For Immediate Release

202.483.6444

October 20, 2000

101 Members of the United States Congress

Urge Turkey to Grant Basic Human Rights to Kurds

As the 106th Congress gets ready to adjourn for the last time, 101 of its members have agreed to cosponsor House Resolution 461 calling for the immediate and unconditional release of four imprisoned Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament and the lifting of the ban on the Kurdish language and culture.

"We are elated that 101 members of the United States Congress are standing up for the basic human rights of the Kurds and their representatives," said Kani Xulam of the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN). "This is the beginning of the good news. In the next Congress, we intend to built on our present work and pass this first ever Kurdish resolution in the United States Congress," he said.

These four Kurdish representatives were elected to the Turkish parliament in an atmosphere of glasnost on October 20, 1991, exactly nine years ago today. But only three years later, the army reasserted its authority by proxy and on March 2, 1994, dissident members of the parliament were arrested and four Kurdish ones were sentenced to 15 years in prison for their advocacy of Kurdish rights.

One of the four was Leyla Zana, the first Kurdish woman ever elected to the parliament.

In 1996, the European Parliament, clearly annoyed with the decision of the Turkish government, awarded Leyla Zana with its Sakharov Freedom Award. A year later, 153 members of the United States Congress signed a letter to President Clinton urging him to seek her immediate and unconditional release from Turkish prison.

To his credit, President Clinton did ask the representatives of the Turkish government to release Leyla Zana. But the Turkish authorities, instead of releasing Leyla Zana, asked her to feign illness to qualify for freedom on humanitarian grounds. Leyla Zana rejected this empty gesture, claimed that she was in good health, and urged for genuine reforms to address the ongoing Turkish-Kurdish conflict.

"The friends of freedom will not rest till this resolution passes the House or the Turkish government decides to take steps to respect and accept the political will of the Kurds in Turkey," said Kani Xulam. "Since the latter is not something the defenders of tyranny do on their own, the noble work of freedom will go on till the last of us is around," noted Mr. Xulam.