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Turkey: Five months imprisonment for
Kurdish petition
13.2.2008
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February 13, 2008
Publisher Mehdi Tanrikulu has been sentenced to five
months imprisonment for writing a petititon in
Kurdish and for speaking Kurdish in court. He will
appeal against the sentence.
The Istanbul 1st Criminal Court of Peace has
sentenced publisher Mehdi Tanrikulu of Tevn
Pulications to five months imprisonment because he
wrote a petition in Kurdish in which he complained
about a prosecutor in Diyarbakir, and because he
spoke Kurdish at his trial.
The court claims that Tanrikulu violated the Laws on
the Wearing of the Hat and the Alphabet Reform, laws
that have remained in place since Atatürk’s reforms.
The court said that the defendant had been “adamant”
about having Kurdish accepted by public
institutions.
Tanrikulu has announced that he would appeal against
the sentence.
"The so-called Kurdish
people..."
On 6 February, Tanrikulu joined the last hearing of
the case and made in his statement in Kurdish, using
an interpreter. He said in his defense, “I have the
right to express myself in my mothertongue; this
alphabet must also be accepted by official
institutions.”
Tanrikulu explained that Diyarbakir prosecutor
Muammer Özcan, whom he had filed a complaint
against,www.ekurd.net
had not been
investigated at all, but that he, Tanrikulu, had
been put on trial for writing the complaint in
Kurdish.
At an earlier hearing on 13 September 2007,
Tanrikulu had said, “I believe in the precedence of
law, but the nature of this trial is political.”
Tanrikulu pointed out that Özcan had used the
expression “the so-called Kurdish people” in his
indictment, which represented an injury. He added
that he would continue to speak his language.
The court cited Article 222 of the Turkish Penal
Code, which deals with violations of the “Hat
Wearing and Turkish Alphabet Acceptance and
Application Law.”
According to Article 39/5 of the Lausanne Agreeement
of 1923, “all Turkish citizens have the right to use
their own language when speaking in court.”
"Insistence on committing a crime"
The court also took into consideration a previous
twelve and a a half-year sentence for “PKK
membership” handed out by a Diyarbakir State
Security Court and argued that Tanrikulu was
insisting on committing a crime.
Tanrikulu has been acquitted of “spreading
propaganda of an illegal organisation” after
publishing a book by Zülfikar Tak detailing the
torture methods used in Diyarbakir prison. However,www.ekurd.net
he is still on trial at
the Istanbul 14th Heavy Penal Court for the
publication of the book “The Kurdish Freedom
Movement and the Role of the PKK in the Imperialist
Process of Capitalism.”
bianet org
**
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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