quote: Ibrahim Parlak is a 42-year-old immigrant from Turkey who until his arrest last July ran a little Middle Eastern restaurant in Harbert, Mich., called Cafe Gulistan. By all accounts, he has been a good businessman, community member and father of a 7-year-old.
His crime?
Parlak is a Kurd and as such was not welcome in the country of his birth. As a younger man, he fought the oppression of the Turkish government back when our own State Department decried the human rights abuses by the Turks against the Kurds. He joined the PKK, a Kurdish resistance movement, and in 1988 on the Turkey-Syria border got into a skirmish in which two border guards were killed.
Parlak, charged with separatism, was imprisoned and tortured for a year and a half. In 1991, he fled Turkey and sought asylum in the United States. He provided U.S. officials at the time with newspaper clippings, police reports and prison documents about what happened. Given that the newspapers were government controlled, they were hardly favorable to Parlak. But U.S. officials were fully aware of the plight of the Kurds and the Turkish government's predilection for persecution. Parlak was granted asylum in 1992.
Today the PKK is known as KONGRA-GEL. Today the United States has re-classified it as a terrorist group. The Turkey we once condemned is an ally we now embrace.
And so Ibrahim Parlak was arrested by federal agents last summer because the very circumstances for which he won a grant of asylum are now being held against him.
It's crazy. And it's unjust. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
So do I. I put bold's on Ibrahaim's catch-22: either he stays in Turkey and gets oppressed, imprisoned, tortured, probably killed or he emigrates to the US, in the hope of a better life. But to get asylum he has to prove he was being oppressed, and why--which leads to him being granted asylum, but now is being used to imprison and eventually deport him back to Turkey, where he will be oppressed, etc. Straight out of Alice in Wonderland.
We have a clause in the US constitution against ex post facto laws being used to prosecute people, but this guy might have fallen into a legal loophole. What's sad is the US has put considerable pressure on Turkey to stop their human rights abuses of Kurds--and now we plan to give them one gift-wrapped, with a "torture me" post-it on his back.
This case might not meet that definition. But it's similar, we did grant him asylum based on the same facts we are now deporting him with.
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quote: He joined the PKK, a Kurdish resistance movement, and in 1988 on the Turkey-Syria border got into a skirmish in which two border guards were killed.
He's also responsible for the deaths of two people. I'm pretty sure that was illegal before 9/11. Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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We've long supported the paramilitary efforts of rebels in many countries. Plus, we don't know he killed either of them. Plus, even if he had, given what he'd gone through in particular, that would seem to qualify as self defense (especially if the military folks shot first, which we'll likely never know).
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If he's a member of a terrorist group, and with that group he got involved in an incident that lead to the deaths of two people (somehow I'm doubt whether a guard is going to "shoot first" at a terrorist group) then we should be looking into why we treated him as a refugee before, not why he's a criminal now. This has nothing to to do with ex post facto. Its quite possible that PKK/KONGRA-GEL is a group of justified freedom fighters that we ought to support against their Turkish oppressors, but that's a seperate question and since the US government doesn't believe that at this time they're doing what they ought be.
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Well his claim to asylum is based on his membership. Of course, renouncing his membership wouldn't make Turkey any happier with him and last I checked you couldn't just say you were sorry for a murder and then get off the hook. Basically, whether or not he is currently a member is irrelevant.
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I'm betting the only reason we're labeling the PKK a terrorist groups is to appease the Turks anyway, they are scared six ways from sunday that the Kurds in Northern Iraq will split off and form their own country.
If Bush really meant his freedom and libery spiel though, he'd be supporting the Kurds, the ones that, I might remind every, we abandoned back in the day and allowed Saddam to gas, after we promised to protect them and ENCOURAGED them to rebel against him.
I'd say we owe them one.
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I think it does matter; if he's not currently a member of a "terrorist organization", we lose a lot of our reasoning behind kicking him out.
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Guess those dirty americans had it coming when the british had to suppress that rebellion.
NFL, we of all people should know that "the good guys" is pretty much a matter of definition when it comes to state struggles. I mean, think about it. What the british were doing to the colonies was penny ante compared to what's happening in many countries, including Turkey at least in the past. Yet we maintain we were wholly justified in our rebellion, and perhaps we were.
Denying others the right to rebel in equal or worse situation (and rebellion includes shooting at soldiers on the other side) is problematic; unless we have reason to believe this particular guy shot someone, and probably it should be shot someone outside of the heat of battle, then we don't have much of a reason to keep him out.
But then again, you've already assumed that the terrorist classification is and has been correct; you're not even considering the chance that we were right in our assessment thereof when we made it.
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I'm not entirely sure why we would be appeasing the Turks, they refused to allow us use of their bases for the Iraqi invasion, almost jeopardizing it, and the Kurds are out best ally in Iraq. That said, if we are appeasing them we should stop, but no one has provided anything beyond conspiracies and conjecture to support the claim that that was our motivation in making PKK a terrorist group.
KQ, if Osama bin Laden comes to the US seeking asylum because Saudi Arabia is oppressing his would it matter if he quit Al-Queda when he tried to gain entry? Of course not, ex post facto doesn't mean that a criminal has to be actively committing crimes at the time of his/her arrest.
Look at the Israeli fight for independence from the UK. The Hagannah was the moderate group that engaged primarily in diplomacy while the Irgun and the Stern Gang have been labeled "terrorist groups." Personally, I think all three groups were justified in the actions that they took and I don't think the latter two should be labeled terrorists, but the point is there are multiple ways to fight for independence and the violent type is generally considered justified. I would be suprised if anyone on this board who supports Palestinian independence would claim to support suicide bombing as a legitimate way to achieve that. There's not enough information to argue whether or not Parlak is a terrorist or not, only whether on the assumption that his group qualifies as one that his arrest or deportation is justified.
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This not a ex post facto law, it's an ex post facto conviction, 14 years after the original trial and conviction
quote: There's not enough information to argue whether or not Parlak is a terrorist or not, only whether on the assumption that his group qualifies as one that his arrest or deportation is justified.
Nfl, this is wrong, although I thought so as well from the initial editorial I linked. He is being deported because of a March 2004 murder conviction, stemming from the 1988 skirmish for which he was already tried, convicted , imprisoned, tortured, and I think released. Where the defendant messed up is if he didn't list his felony conviction on his visa/asylum papers. The case will hinge on that, i think.
quote: Contrary to earlier reports, Parlak is not being held because of suspected terrorist ties but because he was convicted in Turkey of two murders, said Robin Baker, an ICE field agent. Those murder convictions, stemming from a 1988 firefight between Kurds and Turks in which two Turkish soldiers died, was just issued in March by the Turkish government, which notified ICE because Parlak had applied for naturalized citizenship here.
When he applied for asylum, Parlak omitted the fact that he'd been convicted in a Turkish court of an aggravated felony in that 1988 incident, Baker said.
Parlak is here illegally because noncitizens who have been convicted of serious crimes cannot become permanent residents, Baker said. Parlak maintains he never committed murder, but was captured, tortured and served two years in a Turkish jail for his Kurdish separatist activities.
"Those documents are totally falsified," Parlak said of the Turkish court papers from March 2004 reviewing his case and convicting him of murder.
ICE sent repeated letters to Turkey "to create something," and they were "falsely translated," Parlak told reporters. The original documents from 1988 made no mention of murder and only charged him with separatist activities, he said.
Under pressure from ICE, Turkish authorities "changed the language" to make it appear he had been convicted of murder, he said.
Parlak's supporters say ICE's scrutiny of Parlak stems from the fact that the Kurdish separatists he was once aligned with are now a group the U.S. considers a terrorist threat: the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
"That is not true," field agent Baker said. ICE had an independent translator read the Turkish court documents, he said. Baker also denied the case is a witch hunt for terrorists. Any ties Parlak had to PKK or any other group are "irrelevant," he said[Immigration and Customs Enforcement field agent Baker].
"The conviction documents show he committed two murders in Turkey," which is the reason he is being deported, Baker said.
ICE's pursuit of Parlak, who ran the Cafe Gulistan in downtown Kalamazoo until 2002 and has run another cafe by the same name in Harbert in Berrien County for 10 years, has nothing to do with 9-11 and is "not a product of the Patriot Act," Baker said.
Baker said Parlak's case came to light when he recently applied to be a naturalized citizen.
The fairness of the conviction also is irrelevant to the case, he said
Then when he applied for citizenship here, an investigation was started, and letters were exchanged between ICE and customs officials. He hadn't even been charged with murder, yet now ,14 years later (March 2004), he is charged and convicted in absentia by a Turkish military court that "reviewed" old court documents.
quote:He's also responsible for the deaths of two people. I'm pretty sure that was illegal before 9/11.
The Haganah ordered the bombing of the King David Hotel, with civilians inside. Not so much different.
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The murder conviction stems from his terrorist ties. Timothy McVeigh wasn't charged with blowing up a building with people in it, he was charged with the murders of hundreds of people.
quote: The Haganah ordered the bombing of the King David Hotel, with civilians inside. Not so much different.
That's factually incorrect and ignorant of the circumstances. The Irgun was responsible for the King David Hotel bombing. The Irgun was lead by Menachem Begin who later became the first right wing Prime Minister of Israel. The Haganah was lead by David Ben-Gurion who was the first Prime Minister of Israel. While the Irgun and Haganah cooperated through certain periods, most of the time the Haganah represented the official face to the world and steered clear of violent activity (which created a good deal of animosity between the two groups). The bombing itself only resulted in casualties because the British commander refused to allow anyone civilian or military to evacuate even after he was warned there was a bomb (and they were given plenty of time to do so). For more reading on this subject I recommend The Revolt by Begin.
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