Europe, why do you still ban the PKK?


After years of protest, Cem Bozdogan's guest blog examines Europe's treatment of the PKK


Europe, why do you still ban the PKK?

On 1st of December 2018, it has been exactly 25 years when Germany, as one of the first European countries, designated the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK as a terrorist group, followed by the decision of the Council of the European Union in 2002 to place the PKK on the EU terrorist list. Thousands of people in Europe regularly go on the streets to protest against this. Have the protests changed the status quo ever since? Considering the fact that abolition of the PKK ban is not, and has not been on the European political agenda for the last 25 years – no. For the EU, the PKK is still an “armed, terrorist group” according to the Council’s decision. Yet, the European countries seem to disregard the fact that the Kurdish minority in Turkey faces massive marginalisation within its own territory. Thus, the decision makes it even harder for the Kurdish people to resist the oppression.

So, what is the result? There is more violence in a non-war, newly industrializing country, as shown in the rare independent media coverage about the South-eastern part of Turkey. Is there an end in sight? Unlikely.

But first of all, let us talk about oppression. Oppression is deeply rooted in the Turkish state structures and goes back to the foundation of the Republic in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his idea of a “monolithic” and indivisible state that – per law – represents only one Turkish nation (Article 3 of the Turkish Constitution). Although they fought alongside the Turkish troops in the “War of Liberation” in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Kurdish troops were ignored in the state-building process after the won war; instead, Kurds were victims of the Turkish assimilation policy in the ensuing years after the constitution of the Republic. The Kurdish identity was prohibited, Kurdish language and culture was demonised. Cities with Kurdish names were renamed in Turkish names, and numerous massacres and violent acts, such as the Dersim genocide in 1938 or the more recent Roboski massacre in 2011, aimed to cleanse the Kurdish population in the South-eastern part of the modern state of Turkey. In 1984, the PKK was officially founded with the aim to rather violently achieve an independent Kurdish state, later then changed its paradigm to gain equal rights and Kurdish autonomy. The PKK – a representation of the entity of Kurds in Turkey and the Kurdish diaspora? Not necessarily.

Today, the Kurdish minority in Turkey as well as the Kurdish diaspora is still separated into at least two factions: One that is assimilated into the Turkish monoethnic society for generations, and that refers to the PKK as a terrorist group and therefore, argues from the point of view of the state. On the other side, there are Kurds who support the idea that “violence” against the Turkish military forces, notably after facing discrimination and assimilation since the foundation of the Republic, is justified and a form of self-defence. Our conservative perception of the term “violence” makes us associate it with “war”, something “harmful” or a “bad thing” which can divide a society. But our conservative perception might not be helpful in this case and even leads us to false presumptions, regarding the fact that a several hundred thousand of people have been killed for almost 100 years under an assimilative policy.

Turkey might be a non-war country, but on a sad note, there is still marginalisation of the Kurdish minority. Against this background, it is not the idea of violence per se that is promoted, because in the end, violent acts kill people on both sides. So far, the death toll is estimated to more than 40,000 people since the “official” beginning of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict in 1984. However, armed resistance groups do not emerge just by coincidence. Rather is the use of violent means a logical consequence of a decades long assimilation policy which made a whole people suffer. This mechanism is grounded by academia, too, for example by Fox and Hoelscher’s research about the relation between a social order of a state and its urge of violent acts. Countries with a limited form of political participation show the tendency of having social violence between marginalised and non-marginalised groups. Anyway, one question still remains: Why does the Council of the EU then still ignore the fact that a designation of the PKK as a terrorist party is illegitimate and even harms the Kurdish minority in Turkey?

The answer is a political one: There are plenty of lawsuits against Kurdish activists in Europe which are only based on the simple fact that the PKK is classified as a terrorist group. These cases have no other evidence[1] than the EU terrorist list, and therefore, without the listing, prosecution of the activists would have been without merit and thus rather unlikely. In this context, a recent judgement issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union, dated the 15th of November 2018, could give a slight hope for Kurdish activists having been prosecuted in the time from 2014 to 2017: The court has stated that there was no evidence for the Council of the EU to designate the PKK as a terrorist group. Therefore, all the lawsuits during that time lose their legal force.

Regardless of war or non-war, violence can still exist for various reasons, as exemplified in Turkey. It is important to analyse the political impact coming with this sort of violence. And also, to go on the streets in order to manifest the injustice of them.


Appendix

Appendix 1. An Interview with the Kurdish lawyer Mahmut Şakar conducted by the Kurdish Centre for Public Relation (Civaka Azad e.V.) in Berlin, link retrieved November 28, 2018.
The paragraph cited in the blog above can be translated as followed:

[…]
Civaka Azad: Given that the EU terrorist list is the basis for the lawsuits against Kurdish activists in European countries, what are the consequences of the decision [by the Court of Justice of the European Union]?
Mahmut Şakar: There is a variety of cases against Kurdish activists and institutions in different European countries. Many lawsuits are completed, but some of them still carry on. Using concrete examples that I know myself, I can say that for most of these cases, the EU terrorist list is the only basis. If the terrorist list would not exist and the PKK was not listed, a multitude of cases would not have been initiated in Europe. Even the most common democratic activities, such as demonstrations and rallies, are included as terrorist activities and turned into accusations on the basis of the list. This decision repeals the legal basis of those cases between 2014 and 2017 and dismisses their legal force. This would be a legal interpretation of the court ruling and could develop into a legal discussion. The defendants of these cases can now initiate new legal action in discussion with their lawyers and with reference to this court ruling. […]


[1] This source is a German blog about Kurdistan, and therefore in German language. A translation of the respective paragraph is provided in the appendix.

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