Kurdish Political Representation and Equality in Turkey

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, in line with updated guidance issued this morning, I point out that Members are expected to wear face coverings. Current Government guidance is that face coverings should be worn where there is a greater risk of transmission, which is now considered to be the case across the parliamentary estate. Everyone should maintain social distancing as far as possible on the estate, including in Committee proceedings where it is possible to do so without disrupting the conduct of business. The House of Commons Commission has now been advised that the risk of transmission in Committee meetings appears to be greater.

I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

It is very worrying. During our report, the Turkish Government withdrew from the Istanbul convention—it is slightly ironically named now—which is about the prevention and combating of violence against women and domestic violence. The convention had only come into force in Turkey in 2014, and we are yet to see any strong diplomatic effort from the British Government to really condemn that.

The evidence that the APPG took shows that the situation is becoming dire for women, so may I ask the Minister what support the Government will give to international organisations aiding women in vulnerable situations in Turkey? What steps is she taking to ensure that the UK Government aid is directed to women-led organisations in Turkey, and that that aid reaches majority Kurdish areas? Will her Government call in the strongest terms for Turkey to rejoin the Istanbul convention and fully implement it?

Turning to freedom of the press, the APPG heard from a journalists association, and those who gave evidence said that it becomes harder to work every day with the intimidation that they face. In October 2020, five journalists were arrested for publishing a news article about two tortured civilians from the city of Van. They were flown in a helicopter and then thrown out—one of them to their death, the other very seriously injured. The governor of Van said that the people who threw them out were acting for the PKK. That is disputed, but either way, the reporting of the action should not see a journalist arrested. Some of these journalists have now been released, but still have international travel bans imposed against them, and others remain in jail awaiting trial.

There are attacks not just on individual journalists, but on publications and radio stations in Turkey. The APPG received evidence that “following the state of emergency” 62 newspapers, 24 radio stations, 19 magazines and 29 publishing houses had been shut down. In total, 177 media organisations were shut down, and 2,500 journalists were repressed, restricted or out of a job.

According to Amnesty International, one third of all the world’s jailed journalists are imprisoned in Turkey. That is a disgraceful statistic, so may I ask the Minister: will the Government condemn the measures to restrict freedom of speech implemented in Turkey and remind the Turkish Government that criticism of the Government —criticism of any Government—is a fundamental aspect of the public’s right to participation? What will the Government give to support journalists so that they are able to uphold their freedom of speech?

Finally, I will turn to the PKK, but before I do, please may I ask this? I know that in much of the correspondence Ministers are focused on the PKK element, but the other elements are really important for me and I really want a strong focus on them. That was one of the reasons why I was initially nervous about raising the PKK issue at all. I thought that maybe we should just ignore it. The problem is that, as we heard evidence, it became clearer and clearer that we cannot delink these issues, because of the Turkish Government’s expansive view of what supporting the PKK is. As I have mentioned, journalists, politicians and other civil society actors are routinely accused of terrorism if they support the wider beliefs of the PKK.

Without getting into a debate on the nature of terrorism, it is clear that terrorism that has the aim of national sovereignty is a slightly different beast from terrorism that aims to impose fundamentalist ideology on a reluctant people, but the age-old debate about whether someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter has been debated over decades in this place. However, there is a set of international definitions of what it means to be a terrorist and the legal consequences of acting in a terrorist manner. Those that do so should be prosecuted and proscribed, but the UK Government already make a distinction for Turkey. They recognise that the YPJ and YPG—the Kurdish units in the Syrian defence forces—are not terrorists but are anti-terrorist in their nature. Although the Government call on them to distance themselves from the PKK, they recognise that, in reality, many of their views, and some of their activities and training, are shared. That has been recognised in the British courts, and the Government have rightly diverged from the Turkish Government, who still regard the YPG and YPJ as terrorist organisations. The Turkish Government are so obsessed with the YPG and YPJ but they have supported jihadis who are often proscribed in the UK.

I have mentioned the Turkish Government’s expansive definition of terrorism: anyone who supports Kurdish political leaders or even just gender equality. It becomes an extremely slippery slope. Therefore, will the Minister make it clear that supporting Kurdish aspirations for some form of autonomy, supporting Kurdish political leaders, or even supporting those who have renounced violence and who call for dialogue should never be a reason for someone to be fearful of an accusation of terrorism? I do not ask the Minister that for an academic purpose; I do it because recent cases in Belgium, and potential cases in other European countries, show that the Turkish Government are increasingly and proactively trying to persuade their so-called NATO allies to prosecute those who support the Kurds. That is producing a chilling effect in Kurdish communities in this country and around Europe. Any listing must be based on evidence of indiscriminate violence, a determination to undermine and destroy democracy, and an intolerance of other people’s views.

The second line of defence in the Belgian court case, where the Supreme Court failed to convict the defendants for running a Kurdish newspaper and radio station, was that they were simply not terrorist acts, and that the listing of the PKK was based on information that had been discredited. I have a list here but will not go through it, because I know my time should have been up already. Here is the list of the pieces of evidence that were given to the European Union in the listing of the PKK. One can go through each one of them and show that they are not acts of the PKK. A number of them have been acts of the Turkish police force or Turkish army, and Turkish courts have prosecuted Turkish authorities for such acts, but they are still listed as PKK acts, even though Turkey and its courts recognise that they are not. There needs to be a review of this situation, as the Turkish courts have shown.

More interestingly, the Belgian court case and the APPG heard from the lead defence lawyer. The court upheld their defence on the first point: that the PKK are a national movement of self-determination in a legal civil war. The treaties on definitions of terrorism that Belgium has signed up to are the same treaties as Britain has signed up to. All bar one explicitly say that if civil war actors are covered by the laws of war, they cannot be regarded as terrorists, and the one that does not mention that is just silent about all definitions. That is of course quite right; it is to stop anyone just labelling their opponents as terrorists when there is a legitimate internal conflict taking place. Under the Geneva and Hague conventions, the laws of war outline the requirements to be classed as an actor. One of the things is a command structure, and another might be an identifiable uniform. Suffice it to say that the Belgian Supreme Court found on all counts that the PKK fulfilled those requirements. Therefore, it could not be classed as a terrorist organisation. In finding that the PKK was involved in a belligerent and internal conflict, the court struck down the terrorist listing.

The same process also happened in the European Court of Justice, where a Europe-wide listing was struck down, and the justices found that the PKK had not met the European or international listing definitions. Although we are not a member of the European Union, the laws of war that interpret treaties are now directly part of our domestic laws and we are signatories to the international treaties that they interpret.

A quirk of terrorism law is that organisations are proscribed at the European and international level annually, so although they have been struck down from previous listings they are currently listed, and the courts are now going through a process of striking down their current listings, adding them again after the case, but of course no new evidence has been provided as to why they should be re-listed. That makes a mockery of the proscribing process, with people being arrested and prosecuted for being part of a proscribed organisation, only to find midway through their trial that the organisation is no longer proscribed.

The British Government need to re-look at the case for the proscription of the PKK and take into account the latest evidence from the Turkish courts and the terrorist acts that were not committed by the PKK but by others. The Belgian and European courts have said that they should be classed as internal belligerents, not terrorists.

A strong fight against terrorism can be achieved only if the listings that the Government maintain are accurate and not liable to change. Will the Minister commit to conduct an immediate review with her Home Office counterparts and report back to this House? To those who say that designating the PKK as a belligerent might give credence to those that target civilians, I say that the crime of targeting civilians in war under the Geneva and Hague conventions is a more serious crime with a higher prosecutable level in international courts and a higher punishment than the crime of terrorism, so de-listing and classing them as belligerents provides less incentive for civilian attacks.

If we are to seek peace in Turkey, we must see how organisations can go from being classed as terrorist to seeking political solutions through political aims. The UK’s role in Colombia, although not perfect, and incomplete, shows how the FARC could be brought into a mainstream political discussion. If we look at our history in Northern Ireland and the African National Congress in South Africa, each is different and unique, but each had a process that has ended politically and not violently, and that is what we all want to see in Turkey.

Finally, what serious discussions have the Government had with Turkey about restarting the peace negotiations? What practical support have the Government given for domestic and international channels for the discussions? What role do the Government see in third pillar negotiations between civil society actors, trade unions and women’s organisations to ensure a peaceful settlement of the conflict? Although the death toll might not be large, the APPG found that political representation was high and increasing. It found that the basic principles of democratic freedom were being undermined, and terrorism laws were being misused to shut democratic spaces rather than keep them open. The APPG and I are sure that Members here today would like to work co-operatively with the Government. I hope that we might be able to get fuller responses to the APPG in time.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

I intend to call Front-Bench speakers from 10.28 am, so anyone who wishes to contribute should please bear that in mind.