|
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AFP)–Leading
Kurdish activist Leyla Zana was sentenced to 15 months in prison
Tuesday for remarks upholding the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
and its struggle for social justice for Turkey’s oppressed
Kurdish population, judicial sources said.
The court in Diyarbakir, the
largest city of the Kurdish-majority southeast, ruled that
Zana’s remarks constituted propaganda in favor of the outlawed
PKK, which has waged a bloody 25-year campaign for self-rule in
the region.
Speaking at a conference in London last year, Zana said the PKK
and its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan are “as important for the
Kurdish people as the brain and the soul are for a human being.”
Her lawyers said they would
appeal the sentence.
They have already lodged an appeal against a 10-year jail term
that Zana was given in December for belonging to the PKK and
diffusing its propaganda.
The 48-year-old Zana, the first Kurdish woman to win a seat in
Turkey’s parliament, has already spent a decade in jail, along
with three fellow former Kurdish lawmakers, for supporting the
PKK. They were released in 2004.
She was elected to parliament in 1991, but lost her seat in 1994
after her party was outlawed.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the
international community, took up arms in 1984 to protect
Turkey’s Kurds from state oppression, sparking a conflict that
has claimed about 45,000 lives. |
