Please do not extradite the Kurdish politician Nuriye Kesbir and grant her a fair trial in The Netherlands

Dear Sir,

Your government intends to extradite the kurdish politician Nuriye Kesbir to the Republic of Turkey. The High Court of the Netherlands some months ago did not object to the pending deportation.

The judicial authorities of the Republic of Turkey accuse Mrs. Kesbir of being involved in attacks against military targets in Turkish Kurdistan. During the turkish-kurdish fratricidal war, which lasted from 1985 to 1999, our Human Rights Organisation has always appealed to the government of Turkey as well as to the kurdish PKK-Movement, to stop the fighting. You might know that during this war 40.000 people, 35.000 Kurds among them, lost their lives. To our deepest regret during these conflicts the Turkish army destroyed 3.400 kurdish villages and made their 2.4 million inhabitants homeless. Until today they live under dreadful circumstances at the fringes of the large cities which remind to the slums for example of a city like Calcutta.

Still today there are 3.500 mostly young Kurds incarcerated under the accusation of support for alleged terrorism or alleged separatism. The release of the kurdish politician Leyla Zana, who had been imprisoned because of comparable crimes shows once more that for the conviction of these thousands of political prisoners the procedures of a state under the rule of law have not been respected.

The Republic of Turkey, whose newly elected government has begun with reforms towards a state under the rule of law should either proclaim a general pardon for all kurdish political prisoners mentioned or review all 3.500 court proceedings and implement procedures against some thousand turkish generals, army officers and soldiers, who were involved in war crimes. Only if the turkish government would fulfil these conditions the Netherlands could possibly think about the extradition of Mrs. Nuriye Kesbir. But to accomplish this there will be years to go.

We would like to point out to You that during the turkish-kurdish war many states of the western world provided the Republic of Turkey with an armoury which made this merciless warfare possible. The Federal Republic of Germany alone exported weaponry amounting to 7 billion DM to the Republic of Turkey, which was in large parts used during the war against the Kurds.

Therefore, we would like to sincerely ask You not to extradite Mrs. Kesbir, who is a member of the Yezidi religious minority, to the Republic of Turkey and to guarantee her a fair trial in The Netherlands.

Sincerely yours

Tilman Zülch,

President the Society for Threatened Peoples International