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Turkey:
Fifty-six mayors risk jail in Turkey over letter to
Danish PM
20.6.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, June 20, 2006 (AFP) , -- Fifty-six
Kurdish mayors risk up to 10 years in jail for
signing a letter urging Denmark's Prime Minister to
ignore Turkey's calls to ban a Kurdish television
station with alleged links to terrorism, judicial
sources said Tuesday.
In an indictment filed with a court in Diyarbakir,
the central city of the mainly Kurdish southeast,
the prosecution charged that the December 27 letter
to Anders Fogh Rasmussen amounted to "knowingly and
willingly supporting" the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK).
Turkey says that Denmark-based Roj TV is a
mouthpiece of the PKK -- considered to be a
terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and
the United States -- and has long urged Copenhagen
to take it off the air.
The charge sheet says that Roj TV often hosts PKK
leaders, carries PKK statements inciting violence,
and follows a broadcasting policy "in line with PKK
propaganda."
It was not immediately clear when the trial will
start.
Among the 56 accused is Osman Baydemir, one of
Turkey's most popular Kurdish politicians and mayor
of Diyabakir.
The overwhelming majority of the mayors belong to
the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the main Kurdish
political movement in the country.
Kurdish politicians are routinely suspected by
Ankara of supporting the PKK and are often
prosecuted for alleged links to the group, which has
been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast
since 1984.
Two of the mayors, who belong to a small center-left
party, have disowned their signatures in the letter,
but the prosecution said they should still stand
trial.
The letter states that silencing Roj TV "would mean
the loss of an important vehicle in the struggle for
democracy and human rights" in Turkey.
The station has become a thorn in the side of
Turkish-Danish relations.
During a visit to Copenhagen last November, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan boycotted a
joint news conference with Rasmussen after the
latter rejected his request that a Roj TV reporter
be barred from entry.
Danish authorities said last year that Roj TV's
programming contained no incitement to hatred of
Turkey, and that there was no proof it was linked to
the PKK.
AFP
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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