Sir, - Engin Asula writes (June 5th) that the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan declared on the first day of his trial on Imrali Island prison, where he is the only prisoner, that since his capture he was neither tortured nor subjected to any form of inhuman or rough treatment.
Are we to believe, then, that Mr Ocalan considers that his kidnapping in Kenya and the subsequent parading of him before the international media, bound, gagged and flanked by masked gunmen in front of the Turkish flag, was quite normal and humane?
Can we accept as true the words of a man who has spent three months alone in a Turkish jail on trial for his life, considering Turkey's disgraceful human rights record? The triumphalism at this man's arrest was not only an attempt to humiliate and degrade him, but to ridicule the Kurdish desire for fair play and self determination.
The cynical and selfish manipulation by Turkey of the families of Turkish soldiers killed in the war is also deplorable. For propaganda purposes they too are paraded before the media, housed and given Turkish flags to wave at the few foreign journalists permitted to report on the trial, while relatives of Kurdish victims of Turkish security forces are derided and attacked. - Yours, etc., Ahmet Ciya,
Bunratty Road, Coolock, Dublin 17.