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Trial starts of 56 Turkish mayors over
Kurdish TV
26.9.2006 |
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, September 26,-- Fifty-six Kurdish
mayors went on trial on Tuesday over a letter they
sent to Denmark's prime minister in a case that has
raised concerns in the European Union.
The mayors from Turkey's largest Kurdish party are
charged by state prosecutors with "knowingly and
willingly" helping Kurdish rebels when they urged
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen not to close
Danish-based Kurdish broadcaster Roj TV.
The members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP),
which champions Kurdish rights, face up to 15 years
in jail if convicted of the charges. Forty-five of
the mayors attended the court on Tuesday.
Ankara accused Roj TV of being a mouthpiece of the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which took
up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the
aim of carving out an ethnic homeland in the
southeast. |
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More than 30,000 people have been killed in that
conflict. The EU and the United States, as well as
Turkey, view the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
Rasmussen said in June that putting the mayors on
trial over the letter contravened the values of the
EU, which Turkey hopes to join.
Ankara, which began EU membership talks last
October, has been criticised by Brussels for its
slow pace of reform.
Turkey is under EU pressure to improve the cultural
rights of its ethnic minorities, especially the 12
million Kurds who until the 1990s were banned from
using their language in public.
Brussels has also called on Turkey to lower the 10
percent threshold of votes needed to enter
parliament in Ankara, which has prevented Kurdish
parties from winning seats.
The trial comes a week after Brussels and Turkey's
media called on the government to scrap a
controversial article of the penal code which has
allowed nationalist-minded prosecutors to take
intellectuals to court for allegedly insulting
Turkishness.
Reuters
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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