For the sixth time in 15 years, Turkish authorities are seeking to outlaw the only pro-Kurdish political party, writes Gareth Jenkins On Friday, the Turkish public prosecutor formally applied to the country's Constitutional Court for the closure of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DSP) in the culmination of a long campaign of harassment and persecution of the party for its alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging a 23-year-old campaign of violence in the name of Turkey's Kurdish minority. The announcement was greeted with weary resignation by DSP members. It is the sixth pro- Kurdish political party to be established in Turkey in the past 15 years. Four of the DSP's predecessors have already been closed. A ruling on the fifth is expected early next year. Few doubt that it will also be banned. "We had been expecting it," said DSP Chairman Nurettin Demirtas, who was only elected as head of the party the previous week. "When it comes to closing down parties, Turkey ranks first in the Guinness Book of Records." The Constitutional Court is not expected to rule on the DSP case until late 2008 at the earliest. But the application for the DSP's closure will in itself severely hamper its ability to operate. Parties closed down by the Constitutional Court usually have all of their assets seized by the Turkish treasury. The general expectation is that leading members of the DSP will now begin procedures for the establishment of a seventh party in the expectation that the Constitutional Court will eventually close down the DSP. In addition to the expense, the foundation of a new party involves a lot of bureaucratic procedures, not least because in order to be able to stand in a general election a party must have a registered presence in each of Turkey's 81 provinces. In his application to the Constitutional Court, Public Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya claimed that the DSP was affiliated with the PKK and had become a centre of activities aimed at damaging the "indivisible integrity of the Turkish state, its territory and nation". But the 141 reasons he gave for the party's closure also included charges such as refusing to characterise the PKK as a terrorist organisation, referring to imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan as "Mr Ocalan" and, perhaps most bizarrely, engaging in PKK propaganda by travelling to northern Iraq earlier this month to negotiate the release of eight Turkish conscripts captured by the PKK in a fire fight. Yalcinkaya also asked for 221 members of the DSP, including eight MPs elected to parliament in the 22 July 2007 general election, to be banned from all political activity for a period of five years. If his demand is upheld, even if a new political party is formed, the Kurdish political movement will effectively be decapitated. No one doubts that some DSP supporters sympathise with the PKK. Several of the party's leading members have been prosecuted for links to the organisation. Even though he is only 35, Demirtas himself has already spent 10 years of his life in prison on charges of aiding and abetting the PKK. Over the weekend, demonstrations organised by the DSP in the southeastern cities of Van and Batman turned into pro-PKK rallies as protesters clashed with police and chanted slogans praising the PKK and damning Turkish security forces. But the simple fact remains that in the 22 July 2007 elections DSP candidates running as independents received over 1.5 million votes. Perhaps more significantly, the current policy pursued by the Turkish state makes it almost impossible for Kurdish politicians to distance themselves from the PKK. The organisation has long tried to present itself as the sole representative of the country's Kurds, intimidating and even assassinating potential rivals. Indeed, one of the main reasons for the PKK's return to violence in 2004 after a five year ceasefire was its fear that Turkey's decision, under pressure from the EU, to ease some restrictions on the expression of a Kurdish identity would allow the emergence of rival Kurdish organisations. Rather than encouraging the emergence of groups that oppose the PKK, Turkish authorities have consistently prosecuted and persecuted them, while refusing to provide them with any protection against the threats of the PKK; thus forcing them into the arms of the organisation. Since the PKK first launched its campaign of violence in August 1984, nearly 40,000 have died and, in all probability, the DSP will become the sixth political party to be closed. Yet there is still no sign of a solution to Turkey's Kurdish problem, or an end to the bloodshed. "The DSP undoubtedly made mistakes," said Feridun Yazar, who was head of the pro-Kurdish People's Labour Party (HEP) that was closed down by the Constitutional Court in 1993. "But they are not sufficient for it to be closed down. Banning parties doesn't provide a solution. Yet as long as no attempt is made to solve Turkey's problems in a democratic manner, party closures will continue."
