Azg Daily, Armenia
April 8 2010
TURKEY OUT OF ALL PROPORTION
Former editor of Turkey’s sole Kurdish daily facing up to 525 years in prison
Vedat Kursun, the biggest shareholder in Turkey’s only
Kurdish-language daily, Azadiya Welat (Free Country), was sentenced to
three years in prison by a court in the southeastern city of
Diyarbakir on 30 March on a charge of propaganda for the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The newspaper’s managing editor until jailed last year, Kursun is the
latest in a series of Kurdish journalists to fall victim to
Anti-Terrorist Law No. 3713. In this case, he was convicted under
article 7 of the law for content in the issues of 11 and 12 August
2007 but he could eventually accumulate a combined jail sentence of
525 years for other stories published between 2006 and 2008.
"We condemn the persecution of this newspaper and its editors,"
Reporters Without Borders said. "These disproportionate punishments
expose the contradictions of the government’s policies, especially
last year’s initiative that was supposed to give more rights to
Turkey’s 25 million Kurds (a quarter of the country’s population) and
draw them closer to international standards."
The press freedom organisation added: "The Turkish authorities seem
unable to shed their repressive attitudes even when the country’s only
Kurdish-language daily newspaper is concerned. The sentence speaks
volumes."
An Istanbul court has meanwhile just suspended Azadiya Welat for two
months under article 6 of the Anti-Terrorist Law, which empowers the
courts to close media which "in the context of terrorist activities,
openly incite a crime, praise a crime or a criminal, or disseminate a
terrorist organisation’s propaganda."
The newspaper’s offence was to publish an article in its 27 March
issue referring to the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, as "the
Kurdish people’s leader." It is the seventh time it has been suspended
since becoming a daily in 2006. Its issues are also often confiscated.
As far as the authorities are concerned, many of Azadiya Welat’s
articles contain pro-PKK propaganda and, as a result, their authors
and the editors in charge at the time of publication are all liable
for prosecution under the Anti-Terrorism Law. Launched in 1978 to
fight for Kurdish independence (or nowadays, autonomy), the PKK turned
to "armed struggle" in 1984 and is on the government’s list of
terrorist organisations.
Kursun is still facing prosecution in Diyarbakir for another 103
alleged violations of article 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Law and one
violation of article 6, which says that "anyone carrying out an action
in the name of an illegal organisation must be punished as a member of
that organisation."
Speaking at the 30 March hearing, Kursun said: "I did not publish the
content with the aim of spreading PKK propaganda, but under the right
to obtain information and communicate it to the public." Ozan Kilinc,
who took over as editor after Kursun’s conviction in 2009, was himself
sentenced to 21 years and three months in prison on 10 February.
The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey 12 times for
violating free expression. Seventeen percent of the rulings issued by
the court since 1959 have concerned Turkey.
Elsa Vidal, Europe & Central Asia, Reporters Without Borders,
International Secretariat, ParisTel. : (33) 1 44 83 84 67, Fax : (33)
1 45 23 11 51