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Turkey arrests pro-Kurdish DTP party
leader Nurettin Demirtas
18.12.2007
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December
18, 2007
Ankara, -- A military court on Tuesday
remanded in custody the leader of Turkey’s main
pro-Kurdish DTP party over charges that a fake
health report enabled him to avoid military service,
his party said.
The ruling puts fresh pressure on the Democratic
Society Party (DTP), which is facing the prospect of
being closed down in a separate court case after
prosecutors charged it with ties to the Turkey's
outlawed Kurdish PKK guerrillas.
The court decision came after police detained DTP
leader Nurettin Demirtas, 35, on Monday night as he
disembarked from his plane in Ankara after flying in
from Germany.
"Our party has become a target... Those engaged in
politics should not have their path blocked," former
DTP leader Ahmet Turk told a news conference. |
Nurettin Demirtas, President of the pro-Kurdish DTP
party, the only Kurdish party in Turkey. |
Demirtas, who is not a member of parliament but was
elected head of the party last month, had been
abroad since Nov. 18 and his party said the decision
to detain and arrest him was unjustified.
‘The leader of an opposition party should not be
subject to this treatment. He must be released
immediately. In democratic terms it is
unacceptable,’ Osman Baydemir, DTP mayor in the
southeastern Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, told
reporters.
Demirtas’ arrest came as Turkish and Iraqi officials
said Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq
overnight in a small-scale raid against Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas, to whom prosecutors
say the DTP is linked.
The DTP has 20 members of parliament and
seeks autonomy
for mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey. The party
denies any links to the PKK, which is considered a
'terrorist organisation' by the United States, the
European Union and Turkey.
In November,
prosecutors launched a probe
into a pro-Kurdish DTP party after it demanded
autonomy for the Kurds living in the country's
southeast.
The prosecutor's office in Ankara said it will
examine the statements made during the congress of
the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party on Thursday
to determine whether they violate the law against
separatism.
Also in November, Turkish prosecutors started
legal action to ban
the main Kurd political DTP party in Turkey, which
has been accused of colluding with Turkey's Kurdish
PKK rebels.
CNN Turk television has said Demirtas was one of 183
people being tried on charges of using fake health
reports in order to avoid military service,
obligatory for all healthy Turkish men.
Prosecutors are seeking a 2-5 year prison sentence
for the DTP leader, who rejects the charge.
It was not clear when he had been scheduled to
perform his military service.
Reuters
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 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.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, a
large Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
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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