Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Discrimination against Turkey's Kurdish community has been well documented during the years. There are approximately 20 million Kurds in Turkey but they have never been granted the same rights as ethnic Turks and are not even recognised as Kurds and are called mountain Turks.

The Tánaiste referred to the fact there is a hunger strike in the jails. There are some 700 prisoners on strike, some of them for 64 days at this stage. In the last year, there has been an escalation in attacks, including tear gas attacks, Kurdish rallies are no longer allowed and lawyers, mayors and members of parliament have been jailed. The situation appears to be escalating.

What the prisoners are looking for seems fairly reasonable and non-threatening, for example, the right to education, legal defence in their native Kurdish language and the start of direct peace talks to resolve the outstanding conflict by peaceful and constitutional means. These are issues with which I do not think anyone in this part of the world would have a difficulty. The difficulty many of us have is that, of the 479 cases that have been taken in recent years to the European Court of Justice on grounds of freedom of expression, 207 have originated from Turkey. The situation in the area seems to be getting worse and worse but, at the same time, Turkey is making an application to join the EU. While I welcome the fact the Tánaiste is talking about further progress in regard to the expression of non-violent ideas, there is a contradiction in that, on the one hand, they are looking to join the rest of us in Europe but, on the other, they do not seem to take on board the rights of minorities in their own country.

We are all familiar with our own history, not only in regard to the prisoners' struggle but also in regard to the attempt to wipe out the Irish language. The "bata scoir" or "tally stick" is all they are short of in regard to the Kurdish language, the denial of Kurdish education and so on. Something is radically wrong. We talk in terms of the EU becoming a global leader. It needs to speak out clearly in this regard. I am concerned by this escalation and the situation of the 700 prisoners, many of whom will probably die in the next couple of days, given the length of time they have been on hunger strike. Is there anything else we can do, as a country, to stop this oppression and support human rights? Is it possible to use the Turkish EU application in this regard?

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