European Parliament: Resolutions on funding Turkey and freezing talks on its European Membership

The
undersigned citizens repudiate the impunity of the Turkish government
which, even before being part of the European Union, appears to have
reached the “special status” for which earlier members, such as
the UK, strive. In fact, in the last five years, the Turkish state
has so often violated the human rights within and out of the country,
while remaining a NATO member and a UE candidate country, that we may
wonder what else it has to do to make the European institutions
change their relationship with Ankara.

Let us just consider the events of the last two months. In this lapse
of time, the government of President R. Erdogan has:






-
kept a non declared war to the cities of Sur, Silvan, Nusaybin,
Cizre, Silopi and many other villages in the Southeast
of Turkey ,
bombing and killing civilian populations, and imposing a military
regime and home confinement to thousands of citizens in its own
state.

-
arrested dozens of reporters and academics either under the
allegation of “supporting terrorism” (articles 6 and 7 of the
“Anti-Terror
Law” and articles 220 and 313 of the Turkish Criminal Code) or
under article 301 of the same Code, that convicts to six months to
three years imprisonment any citizen considered guilty of “offending
the Turkish nation or the Grand
National Assembly of Turkey”. Some of the most recently imprisoned
people have simply signed the petition “Academics
for Peace”, subscribed by 1,400 academics, many of whom have been
later dismissed from their schools. Even worse happened to many press
workers submitted to long term arrest (they were 80 at the beginning
of 2015) or murdered with the complicity of the Turkish secret
services, as it was the case of the reporter Naji
Jerf at
Gaziantep last December.

-
continued its military intervention
in Syria and Iraq, whether by militias financed, trained and armed by
the Turkish State or directly by the Turkish army. It has also
announced an escalation of violence for the coming months. Ever since
the bomb attack on February 18, whose responsibility was mysteriously
identified by the Turkish official sources moments after the event,
that the Ankara government has not hidden the intention to carry out
a systematic destruction in the north of Syria, during the coming
spring.






Considering
the risks our silence exposes the Turkish, Kurdish and Arab
populations in Turkey and neighbouring countries, we declare against,
under whichever allegation, that:






-
any amount of European taxpayers’ money be transferred to the
Turkish administration for the sake of holding and assisting refugees
(as the € 3,2 billions of the planned deal between the UE and
Turkey announced last November 30). A state administration that
produces refugees in its own territory – as the Turkish army is
doing in Southeast Turkey – has neither qualifications nor
reliability to take care of refugees from other countries, more so
when many of these refugees are fleeing from the terrorist groups
funded by the Turkish State or the Turkish army.










-
the payment of these Turkish police services by the European Union
includes a payment-in-kind, as it can be inferred from the President
of the European Council’s statement that the Turkish
application to join the European Union should be unfrozen.
We, the undersigned, say: R. Erdogan’s Turkey has no political
qualifications to keep any open chapter within the negotiation
process to join the EU, although 15 out of 35 chapters remain open.
One of the most advanced files is “Regional Policy &
Coordination of Structural Instruments;” it was reopened in
November 2013 and, as such, it obliges the Copenhagen criteria to
abide by the “regional policy” of the Turkish state in cities
such as Çizre or Nusaybin.










Therefore,
the undersigned citizens, under article 227 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union and article 44 of the Charter
of Fundamental Rights of the EU, demand that the European Parliament
vote a resolution that calls on the European Commission to take the
following actions:

• 
  
  The cancelling of any funding
  from the EU to the present Turkish government related to the Turkish
  control over the right to asylum acknowledged by the EU as a
  fundamental right;
  
• 
  
  The freezing of all
  negotiation chapters of the Turkish application to the European
  membership as long as there are no international safeguards
  ensuring that all the present Turkish legislation against human
  rights is revoked and that the repressive policy of the Turkish
  government in southeast Turkey in Syria and in Iraq is put to an
  end.
  

Say
no to the crackdown of the Turkish government on its own citizens!


Say no to the Turkish armed
interventions in its neighbouring countries!

Say
no to the Turkish blackmail on Europe using the refugees!