The Exchange

Turkey is unqiue in the way it portrays itself; a beacon of democracy in the Middle-East/Eastern Europe. It is also the only country to have secured the status of a candidate to join the EU with the De Facto Military dictatorship. Turkey may be a succesful diplomatic player in pursuading the international community of its glossed over dubious and highly cencored democratic facade, but it is failing miserably to uphold the most fundamental human rights of millions of its Kurdish citizens. The racism and ethnic discrimination against the Kurdish population is sanctioned by the Republic Of Turkey where the military are in charge not only of the executive but also the judiciary. The only remaining mouth-piece for millions of Kurds, the Democratic People’s Party, DTP , was banned in Turkey last week. This party had 21 democratically elected members in the country’s parliament, two of the senior MPs-including the leader- have been banned from political activity for 5 years.

Barack Obama met the leader of DTP during one of his first visits abroad in Turkey. He had given support to the promotion of democracy for the Kurds and peace in their region. It is ironic that the Party is shut down the same week Barack Obama recieved his Nobel Peace Prize. The 21 MPs have pledged to withdraw from the country’s parliament where the Kurdish voice is banned , Kurdish representation annihilted and betrayed. This has already had serious repurcussions that has derailed the proposed peace talks between the Turkish Government and Kurdish PKK to end the decades old conflict in the region. Turkey has proven once more that it is not genuine and that it will curtail the Kurdish freedoms and human rights as and when it deems proper in complete breach of its obligations as a candidate member to join the EU but also as a democracy. Turkish democracy was already diminished by the countless abuses it inflicted upon its Kurdish population but the closure of the Kurdish Political Party -the 10th Kurdish party to be banned in Turkey- will surely bring out the ugly face that lies under Turkish holiday brochures.