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Turkish prosecutor wants charges against
Kurdish mayors reduced
12.3.2008
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March 12, 2008
ANKARA, Turkey, -- A state prosecutor asked a
Turkish court on Tuesday to reduce the charges
against 50 mayors who are being tried for allegedly
aiding and abetting a Kurdish 'terrorist' PKK group.
The prosecutor requested the lesser charge of
"praising a crime and criminal" and prison sentences
of two years, far less than the 15 years he had
demanded when the trial began last year in
Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's
Kurdish-dominated southeast.
The prosecutor, whose name was withheld by the media
to protect his security, also asked that all charges
be dropped against three other mayors being tried.
The 50 mayors still being prosecuted are accused of
supporting Turkey's Kurdish PKK rebels by asking
Denmark's government to keep a Kurdish ROJ
television station operating there.
The mayors, mostly from the pro-Kurdish Democratic
Society DTP Party, were indicted in 2006 after
writing a letter to Danish
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
asking him to keep the Roj TV station, which is
banned in Turkey, on air in Denmark.
Turkey argues the station is a propaganda machine
for the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or
PKK. Rebel commanders often joined the station's
broadcasts by satellite telephone from their
mountain hideouts in Kurdistan region in northern
Iraq,www.ekurd.net
and the station
broadcasts images of rebels training or attacking
Turkish soldiers.
The mayors have denied supporting the PKK rebels,
calling their letter to Denmark's government an act
of free speech.
It was not immediately clear what may have motivated
the prosecutor's decision to reduce the charges and
sentences he is seeking against the 50 mayors.
But the trial is seen as the latest test of freedom
of speech in Turkey, which has been under pressure
from the European Union to strengthen the rights of
its Kurdish minority and eliminate limits on free
speech.
Muharrem Elbey, a lawyer for one of the defendants,
Diyarbakir's Mayor Osman Baydemir, also told AP on
Tuesday that the prosecutor was reacting to strong
evidence presented by the defense.
Still, Elbey said, the mayors reject the lesser
charge because while the mayors supported a TV
station that broadcasts in Kurdish, they "never
praised its contents."
The court adjourned the trial until April 15.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Society Party faces
possible closure for alleged links to the PKK.
On Tuesday, the chief prosecutor's office gave
Turkey's High Court written arguments calling for
the party's closure on the ground that it has become
a "focal point for activities against the state's
independence and the territorial integrity of the
country."
No date has been set for that trial.
Scores of Danish mayors
have sent an open letter in support of their Kurdish
counterparts in the ongoing ROJ TV case. High-level
Danish politicians have rallied together in support
of 53 Kurdish mayors who risk up to 15 years
imprisonment for sending an open letter to Prime
Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen,www.ekurd.net
asking Denmark not to
shut down the controversial
Denmark-based Kurdish
station ROJ TV, reports
Nyhedsavisen newspaper.
In June 2006, Denmark’s premier
expressed shock
that 56 Kurdish mayors in Turkey were under
investigation for urging him to resist pressure from
Ankara to close down an allegedly pro-rebel Kurdish
TV station in the Scandinavian country. Fogh
Rasmussen told Danish public radio. “It is shocking
that this can take place in a country which is
seeking EU membership.”
Since 1984 the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. A
large Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise
with the Kurdish PKK rebels.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas, the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, ranting them full
political freedoms.
The PKK is considered a 'terrorist' organization by
the Ankara, U.S. and the EU.
Information for this report was provided by AP | AFP
| Copenhagen Post | Agencies
** 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 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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