VZCZCXRO0502
RR RUEHDA
DE RUEHDA #0033/01 0680606
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 090606Z MAR 07
FM AMCONSUL ADANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4458
INFO RUEUITH/AFOSI DET 521 ANKARA TU
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA 1004
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 0866
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/AFOSI DET 522 INCIRLIK AB TU
RUETIAA/DIRNSA FT MEADE MD
RUEHDA/AMCONSUL ADANA 1061

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ADANA 000033 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PINS PGOV PHUM TU
SUBJECT: SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY FOR  MARCH 8, 2007 
 
This is the Southeastern Turkey press summary for March 8, 2007. 
 Please note that Turkish press reports often contain errors or 
exaggerations; AmConsulate Adana does not vouch for the accuracy 
of the reports summarized here. 
 
POLITICAL 
 
EKSPRES / BOLGE / HURRIYET (CUKUROVA) / SABAH (GUNEY): 
Cahit Kirac, Adana Governor, who has recently been assigned to 
the governor's position in Izmir, told the journalists that he 
will be leaving Adana with very warm feelings from his 
experience here.  Kirac worked as the governor of Adana for 2.5 
years.  Saban Bas, Chairperson of Chamber of Commerce, issued a 
press release about governor's reassignment and said that the 
services Kirac rendered for Adana would never be forgotten. 
 
 
EVRENSEL:       Following the recent prison sentences issued against 
the chairperson and vice-chairperson of DTP (see press summary 
for March 7), and, the police raids conducted at DTP provincial 
premises and arrests, reportedly this time the pro-Kurdish 
Gundem daily's publication has been suspended by a court and the 
daily has been withdrawn from shelves. 13th Heavy Penalty Court 
reportedly indicated the grounds for suspension of publication 
as the recent news Gundem published about Ocalan's alleged 
systematic poisoning by the authorities at Imrali prison. 
 
ZAMAN / HURRIYET:       Zaman daily reports that Gulcihan Simsek, 
chairperson of DTP's Bostanici chapter in Van, apologized in a 
speech he delivered at a March 8 World Women's Day event that he 
had to continue talking in Turkish.  Simsek used a courtesy 
title before the name of Abdullah Ocalan and suggested that 
Kurdish speakers should always try to use Kurdish in most of 
their daily lives.  Hurriyet and Zaman dailies further report 
that following the six month prison sentence issued against DTP 
national chairperson for using a courtesy title before the name 
of Abdullah Ocalan (see press summary for March 7), former DEP 
(Party of Democracy) deputy Sedat Yurttas has also been 
sentenced to six months in prison on the same charges. 
 
ZAMAN / EVRENSEL / RADIKAL / HURRIYET:  Diyarbakir 
Prosecutor's Office started a probe against two attorneys who 
announced allegations about poisoning of Ocalan in a meeting 
held in Rome.  The probe was initiated on grounds that the 
attorney's announcement was misleading the public and the 
attorneys were abusing their professional capacities.  The probe 
results will determine whether a trial process would be started 
against the attorneys or not.  Meanwhile, Ocalan's attorneys 
decided to lodge a complaint with the European Court of Human 
Rights on grounds their client's right to preserve his life, 
which is a clause of the Universal Human Rights Declaration, was 
being violated.  Separately, Hurriyet daily notes that the 
brother of Abdullah Ocalan went to the Imrali prison yesterday 
to pay a visit to Ocalan. 
 
ZAMAN / HURRIYET:       MHP national chairperson Devlet Bahceli warned 
the party's ultra-nationalist supporters that they should not 
yield to ethnical provocations that would be carried out on 
Newroz day and that they should preserve their common sense and 
peaceful attitude at all times. 
 
ZAMAN:  CHP established a committee to research reasons why 
CHP was not successful in getting votes for CHP candidates in 
the eastern and southeastern region during elections.  The 
committee conducted studies in ten separate provinces: the 
reasons they found out for why the people in those regions had 
always stayed aloof from CHP were ethnical structure and 
people's devotion to religion in those regions.  According to 
people in the region, the CHP was a party that was distant from 
religion.  The report of the committee also said that DTP was 
striving to strengthen ethnic nationalism in those regions 
without paying attention to issues of the rest of the country. 
 
ONLINE GUNDEM DAILY: 
 
- Youth in Van's Hacibekir and Yuniplik quarters held a march 
and shouted slogans in support for Abdullah Ocalan.  Police 
intervened when youth in Mardin's Kiziltepe district attempted 
to hold a demonstration to protest the alleged poisoning of 
Ocalan by authorities.  Demonstrators continued their activities 
as they dispersed in the back streets.  Youth in Adana's 
Gulbahcesi, Sakirpasa, Denizli and Barbaros quarters clashed 
with the police as they attempted to draw attention to Ocalan's 
health condition through a demonstration.  Police intervened 
 
ADANA 00000033  002 OF 002 
 
 
with gas bombs and the crowd dispersed. Tension still persists 
in the aforementioned quarters, reports the online daily. 
Thirty-one of eighty-eight women, who were detained during a 
police raid on the DTP Cizre chapter in Sirnak on grounds that 
they attended a demonstration that aims to draw attention to 
Ocalan's health condition, have reportedly been arrested. 
Nearly 1000 people waiting outside the court hall clapped their 
hands to protest the arrests. 
 
- DTP Batman Provincial Chairperson Ayhan Karabulut, who was 
detained for his alleged pro-PKK propaganda made on March 3 in 
Batman, has been arraigned and arrested. 
 
CRIME / LAW ENFORCEMENT 
 
ZAMAN:  During an anti-human-trafficking operation, police 
found out that a human-trafficking ring police dissolved, which 
enabled PKK terrorists to go abroad with fake documents, were 
themselves swindled by the PKK members. 
 
CULTURE / SOCIETY / ENVIRONMENT 
 
SABAH (GUNEY):  Attorneys at the Court Hall of Adana held a 
meeting and conveyed their complaints about a new regulation to 
Ibrahim Gazioglu, chairperson of the Adana Bar Association. 
According to the attorneys, the new regulation was breaching the 
rights of the attorneys and was incapacitating the bar 
association leaving all the authority to courts and prosecutors. 
GREEN