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UK: A pledge of solidarity with Turkey's
prominent Kurdish rights activist 13.3.2010
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March
13, 2010
LONDON, — Delegates have pledged their
support for prominent Kurdish politician Leyla Zana
- facing imprisonment in Turkey for expressing her
views on the question of Kurdish independence.
Ms Zana, who became the first Kurdish woman elected
to the Turkish parliament in 1991, has already spent
10 years in prison for speaking Kurdish in the
Turkish parliament.
She now faces another 10 years imprisonment under
Turkey's anti-terror laws because of speeches,
including one made at London's Soas university in
May 2008.
UCU delegate and conference chairwoman Mary Davis
warned that Ms Zana was in immediate danger of being
locked up as her lawyer and the entire membership of
her pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party were
already in prison.
Moving the motion, she said: "There are now no
vehicles for the oppressed Kurdish population to
express themselves in Turkey's political structures.
"Ms Zana is not allowed out of Turkey and, without
her lawyer, she will be back in prison unless we
raise awareness about her case and pressure MPs and
MEPs to take action on her behalf."
Leyla Zana
was sentenced to 15 months in prison on July 28,
2009 for remarks upholding Kurdish PKK rebels
fighting the Turkish government. On
December 4, 2008
sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for praising PKK
Zana, who in 1995 won the European Parliament's
Sakharov human rights award, and several other Kurds
were elected to parliament in 1991,www.ekurd.netbut lost their
seats in 1994 after their party was outlawed for
links with the PKK.
Zana and three colleagues spent 10 years behind bars
for collaborating with the rebels. They were
released in June 2004.
Zana and her colleagues were first sentenced to 15
years in jail in 1994 for membership of the Turkey's outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has been
fighting a 26-year bloody campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in the country's southeast. |
Turkey's outspoken Kurdish rights advocate Leyla
Zana, Former Kurdish MP in Turkey Zana spent a
decade behind bars in Turkey for speaking Kurdish in
the Turkish Parliament after taking her
parliamentary oath. She was the first Kurdish woman
to be elected to Turkey's parliament. On Thursday
sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for praising PKK.
Leyla Zana on trial in Turkey (1994). |
The charges were brought two years after Zana, the
first Kurdish woman to be elected to Turkey's
parliament, caused an uproar by first taking the
oath in Turkish and then repeating in Kurdish to the
protest of other legislators.
In March 2003, Zana and her co-defendants were
allowed a retrial after their original conviction
was condemned as unfair by the European Court of
Human Rights in 2001.
Leyla Zana, the symbol of peaceful strife of the
Kurdish people, was
granted the Italian honorary
nationality in Rome on October 23, 2008.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency,
Morningstaronline co.uk | Agencies
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