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Mihemed El-Muxtar, a researcher at Mait Peace, Development and Human Rights and an expert on Turkey-Syria relations, has stated that Kurds in Turkey have been oppressed, arrested and subjected to numerous crimes that violate all international standards in terms of human rights.
Stating that Turkey has implemented policies and practices of barbarism against Kurds for generations, El Muxtar concluded that Turkey has targeted Kurds’ identity and implemented assimilation policies in northern Kurdistan. He noted that over one million Kurds have been forcibly displaced from northern Kurdistan and over three thousand Kurdish villages were reportedly ’emptied’ during the 1990’s. He added that these acts were against the 9th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Interviewed by Hawar News Agency, Muxtar also observed that Kurdish human rights activists and ‘dissenters’ have also been targeted.
‘Öcalan has not been tried fairly as required by international law since his arrest’
He also commented on the treatment of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, who was captured and “sent/delivered” to Turkey on 15 February 1999 as a result an initiative that was undertaken by international forces: “Leader Öcalan has not been tried fairly as required by international law since his arrest”.
Regarding the prison isolation conditions of Öcalan, Muxtar said: “The Turkish state does not allow Öcalan to meet his family. He is also not allowed to access medical treatment in case of any health issue”. These practices, he observed, were against the 5th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 3rd article of the European Convention On Human Rights.
Muxtar criticised Öcalan’s prison isolation conditions in İmralı Prison in Turkey and noted that the Turkish authorities were also ignoring the demands of the prison hunger strikers in Turkey. Öcalan should be allowed to meet his lawyers and his family, he stated.
Mait Peace, Development and Human Rights, he noted, would be doing everything it could to protect basic human rights and the rights of Kurds within the scope of law.
