[A-List] TURKEY: Here Come the Independents

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=79120>
Here come the independents
Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Istanbul - Turkish Daily news

A striking aspect of the July 22, 2007 general elections is the
success of independent candidates. The issue of independent candidates
dominates the agenda this time.

The 24 deputies coming from the Democratic Society Party (DTP), who
hold a unique place in Turkey's political history, will form a
parliamentary group having circumvented the 10 percent national
threshold for political parties. In addition, independent candidates
with no apparent ties to any of the political parties will bring
diverse and unusual voices into Parliament.

Among these 24 names there are some that have shaken Turkey in the
past with their deeds or because of what they had gone through. Now
they are preparing to shuffle the status quo yet again.

Akın Birdal is one of those names. He is elected from the eastern
Anatolian city of Diyarbakır. Birdal was the chairman of the Human
Rights association (IHD) for seven years. On May 12, 1998 he was
assaulted and shot with six bullets at the IHD center in the capital
Ankara. It was claimed that his assailant was incited by Semih Tufan
Günaltay, a member of the Türkish Revenge Brigades (TİT), an illegal
ultra nationalist group. Birdal miraculously survived the assault.

Akın Birdal pledges to be an advocate for peace against warmongering
in Parliament, of justice against military tutelage and of struggle
against poverty and deprivation.

Another victorious independent candidate is Ahmet Türk, the president
of the DTP. He was a deputy for the Republican People's Party (CHP)
and was in Parliament with various parties. However when he was a
deputy for the Social Democratic People's Party (SHP) he was barred on
the grounds that he participated in a Kurdish conference in Paris.

Back to where they started

This was not the only time that Türk was discharged from Parliament.
In 1991, Türk made it into Parliament with Sırrı Sakık, Leyla Zana,
Hatip Dicle, Orhan Doğan and others. All were deputies of the now
defunct pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP).

DEP was founded in May 1993 and survived just one year before being
ordered to shut down by the Turkish Constitutional Court on June 16,
1994. Prior to that, on March 2, 1994, DEP MPs Mehmet Hatip Dicle and
Orhan Doğan had been taken into police custody followed by the arrest
of DEP MPs Nizamettin Toguç, Mahmut Kılınç, Remzi Kartal, Zübeyir
Aydar and Naif Güneş who fled to Brussels on June 16, 1994, the same
day that the Constitutional Court ordered the closure of DEP. Selim
Sadak and Sedat Yurttaş, the last two MPs to be arrested, were taken
into police custody on July 1, 1994.Sentences handed down by the
Ankara State Security Council in December 1994 were severe, with Türk,
Dicle, Doğan, Sadak and Zana receiving a 13-year sentence for
membership in an armed gang and Sakık getting a three-year sentence
for engaging in separatist propaganda.

Sırrı Sakık was also discharged from Parliament. Sakık currently is
deputy chairman of the DTP and he was re-elected Sunday as a deputy
from Muş.

Another deputy to potentially shake up Parliament is DTP co-chair
Aysel Tuğluk. Tuğluk is a lawyer for the Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan together with Hasip Kaplan, who was also
elected Sunday as an independent candidate from Şırnak.

Moreover a very interesting independent deputy is Sabahat Tuncel.
Tuncel is now in Gebze prison, near Istanbul. She was charged for
being a member of an illegal organization, but she will be set free as
soon as the new Parliament convenes.

Pervin Buldan is also an independent deputy. She was born in 1967. Her
husband was a Kurdish hotel owner who was abducted in 1993, after
Prime Minister Tansu Çiller stated that the government knew those
racketeering for the PKK and "will make them pay for this." Just two
months later, her husband Savaş Buldan was kidnapped and his body was
found in Bolu, he was murdered with a gun along with his two Kurdish
friends. She is the president of the Solidarity and Mutual-Aid
Association for Families of Disappeared People (YAKAY-DER). She ran
for the 1999 elections for the People's Democratic Party (HADEP) and
for the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) from Istanbul.

--
Yoshie