Three Turkish citizens face prison for ideas on Kurdish issue

An academic and an editor-in-chief are facing prison time for allegedly making propaganda for a terrorist organization in an article, while a prominent musician has been given the same charge for a speech regarding the Kurdish issue.

Due to a recent article entitled “The national self-determination and Kurds,” published in the Law and Society in Our Time journal by the Istanbul branch of the Contemporary Lawyers’ Association, or ÇHD, İsmail Beşikçi and the editor-in-chief of the journal, Zeytan Balcı, could face between 2.5 and 7 years in prison for “making propaganda for a terrorist organization,” daily Taraf reported Thursday.

Beşikçi, who previously spent 17 years in prison due to his ideas concerning the Kurdish issue, appeared before a judge Wednesday for the latest article.

BDP district head arrested

Hüseyin Beyaz, a district head of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, was arrested in Adana due to allegations of preparing demonstrations, Doğan News Agency reported Wednesday. It was determined that Beyaz, who heads the BDP’s branch in Seyhan in the southern province of Adana, was helping demonstrators during demonstrations supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and its convicted leader, Abdullah Öcalan, in the Ova neighborhood last week. Beyaz was taken into custody after he was observed covering the faces of demonstrators who were writing PKK on walls with keffiyehs in photographs and camera recordings. Despite rejecting the accusations against him, Beyaz was arrested due to “forming and participating in street demonstrations.”

During the case at the Istanbul 11th High Criminal Court, Beşikçi said in his defense that the Kurdish issue was Turkey’s most significant problem.

“The prime minister says today that denying politics is not valid anymore. Nevertheless, the depth of the issue is not analyzed. Today, heated debates have been experienced regarding the Kurdish issue,” he said.

“Discussions on how it can be solved are taking place in the press. However, the problem itself should be talked about,” he said. “Why has it arrived to our day without being solved? The article in the magazine is about what the Kurdish issue is, the content of the problem, the explanation of thoughts and a critique of Kurdish political life.”

The writer’s lawyer, Leven Kanat, said Beşikçi was an academic with around 30 books and drew attention to a statement from an “illegal armed terrorist organization” in the criminal charges, but added that the name of the organization was not stated.

“The name of the PKK [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party] is used only once in the 45-paragraph-long article. Is this propaganda for an organization? İsmail Beşikçi made an investigation in his article. However, the Prosecutor’s Office evaluated this as propaganda,” said Kanat. After the lawyer’s defense, the case was postponed until a further date.

Meanwhile, Musician Ferhat Tunç, who was investigated because of a speech he made during the First Eruh-Çirav Nature and Culture Art Festival, is also being tried, Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.

Tunç faces up to 15 years in prison for “committing an illegal act without being an organization member” and “making propaganda for a terrorist organization.”

At the trial in Diyarbakır’s 4th High Criminal Court, Tunç presented a seven-page-long written defense.

“It’s not hard to see that these accusations are outside of the law because the perception of crime and punishment are shaped by traditions of the mind,” said Tunç.

Indicating that the defense was “not related with the compendium of the claim,” the judge asked whether the allegations and the speech cited in the charge belonged to him.

Tunç responded positively, but his lawyer said the written terms in the criminal charges did not constitute a crime.

Because of this argument, his lawyer demanded Tunç’s acquittal; the court, however, postponed the case pending a review of the trial.