Saturday, 13 March 2010, 10:33 EST
Berivan must be released now

Berivan

By Steve Tataii
The Kurdish Globe

Turkey must "free Berivan and all Kurdish children in Turkish jails" unconditionally if it wants to survive as a UN member state.

Turkey must immediately release the imprisoned innocent child Berivan, a 15-year-old Kurdish girl who was arrested on her way to visit her aunt in the city of Batman (Batmaan).

It is completely immoral and irresponsible not to take action against Turkey. Its ongoing gross violations of human rights in keeping innocent juveniles as young as 13 in prison for simply throwing rocks at fascist Turkish military police who are assaulting civilians, or for being in demonstrations to simply voice their concerns in seeking their basic human rights in their own North Kurdistan hometowns and villages, is reason enough to take action.

The Turkish anti-Kurd militarist regime is now completely out of control. It is operating illegally against all key democratic reform attempts by Turkey's Ankara government, which is not in control. It goes along with the generals perhaps because of intimidation and bullying by generals who should have been arrested and brought before international courts of justice or their own high courts--which are also controlled by the military--for crimes against humanity.

How can the government rid itself of military generals if all attempts within the military fail? I'll tell you how, and I've been telling you for eight years coincidently--from the time they blocked attacks against Saddam Hussein's regime by U.S. forces trying to enter through its south border.

I explained in my articles that it can only be done by putting Turkey under military sanctions, and I insisted that we must also dismantle most of their "donated" or purchased military machines, especially attack helicopters and jetfighters sent by the West-all of which are in the hands of mad/insane/senile generals--and enforce sanctions until such time that the government in Ankara can be normalized and the grips of political power from generals can be broken. They must be forced to publicize their anti-Kurd strategies throughout their diabolic egos, and quest for their hunger in suppressing and persecuting Kurdish civilians far away from Turkish areas in southeast Turkey they have never had any right nor business to be in the first place.

The manufactured Ankara government was empowered to do so solely by the decisions of the colonial powers, namely by the UK and France redrawing the original map of the Kurdistan homeland in the most callous fashion at the 1923 Lausanne Summit. They allowed each of the four parts to be usurped by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, without any regard to the large population of the peace-loving and proud nation of Kurds--the original owners of Kurdistan from time immemorial, inhabiting her territory for over 12,000 years with a civilization second to none. This move by the colonial powers exposed Kurds to genocides, persecution, and terror for the past 90 years.

Shame on the colonialist lazy bums who employed a foreigner, Kemal Ataturk, to deprive the Kurds of independence, peace, and stability in their own homeland. The said occupation campaigns have gone on through vicious military attacks, using Western military war machines given to the scummy puppet regime of Ataturk, sitting back and watching the killing field.

This is as sick and inhuman as it can get, and no world leader, his government, or his human rights entities should stand idly by for it to continue to this date.

Free Berivan, and all the rest of more than 2,622 Kurdish children, NOW. To hell with your 2006 self-serving, fascist, made-up counter-terrorism laws, which is clearly an extension of the Turkish, old, rotten Kemalist anti-Kurd laws. I spit on any Turk who approves of this and stands by in the silent majority (which makes them just as guilty as participating in continuing Turkish fascism). Turks should get rid of their sick military, choose a normal government, and recognize North Kurdistan's right to have its own state and live happily ever after in North Turkey with Ankara as its capitol. Otherwise, rest assure all Turks that you'll be sacrificing your own lives for a bunch of foolish, selfish, power-hungry, insane thugs, and live in shame for the rest of your lives.

I hope all those politicians--who have invented such laws without placing any restrictions to avoid gross abuse by sick Turkish generals and their likes around the world in clearly visible subsections--all come forward and give me a hand. Where is their unholy presence now when we need them the most? Or are they too a part of this bloodthirsty campaign?

Going back to the young and innocent Berivan, who sits in a Turkish prison, I am appalled by the irony of Turkey's repeated gross violations of human rights against Kurds after 90 years while the West sits silent, knowing their undemocratic tyrannical trend:

-Hundreds of genocides occurred, mainly in Kurdish villages from 1914-1923 (genocide means the intentional killing of nearly all the inhabitants of a single community, and here I mean Kurdish Villages, where thousands were targeted and civilians were massacred).

-Thousands of attempts at genocide in over 20,000 Kurdish villages since 1923 (attempts, meaning some still survived while hundreds in each village were killed).
-Thousands of mass killings of armless Kurdish civilians from 1923-2009.

-Thousands of random assassinations of Kurdish civilians aimed at terrorizing Kurds' popular freedom movements engineered by Turkey's former PM Tansu Ciller (1993-1995) and carried out by her 50,000+ recruited Turkish paramilitary thugs).

-Thousands of raids against Kurdish civilian homes in cities and villages in the name of national security to maintain Turkey's known anti-Kurd, century-old fascist laws, "merely" made to persecute Kurds and oppose the Kurdish language. They were aimed at pointless failed assimilation of as many of more than 30,000,000 Kurds there, who were being illegally ruled by a different ethnic group, Turks, since the 1923 establishment of the artificial state of Turkey in the Lausanne Summit. Kurdistan was usurped by the four artificially manufactured states of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and the northwest of Iran in post-WWI through League of Nations' supposedly helpful "U.S. Woodrow Wilson self-determination doctrine." We can now see it wasn't because of any love to protect an entire nation of Kurdistan; rather, it was to help his old-boy, white European ancestors--mainly from the UK and France-and to tear it apart for profit to be made from the stolen Kurdish national oil revenues to this day, and to secure many Arab nations of the region to become independent and flourish with their own Arab governments within their own sovereign territories. Indeed, we can now see Mr. Wilson's hidden agenda after nearly 1.5 million Kurds and 2 million Armenians perished in Turkey's campaigns of genocide, mostly in the earlier years from 1915-1923. Some self-determination doctrine. This callous, bloody package was by no means meant to secure independence for Kurds in Kurdistan; rather, it divided their motherland as if it was vacated real estate property claimed by the leftover of the fallen Othman empire named Turkey, which gave guns to its newly formed military to kill Kurds and Armenians and make it easier to profit from discovered oil fields in Kirkuk-all of this with Basra with Arab-ruled Iraq, and with Syria and Iran as usurpers to keep Kurds stateless if they were unable to exterminate Kurdistan's entire population (courtesy of the UK, France, and other colonial vultures' modern-weaponry handouts). Yet Kurds, using old and rusted weapons, knives, and whatever they could capture from their enemies or reinvent on their own, survive to this day to the tune of 50 to 60 million of them. They have been robbed of their natural wealth of 90 years of oil revenues, and they face enemies who refuse to give up the stolen Kurdish land peacefully. The Kurds will never give up fighting to free their homeland and to free themselves from the grips of the usurpers, regardless of the usurpers' mighty military power. Western nations ignore the 90-year-long manmade wars and tragedies against Kurds that left behind at least 1.5 million Kurdish civilians dead-so far. This, while the Turkey's Kurdish Freedom Fighters, labeled as terrorists by U.S. and EU officials, who can show their case to the world.
- Constant and endless suppression of Kurds soon after being placed under the four occupying usurpers' rule, via arrests, imprisonments, torture, and execution, always trying to take away over 50 million Kurds' basic rights to free speech, political freedom, freedom to teach Kurdish--and in Turkey, the 30 million Kurds subject to be punished for speaking Kurdish in public, with the exception of North Iraq or South Kurdistan, which remained free to practice their Kurdish culture, a condition achieved through sacrifices of thousands of Kurdish Freedom Fighters to protect their 6 million Kurds and the Kurdish culture, their dignity and freedom, despite campaigns of genocide known as Anfal by Saddam's regime, leading to 182,000 Kurds killed since 1982 alone. Unable to reinstate their independence, severely shattered as part of the 1923 division of Kurdistan into four pieces, South Kurdistan is still in a struggle to be free in half of her territory and to be returned to the Kurdistan Regional Government's jurisdiction, and in East Kurdistan, where Iran banned teaching in Kurdish (speaking in Kurdish was allowed in public for its 15 million Kurds), and finally Syria, where Arab regimes have continued to deny 3 million Kurdish citizens' identities, and suppressed the West Kurdistani population by using arrests, mass killings, imprisonments, and torture since 1923.

As the sixth paragraph in the latest petition to free Berivan indicates (http://www.petitiononline.com/be1r1van/petition.html):

"According to the European Court of Human Rights, between 1959 and 2009
Turkey was the worst violator of the European Convention on Human
Rights, with almost 19% of all violations, and 2,295 judgments issued
against it. Turkey also had the highest proportion of violations in
2009, with 347 out of 1,625 negative rulings. The right most commonly
violated was the right to a fair trial. Turkey was also condemned in 30
cases of inhumane or degrading treatment."

It continues: "Turkey ratified the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on
4 April 1995. Berivan is a "child" whose rights are protected by this
Convention. Article 37 (c) of the CRC provides that "b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be
in conformity with the law, and shall be used only as a measure of last
resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.

We consider that an eight-year sentence on conviction for the crimes reported is grossly disproportionate, and appears to be a violation of Turkey's treaty obligations under the CRC. We call on the Turkish government to release Berivan and all Kurdish children held in Turkish jails without further delay under humanitarian law."
Henceforth, I hope you'll all sign the petition "Free Berivan and all Kurdish Children in Turkish Jails" by simply going to:
http://www.petitiononline.com/be1r1van/petition.html
Pass this article around, publishing it in your news websites, daily, weekly, or monthly press, and let's help free Berivan, as well as other minors and all Kurdish political prisoners from Turkish prisons. Also, be aware that the other three Kurdistan portions need to be free from their usurper occupiers, preferably immediately.
Finally, I would like to bring to the attention of Turkey's High Court that Turkey needs your help in returning back to normal after its past 90 years of blindly following anti-Kurd provisions and articles written in the outdated constitution rather than adding further uncivilized attachments stemming from a 2006 fabricated and flawed counter-terrorist anti-Kurd law. Kurdish children, minors, women, and civilians have been victimized in the past 90 years. This is not showing compassion or sympathy to a Kurdish population long suppressed, oppressed, and persecuted. You, as the high court judges, must remain impartial and steadfast with your independency.

Steve Tataii is a Kurdish scholar, former candidate for the United States Senate, author of three recent books on the Iraq War related to Kurds and Kurdistan, long-time contributing writer for ekurd.net and other media, linguist of more than six languages, and an Independent Conflict Resolution Consultant.