Kurdish Political Representation and Equality in Turkey

Kim Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Angela. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for securing this important debate, and I welcome the APPG report on Kurdish political representation and democracy in Turkey. I want to start by sending my solidarity to the Kurdish people, who have shown such strength and resilience in their resistance and struggle for liberation, autonomy and democracy.

The recent escalation of human rights abuses and anti-democratic manoeuvring by the Turkish Government against Kurdish communities and elected representatives is highly concerning. Hundreds of Kurdish activists, journalists, MPs and mayors have been arrested by the Turkish Government. Turkey’s increasingly oppressive regime has jailed more journalists than any other country in the world. More than a third of journalists jailed globally are held in Turkey. Arbitrary detentions, torture and abuse against journalists have become an everyday practice in Turkey, and press freedom is virtually non-existent, with media ownership concentrated in the hands of Erdoğan and his supporters. A Media Monitoring report last year showed that one in six journalists in Turkey have an ongoing case against them. Only six of 65 democratically elected HDP mayors remain in office. There have been high-profile arrests, such as that of Leyla Güven, who was sentenced a year ago to 22 years on terror charges, and this summer had her visitation and telephone privileges revoked for singing Kurdish songs in prison.

The fact that Abdullah Öcalan is still imprisoned on Imrali island, without fundamental rights being met, is nothing short of an outrage. The escalation by Erdoğan and the Turkish state, particularly since the attempted coup in 2016, with the arrests of hundreds of activists, journalists, mayors and MPs, is morally contemptible and undermines any attempts to broker a just and sustainable peace process.

Britain has a powerful role in holding Turkey to account on human rights and its violation of international law and the European convention on human rights. We must be bold in our demands to put an end to these injustices, to protect political representation and inalienable human rights and to ensure peace and stability for all communities living in Turkey.

I want to focus in particular on the report’s recommendations to revisit the automatic listing of the PKK as a terrorist organisation, especially considering the outcome of the case in the Belgian Supreme Court, which found that the PKK was a legitimate combatant in a civil war, rather than a terror organisation. That historic ruling must have significant ramifications for our Government’s position. I call on the Government to take up the report’s recommendations to review the listing of the PKK as a terror organisation in the light of that evidence. Britain has a significant amount of power to progress the conditions for a return to peace talks, both as a unilateral actor and through European institutions.

I am proud that the UK Labour movement stands resolutely with the Kurdish people. I welcome the work by the all-party parliamentary group for Kurdistan in Turkey and Syria on the report, which contains a number of important recommendations. I call on the Government to do everything in their power to adopt the recommendations, hold Turkey to account as our ally and take urgent steps to secure progress towards resuming peace talks.