Open mass graves, clear up murders! Initiate reconciliation between Kurds and Turks!

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Next Sunday and Monday you will be awaited in the ISS Cathedral at the Cebit in Hannover, Germany. The Society for Threatened Peoples International (STPI) would like to use this opportunity to approach you with some urgent human rights problems.

We have received staggering news from your country: New mass graves are found over and over again in the east of Turkey, which is predominantly settled by Kurdish people. According to media reports, 114 have been found there by now. Most recently on January20, 2011, eight human skeletons were found in a valley near the village of Mutki in the Bitlis province. Twelve corpses had already been exhumed there on January 6, 2011. The search will be continued because it is estimated that up to 36 dead are buried near Mutki.

The STPI has a list with the names of 818 Kurds who disappeared between the years 1980 and 2000. In total up to 17,000 Kurds "disappeared” during the Turkish-Kurdish civil war. Their family members must assume that they were murdered, but they suffer from the tormenting limbo of uncertainty.

You, Mr. Erdogan, have the power to command investigations in these unsolved murder cases. Exhumations and the identification of the discovered corpses must be part of such investigations. In order to establish a basis for a peaceful coexistence between all Turkish citizens – Turks and Kurds – it is urgently necessary to relentlessly clarify the fate of the missing Kurds.

Turkey aspires to become a member of the EU. In many European countries there are large ethnic minorities. In Italy there are 300,000 Germans from South Tyrol, in Spain six million Catalans, in Great Britain eight million Welsh and Scotch. They were all granted regional autonomy, their languages and cultures have equal rights. Additionally, many other EU-member states have granted extensive rights to smaller ethnic groups and nationalities. But Turkish policies remained hostile toward its minorities. The presentation of Istanbul as "Cultural Capital of Europe in 2010” could not hide this fact. Ethnic and religious minorities – whether Christian like the Armenians, Syrian- and Greek-Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants or Kurds, Alevi, and Yezidi – do not enjoy the same rights and freedoms like the Turkish population. As long as Your country’s minority policies do not adapt to European standards, Turkey cannot become an EU member with equal rights!

We would like to point out that the conflict with the Kurdish population of Turkey cannot be solved with military operations. Only with a federal constitution like the German example or the creation of a regional autonomy like in Spain can the integration of the fifteen million Kurds in Turkey succeed and the persecution and repression of this and other ethnic groups stop.

Our human rights organization would like to draw attention to the fact that in today’s Turkey, under Your rule, there are more than 7,000 Kurds, including 3,000 children and teenagers, imprisoned for political reasons. In the mainly Kurdish populated south east of the country, Kurdish schools are not allowed. More than 3,876 Kurdish villages have been destroyed by the army. Even Turkish intellectuals have been sentenced to year-long imprisonment for publications on Kurdish issues.

Dear Mr. Primer Minister, You and your government have achieved the fact that Turkish generals are brought to court and be sued for their crimes. Your party has a solid majority in the Turkish Parliament. Now it is time to make further important decisions. Please start serious and open dialogues with all of the representatives of the Kurds in Turkey. The oppression of the Kurdish-speaking population of Turkey, the persecution of all those Kurdish human rights activists who peacefully engaged and demonstrated for the equality of their language and culture, must finally have an end.

Please start reconciliation between the Turkish majority and the Kurdish people now. Turks and Kurds are citizens of one and the same country. Both identify themselves with their country. Please grant them equal rights!

Yours sincerely,

Tilman Zülch

President of the Society for Threatened Peoples International (STPI)

PS: We will publish this letter in German, English, and Turkish and send it to the members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, as well as to politicians and media institutions in Europe, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, and in the Muslim world.