TURKEY tr-national

Former editor of Kurdish-language daily jailed for 138 years in Turkey

DİYARBAKIR - Anatolia News Agency | 12/30/2010 12:00:00 AM |

The former editor in chief of a Kurdish-language newspaper in Turkey was sentenced to 138 years on Thursday for promoting a terrorist organization.

The former editor in chief of a Kurdish-language newspaper in Turkey was sentenced to 138 years on Thursday for promoting a terrorist organization.

Emine Demir, who served as editor of daily Azadiya Welat (Independence of Homeland), was not present at the hearing where she was being tried without arrest. She was charged and convicted of spreading propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, by a Diyarbakır court.

Demir's lawyer said that Demir did not act upon directions from the PKK and argued that her articles should be considered within freedom of speech.

The 5th Serious Crimes Court in Diyarbakır found Demir guilty of propagating and committing crimes on behalf of the PKK in 84 separate issues of the paper throughout 2008 and 2009. The court sentenced her to one year and six months in prison for every issue published.

An arrest warrant was also issued for Demir.

Founded in 1994 as a weekly that turned into a daily in 2006, Azadiya Welat has often been the target of judicial action on grounds that it is a mouthpiece for the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

In May, another former editor of the paper, Vedat Kurşun, was sentenced to 166 years and six months in jail for "disseminated the propaganda of a terrorist organization" on 103 different occasions.

In February, Ozan Kılınç, who was the paper's editor in chief at the time, was sentenced to 21 years in jail, also for spreading terrorist propaganda.