Kurdish lawmaker gets jail time in Turkey

04/11/2009

Analysts say the court ruling will not endanger the government initiative to end the 25-year-old Kurdish conflict.

By Esra Erduran for Southeast European Times in Istanbul -- 04/11/09

Aysel Tugluk addresses a session of the Turkish parliament. [Getty Images]

An outspoken Kurdish member of Turkey's parliament, Aysel Tugluk, was sentenced to 18 months in prison last week for spreading terrorist propaganda.

The court found Tugluk had "spread propaganda of a terrorist organisation" in a 2006 speech, a year before being elected to parliament representing the main Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP).

Tugluk delivered the speech at a rally in Diyarbakır -- the largest Kurdish city in Turkey's southeast -- in which she urged the government to heed the demands of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in order to put an end the Kurdish conflict.

She also supported a popular declaration which described jailed PKK head Abdulah Ocalan as a Kurdish leader.

The PKK is considered a terrorist organisation by various countries including the United States and by the EU, and has carried out an armed struggle against Turkey that has claimed 45,000 lives since 1984.

Tugluk's lawyer said she will appeal the sentence. The court has sent the ruling to parliament to lift her parliamentary immunity so the sentence can be carried out.

This is not the first time Tugluk has faced jail time. In 2007, she was sentenced on charges of distributing DTP leaflets in the Kurdish language.

The court's ruling comes at a time when the Turkish government is advancing a democratic initiative to expand rights for the Kurdish minority. The government has refused to talk to the PKK, and expects PKK members involved in armed struggle and sheltered in northern Iraq to surrender or face military action.

Veteran parliamentary reporter and ANKA news agency co-ordinator Nuri Sefa Erdem told <i>SETimes</i> the court ruling will not harm the ongoing initiative because the government has already slowed it.

Meanwhile, according to Constitutional Court President Hasim Kilic, rapporteurs are expected to complete their work on the closure case against the DTP soon. The party, frequently accused of supporting the PKK and of being its political arm, was charged with supporting separatist activities.

The case coincides with widely-shown television coverage last month of Kurd celebrations, following the surrender of a Kurdish group, including eight PKK members. Turkish nationalists felt offended that the surrender is perceived as a victory by the PKK, and organised a number of protests throughout Turkey.