Wedding massacre gang sentenced to death

Baghdad, June 16 (AKnews) – 15 of the 34 perpetrators of what has become known as the Dujail wedding massacre have been sentenced to death by hanging by Iraq's criminal court, the Judicial Council said.

Judicial Council spokesman Abdulsalam al-Bairaqdar told AKnews that the criminal court sentenced to death 15 of the insurgents found guilty of the crime including leader -  "the terrorist Firas al-Jubbouri" -  under the terror law.

The death sentences come after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani - who has always refused to sign death warrants on moral grounds - authorized his deputy, Khudair al-Khuzaie, to sign them in his place.

Talabani is well-known for his objection to capital penalty - he famously refused to sign the warrant for the hanging of Saddam Hussein, who was responsible for the murder of thousands of his fellow Kurds and against whom he led a guerrilla war.

The President's decision to give his deputy signatory rights came after intense pressure from the political blocs and the Iraqi public to bring the perpetrators of "terror" crimes against the population to justice.

On Friday, hundreds of protestors took to the streets of Baghdad calling for the execution of Firas al-Jubbouri and his accomplices.

The worst attack the al-Qaeda affiliated group had carried out was the systematic killing of a wedding party celebrating the marriage of a Shiite man and a Sunni woman in the town of Taji, north of Baghdad, before disposing of their bodies in the Tigris river.

The murders came as confessional violence was raging throughout Iraq, with tens of thousands having died in 2006 and 2007 as a result of the brutal sectarian war.

Police said the insurgents first detonated a bomb across the road the party was travelling along, so as to force them to travel along a side street.

They separated the women, the men, and the children and raped all the women, then hung massive weights around the necks of the 15 children, who were aged between two and 12 years old, and threw them in the river to drown, according to police accounts.

The new bride was raped in front of her husband, and all the men in the wedding party were made to stand along a bridge crossing the river, with each receiving a single gunshot to the back of their head and their bodies being flung into the water with the force of the bullet.

The bride was slashed in the chest and left to bleed to death.

Baghdad witnessed demonstrations of hundreds on Friday who called for the execution of the perpetrators of the Dujail massacre.

"The council will wait for 30 days until the period of appeal is over and then the court order to execute the 15 men by hanging will be passed to the presidency of Iraq for approval," Al-Bairaqdar said.

Written by Raber Y. Aziz, reported by Jafar al-Wannan, edited by Karl Allen (AKnews)

Syria’s Kurds want Assad out, says Kurdish leader

Erbil, June 16 (AKnews) – As the anti-government protest gain momentum, Syria's Kurds are now calling for President Bashar al-Assad to step down says a prominent Kurdish party chief – a change from their previous demand of political reforms.

Kurdish Democratic Union (KDU) leader Salih Muslim said that Syria's Kurds have been calling for political and cultural rights over the past four decades – but now it's time for Assad to go.

"The demonstrations and protests in Syria continue and the demands of Kurds have gone higher as they are now calling on the Baath to leave so that the Kurds alongside the Arabs like two nations can coexist in Syria and the rights of Kurds be secured," he said.

Since March 15, nation-wide protests against the 40-year Baathist rule in Syria have continued despite a bloody crackdown by the Syrian authorities.

International human rights groups say that more than 1,300 people have been killed to date, and over 10,000 arbitrarily arrested.

Under the Baath party rule, hundreds of thousands of Syrian Kurds were stripped of their Syrian citizenship.

Against the backdrop of the snowballing public protests against his regime, the Syrian President recently pledged to re-issue Syrian nationality documents for around 300,000 of the country's Kurds.

Observers believe that Assad's promise was to deter the country's two to three million Kurds from adding fuel to the uprising.

Muslim told AKnews that the current regime in Syria had to change; the Kurds must be given their identity documents, be allowed to join the political process and be accorded a voice in reforming the constitution.

The Baath party has unilaterally ruled Syria for four decades during which time any form of political opposition has been outlawed.

The Kurds have been one of the fiercest opponents of the Syrian regime since the Baath Party took power nearly half a century ago. Headed by Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez, in 1963, the Baathists imposed an emergency law that effectively suspended most constitutional protection for citizens.

 "Even abroad, apart from the members of the Kurdish parties, there is nobody to identify themselves as opposition except for some intellectuals and writers who defy the Syrian regime through their writings," Muslim said.

After "the fall" of the Syrian regime, the Kurds must participate in the country's political process from the presidency to the provincial councils, the Kurdish politician continued, "And they need to have their own Kurdish identity and live in a Kurdish region."

There are no accurate statistics on the numbers of Kurds in Syria, but unofficial figures suggest there are between two and three million, accounting for 10-17% of the country's population.

Written BY Raber Y. Aziz, reported by Karzan Karim, edited by Karl Allen (AKnews)

16/06/2011 11:00

PKK hails Turkish poll “great victory” for Kurds

Erbil, June 13 (AKnews) – A spokesman for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said on Monday that the Kurds, represented by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), achieved a "great victory" in Turkey's election by increasing their representation in parliament.

The PKK's foreign relations officer, Ahmet Deniz, said that the BDP will now present a real opposition to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Prime Minister Recep Teyyip Erdogan, who secured a third term in power.

Independent candidates, representing the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast, polled 5.9% of the national vote (36 seats), failing however to assure a seat in the National Assembly which under the Turkish electoral system, requires a minimum 10% vote.

The AKP fell short of its 330 seat target in Sunday's poll which would have allowed the AKP to unilaterally re-write the Turkish constitution, the 49.9% victory affords the party 326 seats in the 550-seat house.

The Republican People's Party (CHP), the main opposition, bagged 25.9% of the votes - 135 seats – while the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) came away with 13% which gives them 53 seats.

"The BDP's victory is great, because there were big challenges facing them and they were under pressure," said Deniz, "the state cooperated with all parties except the BDP, yet the BDP was able to secure 36 seats for its 43 candidates, thus raising Kurdish representation in parliament."

"Now the task of BDP is even greater. They have to focus on two points; changing the Turkish constitution and finding a solution to the Kurdish issue in the country".

Deniz said the Turkish state needs to change its constitution - long criticized by the country's Kurds for failing to recognize their cultural and political rights - because it is not democratic.

The Kurds want the new Turkish constitution to recognize a form of 'democratic autonomy' in the predominantly Kurdish southeast as well as addressing wider issues such as the recognition of a 'Kurdish identity' or the right to education in the Kurdish language.

"The Kurdish issue is a constitutional one that needs to be addressed. Not resolving it will bring about big complications," Deniz said.

In his victory speech, Erdogan was quick to evoke the question of replacing the constitution introduced under martial law in 1982.

"We will discuss the new constitution with opposition parties. This new constitution will meet peace and justice demands," he declared.

Erdogan's opponents say however that the AKP wants to re-write the constitution in order to reinforce its hold on power, and that the Prime Minister is seeking to afford the country's presidency - a post they accuse him of coveting - more executive powers.

The PKK was formed in South-east Turkey by Abdullah Ocalan in 1978.
Formerly a peaceful group made up of students, the PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.
The group has been fighting for greater political and cultural rights for Turkey's 20 million Kurds for nearly three decades.

Around 40,000 people have died in the war against the Turkish military so far, many of them civilians.

Ocalan was arrested in Nairobi in 1999 and is still imprisoned under Turkish custody on the remote Imrali Island.

Since this time, the PKK's struggle has been continued on the political arena

Turkey has officially refused to negotiate with the PKK which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the U.S.

Written by Raber Y. Aziz, reported by Sarbaz Salih

Ka/AKnews

Barzani "concerned" about feuding bloc leaders

Erbil, June 13(AKnews) – Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani is said to be concerned about Iraq's political process and has called on rivaling political blocs to settle their disputes through dialogue.

Presidential office head, Fuad Hussein, said Barzani was particularly worried about the ongoing row between the two major political blocs led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Tensions between the two leaders came to a head on Friday when a group of pro-Maliki demonstrators, calling for the execution of the perpetrators of the al-Dujail wedding massacre, clashed with anti-Maliki protesters in Baghdad.

Maliki's supporters were allegedly paid by the government to chant pro-Maliki slogans.

The two groups eventually clashed and Maliki's supporters ripped and burned Allawi's photos and struck them with their shoes, a highly disrespectful gesture in Arab Culture.

Yesterday the al-Iraqiya bloc expressed outrage at the burning of photos of its leader with spokesman Shaker Kattab describing the act as "unacceptable".

The Sunni-backed al-Iraqiya list then announced yesterday its boycott of parliamentary sessions following a brawl between the list's spokesman and a leader in the State of Law Coalition (SLC) led by Prime Minister Maliki.

The scuffle is said to have broken out when a leader from the State of Law (SLC), Kamal al-Saadi, allegedly hit al-Iraqiya spokesman, Haider al-Mulla, with his walking stick.

Hussein said these tensions pose a serious threat to the political process and the country's security.

Al-Iraqiya, led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, narrowly beat Maliki's State of Law Coalition in the March 2010 elections but Maliki controversially overcame Allawi's list by forming a super-bloc, the National Coalition (NC), with the Sadrist Current after the results of the poll were announced.

Following a nine-month political impasse with both leaders refusing to relinquish claim to the country's leadership, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani stepped in with a model for a national unity government and a power-sharing deal.

Under the agreements signed in Erbil, Maliki and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani – a Kurd – were to retain their offices for a second term, while al-Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi, who secured a narrow majority of votes in the elections, would head a new executive body called the National Council for Strategic Policies (NCSP) as an attempt to maintain balance.

With the NCSP still un-formed six months after the Erbil accord was signed, the al-Iraqiya list has several times threatened to withdraw from the partnership government, accusing Maliki of monopolizing power and failing to implement all terms of the deal.

This view was also shared by the Kurds. MP Mahmoud Othman accused the government of failing to honor the prerequisite demands of the Kurdistan Blocs Coalition (KBC), submitted to the feuding political blocs in September 2010.

"None of the 19 demands handed to Maliki have been implemented," Othman said on June 6, "…the most important of which are the application of article 140, the hydrocarbon law and the Peshmarga issue".

Article 140 outlines a three-stage process to resolving the disputes over areas contested by the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central government in Baghdad.

In recent weeks, a number of Iraqi politicians, most notably from among the leadership of al-Iraqiya, have appealed to President Barzani to intervene once more and oblige the political blocs to adhere to the terms of the Erbil accord.

 "Part of Barzani's initiative has not been implemented," Hussein said, "and it is up to the political blocs to resolve that".

Written by Raber Y. Aziz, reported by Fryad Mohammed

Ka/AKnews

Al-Iraqiya outraged by burning of leader’s photo

Baghdad, June 11 (AKnews) – The Sunni-backed al-Iraqiya bloc led by former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi expressed outrage at the burning of Allawi's photos in the pro-government protests in Baghdad on Friday.
 
Al-Iraqiya spokesman Shaker Kattab described the burning of Allawi's photo as "unacceptable", saying that the protesters should abide by an ethical code of conduct concerning their opponents.
 
On Friday, pro-government demonstrators along with supporters of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party, took to the streets after tribal leaders called for the execution of the perpetrators of the al-Dujail incident – a 70-member wedding party that was wiped out by al-Qaeda agents.
 
The demonstration was soon followed by a second rally.

Several hundred protestors took to the streets of Baghdad - at the end of a 100-day period set by Maliki for his cabinet to improve its performance - calling for government officials to step down and criticizing Maliki's performance so far.

The two groups eventually clashed and the Maliki's supporters ripped and burned Allawi's photos and struck them with their shoes, a gesture considered highly disrespectful in Arab Culture.

"The al-Iraqiya list condemns the burning of photos of the list's leader, Ayad Allawi, in the Tahrir Square" said Kattab, "this is unacceptable in the same way as the misconducts and abuses chanted by the protesters against the Prime Minister in the previous demos."

 "The government should have dealt with the protesters by receiving their demands and putting them into a short-term or long-term political program," said Kattab, "we were hoping the protesters would be received and their demands be listened to contrary to what happened which really disappointed us."
 
Written by Raber Y. Aziz, reported by Yazn al-Shammari (AKnews)