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mchyet at lionheart.Berkeley.EDU
mchyet at lionheart.Berkeley.EDU
Sun Jan 29 23:11:10 GMT 1995
From: Michael Chyet <mchyet at lionheart.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject:
Text item: Text_1
Dear friends:
I am sorry to say that I have a piece of news: The mother of an Iraqi
Kurdish friend of mine just arrived here in the the San Francisco Bay Area,
after being harrassed by Turkish authorities at the Istanbul airport. She has
an American identification card which states that her place of origin is
"KURDISTAN". For this reason, she was forced to get off the airplane she had
already boarded {T"urk Hava YollarI} and was taken to the American Consulate.
The authorities at the American Consulate apparently said: "She's an old lady,
let her alone; She's an Iraqi Kurd, and the term "KURDISTAN" is now in use for
'Northern Iraq'; besides, the Turkish government has officials relations with
both the KDP and the PUK, which maintain offices in Ankara, and have the word
"KURDISTAN" in their titles." The Turks reportedly tried to get a $300.oo bribe
from her, but she bravely stood her ground and said, "You give me $3,000.oo for
this insulting inconvenience!" No money changed hands, but she was eventually
returned to the airport, where she was permitted to board the next day's flight.
Her son in San Francisco, who went to meet the flight that she was originally
scheduled to arrive on, was not told of any of this, and one can just imagine
how worried he must have been until he found out -- after making several
expensive international long distance phone calls to the hotel she had been
staying in, etc. -- what had happened to her.
This sort of treatment of civilians as if they were garbage is neither
new nor peculiar to the Turkish authorities. Nevertheless, there are those who
would say that this is an example of how the Turkish-Kurdish war is being fought
on a new front.
Anyone interested in contacting the woman involved to interview her --
she has just come from Kurdistan of Iraq, with fresh views and insights on the
situation there as well, may contact me, and I will put you in touch with her.
Best wishes,
MLC
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