Political reforms in Turkey and EU membership: honor killings and Kurdish language rights

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1276340 (Table of Contents)

Turkey became an official candidate for European Union (EU) membership in 1999. Between 1999-2004, Turkey passed seven harmonization packages to comply with the EU acquis and to abide by the Copenhagen criteria. This thesis explores the extent to which the harmonization laws are implemented in Turkey. The gap is analyzed by examining the closure of Kurdish private language courses and penalty reductions given to honor killings by using content analysis of the newspapers and pertinent Internet sites as methodology. The findings of the study reveal that there is a gap between law and implementation Turkey. The gap on sentence reductions upon provocation stems from a juridical convention between the judges. The juridical convention between the judges is similar to the general attitude towards honor in the society as the researches of various NGOs and academicians about how honor is perceived in Turkey indicate. The gap between law and implementation regarding the private Kurdish language courses stem from the state bureaucracy and the Kurdish nationalist stance towards education. During the study, it was observed that the state bureaucracy lingered the opening of the courses, which brought the course owners in an economically disadvantaged position. The Kurdish nationalists obstructed the process and caused the courses to close by politicizing the issue and refusing to provide economic funding to the courses.