FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS
The Country Report also mentioned how ‘throughout the year, law enforcement
and the judiciary increased pressure on members of the pro-Kurdish DTP. The most
common tactic used was investigation and prosecution of DTP leaders for speaking
in the Kurdish language or making statements critical of the government’ (Ibid.).
The Country Report noted how a court in Ankara ‘sentenced DTP co-chairs Ahmet
Türk and Aysel Tuğluk to 18 month’s imprisonment for violating the Political Parties
Law by printing and delivering Kurdish-language handouts on the occasion of World
Women’s Day in March 2006’ (pp. 12-13). ‘On March 8, [2007] a Kars court ordered
police to seize Nevruz (Kurdish New Year) invitations and posters from DTP’s Kars
office because they used the letter ‘w,’ which occurs in Kurdish but not Turkish’ (p.
13). Less than two weeks later, ‘a Van heavy penal court sentenced Hakkari DTP
Mayor Metin Tekçe to 10 months in prison for ‘making propaganda on behalf of a
terror organization,’ for his comment in March 2007 . . . that the PKK was not a terrorist
organization’ (Ibid.).
The Country Report also stressed how on June 14, 2007 a Council of State court,
following a request from the Ministry of Interior, ‘decided to dissolve the Sur Municipality
of Diyarbakır and dismiss its mayor, Abdullah Demirbaş, after the municipality
attempted to institute a program to offer multilingual services to its citizens, 72
percent of whom the municipality stated spoke Kurdish as a first language’ (Ibid.). On
October 19, 2007, the Grand Chamber of the Council of State upheld this decision. In
addition, ‘prosecutors opened 15 cases against Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir
during the year, bringing the total number of cases against him to 24. . . . He faces
a total of 280 years’ imprisonment if convicted on all charges in the remaining 20
cases’ (Ibid.) The Country Report also noted how ‘the prosecution continued at year’s
end against DTP mayor of Batman Huseyin Kalkan for his remarks on the PKK and
Kurdish sentiments in the Los Angeles Times in May 2006’ (Ibid.). Furthermore, ‘on
February 14, 2007, an Ankara court sentenced 13 officials of the pro-Kurdish Hak-
Par for speaking Kurdish at, and distributing Kurdish-language invitations to, the
2004 party convention’ (Ibid.). In addition, ‘there was no new information available
regarding the appeal of the 2005 conviction of DEHAP [an earlier pro-Kurdish party
that merged with the DTP in 2005] official Ahmet Dağtekin for illegal speech for using
Kurdish language and symbolism during a 2004 campaign event’ (Ibid.).
Finally, it should be noted that just as this article was being finished news arrived that
Leyla Zana, one of the most prominent symbols of Turkish repression of Kurdish cultural
rights, again was sentenced to prison for her comments regarding the Kurdish
situation in Turkey. 49 The Turkish court ruled that she had violated the penal code
and the anti-terror law in nine different speeches by stating that Abdullah Öcalan
was one of three Kurdish leaders. Previously, of course, Zana, a former MP in the
Turkish Parliament, had served a lengthy ten-year prison term for earlier remarks
she had made about Kurdish rights. Her new prison term reminded one of what the
49 “Leyla Zana Sentenced to 10 Years,” Yeniden Ozgur Politka, December 6, 2008.
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