Kariane Westrheim was on her way to a conference on Kurdish women’s issues in Diyarbakir, Turkey. She was invited by the organisers of the conference as a speaker. Westrheim was also supposed to meet Leyla Zana, the 1994 Rafto Prize laureate, but the Turkish police stopped her at the airport in Istanbul this afternoon, 24 April.
Monitoring Turkey
Kariane Westrheim has been Chair of the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC), since its foundation in 2004. The Rafto Foundation is one of the founding organisations of the EUTCC. The EUTCC aims to monitor Turkish compliance with the EU accession criteria. Kariane Westrheim has participated in fact finding missions and has conducted field research in Kurdish areas.
Rafto Foundation reacts strongly to the detention
Executive Director of the Rafto Foundation, Therese Jebsen, has spoken to Kariane Westrheim on the phone and confirms that Westrheim is fine. 
“The Rafto Foundation strongly condemns the detention of Kariane Westrheim by the Turkish police”, Jebsen states.
“Kariane Westrheim has worked for the improvement of the human rights situation for the Kurds since 1994, when the Rafto Prize was awarded to Leyla Zana. Kariane Westrheim works for a democratic, peaceful and lasting solution to the Kurdish problem, and she believes that this can only be achieved through a dialogue between the parties concerned. The fact that she has been detained by the police for political reasons and is banned from entering Turkey again is a clear signal that Turkey has a long way to go. According to the EU accession criteria, new members must have achieved: “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities”, Therese Jebsen points out.
According to Rafto Foundation, Kariane Westrheim had to be sent back to Norway on 25 April.
Rafto Prize 1994 to Kurdish Leyla Zana
Kurdish parliamentarian Leyla Zana was awarded the Rafto Prize for Human Rights in 1994 
for her peaceful struggle for the human rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey and neighbouring countries. Leyla Zana won a seat in the Turkish Parliament in 1991, as the first Kurdish woman ever to be elected. Her decision to deliver the oath in Kurdish led to a 15 year sentence of which she served 10. She was released in 2004 due to huge international pressure.
Leyla Zana was sentenced to three years imprisonment by Diyarbakir Court in Turkey on 8 April 2010, reported the EUTCC.
Follow up work of the Rafto Prize laureates
The Rafto Foundation sees some parallels between the detention of Kariane Westrheim in Turkey and the arrest of Therese Jebsen in Vietnam in 2007. Jebsen was arrested by security police in Vietnam in March 2007 when she came to the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Saigon to meet Venerable Thich Quang Do, the 2006 Rafto Prize laureate. Jebsen was supposed to hand him the award certificate for the 2006 Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize for Human Rights. She was prevented from talking to Thich Quang Do.
The Vietnamese government refused to let Thich Quang Do travel to Bergen, Norway to receive the Rafto Prize in November 2006, and UBCV spokesman Vo Van Ai accepted the award on his behalf.
EUTCC – aim and background
EUTCC was established in order to monitor and conduct regular audits 
of the European Commission’s performance in ensuring Turkey’s full compliance with the accession criteria as defined within the meaning of the accession agreements. EUTCC was established by the Rafto Foundation (Norway), Kurdish Human Rights Project (United Kingdom) and Medico International (Germany) in 2004.
Since 2004, the EUTCC has held an annual conference in the European Parliament. The last conference on the topic “Turkey and the Kurdish conflict: Political Dialogue & Peace-building” was organised in February 2010.
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