A new wave of crackdown was launched on “trouble-makers” in Tehran, state-run dailies reported a senior police commander in the Iranian capital as saying on Wednesday.

Colonel Hamid Andarzchamani said that as of Monday, a 10-day plan was being run by police in Greater Tehran’s various districts to combat “dirty elements in society”. The plan has been code-named “Zafar (Victory) 2”.

“As part of this plan, open symbols of corruption and crimes will be rounded up”, Andarzchamani said, adding that under the original “Plan to Combat Corruption”, or “Zafar”, more than 250 operations were carried out in 50 restive locations.

The first “Plan to Combat Trouble-makers” was launched in Tehran in September and soon spread to cities and towns across the nation. Under the scheme, thousands were arrested within a period of several months on various charges such as “racketeering” and “loansharking”.

Iranian officials often refer to millions of unemployed young men, who are largely beset by frustration and despair, as “trouble-makers”.

November 29, 2005
The Washington Times
Tulin Daloglu

Tehran, IRAN -- No matter how often President Bush gets stern with Iran, the country's radical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hits back: "You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq, should be tried as war criminals in courts." But now, he is on the offensive against enemies of his regime. He's surrounded by American troops in Afghanistan and in Iraq, yet he shows no sign of toning down his hateful policies against the United States and Israel. It's not clear if he's trying to provoke the United States, but the "liberated" Iraq seems to be creating some strange bedfellows.

In Tehran last week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said, "I reiterate that the accusation of an Iranian interference in Iraq's affairs is repudiated, for Iran does not need to meddle in Iraq." Mr. Talabani's statement can only be interpreted as an assertion that Iraq is beginning to look like an Anschluss. It's crucial that the United States understands, when talking about progress in Iraq or withdrawing troops, that Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria are not separated by oceans. They are all part of the same puzzle, and what happens in one directly affects another.

During the early stages of the Iraq war, I had a conversation with a U.S. official who told me that the invasion was also payback for the 1979 Iranian revolution and hostage crisis. But when you travel in the region, the only real sentiment among the people is that the United States is losing the war in Iraq, and the real winner is Iran. After all, the United States cleared the Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from Iraq — both enemies of the Iranian regime.

If U.S. troops leave Iraq early, it would be tragic to think that American men and women have died to strengthen the Iranian regime. That is why there is no other choice but victory in Iraq and finding a way to deal with Iran without a direct military confrontation. Whatever Mr. Talabani says, the United States is already fighting Iran in Iraqi territory.

On the nuclear front, the recent decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency to postpone referring Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council is a sign that the world body is still in control. Iran isn't bluffing when it reasons that it should have the right to have nuclear capabilities since Israel does. No one argues against Iran having nuclear power for energy, but the worry that such a program could be used to build weapons makes Russia's proposal a savior. In Tehran, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov tried to persuade the Iranian regime that the uranium should be enriched in Russia. Although the negotiations are not finalized, here are some suggestions to ensure success while dealing with Iran.

First: Sanctions don't work. When people suffer, their good feelings toward America fade. More than half of the 75 million people in Iran are under age 30, and the economy faces both underemployment and unemployment. It would be far more fruitful to lift the embargo and bring full-scale globalization to Iran. This new generation does not remember that the United States sided with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. But if sanctions are imposed, it's all anyone will remember.

Second: While trying to establish an Iranian opposition when the regime falls, make sure that it is composed of Iranians who actually live in Iran.

Third: Try to keep the IAEA inspectors in the country.

Fourth: Don't get too dependent on local intelligence. Remember Ahmad Chalabi. People in the region have their own special interests which may be different than U.S. interests. Don't export the security of the country to someone else.

Fifth: Remember that from Turkey to Iran, people feel the pressure of religious and ethnic differences. The general assumption is that America is trying to weaken the Shi'ite identity so that it can bolster the ethnic differences which are Iran's biggest weakness, topple the regime and divide the country.

Sixth: Start getting the benefit of Turkey, the only NATO country in the group. Turks worry separately that the United States is not taking action against the PKK because it is either trying to use the PKK as a proxy army or it is trying to create an independent Kurdistan. Turks also believe that their security depends on Iran. If Iran falls, there will be no way to prevent the creation of an independent Kurdistan with land from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria — and many more casualties.

Finally: Start strengthening the strategic partnership with Turkey to get it involved and make Turks feel responsible for the future of the region. While these suggestions could be multiplied, the United States needs to decide what and how it wants to deal with the Iranian regime, and Congress should hold hearings.

Withdrawal is not an option, because if it happens before Iraq is stable, anything and everything that goes wrong in the region would be blamed on the United States. And no one can guarantee that there won't be another September 11, or worse.

Tulin Daloglu is the Washington correspondent and columnist for Turkey's Star TV and newspaper. A former BBC reporter, she writes occasionally for The Washington Times.
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20051128-091730-7071r.htm

Iran’s Islamic judiciary cut off the right hand and the left foot of a prisoner in the volatile town of Ahwaz, southwest Iran, state-run dailies reported Tuesday.

The individual was identified only as Adel A. and had been charged with armed robbery. An Islamic court in the town of Mahshahr handed down the sentence of amputation of Adel’s right hand and left foot in public.

Iran’s State Supreme Court upheld the sentence, which was carried out inside Karoon Prison in Ahwaz.

Iran’s hard-line judiciary often label anti-government activists as regular criminals.

Ahwaz, the capital of the Arab-dominated province of Khuzestan, has been a hotbed of unremitting anti-government protests since the start of the year.

Dozens of people were reportedly killed in week-long clashes between mainly ethnic Arab protesters and security forces in Ahwaz and several other cities in Khuzistan province in April.

Tehran has accused Britain and Canada of involvement in a series of bombings in the province prior to Iran’s presidential elections in June.

The strategic area holds much of Iran’s oilfields.

Iran’s Islamic penal system regularly practices centuries-old sentences for petty crimes, such as amputation of limbs, eye gouging, stoning to death, and throwing prisoners off a cliff in a sac.

Iran Focus

ILNA, the regime-run news agency reported: “Those who do not observe the rules of Islamic veiling and proper hijab, insult social propriety and scowl at the order will be sentenced to pay a cash penalty.”
In a meeting of the Special Crimes Squad in Western Azerbaijan the squad commander said: “First timers will have to give a signed affidavit certifying that they will not repeat their crime; repeat offenders however will be severely dealt with.”

Three Iranian members of a banned Kurdish group have received long prison sentences for membership of a counter-revolutionary organisation and acting against the Islamic regime, press reports said, according to AFP.
The reports said Iran's Supreme Court upheld sentences of between 15 and 20 years handed down by a court in Mahabad, an historic centre of Kurdish nationalism, to Reza Amini, Halmet Azarpour and Abdollah Mohammadi, AFP noted.
The three were members of the outlawed Iranian Kurdistan Democratic Party, the reports said. No further details were given.
Several major clashes around Mahabad were reported in July following the police shooting of a suspect. More unrest was reported this month, AFP added.

Iranian officials have confirmed that a fire that burnt down a para-military Bassij display in the Iranian capital was a pre-meditated arson attack, state-run dailies reported on Monday.

The fire set ablaze a Bassij street-show in Tehran’s Khavaran district late Friday evening.

The Bassij, Islamist radicals loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are an offshoot of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

November 28, 2005
Telegraph
Lillian Swift

Iran is fighting a constant battle against dissenters who are using the internet to voice criticism of the Islamic Republic and to push for freedom and democracy. With the closure of most independent newspapers and magazines in Iran, blogging - publishing an online diary - has become a powerful tool in the dissidents' arsenal by providing individuals with a public voice.
An Iranian blogger known as Saena, wrote recently: "Weblogs are one weapon that even the Islamic Republic cannot beat."
There are an estimated 100,000 active blogs written by Iranians both within the country and across the diaspora. Persian ties with French as the second most common blogging language after English.
Over the last year, however, Iranian authorities have arrested and beaten dozens of bloggers, charged with crimes such as espionage and insulting leaders of the Islamic Republic. Among them is Omid Sheikhan, who last month was sentenced to one year in prison and 124 lashes of the whip for writing a blog that featured satirical cartoons of Iranian politicians.

The press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders last week named Iran as one of 15 countries who were "enemies of the internet".

"These new measures point to an ideological hardening in the Iranian government and a desire by the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to centralise authority," its report said.

There is no legislation against blogging itself but the writers can be charged by authorities in the hardline theocracy with "morality violations" for the content of their websites.

Nevertheless, Iranians are increasingly turning to blogs and those who can publish their words in English hope they will reach a wider international audience and alert them to the problems facing free-thinkers within Iran.

The blogs offer everything from reprinting articles published in the international press about Iranian issues to views on the president's recent call for the destruction of the state of Israel and Iran's attempts to become a nuclear power. Some writers use the platform as an opportunity to voice opinions that would not be tolerated in the national press.

In one entry yesterday a blogger calling himself Persian Dissident wrote: "How long can this go on? His [President Ahmadinejad] ministers are terrorists, political prisoners are in jail, political in-fighting is clearly visible."

But the Iranian authorities are fighting a losing battle to crush these new outlets of dissent. As fast as one perpetrator is tracked down and closed, another rises in its place and takes up the cause.

The authorities have reportedly spent millions on programmes designed to filter cyberspace and block access to controversial sites, with names such as "regime change Iran", "free thoughts on Iran" and "women against fundamentalism".

As part of the most recent clampdown, reported in the reformist newspaper Shargh, Iran's Telecom company has ordered all service providers to block access to blogrolling.com, a free service enabling users to track their favourite weblogs and be informed when they are updated.

In one of the 1,500 internet cafes in Teheran, a technician bemoaned the loss of an important tool but was still able to access a blocked site within five minutes.

"There are ways around it but it is getting harder and it is very annoying," he said. "It is possible to trick the authorities into believing that we are not in Teheran but somewhere else".

Iran set on Sunday new terms for the resumption of talks with the European Union over its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi, speaking during his weekly press conference, said that the issue for discussion during a meeting in December must focus on “the creation of nuclear fuel on Iranian soil”.

Asefi said that the Iran-EU dialogue had to be carried out in the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said, “Another condition for these negotiations is they must not create any special rules for Iran and must not act in a discriminatory way”.

The third condition was that the subject of the talks had to be clear. He clarified that Tehran believed that the subject of the discussion had to be the creation of nuclear fuel inside Iran.

Asefi also said that there had to be a clear timeframe to the talks so that opportunities for Iran were not “spoiled”.

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 27 – Several anti-government student protests erupted in the Iranian capital on Sunday in response to an increasingly harsher government crackdown on campus activists.

Students at the University of Tehran refused to attend classes in the morning and gathered outside the campus library to demonstrate against the appointment of a cleric as the new chief of the university. Ayatollah Amid Zanjani, a notorious religious prosecutor in the 1980s, was installed on Sunday as the new university chancellor. His predecessor, an academic, expressed surprise at “the unprecedented haste over the transition”.

The students chanted, “Appointed head, resign now!” and “Even if we students die, we will not accept humiliation”.

As protests got heated several students pushed the ayatollah and threw his turban off his head.

Iran’s Education Minister Mohammad-Mehdi Zahedi told state television that Zanjani’s appointment was carried out in the framework of the law and under the provisions he had as minister.

Meanwhile, in Amir Kabir University, some 2,000 students rallied against the recent increased government security protocols being run on campus.

Several students who took over the university podium and addressed fellow demonstrators blamed the government for tightening their controls on student actions, and said that on campus security offices had been set up.

Demonstrators also called for an end to indiscriminately suspensions being issued to vocal anti-government students.

Separately, a protest was held by students outside the Economics Department of Allameh Tabatabai University, but was quickly forced back by State Security Forces who prevented demonstrators to move into the main university gates.

There were chants of “They don’t let students into the university” by protestors.

PKK

NEWSDESK, Nov 27 (DozaMe.org) - 527 Kurdish human shield from the activist group 'Peace and Freedom Brigades' declared on Sunday that all their calls to the Turkish state have been unanswered and the activists have now decided to join the ranks of the Kurdish HPG guerrillas.
The decision was taken collectively by the activists on Saturday. Serdar Mete, talking on behalf of the activists declared on Sunday that all 527 activists will now be joining the HPG.

"We tried to struggle in every democratic way in Turkey. But we were met with repression every single time. As a result of that, we decided to come to the Medya Defense Zones. Here, we were met with an open and democratic attitude and we could continue our struggle. All our requests were evaluated by the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation and we got positive feedback. But the Turkish state, on the other side, never answered us. To the contrary, day by day they increased their military operations, their repression of the Kurdish people and the isolation of the Kurdish national leader Abdullah Ocalan. Because of this, our struggle has reached a different level. As Kurdish youth, we once again saw that the Kurdish liberation movement is conducting a justified and legitimate struggle for their people. Therefore, we will continue our struggle as HPG guerrillas until our requests will be answered by the Turkish state." Mete said.
Mete also called to all Kurdish youth to join the ranks of the HPG and together struggle for freedom.
The chairman of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation's (KDC) executive council, Murat Karayilan, held a speech, praising the bravery and the initiative of the young Kurdish activists of the 'Peace and Freedom Brigades'.
"PKK has during 27 years of struggle brought a people from its death bed to this stage. If youth from a society that was about to die has created something like the Peace and Freedom Brigades, that is a proof of how much change PKK has created in Kurdistan. On behalf of the KDC, I congratulate our friends from the Peace and Freedom Brigades for their very valuable, holy and historic step," Karayilan said.
The human shields have been in the Medya Defense Zones (MDZ) since August 10 this year. A majority of the human shields have been struggling since the beginning of the Turkish military operations in 2004, touring war zones in northern Kurdistan (southeastern Turkey) and calling to both sides to declare a cease fire and start a dialog. Every camp they set up in the war zones were raided by Turkish soldiers and they were taken to military bases and many of them were subjected to torture for 'sympathizing with terrorists'.
The Medya Defense Zones are areas declared as 'liberated' by the HPG. The size of the MDZ is approximately the size of Holland according to estimates made in 2003.
The number of recruits joining the ranks of HPG in 2005 is now over 1,700.

A fairly strong earthquake shook parts of southern Iran and the Iranian island of Qeshm Sunday afternoon, leaving at least 200 people injured.

The earthquake has measured 6.1 on the Richter scale.

The southern port town of Bandar Abbas was also shaken by the quake.

State media has reported that at least five people have been killed and five villages were 90 percent destroyed.

URGENT ACTION
Iran: Death penalty/imminent execution: Karim Fahimi, also known as Karim Shalo (m).
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 13/069/2005
14 November 2005
UA 289/05 Death penalty/imminent execution

IRAN Karim Fahimi, also known as Karim Shalo (m)

Karim Fahimi was sentenced to death in June. The sentence has now been upheld
by the Supreme Court, and he could be executed at any time.
Karim Fahimi, a Kurd, who is married with two young children, was reportedly
sentenced to death for drinking alcohol, by a court in the city of Sardasht,
western Iran. It was at least the third time he had been convicted of the
offence: under article 174 of the Iranian Penal Code, the penalty for consuming
any intoxicant is 100 lashes; under article 179, this penalty may be handed
down twice, but a third conviction carries the death penalty.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases as the ultimate
cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, in violation of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The organization has recorded 72 executions in
Iran so far this year, although the true figure may be much higher.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE130692005?open&of=ENG-2D2

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 26 – Lebanon’s Hezbollah group learnt suicide operation tactics from Iran, a senior officer of the Revolutionary Guards boasted.

Mohammad-Ali Samadi, the spokesman for a government-orchestrated campaign to recruit suicide bombers said that Iran first developed the tactic during its eight-year war with Iraq, which left over a million people dead.

Samadi’s organisation, the Headquarters to Commemorate the Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, is run by the IRGC in an effort to recruit potential suicide bombers. At a recent rally in the city of Shahroud, north-eastern Iran, it claimed to have signed up 1,000 volunteers for suicide attacks against the West and Israel.

The former regime of Saddam Hussein, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia disseminated negative propaganda against suicide operations to keep them apart from Palestinian culture, Samadi said.

“Lebanese Hezbollah used its ties with Iran to adopt the Iranian model and utilised it successfully with light guns and light-weight short-range rockets”, the senior IRGC officer said.

In October, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and threatened the leaders of Muslim countries that developed ties with the Jewish state.

Earlier this month, Samadi told a state-run news agency that 50,000 people had enlisted for martyrdom-seeking operations throughout the country and were willing to attack targets on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The group’s organisers previously said that their targets were three-fold; U.S.-led forces in Iraq, Jews in Israel, and Salman Rushdie, who still has a fatwa against him issue by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

TEHERAN – AFP- Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defiantly brushed off Western concerns about its nuclear program, in a feisty speech on Saturday marking the 25th anniversary of a revolutionary militia.

In remarks aimed at countries “which are suspicious of Iran’s nuclear activities,” Ahmadinejad demanded: “Who has given you the right to prevent Iran from acquiring the nuclear technology?”

Ahmadinejad was speaking to thousands of the voluntary Basij militia on the 25th anniversary of the corps created by Islamic revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to defend the country during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq.

“You have no rights to ask questions” about Iran’s nuclear activities, he thundered.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad also pointed an accusing finger at ”the ones in Iran who ask us to compromise and make concessions”.

“The Iranian nation has crushed them under their feet and will defend its nuclear rights with wisdom, power and unity,” he said.

Iran’s conservative government appointed a senior cleric with no academic experience as the head of Tehran University, a state-run news agency reported on Saturday.

The inauguration of Ayatollah Amid Zanjani is set to take place on campus during a ceremony on Sunday.

During the early days of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Zanjani, an ally of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, headed the komiteh in Tehran’s eastern Jaleh and Farah-Abad districts. The Komitehs were local police stations that also served as prosecution chambers. They achieved much notoriety as the power base of radical Islamist vigilantes who imposed rigorous religious laws on the population.

Under new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s social institutions such as school, universities, and hospitals have been experiencing renewed political and social crackdown.

Khamnei’s newspaper, in it’s Thursday issue, attacked Blair for his comments on Tuesday and said: “Despite his own confessions, it is bizarre that the Prime Minister of England is incapable of comprehending the very obvious fact that he cannot just change the regime from within Iran, just because he feels like it. It become more clear to us that westerners reason like cows. Britain’s Prime Minister admitted in front of the parliamentary commission of his own country that there are no means to overthrow the Islamic regime and that he must use military force. He has accused our regime of not cooperating with the IAEA, supporting and financing terrorism and meddling in Iraq; he has also specified that Iran is a powerful country which owns a great deal of the world’s energy resources and that if it ends up with nuclear arms, the world’s peace will be threatened. Blair’s confessions clearly show that the Islamic regime cannot be made to surrender and his claims that the regime meddles in Iraq only means that we (the Islamic regime) have managed to conquer the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. And instead of accusing us of supporting terrorism, he really ought to be saying that we support liberation movements. Where Blair is concerned we don’t need to say much as the people of England already call him ‘Bush’s Bitch’. He’s in dreamland!“

http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/008892.html

The University Students Academic Assembly of of Amir Kabir industrial university issued a statement protesting the separation of genders, the summoning of students to disciplinary committees, assemblage of the leadership’s commands and security forces as well as the possibility of expulsion and compulsory discharge.

The statement indicates that guards at the university gates menacingly scrutinize the female students attire and groups of students are regularly summoned to the correctional committees. The regime has begun assigning guards to universities and dorms; the guards will be under direct order from the ministry of information and security (MOIS).

AFTAB, the regime-run site, based on distressing statistics compiled by the medical school of Luristan, reported that in the last year 300 cases of self-immolation has occurred in this province; the number of such cases has doubled from 107 in 2002 to 300, this year. The director of the medical school said that self-immolation has turned into a painful social catastrophe and dilemma in this specific province.

There has been a systematic campaign, organised by the Turkish authorities, to compel European countries (particularly Denmark) to prevent free and democratic Kurdish broadcasting. Their aim is to close down the independent Kurdish Satellite channel, ROJ TV. These attempts coincide with the European Union's efforts to promote democratic reform and free broadcasting in Turkey. We, the undersigned, condemn the Turkish Government's anti democratic campaign. We urge the Danish Government and European Union member states to resist Turkish pressure and protect free speech in Europe and Turkey.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has appointed a fellow conservative as the new spokesman of his government, according to the state-run Fars news agency.

Gholam-Hossein Elham, the former spokesman of the ultra-conservative Guardians Council – the country’s highest vetting organ – was selected for the prestigious post following his recent appointment to the Office of the President.

The 12-man Guardian Council is made up of six Shiite clerics and six lay legal experts. It has veto power over all legislation and rigorously vets candidates in all national elections.

Earlier this month, Elham received the key post of Chief of Staff of President Ahmadinejad.

Iran’s previous government spokesman under the administration of President Mohammad Khatami, Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, is facing court action on corruption charges.

Iran Focus

“Based on the teachings of pure Islam and without any moderate posturing, we must oppose deviant currents in this arena and fight off the aggressors in Islamic lands following the teachings of the Quran. Of course, we are ready to carry out the orders of the Supreme Leader as a priority”.

Turkish security forces arrested 19 members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), including one woman, in four separate operations in Istanbul, the largestcity of Turkey, an official press release said on Thursday.

The press release issued by the Istanbul Police's Anti-Terror Department said an operation was carried out in Istanbul after the police received information on illegal weapon possession and selling.

In cooperation with the Intelligence Department, Anti-Terrorunits arrested two PKK members charged with illegal marketing of hand guns.

Police officers seized 34 hand guns, 53 cartridges and 150 bullets in homes and offices of the two PKK members. In a separate operation on Nov. 14, Istanbul police arrested one PKK member with five electrical fuses.

In another operation on Nov. 16, Istanbul police arrested four PKK Members and found two Iraqi made hand guns.

In addition, in an illegal demonstration at Istanbul's Kucukcekmece district, police forces arrested 12 PKK members who carried five Molotov cocktails.

Turkey has been fighting against a resurging violence as the PKK intensified landmine and remote-controlled bombing attacks in the country over the past few months.

At least 200 Turkish soldiers have been reportedly killed in clashes with PKK members this year.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since the rebel group took up arms against the government for an independent Kurdish state in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey in 1984.

The Turkish state presented to the Danish government documents filled with what the Turkish state calls "proof" that the Kurdish satellite TV-channel Roj TV is run by the PKK. Among their most important "proofs": That Roj TV plays the Kurdish national anthem 'Ey Reqib' during opening and closing.

Among what they call "proofs" are that Roj TV is airing programs that also the first Kurdish satellite TV-channel MED-TV was airing. MED-TV was closed down by the British government after a request from Turkey. Among the Turkish state's "proof" are that Roj TV's program in the Kurmanci dialect of Kurdish is called 'Nuce', just like the news program in MED-TV was called. 'Nuce' simply means 'News' in Kurmanci. The same argument was given for the news program in the Sorani dialect which is called 'Dengubas'. 'Dengubas' means 'News' in Sorani.

The Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan had boycotted a press conference which he was to hold with the Danish PM Rasmussen, because the conference was attended by a reporter from Roj TV. Rasmussen rebuffed Turkey's request to kick out the Kurdish reporter by saying that there was freedom of the media in Denmark and EU.

Denmark's official stance is that Turkey's allegations against the Kurdish satellite TV-channel Roj TV are baseless.

A group of Kurdish students were attacked by Turkish nationalists in the Selimiye Dormitory in Edirne in Turkey because they were speaking Kurdish with each other.

Employees at the dormitory did not interfere when the Kurdish students were attacked, witnesses report. The Turkish nationalists also threatened the Kurdish students that the nationa