Kurdish Society at SOAS and KSSO condemn the sentence against Leyla Zana
Posted on 01. Jun, 2009 by KSSO in Campaigns, News
July 29th, 2009
A court in Diyarbakır has sentenced Leyla Zana, a prominent Kurdish politician, to 1 year and 3 months imprisonment for her speech during a seminar on ‘Obstacles and options for a political and peaceful solution of Turkey’s Kurdish question’ organised by the SOAS Kurdish Society and Kurdish Students and Studies Organisation at SOAS University on 24 May 2008.
The Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation (KSSO), is an umbrella organisation of UK-based Kurdish student societies. We aim to work with UK educational institutions and university communities to support and promote research on, about or by Kurdish peoples. KSSO has no political affiliations and aims to act as a neutral platform of intellectual debate on Kurdish matters.
We have invited many professionals and academics to give talks on varied subjects on the Kurdish language, culture, media and minority rights in the Middle East. We have also organised a number of seminars on the participation of Kurdish women in the cultural, social and political life in their homeland and in Diaspora. One of our guests was Ms Leyla Zana, a prominent Kurdish politician from the Northern Kurdish Region (Turkish Kurdistan) and Prof. Mary Davis of London Metropolitan University to talk about a peaceful, political solution on Turkey’s Kurdish question.
We were shocked to hear that the Turkish prosecutor has taken legal action against Leyla Zana because she exercised her right to freedom of expression and conveyed her thoughts on a possible solution to Turkey’s Kurdish question. The opinion expressed by Ms Zana during our seminar, is shared and repeated in a different way by a number of Turkish journalists (see Hurriyet or Milliyet, Taraf Newspapers in June and July 2009). The Turkish judicial system has taken a discriminatory decision in sentencing Ms Zana to 1 year and 3 months imprisonment. The Turkish prosecutor had also taken legal action against Ms Zana after she expressed the same views at the UK parliament, later dismissing the accusations for lack of evidence. The same court has now sentenced Ms Zana for her speech at SOAS University where freedom of thought is considered a core value. British Universities do not operate under an oppressive and discriminatory agenda but under the principle of debate, learning and free intellectual exchange.
Freedom of thought is also at the core of the values enshrined by KSSO an organisation set up to promote the exchange of ideas and research on, about or by Kurdish students and academics. As such, we condemn the decision of the Turkish court against Ms Zana, a decision that can only be perceived as a direct attack on freedom of expression.
The right to freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy and is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Declaration of Principles on Tolerance of UNESCO
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), it is listed under Article 19:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference…”
We are calling on Turkish government to put into practice these international agreements and abolish all Laws that restrict freedom of expression in Turkey and rid itself from the legacy of the military junta.
Turkey has to take active steps to provide a viable, long term peaceful solution to Turkey’s Kurdish question instead of struggling to suppress the voices of those working towards this goal.
If you wish to voice your opposition to Ms Zana’s sentence, please contact the following:
Email the EU Commission responsible for enlargement and Turkey’s accession negotiations
- EU Commissioner Olli.rehn@ec.europa.eu
- EU Member of Cabinet responsible for Turkey Taneli.lahti@ec.europa.eu
- EU Turkey Civic Commission kariane.westrheim@iuh.uib.no
Email the following members of the Turkish government
- Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan: bimer@basbakanlik.gov.tr
- Turkish Ministry of Justice, Mr Sadullah Ergin:Email: sadullahergin@adalet.gov.tr
- President of Turkey, Mr. Abdullah Gül: Email: cumhurbaskanligi@tccb.gov.tr
Contact your local MP and raise awareness of Leyla Zana’s case
- Your local Member of Parliament (You can find your MP’s details at: http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/alms.cfm)
Contact your UCU, University Student Union, or contact the Kurdish Studies & Students Organization (mc@ksso.org.uk)
Call for solidarity with Leyla Zana
Posted on 04. Jun, 2009 by admin
Leyla Zana, 1995 Sakharov Prize Lauréat, the first Kurdish woman elected to the Turkish Parliament, and former political prisoner has been sentenced again to 10 years in prison by a Turkish court.
“Leyla Zana is an iconic figure, symbolising the struggle for justice, equality, human rights and peace, and speaking out to all the world about the appalling persecution of the Kurds over the last 80 years and particularly in the last two decades”. (Margerat Owen)*
Leyla Zana was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1991 because of speaking Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament, which were claimed to be against the unity of Turkey. In 2004, after serving 10 years, she was released by Turkish authorities due to international pressure. Zana received the Rafto Prize in 1994 and the Sakharov Prize the following year. Leyla Zana has been banned from participating in politics in Turkey since her imprisonment.
“Despite Zana’s sufferings and personal losses during the previous 10 years of imprisonment in Turkey, she has continued to speak on behalf of the Kurdish people, seeking a non-violent and democratic solution for the Kurds living within Turkey’s borders.
Upon being convicted for another 10 years in prison, Zana told the EU Turkey Civic Commission, “The case against me is a violation against freedom of thought, and represents a threat to every Kurd in Turkey. The decision of the court is just another way to repress, silence and punish the Kurds. “ (IFEX)
She is also indicted under the Anti-Terror Law and under certain articles of the Turkish Penal Code, as evidenced by her speeches made abroad between 2007 and 2008. This includes the speech she made at the Kurdish Society’s seminar at SOAS in May 2008.
Kurdish Society invited Leyla Zana and Prof. Mary Davis last year to talk about “the obstacles and options for a political and peaceful solution of Turkey’s Kurdish question”. The Turkish prosecutor has taken a legal action against Mrs. Leyla Zana due to her speech at SOAS.
Case number 2008/1522 was brought forward by the Diyarbakir Chief Republic Prosecutor for “Press Crimes”. The prosecutor is demanding a prison sentence of 2 to 10 years under article 7/2 of the Anti- Terror Law in the indictment of 06.06.2008 (file no: 2008/781). TMK/2 refers to “the offence of making propaganda for an (illegal) organisation”.
The prosecutor is also demanded that she is charged under Article 53 of TCK in order to have her rights “to vote and run for a public office” revoked. Ms Leyla Zana says that she remembers giving the above sentence in her speech though she could not recall the exact content of the full speech. The 4th Heavy Penal Court has brought a case against LeyIa Zana under the file no 2008/318.
Leyla Zana appeared in the Diyabakir Court on March 31st to answer charges that she is a terrorist, praises crime and undertakes propaganda for an illegal organisation (the PKK).
She said “Respectable Judges, I would like first to point out that I consider it a disgrace for the democracy of Turkey that I am being tried because of my thoughts. The fact that expression of thought is being considered within the scope of the fight against terrorism underscores yet another topical and burning issue. It is a fact that to be able to express one’s thought is a guarantee of all other freedoms”. She spoke about fundamental rights of the Kurds to freedom of expression, assembly and of their language rights.”
Concluding she said “I would also like to take this opportunity to announce an important decision of mine. From now on, whatever the “charge” may be, I am thinking of not using my right to defend myself in trials. ….I believe in the senselessness of repeating ourselves. I wish for a process where an evolution of thought has been completed in which our people will not be suspects , defendant or prisoners because of their thoughts”.
“The reaction of the Turkish government to the victory of the DTP (the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party) – a fully recognised legal legitimate political party - in which they increased the numbers of municipalities won in the local elections on March 29th from 56 to 98 was violent, and totally unjustified. Over 300 DTP members, including 3 DTP vice-presidents have been arrested, detained or under scrutiny facing prosecutions under the anti-terror law and the Turkish Penal Code. This is the scenario against which the trials facing Leyla Zana take place – trials by a judiciary far from independent, and basically an agent of the state – and therefore she is in great danger.” (Margerat Owen)
We, Committee in Solidarity with Leyla Zana, call to watch zealously the developments on Leyla’s case; strenuously campaign on her behalf; write to MPs and MEPS, to trade Unions, NGO in the UK to not allow this time her imprisonment!
For further information, comments or suggestions, please contact: KSSO from Committee in Solidarity with Mrs Leyla Zana
Email: mc@ksso.org.uk or solidaritywithleylazana@googlemail.com
*Margaret Owen. Member Bar Human Rights Committee REPORT ON OBSERVATION OF TRIAL OF LEYLA ZANA MARCH 31ST, DIYARBAKIR
How soon will you update your blog? I’m interested in reading some more information on this issue.
Kurdistan’s brightest flower… by Ali Tawfik-Shukor
I hold my head in my hands, dizzy from the thoughts plaguing my tormented mind. Where do I start? What can I say to express my outrage and unrelenting feeling of sadness?
This is my lone, curtailed attempt at channeling all these overpowering emotions into a coherent wake-up call to all those who cherish freedom – and to bring to light those who strive to extinguish the flame of knowledge, understanding and love – in favor of a world governed by fear, ignorance and hate.
The nightmare all started after May 23rd of last year – the aftermath of a seminar (rather optimistically) entitled ‘the obstacles and options for a political and peaceful solution of the Turkish-Kurdish ethnic conflict’, in London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). The seminar, organized by the University of London’s Kurdish society at SOAS and Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation (of which I am a proud member), invited Leyla Zana as a guest speaker. There was understandably huge excitement surrounding this event. Leyla, despite her gentle demeanor and unassuming appearance, is a giant in contemporary Kurdish culture and politics.
It doesn’t take much to realize why Leyla’s persona is so compelling – her story is the stuff of dreams. The first Kurdish woman to win a seat in the Turkish parliament in 1991. The woman who was subsequently imprisoned for ten years for a speaking a single line in her native Kurdish: “I take this oath for the brotherhood between the Turkish people and the Kurdish people”. The 49 year old lady from humble village origins, married at the age of fourteen, who has now been recognized on the international stage – as an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience, a two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and recipient of the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament – a prize honoring those who dedicated their lives to the defense of human rights and freedom.
The human being who’s life has been torn apart by the ruthlessness and cruelty of the Turkish Republic. The woman who’s husband, the first independent mayor of Turkey’s largest Kurdish city, was jailed for 16 years. The husband who, after this, vowed to never speak Turkish again, and conversed only in his native, beloved Kurdish. The mother who’s been torn apart from her two children.
The story is heart-wrenching. Her cause is equally crushing. Over forty million people inheriting the post-colonial White Man’s Burden of being split up by artificial borders – to live the rest of their existence as ‘ethnic minorities’ in countries that openly despise, marginalize and humiliate them – that destroy, crush, rape and murder them. The subjugation, forced displacement, linguistic and cultural genocide of over 20 million Kurds for over ninety years in Turkey is a mere sideline in today’s modern version of Realpolitik, an unimportant footnote countervailing Turkey’s overall modern ‘’success story”.
Today, Kurd’s are the unhappy inheritors of this legacy, and are the world’s largest ethnic and linguistic group with no homeland of their own. The Kurds are the penultimate losers of history – before that of the rest of the world, for their loss of such a beautiful culture and peoples.
In December 2008, Leyla was sentenced to another 10 years in prison by Turkey, mainly for her talk in London. Turkish national newspapers, the mouthpiece of Turkey’s so-called democracy, has also intimidated our students association in publishing negative, and fabricated news coverage. This sets a dangerous precedent to the freedom of education and expression at our beloved academic institutions.
I will not answer to their accusations. Nor do we need to – it would be below our standing as free-minded, reputable academics to descend into a shouting match with common thugs purporting to be journalists. You will not intimidate us. There is an old Kurdish saying: “if you can’t be a rose, don’t be a thorn”.
Leyla could have left Turkey, and made a comfortable home for herself in any liberal European country. She has chosen to stay in her country, and has refused to be intimidated by a regime that still lives under the ghost of a dead cartoonish dictator, a regime that lives in the decayed memories of a long dead Ottoman Empire. A regime that is slowly crumbling as we speak – that has imploded due to its decades of intellectual isolation, racism and arrogance. Her determination in the face of such cruelty is astounding – even after her latest prison sentence, her resilience and hope shines through.
“Despite all this, our people will claim their legitimate rights, and will continue to struggle for this as long as it takes” ~ Leyla Zana, after the 2008 court ruling.
Out of this decay, voices are emerging that were once silenced – Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish, Greek, Azeri and Georgian – voices that may point the future to a Turkey that respects all its inhabitants, a Turkey that doesn’t try to intimidate small British university student associations, or imprison a brave Kurdish lady for speaking her mind.
Perhaps Yasar Kemal, Turkey’s Kurdish venerable writer, and Nobel Prize nominee (also prosecuted by the Turkish state) presents this vision best:
“For me the world is a garden of culture where thousand flowers grow. Throughout history all cultures have fed one another, been grafted onto one another, and in the process our world has been enriched. The disappearance of a culture is the loss of a color, a different light, a different source. I am as much on the side of every flower in this thousand flower garden as I am on the side of my own culture” ~ Yasar Kemal
Author’s note:
If you’re like to voice out against Leyla’s imprisonment, or the intimidation of UK university students’ associations, please contact the following:
Email the EU Commission responsible for enlargement and Turkey’s accession negotiations (http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/rehn/work/index_en.htm):
- Olli.rehn@ec.europa.eu (Commissioner)
- Taneli.lahti@ec.europa.eu (Member of Cabinet responsible for Turkey)
- kariane.westrheim@iuh.uib.no (EU Turkey Civic Commission)
Turkish Prime Minister: bimer@basbakanlik.gov.tr
Your local Member of Parliament (You can find your MP’s details at: http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/alms.cfm)
Contact your University Student Union, or contact the Kurdish Studies & Students Organization (mc@ksso.org.uk)
And if you’d really like to help, just learn more about the Kurds – education and knowledge is the only way forward. If you go to Turkey on holiday, ask where your tour guide or waiter is from – you might be surprised by the fantastic range of answers.