaped the gallows Thursday, October 3, but will spend the rest
of his life behind bars after a Turkish court commuted his death
sentence to life imprisonment.
The
court decided unanimously that Ocalan, the leader of the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), would stay in prison until his death and
would have no chance of an amnesty, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The
ruling was to be conveyed to the 54-year-old Kurdish leader at Imrali
prison island, in northwestern Turkey, where he is being kept in
solitary confinement.
The
European commissioner in charge of E.U. enlargement, Guenter Verheugen,
welcomed the Turkish decision.
"I
welcome this decision, which is clearly in line with the spirit of the
recently adopted reforms in Turkey", said Verheugen in a brief
statement.
Turkey,
which is not among the 10 countries currently expecting to be admitted
to the E.U. in 2004, has been demanding that the E.U. set a date for the
beginning of accession talks.
Ocalan,
long considered by Turkey as its public enemy number one, dodged
authorities for years, hiding in Syria, until October 1998 when Turkey
threatened military action against its southern neighbor if it did not
turn him in.
He
was captured by undercover agents in Kenya, in February 1999, while
trying to find another country which would agree to shelter him.
Turkey
sentenced him to death in June 1999 for treason because of the PKK's
armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in the mainly Kurdish-populated
southeast of the country.
Heeding
an appeal by the European Court of Human Rights, Ankara suspended
Ocalan's execution until the court ruled on his complaints against
Turkey.
But
his fate remains highly controversial in a country which has been
traumatized by the loss of more than 36,000 lives – most of them PKK
fighters – in the bloody conflict.
Parliament's
decision to scrap capital punishment – in peace time – was welcomed
by his family, but condemned by relatives of soldiers killed in fighting
with his PKK, who took to the streets in anger.
The
Nationalist Action Party (MHP), the far-right partner in the ruling
government coalition, was also unhappy with the change and called on the
country's top court to scrap the reform.
The
party, which had earlier tried to block the reform in parliament, wants
to see Ocalan hanged – a long-standing promise to its constituency.
Liberal
mainstream parties, for their part, have argued that executing Ocalan
would make a martyr of him and dash Turkey's hopes of ever joining the
European Union.
Known
to his followers as Apo, the PKK leader is widely respected among Kurds.
Ocalan's
capture triggered mass demonstrations and hunger strikes by supporters,
both in Turkey and at home.
Following
his arrest, he urged peace between Turkey and his fighters, which
prompted the PKK to end its armed campaign in September 1999 and
withdraw from Turkish territory to seek a democratic resolution to the
problem.
The
PKK unilateral truce ended the heavy fighting in the country's
southeast, but has been dismissed by Turkey's powerful army calling on
the PKK fighters to either surrender or face its wrath.
The
PKK recently changed its name to KADEK, or Congress for freedom and
democracy in Kurdistan.
Though
the sentence of Ocalan has been changed from death to life in prison,
there is still much to be done for human rights in Turkey to be accepted
by the E.U.
For
example, torture and other forms of human rights violations are still
widespread in Turkey, the main local human rights' watchdog said
Thursday.
The
charge came in a report by the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD)
detailing rights abuses in the first six months of this year and
released at a press conference here.
According
to the report, 381 people were reported being subjected to torture and
maltreatment between January and June, compared to 862 for the same
period last year.
"The
figures for 2002 show that at least two people were tortured daily in
Turkey," IHD chairman Husnu Ondul said.
"Despite
various legal amendments and measures taken by authorities, torture
continues unchanged," he added. "This is a challenge to human
rights and democracy."
The
report also cited a significant rise in the number of people prosecuted
for expressing their views – 2,260 in the first six months of the
year. The number for last year was 3,473.
The
organization also slammed authorities for their apparent indifference to
a long-running hunger strike by left-wing prisoners to protest against
detention conditions in maximum security jails.
The
watchdog also said restrictive security measures remained in place in
the country's mainly Kurdish-populated southeastern corner, where armed
fighters waged a 15-year armed campaigning for Kurdish self-rule.
The
IHD's report was published just ahead of a report by the European
Commission on Turkey's progress towards meeting conditions for becoming
an E.U. member.
