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Germany: Turkish Kurds

01 September 1995

Hundreds of Kurds chanting "Freedom for Kurdistan" marched to German embassies in several European countries in August, to protest German raids on the PKK, and many Kurds embarked on hunger strikes in solidarity with PKK members in Turkey who began a hunger strike on 14 July. Two people have died on hunger strike including a Kurdish mother of five living in Berlin. The hunger strikers are demanding that the Turkish government begins talks with the PKK to end the war in which 17,500 people have died since 1984. The row in Germany over Kurdish refugees rumbles on. The Federal Refugee Office has appealed to the Federal Administrative court to examine rulings of the High Administrative court of Schleswig-Holstein that Kurds are entitled to asylum as a persecuted ethnic group in Turkey. The rulings are directly contrary to the decision of Interior Minister Manfred Kanther, who told Lander earlier in the year to end their moratorium on deporting Kurds to Turkey. The Land of Hessen has refused and has now been followed by Schleswig-Holstein. On the ground, Frankfurt police broke up a week-long vigil and arrested 80 Kurds for displaying PKK symbols, outlawed since the PKK was banned in Germany in 1994. Meanwhile, the Kurdish parliament in exile held its second session, in Vienna in August. This infuriated the Turkish government, which claimed that the Austrian authorities had promised to ban it. The parliament, which plans to hold sessions every three months in a different European Union member state to remind Europe of Turkish institutional violence towards the Kurdish people, held its first session in The Hague in May. Immediately afterwards Turkey suspended military purchases from the Netherlands. New Europe 6.8.95, IRR European Race Audit No 15 September 1995.