Minister dismisses Öcalan mistreatment claims.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=117942

That is the thing..Weather we like it or not, unfortunately many sees him as a mythical figure..

And yet, people think that he should have been hanged..I would not want to imagine what would have been if he was hanged..

Justice would be served...

Oh no, Kurt, the consequences would be just  terrible for Turkey.  A breakout of total turmoil and the Kurds will be vengeful.

 for the hanging of a terrorist?

As a matter of fact yes..There could have been a blood bath..

I am glad they did not hang him. It would be a HUGE mistake..

 People should not be afraid to punish terrorists just because of public reaction.

(opps edit: PUNISH not PUSH!)

To be afraid of a "bloodbath" means that you are giving terrorists the power, and showing yourself as weaker.

This is exactly what they want

 great post sekerim!but it will offend all sensitive adorers of terrorism......

 Yes. But one can be punished without receiving death penalty as well.

Revenge by execution may give some gut satisfaction, but that does not redeem it as sensible  policy for the Turkish Nation. Ocalan is helpless, he is in prison for life. His execution would make him a martyr and further incite violence in the Southeast.That is my humble opinion.

There are a number of difficult to answer questions that split the public into camps like pro-abortion, pro-life, secular vs spiritual. Capital punishment is one such question you can never be certain about. Laws are designed to maintain order and to punish criminals and to compensate for the losses of victims.

In written form since Hammurabi, there have always been laws right or wrong and they have always been instrumental in keeping the order as long as they were fair to everyone. Punishment on the other hand has been historically used as a deterrent factor to prevent offensive people from commiting crime. The compensatory aspect of justice can only be truely understood by and is exclusively designed for victims of criminal activities. In the past, there were feuds among families triggered by a murder incident turning into a family cause. It is indeed a tragedy the dimensions of which can only be truely felt by those victims (kins of the murdered person).

For my own part, if someone broke in my house and killed my wife and/or my two month old baby; I would kill that person myself too. Normally what happens is these people serve five-ten years and quite comfortably if he/she is a hired gun under the protection of his baron. They are usually released due to good behaviour or when an amnesty is declared. Like it happened in Turkey a couple of years ago.

I am in favour of capital punishment but I may be wrong.

I am seriously against any type of capital punishments...
I believe that the most basic human right is ´right to life´..Obviously, capital punishment overrules this basic right.
When you add the possibility of errors and unfair judgments, it is a no no from my part..
Apart from being against the capital punishment, Hanging that guy would not do any good to Turkey. It would create a huge blood bath and it could even bring us to a point that ´we Kurds and Turks can not live together any more´.
It was not worth at the time, it will never be.

I agree, thehandsome

i´m afraid  we will watch to final stage of ´´Kurd Problem´´in our great country as soon as if it goes this way.Dark ethnic political authorities trying their all power on crowded innocent people,so i think time to be more unit against to all dirty dark ethnical games by to be hand by hand more then ever without any ethnical prejudice,thats the fight of goods&bads,thats the fight of foxes and lambs,thats never fight of any ethnical groups.....!!!!!

35000 innocent people are still sleeping in their longest sleep and this m....fucker is still drinking his tea listening to his radio,reading papers.....is THIS called "justice"?

I don´t understand capital punishment anyway - criminals are getting off really easy this way. As I see it it´s much harder rotting up in a prison for forever.

I found something interesting. It compares the US and other countries in terms of murder rate and other sorts of crime. Here are some excerpts:

"If we had had a crime rate equivalent to Turkey´s, just last year we would have had 543,860 fewer assaults, 116,440 fewer rapes, 670,808 fewer robberies, 14,806,908 fewer thefts, 305,300 fewer frauds, 648,372 fewer drug arrests, and 2,599,736 fewer juvenile delinquents, and the resulting lower demands on our justice system would have meant that 29,820 fewer judges and 41,180 fewer prosecutors would have been necessary to run our legal system.

Even though Turkey´s overall crime rate in 1990 was 189, 1/30th of ours (at 5,803) they´re not the only Muslim country with much lower crime rates than the US.  Iraq´s is half that of Turkey.  Egypt´s is one fourth that of Iraq.  Bottom line:  our crime rate in 1990 was 175 TIMES higher than Egypt´s crime rate.  And the crime rates in many other countries, Muslim or not, decreased during a period of time when ours increased.  For example, during the same time that our murder rate increased ten fold, the murder rate in Japan declined 22%. Just in the last 20 years, Japan´s incarceration rate declined 11%, but our incarceration rate quintupled in that time. However,  many Muslim countries have much lower overall crime rates than we do, which means that John Ashcroft´s moral authority in questioning the efficacy of Islam is seriously lacking [read: nonexistent]."

And here is the link:

http://christianparty.net/turkey.htm

As you know I don´t believe in abortion, therefore believe that everyone should have a chance in life.  However, with that being said how many chances do you give a person?  Do you really think taking their freedom away and locking them up is enough punishment?  Look at how many prisoners serve their time are released on parole and find their way back to prison.  Doesn´t seem as though our prison system works either.

Strange, I don´t remember some of these members being against capital punishment when Sadam was executed

More info

One protester dead:

  A protester was killed in the eastern province of Van, reported Agence France-Presse yesterday.

  "One person is dead," a police officer told AFP by telephone. The officer gave no other details on the incidents in the town of Doðubeyazýt.

  It was not immediately clear how the victim, a man, died, but unconfirmed reports said he was shot.

  A police officer was also injured in the fighting and many demonstrators were taken into custody, Anatolia news agency said.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=118052

 As it is not clear how the victim died, I presume your sadness is for the police officer? Presumably these are the same protesters who are bombing innocent people as revenge?

guys, is Öcalan still that "popular" in Turkey? I guessed that by now he should be politically dead and buried in oblivion...

i remeber the moment when he was arrected. I was little but still see that TV plot in front of me... my mom said - Tukish governmet would kill him and i felt so sorry about him - burning independence fighter... so hard to figure out the real situation when you are out of context

A good point Aenigma...

He should have been long dead politically but unfortunately, our mistakes kept him and his organization alive..

Actually, I must say that i am getting quite pessimistic about the whole problem.. Some of the intellects are talking about ´we MIGHT be late´ to take the necessary steps for finding a proper solution..

There is a talk about ´Kurds changing hearts about living together´ which is quite scary and dangerous for all of us..Even some columnists are giving advice to politicians such as  ´act NOW or this problem will be talked in UN in near future´..

It seems like it is all going wrong..

hm.. better late than never... you know, quantity of gifted people is constant value. Population is growing, concentration is declining. Hard to find people who can rule countries really well, who can think strategically and make unpopular decisions etc. from other side I am afraid we would call such people tyrants... What country can decide on its own what is better for it without consultations and advices from all over the world?!?!

being member here for a while i see that Kurds´ problem is very sensitive issue in Turkey. now I am wondering what i am allowed to say about Kurds and what i m not