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Turkey: Kurdish mayor jailed for
collaborating with rebel Kurds
20.3.2007
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March 20, 2007
DIYARBAKIR, Kurdish Southeastern region of
Turkey, -- A Turkish court on Monday sentenced a
senior Kurdish politician to more than seven years
in jail for collaborating with armed Kurdish rebels,
judicial officials said.
The court in Van, eastern Turkey, convicted Metin
Tekce, mayor of the mainly Kurdish city of Hakkari,
on charges of "being a member of a terrorist
organisation" and "spreading the propaganda of an
illegal organisation," the sources said.
The ruling was referring to the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by Ankara
over the bloody campaign for self-rule it has waged
in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast since
1984.
The case against Tekce was launched after he
maintained that the PKK was not a terrorist group
before a parliamentary commission investigating a
shady bombing in Hakkari's Semdinli town in November
2005.
He belongs to the country's main Kurdish political
movement, the Democratic Society Party, whose
members have increasingly become the target of
judicial action for links to the PKK in recent
weeks.
Tekce was not present at Monday's hearing in Van and
was said to be abroad. He can appeal the sentence.
More than 30,000 Turkish soldiers and PKK guerrillas
have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up
arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Under pressure from the European Union which it is
seeking to join, Turkey has in recent years
broadened Kurdish cultural freedoms. Kurdish
activists, however, say the reforms are inadequate
and have called on Ankara for a general amnesty for
PKK militants to encourage them to end their armed
struggle.
AFP
** 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 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.
Turkey is home to some 20 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of 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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