March 2006

BY Eve Vincent

One week after an official visit from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan in December last year, the Australian Government listed the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation.

In Turkey, Kurdish people are denied their distinct cultural identity and since the 1980s the PKK has maintained an armed insurgency against a repressive Turkish state. By 1999, when PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan — revered by Kurdish communities around the world — was imprisoned, the civil conflict had claimed 30,000 dead. Since then the PKK’s aspirations have changed, but the armed insurgency continues.

Kurdish refugees in Australia argue that the PKK is inextricable from Kurdish identity — as one Melbourne Kurdish man puts it “How can I denounce the PKK? It would be like denouncing myself” — and are worried that cultural expressions will be mistaken for terrorist activity.

The decision to proscribe the organisation is currently under review by a Parliamentary Committee. Signature spoke to VICKI SENTAS, who argued against the listing on behalf of the Federation of Community Legal Centres (Vic).

Can you begin by explaining the proscription powers?

In 2004 the criminal code was amended to give the Attorney General executive power to ban ‘terrorist organisations’ by listing or proscribing them. This is the first time the power to ban an organisation has succeeded in making its way into domestic law. (In 2003 Australia signed on to a UN convention that lists over 500 organisations and individuals as terrorist, which freezes the assets of anyone who deals with these organisations. The UN list operates in addition to the Australian one.)

The Australian proscription regime is often compared to Menzies’ attempts in the 1950s to ban the Communist Party of Australia. Then, the courts struck down the Communist Dissolution Laws.

The current laws are much more dangerous in their reach. In introducing the new powers, Attorney General Philip Ruddock boasted that they could proscribe the Boy Scouts if they wanted to. The definition of terrorist organisation is incredibly broad: any organisation that is planning, preparing, fostering, advocating or engaging in a terrorist act. Essentially, all kinds of involvement with any act of political violence anywhere in the world, for any reason, become illegal.

In Australia 19 organisations have been proscribed, including Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah. The proscription laws were enacted with the stated purpose of banning organisations that pose a specific threat to Australia’s national security, yet organisations like Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and now the PKK — organisations engaged in confined regional, political armed struggles — have also been listed. Now Hamas have been democratically elected to government in Palestine, while the Federal Government criminalises their supporters in Australia.

Involvement with any proscribed organisation creates several crimes by association, even where there is no intention to participate in a violent act. Offences for involvement or communication range in penalty from three to 25 years imprisonment. These include supporting, associating with, funding, or being a member or informal member of a banned organisation. Ruddock’s made it clear that he wants to cut off the support base for listed organisations — financial, political and emotional. Effectively, that means criminalising support for liberation struggles.

On what grounds did Ruddock list the PKK?

The publicly available information which outlines the case for listing cites a number of PKK attacks between late 2003-5 that killed Turkish soldiers, and attacks on transport, with a number of civilians killed.

The PKK were engaged in a civil war with the Turkish military during the 80s and 90s. Ruddock acknowledges that the PKK initiated a unilateral ceasefire in 1999, which lasted for five years until December 2003. What he doesn’t say is that that the ceasefire broke down because the Turkish military, through repeated counter-insurgency or annihilation campaigns, provoked the PKK into breaking its ceasefire.

Since the 1999 ceasefire the PKK have democratised their campaign, and are predominately calling for Kurdish human rights and basic rights to Kurdish ethnic identity, rather than a separate Kurdish state.

Thousands of Kurds have been displaced from their villages by the Turkish military and are forcibly denied the right of return. It was only very recently that the Turkish Prime Minister acknowledged the existence of a ‘Kurdish question’, some argue in response to pressure from the EU. The Kurdish language and expressions of Kurdish culture were outlawed until recently, however there are still severe restrictions on the expression of culture and language.

Turkey has a severe penal code: the prosecution and imprisonment of political dissidents, journalists, writers and artists is routine. Those involved in the PKK, supporters of the PKK or the publicly pro-Kurdish are subject to extra-judicial killings, torture, imprisonment or police harassment.

All this is unacknowledged by Ruddock, so the context in which the PKK undertake political violence has been obscured.

For their part, the PKK have declared themselves to be acting under the Geneva Convention in self-defence, in the furtherance of self-determination. In these circumstances, any violation of the Geneva Convention, such as the targeting of civilians, is dealt with under the laws of international armed conflict. Violent acts like murder, kidnapping and bombings are already crimes in Australia.

A number of ASIO criteria are generally used to justify proscription. These include the threat to Australian ‘interests’; the ideology of the organisation; proscription by like-minded countries; and whether the organisation is involved in a peace process.

Firstly, there’s no evidence to suggest that the PKK pose a threat to Australia’s national security; there’s no evidence, in fact, to suggest the PKK have engaged in political violence anywhere in the world apart from Turkey and northern Iraq. None of the information Ruddock has provided suggests that Australian interests have been targeted. Are Turkish interests Australian interests? How is it in Australia’s interests to support a brutal government with a track record of human rights violations?

Secondly, the ideology of the PKK, which has secular Marxist Leninist origins, is dedicated to participatory democracy, Kurdish rights, women’s rights and reforming the justice system, rather than the overthrow of government. While in previous listings, vague references to attacks on ‘our way of life’ have been made, it’s unclear what weight ASIO give to ideology.

Where an organisation based oversees has a political objective to overthrow a repressive government, such as the ANC or Fretilin did, why should it be criminal for Australians to give financial, emotional or political support?

‘Like-minded countries' such as the UK, US, Canada and the EU have proscribed the PKK. But many more have not proscribed the PKK. An example is Norway, which argues that it doesn’t recognise the EU proscription because to do so would jeopardise the peace process, and interfere with its neutral role as an arbiter. Norway recognises that the PKK has a central role to play in the resolution of the Kurdish issue.

Finally, Ruddock’s own information acknowledges that the PKK have initiated negotiations in the past. It gives no consideration to Turkey’s counter-insurgency operation, and ignores international commentary on the role of so-called ‘deep state forces’ within the Turkish Government — that is the prevailing military influence within Government that don’t want to see a resolution of the Kurdish question.

Ruddock also gives no consideration to the fact that the Kurdish diaspora in Australia and Europe have a strong, continuing exchange with the PKK. Not only did the PKK circulate ideas of resistance and the preservation of identity within the Kurdish diaspora, but the diaspora continues to play an important role in discussing and criticising PKK strategy, through international forums like the Kurdistan National Congress or the Kurdish Human Rights Project. Their preference is for a non-armed solution: criminalising communication and association with the PKK essentially criminalises the Kurdish community’s commitment to a peaceful resolution, democracy and ethnic minority rights in Turkey.

The PKK was listed as a terrorist organisation a week after a visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, prompting criticisms of the use of proscription powers as a ‘foreign policy tool’. What is the diplomatic relationship between Australia and Turkey?

It definitely appears that the listing was as a result of direct pressure from Turkey, rather than any independent Australian security assessment. Intense lobbying on the part of Turkey to the UK, US, Canada and the EU preceded PKK proscription in those countries.

There’s very little publicly available information about Australia and Turkey’s economic and defence relationship. We know from media reports that the visit sought to strengthen intelligence exchange and to develop a closer counter terrorism and defence relationship.

This is disturbing considering Turkey’s appalling record of using intelligence for state repression against free speech and the political associations of dissidents, journalists, human rights advocates and anyone pro-Kurdish. People are routinely labelled ‘terrorists’ for raising any public opposition to the Turkish state.

The overwhelming majority of Kurdish people in Australia are refugees, and many made successful cases for asylum on the basis that they were persecuted as a result of imputed support for the PKK, or their pro-Kurdish views more generally. Does the listing jeopardise their permanent residency status?

The reasons why Kurdish refugees fled Turkey and were given asylum are the very same reasons they may be now prosecuted for terrorist offences. That is, for having a pro-Kurdish, pro-democracy political position rather than direct involvement in violent activity.

Globally, refugees are under attack as ‘terrorist’ with increasing deportations under the guise of vague ‘security’ criteria.

Under Australian migration law, the relevant Minister has the discretion to remove people’s permanent residency under very broad character grounds and has done so in a number cases, years after permanent residency was granted.

The Federal Government has also demonstrated a willingness to apply proscription offences retrospectively. In NSW, Izhar Ul-Haque has been charged with allegedly training with Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2003, before it was an offence to do so.

How have members of the Kurdish community responded to the listing?

Firstly, the Kurdish community are incredibly surprised by the timing of this proscription. Why now? Why at all?

People I have spoken with are very upset, fearful and concerned. Kurdish communities want an end to violence and a resolution found through peaceful means. At the same time, if the PKK did not emerge when they did the Kurdish people would have been annihilated as a distinct ethnic people. There’s an inextricable connection between the goal of the Kurdish people for recognition of their identity and human rights, and the stated goals of the PKK.

A Kurdish man said to me, “How can I denounce the PKK? It would be like denouncing myself.”

People are worried about talking openly about the PKK, or publicly sharing the political goals of the PKK. Unlike the listing of Hamas, which listed the armed wing only (the Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades), the listing of the PKK makes no distinction between its armed wing and its civil society wing.

What might seem as small things are important symbols of Kurdish identity and give rise to fear of surveillance and the attention of the authorities — for example, the Kurdish flag is also the PKK flag. People are concerned that flying that flag will mean they are [perceived as] a terrorist. The imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan is very well loved by the Kurdish people; he embodies the pro-Kurdish movement. It’s very common for Kurdish people to display his portrait as a symbol of Kurdish liberation. These things — waving flags, displaying PKK insignia — are specific offences in the UK, where there’s a very large Kurdish community. And the Kurdish community in Australia understand the level of repression there. They’re very aware of what’s happening in the UK and Germany where proscription of the PKK has been in place for a few years.

In the UK there was a renowned show trial of four Kurdish activists who were raising money to go to a demonstration in Germany, in support of Kurdish language rights in Turkey. They were charged with being members of a terrorist organisation, the PKK. A court dismissed the charges a year later as ridiculous, however those activists had already undergone lengthy pre-trial detention, and the case created fear and anxiety in the community.

People are worried that in criminalising the PKK, there’s an instant connection being made between Kurdish people and terrorism. Rather than any activity or act itself as ‘the crime’, the proscription regime brings to the fore the idea of the criminal identity. Because of the very strong association between the PKK, Kurdish people and Kurdish identity, and the history of persecution on the basis of Kurdish identity, proscription re-identifies Kurdish identity as criminal, even within, and especially because of, the ‘tolerant’ multicultural state.

These laws go hand in hand with recent government comments about connections with country of origin being anathema to what it means to be Australian. It seems multiculturalism offers us a new plethora of punishment opportunities.

Eve Vincent is co-editor of Signature.