Justice Is a Prism for Kurdish Dissident

				

                        In the name of justice, a U.S. District Court judge
                        in Los Angeles recently sentenced a defendant to
                        perform 400 hours of community service at the
                        American Kurdish Information Network in Washington.
                        Judge Dickran Tevrizian knew about the legally
                        registered human rights organization because the
                        offender before the court -- Kani Xulam -- is its
                        founder and director.

                        In effect, the sentencing judge's message to Xulam
                        was, go back to work, your crime was piddling.

                        Xulam, who is 36 and a 1990 graduate of the
                        University of California at Santa Barbara, copped to
                        the charge brought by Justice Department
                        prosecutors: using a false name on a passport
                        application in California in 1986 after entering the
                        United States on a visitor's visa. "I deeply regret
                        my misconduct," he told the judge.

                        Last April, and 10 years after the falsifying, Xulam
                        was arrested at his office in Washington by about a
                        dozen heavily armed federal agents who stormed in.
                        Handcuffed behind his back, he was taken to the
                        District of Columbia jail and placed in solitary
                        confinement.

                        For the next month, Xulam -- a Kurd born in
                        Diyarbakir in the Kurdistan region of Turkey --
                        would witness the U.S. justice system at its most
                        venal and most just.

                        A peak moment came in the befriending by 20 members
                        of Congress who wrote in July to the Immigration and
                        Naturalization Service in support of Xulam's request
                        for political asylum. The INS would like to send him
                        back to Turkey, which has a government that, if
                        Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the
                        State Department's annual report on human rights
                        violations are to be believed, is a killing and
                        torture machine against Kurdish dissenters.

                        "It is our educated opinion," the 20 members of
                        Congress wrote, "that should Mr. Xulam be returned
                        to Turkey, he would be placed in serious danger. He
                        has been an outspoken critic of Turkey's policy
                        toward the Kurds. Others who have criticized the
                        situation have been imprisoned and have often
                        suffered torture. We believe that Mr. Xulam could
                        expect similar persecution."

                        The support from Congress was earned. Xulam and his
                        two co-workers -- one is Sister Patricia Krommer, a
                        Catholic nun who belongs to the Sisters of St.
                        Joseph -- have been supplying Senate and House
                        committees with what Rep. John Edward Porter
                        (R-Ill.) calls "credible documentation" on the
                        treatment of Kurds.

                        None of that meant much when Xulam was thrown into
                        the D.C. jail, a roach-infested and chaotic lockup.
                        After two weeks there, he spent the next 26 days
                        being sent cross-country in shackles to prisons in
                        Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada and,
                        finally, Southern California, where the original
                        falsification occurred.

                        After 40 days, a lower court decision to deny Xulam
                        bail was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for
                        the District of Columbia Circuit in mid-May. Judges
                        Patricia M. Wald and David S. Tatel wrote for the
                        majority: "We cannot but conclude that a serious
                        error has been made here. A first-time offender
                        accused of a nonviolent crime with strong community
                        ties and respected members of that community 	willing
												
                        to supervise his release in any manner that the
                        court finds necessary . . . is incarcerated pending
                        trial, despite the fact that his entire lifestyle
                        and mission strongly suggest that he will stay in
                        place."

                        Xulam's lawyer, Peter Schey, of the Center for Human
                        Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles,
                        believes that the efforts to deport Xulam are
                        politically motivated: "The U.S. government is more
                        concerned with its strategic relations with the
                        undemocratic government in Turkey than with the
                        human and democratic rights of the Kurdish minority
                        in Turkey."

                        Xulam's application for asylum is pending. Little
                        doubt exists that years and years in a jail cell, or
                        worse, await him if returned to Turkey. Leyla Zana,
                        a Kurdish member of Turkey's parliament, is serving
                        a 15-year sentence on a treason charge. Her
                        treasonous deed was to testify on human rights
                        violations in Turkey before the U.S. Congress and
                        the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

                        The judge in California who directed Kani Xulam to
                        return to his job wrote in the sentencing order:
                        "The court recommends that the defendant not be
                        deported."

                            © Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company