Turkey moves to clear its poor child prison record [de] [fr]

Background

The Kurds are 'a nation without a country'. According to the CIA 'factbook', 18% of Turkey's population of 77 million people are Kurdish. Similarly, 15-20% of Iraq's population of 30 million are Kurds, and so are 7% of Iran's 66 million population. Up to two million Kurds are estimated to live in Syria. 

Turkey's Kurdish problem, which has fuelled separatist conflict in the mainly Kurdish south-east, has long been an obstacle to Ankara's EU membership ambitions. 

Hundreds of children - some as young as 11, according to Kurdish lawyers - have been prosecuted by Turkish authorities fighting Kurdish rebels in the restless southeast. International human rights groups say Turkey's anti-terrorist laws violate UN conventions on children.

Activists say the children are sent to adult prisons after receiving long sentences in anti-terrorist courts, where files are secret and lawyers have little access to their clients.

Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party, the AK Party, had gambled last year on improving Kurdish rights, hoping that this "democratic opening" would help wind down a 26-year-old conflict that has wiped out around 40,000 lives (EurActiv 31/08/09).

More on this topic

Children tried for the offence of throwing stones will no longer be charged with being members of a terrorist organisation or pushing propaganda for terrorists, the Turkish daily Hürriyet writes.

Over 2,000 minors, most of them of Kurdish ethnicity, are languishing in Turkish jails and many have been given tough sentences under the country's anti-terror legislation.

The Turkish parliament convened on Tuesday evening to discuss the first part of the bill on fighting terrorism, popularly known as the 'Stone-Throwing Children Bill'. The meeting lasted until the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The law, which is part of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) democratic initiative to address the terrorism problems riddling the country's south-east, introduces important regulations regarding the legal prosecution of minors and is supported by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP.

The bill is also partially supported by the Republican People's Party, or CHP, but not by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP; a far-right party), Hürriyet further reports.

The legislature, despite moments of significant tension and argument, accepted the main elements of the AKP's proposal, which prevents minors from being charged with being members of a terrorist organisation or propagating terrorist propaganda.

Cases trying defendants who had refused to disperse from illegal meetings and protest marches despite warnings will now be heard by the Criminal Court of First Instance and the terms of imprisonment for those found guilty of such charges will be reduced from one-and-a-half years to six months.

Those who attend protests with firearms, explosives, knives, stones and wooden, plastic or metal rods will now serve six months to three years instead of the previous sentence of two to five years.

The use of explosive and flammable substances and firearms, however, will result in a minimum of a year in prison.

Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said "the terrorist organisation [Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK] does not want the stone-throwing children regulations".

Some 196 out of 2,460 minors currently in prison are there after being charged with crimes relating to terrorism, said Ergin. "This number could be misleading. There are no statistics regarding ongoing cases," he added.

The minister said a rehabilitation project for these minors had already been prepared and will be announced by the ministry in October 2010.

Ali Rıza Öztürk of the CHP said the ruling party's initiative did not go far enough.

"If you accept that participating in a meeting or protest is the same as being a member of a terrorist organisation, this shows that you do not have the willpower to solve the problem," Öztürk stated.

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