MILITARISM IN THE KURDISH DIASPORA

SPIEGEL ONLINE - October 30, 2007, 04:13 PM URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,514379,00.html
MILITARISM IN THE KURDISH DIASPORA
PKK Circumverts Ban in Germany
By Yassin Musharbash in Berlin

Excerpt:
The ongoing tension between Turkey and the Kurdish separatist group the PKK has been making headlines in recent weeks as fears grow of a Turkish invasion into northern Iraq. The conflict even appears to have spread to Germany as an anti-PKK demonstration in Berlin degenerated into violence on Sunday afternoon.

Now a German politician has questioned the effectiveness of the supposed ban on the PKK in Germany. "There is effectively no prohibition of the PKK in Germany," Cem Özdemir, a Green Party member of the European Parliament, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It is openly known that the PKK agitates and recruits in Germany. What's the use of such a ban?" The politician, who is of Turkish origin, wonders "whether security forces are, for some reason, deliberately turning a blind eye."

It was almost exactly 14 years ago -- on November 26, 1993 -- that the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) was prohibited in Germany. But in the minds of Özdemir and many others, not much has changed since then. Even the authorities that Özdemir is attacking tend to agree.