Category: Turkey

The Plot Against Turkey

The Ergenekon case is the latest salvo in the battle between the ruling AKP and the nationalist old guard.

By Mustafa Akyol | NEWSWEEK
Jul 21, 2008 Issue

Things are getting very hot this summer in Turkey—and it’s not just the weather. A long-simmering constitutional crisis is boiling over, and the country is experiencing one of its most turbulent periods in decades. Over the past several weeks, Turkish authorities have arrested two dozen members of a covert ultranationalist group named Ergenekon for allegedly plotting to provoke a military coup by staging political assassinations and whipping up social turmoil. Among the plotters: two retired top generals, the leader of a paramilitary group, and Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer who has sued dozens of liberal intellectuals in the past for violating Turkey’s law against “insulting Turkishness.”

The Ergenekon case is only the latest salvo in a political war between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Turkey’s nationalist and staunchly secularist old guard. The charges, if proved, point to a brazen conspiracy to undo the liberal reforms implemented by the AKP in recent years as part of its effort to move Turkey toward entry into the European Union. The plot seems to have grown out of fears that have been growing among Turkey’s nationalists since 2004, when the nation’s accession process began, and nationalists realized that as well as offering some economic advantages, the process could require Turkey to grant concessions on Cyprus, give greater freedoms to minorities and develop a more democratic political system.

This battle is sometimes defined in the Western media as a tension between “Islamists” and “secularists,” but both terms are misleading. While AKP leaders, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, share an Islamist past, they abandoned that years ago and redefined themselves as “conservative democrats” who champion free markets, traditional (including religious) values and pro-EU reforms. Since it came to power in November 2002, the AKP has proved highly successful, winning a solid electoral victory in July 2007. Socially, the AKP represents Turkey’s economically minded masses, religious conservatives—including the rising “Islamic bourgeoisie” —and even most Kurds. As for those labeled secularists, they are not what one might think. Turkey’s definition of secularism is based not on the separation of mosque and state, but the dominance of the latter over the former—all mosques are simply run by the government. Secularist ideologues argue that the state also needs to safeguard society from religion. The Constitutional Court, one of the enforcers of this ideology, ruled in 1989 that “society should be kept away from thoughts and judgments that are not based on science and reason.” The result is a complete banishment of religion from the public square, including a ban on religious symbols such as headscarves.

This illiberal secularism goes back to the formative years of the Turkish republic, born from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He and his followers were deeply influenced by the French Enlightenment, and were convinced that the influence of religion must be swept away from society. Ethnic and cultural diversity were seen as threats—hence the decision to “Turkify” the Kurds. The Kemalists’ project was in fact a cultural revolution and a government they defined as “for the people, in spite of the people.”

Though the Kemalists succeeded in building a strong state, most of the undesired social groups—such as pious Muslims and the Kurds—persisted in their demands for freedom and democracy. Yet Turkey’s establishment, represented by the military and the high courts and supported by urban elites, remains attached to Kemalism, which has turned into a rigid ideology perpetuated by an official cult of personality. The reverence shown to Ataturk, evident in his omnipresent image and oft-repeated mantras, approaches the level of leader worship you see in places like North Korea. The Ergenekon gang seems to have been an attempt by the most radical extreme secularists to preserve the old regime, which has given the old elite unchecked power and privilege. Cengiz Aktar, a liberal EU advocate, likens the plot to the coup attempted by Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero in Spain in 1981, when he stormed Parliament to halt the EU accession process and restore the Francoist regime.

Like Tejero, the alleged Ergenekon conspiracy has failed. But the ideology behind it persists. One clear sign is the shocking case launched by Turkey’s chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, against the AKP four months ago. Defining the party “as an anti-secular threat to the regime,” he asked the Constitutional Court to close the party and ban from politics 71 of its members, including Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, a former AKP member. Their crimes, according to Yalcinkaya, include passing a constitutional amendment to allow headscarves in universities, and comments by Erdogan such as “Turkey needs a more liberal secularism like the American one.” The notoriously illiberal Constitutional Court is expected to give its verdict on AKP’s fate sometime in August. If the AKP prevails, it will likely continue on the path to the EU. But should the court rule against the party, it will also in the process strike a major blow to Turkish democracy and the country’s EU dreams. There will no longer be any need for gangs like Ergenekon; the coup will have been realized by legal means.

Akyol is the deputy editor of the Turkish Daily News.

July 13, 2008
Credit crunch: Turkey overtakes Spain as most popular holiday destination

Phil Davies

Last Updated: 2:55PM BST 11/07/2008

Getty

Turkey is our most popular holiday destination

The worsening economic climate is prompting British holidaymakers to look beyond the traditional package holiday favourite, Spain, to the cheaper option of Turkey, new research showed this week.

The Co-operative Travel Company reported that there had been a “seismic shift” in the way Britons were booking holidays this summer. Among its clients, Turkey had overtaken Spain, the favourite package holiday destination since the Sixties.

A large part of the reason for the shift is the poor exchange rate of the pound against the euro. Analysis by Co-operative Travel showed that the average cost of a holiday to Spain, which uses the euro, was £465 – over £100 more than the average cost of a holiday to Turkey (£357), which does not.

The independent travel group’s findings were based on research into more than 200,000 holidays to its 30 most popular foreign holiday destinations.

The group found that, while bookings to Majorca were down by 13 per cent compared with the same time last year, some 30 per cent more people were booking trips to Turkey. Egypt is also benefiting from the switch away from Spain, with bookings to Sharm el Sheikh up 38 per cent over last year.

The fall in bookings to western Mediterranean destinations such as mainland Spain and the Balearics is also due to a reduction in the number of holidays on offer in the marketplace following the mergers last year between the major tour operators Thomas Cook and MyTravel, and Thomson and First Choice.

At the start of the summer 2008 booking season, Thomson’s parent company, TUI Travel UK, announced cuts of 12 per cent while Thomas Cook trimmed the former MyTravel holiday programme by as much as 23 per cent.

Co-operative Travel’s retail distribution director, Trevor Davis, said: “Bookings from people looking for cheap summer sun have traditionally ensured that Spain was the leading holiday destination. However, this year they are finding the high euro and a shortage of availability means the normal late deals are not available.

“Turkey has benefited most from this trend and we’re seeing 30 per cent growth in bookings for holidays across all parts of the country.”

Thomson and First Choice believe that economic uncertainties, coupled with the strength of the euro, will prompt more holidaymakers to take advantage of “all-inclusive” or “full-board” breaks where the total price is known in advance.

Further afield, fuel surcharges are affecting long-haul destinations, with fares to Australia for departures in October – the start of the southern hemisphere summer – up by more than 12 per cent this year, from £997 to £1,124 for an economy return from Heathrow.

Many families wanting to keep costs down are holidaying in Britain. Steve Short, managing director of the domestic tour operator Compass Holidays, said: “Rising oil prices mean families have to pay a fortune to go abroad this year. People don’t realise what beautiful and relaxing destinations we have right here in Britain. Many are easily reachable by train, so there’s no need even to spend money on petrol.”

Tom Wright, the chief executive of VisitBritain, said: “In the current economic climate, we are finding that Britons are taking another look at holidaying at home and are surprised by the range of experiences on offer.”

Top 10 Foreign Holiday Destinations

1. Turkey – Dalaman
2. Majorca
3. Crete
4. Turkey – Bodrum
5. Algarve
6. Cyprus
7. Tenerife
8. Costa Blanca
9. Sharm el Sheikh
10. Rhodes

(Source: The Co-operative Travel Company)

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk, [London], 11/07/2008

July 12, 2008
Bilkent University mosque to feature church, synagogue

Ankara will soon have another version of the Garden of Religions, inaugurated in December 2004 by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Belek district of Antalya.

A mosque complex is being constructed on the Bilkent University campus, and it will also feature a church and a synagogue. Expected to be Turkey’s new protocol mosque for official visits, the complex will see completion in September.

To be named the Doğramacızade Mosque after the founder and honorary rector of the university, Professor İhsan Doğramacı, the complex will be a little different from its peer in Antalya, as the church and synagogue will be inside the mosque, forming two separate sections. The one in Belek has a garden with three separate places of worship.

However, the project has one challenge to face: Before it is completed it needs to be endorsed by the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which must make an interpretation in line with Islamic jurisprudence about the permissibility of followers of three different religions worshipping in the same place.

A number of officials from the directorate told Today’s Zaman that they knew about the construction of the complex but had no idea about the two separate rooms to be used inside the mosque as a church and a synagogue.

In their appeal for the directorate’s approval, officials from the Professor İhsan Doğramacı Foundation requested that they themselves be permitted to appoint an imam to the mosque, but they also said that they were not averse to the idea of the directorate appointing a qualified and accomplished imam to such an important mosque.

The mosque’s plan was drawn up upon the instructions of Doğramacı, the son of a Turkoman family from Kirkuk. Its architecture is described as “very authentic and republican style” by Doğramacı. Having bought the building plot shortly before construction began, Doğramacı is covering all the building expenses himself. Paying close attention to every detail of construction, he is reported to have spent about $1 million so far.

What makes the project distinctive is that it has been planned as the official protocol mosque of Ankara. The two rooms inside the mosque will be set aside for Christian and Jewish students and lecturers from the Bilkent, Hacettepe and Middle East Technical universities.

The building plot is 12,000 square meters. The mosque will sit on a 4,500-square-meter portion, and the rest of the plot will be set aside for green areas. The mosque building will also have conference and exhibition halls for conferences and panel discussions on religious and ethical issues.

In addition to the women’s section, the mosque will have two benches at the back for those with health problems that prevent them from kneeling and prostrating in prayer. There will be a moving walkway for the elderly and a separate entrance and exit for official guests to enter and leave with ease. There will also be a large parking lot.

Project based on Islamic tolerance

Houses of worship of the three Abrahamic religions sharing a common space is not actually a first in the history of Muslim Turks. The first example to be cited would be İstanbul’s Dar’ul-ajaza charity home, which for centuries had separate places for the followers of all three religions to worship. With the idea of allowing all people, regardless of faith, to benefit from these charitable institutions in mind, the Ottoman state had a worship room built for all three of the religions in this charitable place, along with innumerous others.

Similar places that combined places of worship of all three religions existed throughout the Ottoman lands, particularly in İstanbul’s Ortaköy district and Hatay, or Antioch.

When the first Garden of Religions was opened in Antalya in 2004 by Prime Minister Erdoğan, the inaugural ceremony was attended by Ali Bardakoğlu, the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Alphonse Sammut, a representative of the Turkish Catholic churches, Dasiteos Aragnostopoulos, a representative of the Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, İshak Haleva, chief rabbi of the Turkish Jewish congregation and the Armenian patriarch, Mesrob II Mutafyan. The Kuşadası Businessmen’s Association (KUSİAD) also launched a similar project after witnessing foreign visitors’ positive reactions to the two previous projects. The Kutadası Garden of Religions is being built on an 8,500-square-meter plot. The site will have conference and exhibition halls, too.

ERCAN YAVUZ ANKARA

Source: Todays Zaman, 12 July 2008

July 12, 2008
The Turkish Dictionary

Ghassan Charbel, Al-Hayat – 11/07/08

The world lives in rhythm with Iranian blasts. When President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad does not issue his threats, Revolutionary Guard generals take over. The menu of threats is all too known: closing the Strait of Hormuz; targeting American ships; setting the Great Satan’s interests on fire; unavoidably abolishing Israel; eradicating the cancerous tumor and burning down Tel Aviv. With threats, come maneuvers, and when necessary, Iran announces testing a new generation of missiles. The message is clear: Iran has the means to translate its threats to actions and set fire to the region.

The world was preoccupied with the Iranian missile serial, while Baghdad received Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a visit both sides agreed on dubbing “historical”. Erdogan brought a message of hope to the Iraqis. He addressed them saying: “Be optimistic to cross this difficult phase and you will always find me by your side, God willing. The Turkish government and people will be standing by you.”

It was remarkable to see, at the end of the talks,that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the formation of the Higher council for Strategic Cooperation, aimed at organizing cooperation on all economic levels, combating terrorism, and handling water issues. Erdogan also added that both nations are working to let commercial exchange figures reach $25 billion. It was all talk of cooperation, investment and numbers. The Turkish prime minister also declared that he has received support from al-Maliki’s government and the Kurdistan Regional Government against the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has resumed its violent activities inside Turkey.

There is no doubt that the future of the Iraqi situation is a matter of concern for Turkey, with regards to its security and stability. It is likely that Turkey will be the biggest loser, in case Iraq slips into chaos. The reason is that a united Iraq guarantees confining the Kurdish dream within the Iraqi Kurdistan borders, whereas an Iraqi outburst would inevitably lead to the independence of this region and to turning it into a center that attracts Turkish Kurds. In this sense, it is worth noting that Ankara has a lot to gain from a united Iraq, whereas the Iranian role can only grow in a troubled Iraq, since the balances within a united Iraq prevent Tehran from pulling Iraqi strings at will.

Turkey has no interest in a troubled Iraq, in which al-Qaeda settles to breed new generations of suicide bombers in certain parts of the country. It also has no interest in an Iraq, whose government does not exercise full control over its territories, which forces Turkey to occasionally organize disciplinary campaigns inside the Iraqi borders. Similarly, Turkey has no interest in an Iraq dominated by Iran, because that would disturb regional balances right at its borders. In this context, the visit can be viewed as an expansion of the scope of regional recognition that al-Maliki’s government enjoys, and also as an encouragement for it to adopt a national reconciliation policy that will enlarge, most of all, its scope of recognition among Arabs.

In one of its facets, Erdogan’s visit to Iraq represents another step in Turkey’s efforts to contain the rising Iranian power in the region, efforts that are both calm and wise as they are carried out away from noise and emotional outbursts. This is evident from the fact that Turkey has not panicked or lost its nerve in front of its Iranian neighbor’s exercise of muscles, including its battle with the west over uranium enrichment.

Turkey also assumes a more important role on another front. Erdogan’s government is playing a prominent role in hosting and mediating indirect negotiations between Syria and Israel on its territories. One can say that the successful transformation of these negotiations into direct talks sponsored by the US will represent a very serious attempt to establish peace in the Middle East and to contain the Iranian influence, which is reinforced by the atmospheres of confrontation. Of course, it is too premature to speak of an overt and explicit split between Syrian and Iranian calculations. However, the role Turkey is playing in the progress of the Syrian position is extremely important, given Turkey’s nature and its international alliances.

From military participation in Afghanistan, to participating in the international forces in South Lebanon, to encouraging Syria to negotiate with Israel and support al-Maliki’s government, the gap between the Turkish and Iranian dictionaries seems vast. Resting on its Islamic roots and wearing Ataturk’s hat, Erdogan’s Turkey speaks the language of interests, figures, international law and realism, whereas Ahmedinejad scoops up firebrands from both the revolution and the dictionary of confrontation, while addressing the world with missiles.

Source: Al-Hayat, 11/07/08

July 12, 2008
Creating a New Look for Modern Istanbul

Backstage With Seyhan Özdemir and Sefer Çaglar
Creating a New Look for Modern Istanbul

By J.S. MARCUS
July 11, 2008

Wall Street Journal – USA

The young century has been good to Istanbul. Turkey has become a more prosperous place, and its largest city has turned into an international style capital.

The city’s changing fortunes are embodied in the hip young design duo Seyhan Özdemir and Sefer Çaglar, who founded their firm, Autoban, in 2003 (the invented word comes from the Turkish “otoban” and the German “autobahn,” both meaning highway). In the past few years, they have become the face of contemporary Turkish design, with regular appearances in leading interior-design magazines.

Both Istanbul natives, Ms. Özdemir, 33 years old, an architect, and Mr. Çaglar, 34, who studied interior design, met in the 1990s when they were students at Istanbul’s Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. They are noted for their furniture and lighting designs, and for the interiors of some of Istanbul’s hottest restaurants and retailers. An Autoban design is marked by sleekness, solidity and humor. The Bergere bed, from 2007, has a wood-and-leather headboard that suggests an armchair. A 2003 wooden rocking chair — with continuous arms and legs — has a spaciousness that belies the clean lines of the design.

Ms. Özdemir and Mr. Çaglar have their studio in the shadow of the Galata Tower, the 14th-century landmark just north of the Golden Horn. Built by Genoese traders, the tower was for centuries the center of Istanbul’s enclave of Western diplomats, merchants and adventure-seekers. These days, the Galata Tower is a symbol of the city’s rapid gentrification, and the surrounding area is a blur of old and new, with traditional artisans from Anatolia rubbing shoulders with artists and designers in the district’s narrow, winding streets.

A favorite watering hole near Galata is the House Café, with an Autoban interior of mix-and-match wooden tables and chairs and geometric lamps. Started in 2002 by Ms. Özdemir’s sister, the House Café has 10 locations around Istanbul, each designed by Autoban. The firm also did the interior for the recently opened Müzedechanga restaurant at the Sakip Sabanci Museum, along the Bosporus north of the city. The design has a funky 1960s quality, with stained wood, marble and leather. (See more projects at www.autoban212.com.)

We spoke to Ms. Özdemir and Mr. Çaglar in their new showroom not far from their Galata studio.

Q: Istanbul has changed dramatically in the last few years — from the amount of traffic on the streets to the amount of disposable income of residents. How has this affected what you do?

Ms. Özdemir: Ten years ago, after we had just finished university, there were many economic and political issues, and people weren’t focused on working with designers — they didn’t understand what it meant to put something interesting in their lives. Now people communicate more — there is the Internet, and many other new things. Unlike 10 years ago, you can now buy many international [design] magazines in Istanbul. The world has changed.

Q: Your name combines the German and Turkish words for highway. Why did you choose it?

Ms. Özdemir: For us, it’s a kind of philosophy. When you are riding on a highway, everything changes around you. And you have choices: You can choose this way or that way, where you are going. For us, [design] is all about choice.

Q: For a visitor, Istanbul seems to have two predominant decorative traditions — the Byzantine and the Ottoman. How do these styles influence contemporary Turkish interiors?

Ms. Özdemir: Ten or 20 years ago, Turkish architects and designers made references to Ottoman and Byzantine culture in their designs. They couldn’t do anything new — that’s why we didn’t have Turkish design at that time. We are trying to do [something] new. Of course, we were born here, we are living here, so these old cultures are on our minds; we are inspired by them. But we are trying to do something more international.

Q: You have won attention from the design world outside Turkey, but you have only worked inside the country. Why?

Ms. Özdemir: We have so much to do in Istanbul. The city has so much energy right now — it’s so busy, so attractive. Many foreigners are starting to come here, even live here, so there are many new restaurants and new hotels opening up. We would like to do something abroad, but we don’t have time now. We have around 20 people in our office, and we are working on 20 projects.

Q: Do the archaic traditions of Anatolia inspire your furniture and lighting designs?

Ms. Özdemir: No, never. It’s interesting, though. I like to see those designs, and I would like to have them, but as a designer I don’t want to get inspiration from only one thing. I have many things in my mind; Sefer has as well.

Q: You’re very rooted in the Galata neighborhood, which is undergoing a wave of gentrification. What do you like about working there?

Ms. Özdemir: Galata is the commercial center of old Istanbul; you feel it in the buildings and the streets, in the ambience. But when we moved there five years ago, there were only local manufacturers — as product designers, we wanted to be near production. Back then nobody wanted to live there, nobody wanted to have an office there, it was too messy, too crowded. But then many people started coming — artists, designers, fashion designers. They came because of the buildings — you have wonderful architecture around you — and because it’s central. You have really good energy there. It’s the real Istanbul.

Q: You have designed several interiors for the House Café, which has locations all over the city. How do you maintain a balance between consistency and individuality when designing different versions of the same brand?

Mr. Çaglar: The House Café changes its shape but not its identity. Wherever it goes, it gets new energy from the nearby architecture and from the people in the neighborhood.

Ms. Özdemir: [At all the branches] the dishes are the same, and the furniture is mostly the same. However for each [location], we try to put in one thing that is different and unique.

Q: Many great modernist architects sought refuge in Turkey in the 1930s, and designed interesting buildings. What has been their legacy for Turkish architects?

Ms. Özdemir: After Nisan [Mimar Nisan, the architect of the Blue Mosque, who lived 1489-1588], I don’t think there was another really good architect in Turkish history. Thanks to the [foreign architects] of the 1930s, Turkey’s architects tried to create their own attitude — a “Turkish” style.

In the 1950s everything changed, especially in Istanbul. Many people came to live here from Anatolia. They were so poor, they just needed to have a place to live. The government couldn’t come up with rules for architecture, or urban planning; everyone ended up doing their own thing. After the 1990s, people here in Istanbul, including the government, understood the importance of the city. They knew if we don’t do anything to keep it, we are going to lose Istanbul. So they created new guidelines for architecture, for street life. In the last 10 years, the architectural scene in Istanbul has started changing, growing up.

Mr. Çaglar: Those modern architects who came to Istanbul — like Bruno Taut, who came from Berlin — were our teachers’ teachers.

Q: The megamall has reached Istanbul with a vengeance. You have designed retail interiors for some of the city’s largest malls. What are the special challenges in that kind of environment?

Ms. Özdemir: It is more difficult to do something in a mall than in the city, because in a city you have many things around you. [A mall] is so artificial, and yet you have to create a real life, a real interior, but you don’t really have anything that you can use. There is no context; you have to create it.

July 12, 2008
How the PKK Operates in Europe

KURDISH PROPAGANDA AND PATRIOTISM

How the PKK Operates in Europe

By Philipp Wittrock in Berlin

While the PKK concentrates on non-violent activities and propaganda work in Germany and Europe, in Turkey it is involved in a violent struggle for an autonomous Kurdish homeland. The kidnapping of three German tourists has put the issue firmly back on the political agenda in Berlin.

REUTERS

A man holds Kurdistan scarf during a demonstration in Berlin last October.

“Germany has declared war on the PKK. We can fight back. Every Kurd is a potential suicide bomber.” These combative words were spoken by Abdullah Öcalan, head of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) back in 1996, three years after the group had been banned in Germany.Öcalan soon watered down his statement: The PKK only wanted to fight Turks in Germany, not Germans, he said. Nevertheless the banning of the Kurdish separatist group was still interpreted as a declaration of war. It was a sign that Berlin had chosen Turkey’s side in the Kurdish conflict that had been raging since the early 1980s.

The Kurdish terror campaign in Germany of the early 1990s, with its arson attacks, self-immolations, the blocking of motorways and storming of Turkish consulates may now be a thing of the bloody past. And PKK supporters in Europe may also have become a lot less militant following the arrest of Öcalan in 1999, but the movement is still kept under strict survaillance by German intelligence agencies.

With Tuesday’s kidnapping of three German climbers on Mount Ararat, the Kurdish extremist military campaign is once again firmly on the political agenda in Berlin. On Thursday the PKK told the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency that as long as the German state did not end its “hostile policy against the Kurdish people and the PKK,” the tourists from the state of Bavaria would not be released.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. In the past few years the German state prosecutor has filed charges against an increasing number of suspects, and many high-ranking PKK officials have been successfully prosecuted.

There is a huge support based for the PKK in Germany, which is home to an estimated 500,000 Kurds. According to a recent report from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, there are around 11,500 supporters of the Kongra-Gel, the name the PKK adopted in 2003.

Following a Double-Pronged Strategy

German intelligence agencies believe that Kongra-Gel is pursuing a double-pronged strategy. In Western Europe it concentrates on non-violent propaganda work with demonstrations, marches, culture festivals and various campaigns in order to attract new supporters or to get Kurds to demand better prison conditions for Öcalan.

Meanwhile in Turkey the armed wing of the PKK, named the People’s Defense Forces (HPG) since 2000, has been fighting for an independent Kurdistan, or at the very least cultural and political autonomy for the Kurdish people in southeastern Turkey. It is this group that was responsible for the kidnapping of the three Germans this week.

Last autumn the conflict between the Kurdish separatists and the Turkish military escalated, with a number of deaths on both sides. The Turkish parliament then granted the army authorization for one year to launch military operations into northern Iraq, where many of the thousands of Kurdish guerrillas have been hiding out.

In Europe the Kongra-Gel organized huge demonstrations against the measure, during which there were clashes with Turkish nationalists. The demonstrations had originally been planned as part of a campaign that had begun last summer to bring attention to Öcalan’s poor health.

While the imprisoned Öcalan is still regarded as the ideological leader of the PKK, Zübeyir Aydar, a lawyer living in Belgium, is now officially the leader of the Kongra-Gel. However, German intelligence agencies are convinced that the real leader of the movement is Murat Karayilan, the chairman of the so-called Executive Council. He is thought to be hiding in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq.

Last September a video message from Karayilan was shown at the International Kurdish Culture Festival in Gelsenkirchen, which was attended by around 40,000 Kurds. According to a report from German intelligence, he called on the Kurds of Europe to: “Strengthen your fight, wherever you are. Those who are in a position to do so should join the guerrillas; those who cannot, should fulfil their patriotic duty.”

Financing the ‘Freedom Fight’

According to the German domestic intelligence agency, Kongra-Gel has recently reorganized its structure in Germany. Instead of being divided into three regions, northern, middle and southern Germany, there are now seven so-called “Eyalets,” which each encompass 28 districts. The leaders of the units are appointed by the European PKK leadership. The authorities consider these organizational units and their officials to be acting in a conspiratorial manner. “Command and Obey” is their principle for implementing strategies.

Getty Images

A demonstrator demanding freedom for imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan in Berlin in November.

There are numerous contact points for sympathizers, with associations spread across the country, such as the “Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe” or the youth group “Komalen Civan.”According to the intelligence agencies, Kongra-Gel collects millions of euros in Germany each year for its “freedom fight.” The organization usually demands that its supporters donate one month’s wages per year, and those unwilling to cough up are expressly reminded that they have to pay this “tax.” It is uncertain where exactly this money then goes. The lion’s share is assumed to be funnelled towards the movement’s European institutions and its extensive propaganda apparatus.

Kongra-Gel’s main propaganda tools in Germany are thought to be the Yenir Özgür Politika newspaper — which is largely filled with news provided by the Netherlands-based Firat new agency — and Roj TV, a Denmark-based television station that was banned in Germany on June 19.

It is assumed that the ban on Roj TV was the immediate impetus behind this week’s kidnapping. In May the station’s two studios in Wuppertal and Berlin were raided and investigators seized a number of files and photographs. One of the studios was immediately closed down and then a few weeks later the station was banned, with Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble saying it was a mouthpiece for the PKK.

Kurds across Europe protested against the closing of the station. “This latest repressive measure is proof that German politicians are willingly meeting the repeated demands from the Turkish state to destroy the structures of the Kurdish movement,” said Azadi, a legal aid organization for Kurds based in Düsseldorf.

The editor-in-chief of Roj TV in Belgium, Sores Toprak, denies that the station is a PKK mouthpiece. “Naturally we do not glamorize the armed operations, even if some people claim we do. However, there is a war in Turkey and we show these images,” he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “We address the problems in Turkey,” he said, adding that the PKK and other Kurdish organizations must be given a voice.

Berlin Will ‘not Be Blackmailed’

Toprak said the banning of the Roj TV was just the tip of the iceberg, accusing the German authorities of carrying out searches in private homes and Kurdish associations and fining and imprisoning Kurds.

On Thursday the PKK issued its political demands for the release of the hostages through the Firat agency. At the same time it said that the Germans were being well treated and were doing well. The guerrillas said they felt no enmity towards the German people.

The Kurdish separatists are unlikely to persuade the German government to meet their demands. “Germany does not allow itself to be blackmailed,” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Thursday.

It is unlikely the Kurdish rebels ever really thought they could force Germany to shift its policy. Indeed, the kidnappings are likely intended as a show of strength, the PKK demonstrating its capacity to take action. The Turkish military offensive has put the Kurdish militants under pressure, Heinz Kramer of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs explained to the Associated Press on Thursday.

By taking the three Germans hostages, the PKK has definitely succeeded in grabbing people’s attention — just like it did back in the 1990s when its militants repeatedly kidnapped Western tourists. In 1993 alone they took 19 tourists hostage. All were later released.

With reporting by Ferda Ataman.

July 12, 2008