Talk:Abdullah Öcalan

Page move

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved:

Abdullah Öcalan to merge with PKK

The Abdullah Öcalan article is a summary of PKK. Abdullah Öcalan should be a redirect to PKK and info in Abdullah Öcalan should be merged with PKK, as neither article is complete without the other.

• FOR --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 17:14, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• OPPOSE First, sign your comments...otherwise your request is useless and will be ignored. Second, if Öcalan is a notable figure (which he appears to be) he should have his own biographical article...one better written than this. —ExplorerCDT 16:31, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose - Öcalan and the PKK are both notable enough to deserve entries. No value in combining them into a single entry. Guettarda 16:38, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Both notable in their own right, separate articles make sense. -- Curps 18:32, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Opppose. Separate topics, each notable. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:34, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Also, I'm not sure this request even belongs here. This project is for moving pages, not deleting them. Jonathunder 19:12, 2005 Feb 25 (UTC)
• Oppose - Sometimes one just wants the biography. If they want the PKK story it can be reached from here, and vice-versa. Öcalan is important in his own right. Juanita 03:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Move

This article is very closely related to PKK. Removing PKK from the mans life leaves you not much. SO the material is basicaly, his non PKK years till he lauched the organisation + summary of PKK --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 17:00, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

External links

Can anyone explain to me why we have the last two external links on this article? The websites are of course completley POV, but we link to such sites on some articles. But the presentation of them at the moment looks very POV to me as well. There was no explanation at all, just a warning that the links have some disturbing images. Now it reads "These images are a result of what PKK did.", which also sounds pretty POV and indicates that the links rather belong to Kurdistan Workers Party than to this article. I got reverted with the simple comment "good page.", which is IMHO not a very sufficient explanation, so I'd like to get a more detailed one here. --Conti|✉ 13:39, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

The links definitely belong to PKK page. Also, in encyclopedia people expect insight on conflict background more than pictures of mutilated bodies. Pavel Vozenilek 21:08, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

POV edits

To have a headline that read "Websites establishing Abdullah Öcalan as a terrorist" above the links to websites that is opposing Öcalan, PKK and the rights of the Kurds, is of course not neutral. To make it fair to both sides I would have to change the "Websites supporting Abdullah Öcalan" into something like: "Websites establishing Abdullah Öcalan as a freedom fighter". Supporting/opposing should be enough though. Also, why did you move the picture? Stereotek 17:58, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you read the context that picture belongs where it is, it was his capture, and the text talks about it. Opposing is not sufficient. There isnt an "opposition". When a country declares someone/some organisation as terrorist, they are at a state of war with them. US does not allow any activity of this organisation, in EU their activities are at best highly limmited. The websites do establish him as a terroist, Its the content of the website. What kind of a POV are you talking about? Your change is acceptable, I prefer you dont revert but instead improvise/rewrite. I dont want to do all the work :P --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 18:19, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why did you delete this?: "Influenced by the situation of the Kurdish people, who were denied the right to live accoring to their own identity by the Turkish state" Stereotek 19:25, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Err? Thats POV. The claim of Kurds being opressed is POV. Kurds being not opressed is still POV. No need to mention POV, "right to live accoring to their own identity" what were they not allowed? Were people arested for talking in Kurdish? No. Were people denied the right to vote? No. Where people denied the right to be elected? No. Were they relocated before PKK's rise? No. Just what were they denied? Their lives are as restricted as any other minority/majority --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 11:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That the Kurds and their identity/culture was/are being oppressed by the Turkish state, is a fact and not a matter POV. Maybe they didn't arrest them just for speaking kurdish, but what if they wanted to start a Kurdish language TV Channel? A news paper? And what about something as simple as Kurdish names. Where the Kurds free to give their children Kurdish names? Stereotek 15:52, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh now you determine facts. No sir that is POV, HEAVY POV. Kurds had TV stations. Most notably, Med TV, was shut after its clear affiliation with PKK, organisation serviced from Europe and some Kurds had it via satelite. After that they created two other stations, thats all Kurdish TV was. This came about after PKK. Same deal with newspapers. They had shows on such stations in Kurdish (what dialect I dont know)/Turkish/ and English. Kurdish names are NOT banned. Kurdish names are not banned either, foreign words like John, George, Newton, Albert, are not allowed, same in the U.S., when Turkish constitution was drafted Kurds were not a sizable minority. The famous "Kurdish" rebellions were based on religion not ethnicity. If Kurds brought the mater to the parliment before grabing arms I dont think this would be a big issue. Also Kurdish seperatists use "Kurdish" as a Nationality, you can have one nationality (unless dual), so this caused major problems. This is explained in the article I gave you on Kurdish people. --Cool Cat ^{My Talk} 08:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Try to read this: [1]. It points out much of the racist discrimination that the Turkish state has been and are exposing the Kurds to. Stereotek 12:08, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Did minor edits in order to make the article NPOV. Again, too many anti-apo links, and not enough pro-apo ones. This is done on purpose to push a POV. There needs to be an even number of links. I will provide more when I get the time.

- Kassem 12:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that there have been several edits on this page yesterday (September 1st 2005) from the same IP address pointing to one specific web site. As the site in question is in Turkish then I am unable to verify its claims, however, the phrase:

Abdullah Ocalan suffers from paranoid schizophrenia most probably, a mental disease which Hitler posseses. The ilnesss is characterised by a charismatric leader which leads millions of people for nothing. A summary can be read at http://www.pkkgercegi.net/

Appears to be somewhat POV (introducing Hitler to illustrate a point is often a bad thing). Also, I can find no other references to Abdullah Öcalan having Paranoid Schizophrenia anywhere else on the net, so I have removed the above paragraph. The description of the website "A site in Turkish which aims to tell the world PKK terror that took the life of 30.000 people" also sounds a little POV, so I have changed that too. Oh, and as it appears to be anti-PKK, then it should live in the "Websites with criticism of Abdullah Öcalan" section rather the the "Media" section. Just thought I should explain my changes to avoid annoying anyone as I am a relative newcomer to wiki, and am lothe to dabble in the political pages for that very reason. - Tuxhead 09:46, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Again, I don't want to offend anyone, so I am explaining my actions here. I am removing "Abdullah Ocalan himself clamis to be Kurdish but he cannot talk Kurdish himself." because it implies that Abdullah Ocalan canot speak Kurdish at all, where as this article : http://www.meforum.org/article/399 from June 1998 states that " In the first meeting, Öcalan spoke in Kurmanji Kurdish, a language I was told he had recently learned to speak much better; the second day, he spoke in Turkish". Which, if it is true, implies that he can speak at least some Kurdish. tuxhead 13:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I am going to revert the last couple of changes by the anonymous user at: 85.103.61.67 because I think that there is some POV creeping in. I notice that a previous change on this persons introduced the term "baby killer", which (with a little wriggling) could be aimed at any number of politicians, so is probably not helpfull. It would be useful if the user concerned were to clearly and dispassionatly lay out reasons for his changes, which appear to me to be somewhat one-sided, in these discussion pages. tuxhead 10:34, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Have reverted the 30,000 killed comment back from "30,000 Turkish Civilians" to "30,000 people". According to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4543283.stm, "More than 30,000 people died in that conflict. Many were civilians, squeezed between PKK militants and government forces.". 'People' more concise, we could put "many were civilians", but would this not be superfluous? tuxhead 10:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I just want to make some comments on a phrase that I read on this page, which refers to the terrorist as a "freedom fighter".Well for those who may not have sufficient information, I think for somebody to have a title like "freedom fighter" he/she or the community that he/she belongs have to be slaves or something like that. But in Turkey the Kurdish people even have their right to be elected and represented in the parliament.About 10 years ago the president of the parliament was kurdish himself.So the question is what are they really after it is not freedom, what they really want is to have a country of their own by taking pieces of land from Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Well I do not know about the others but it is impossible to take a cm square from Turkey. I understand the fact that the area that they are living in Turkey is not the best in terms of schooling, hospitals etc. but it is not only the kurds that have those problems there are also turkish people having the same problems in other parts of the country.But no one is getting armed and killing people for their so called freedom and having a so called "freedom fighter" like this terrorist.

Ejder Ersoy 28/11/2005 Izmir/Turkey

Contradictory

In the beginning it says that Öcalan was born in 1948; scroll down and it says 1949. The other Wikipedias are somewhat split between April 4, 1948 and April 4, 1949. Which is correct? Punkmorten 16:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

• • CNN.com says 1948. Id say thats legit.--Pal5017 18:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

contradictory

on the current situation section it says that Öcalan is seeking a peacefu solution inside the borders of Turkey but right after that states a document(!) called Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan about a Kurdish confederation between some zones in Iran turkey and Syria.--Hattusili 10:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Umm...I read that and its surely not contradictory. Hes using peaceful means to create a Kurdish state. Thats what the document is. --Pal5017 15:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)