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| The Grand Turk | |
| Turkey Holds Top Pro-Kurdish Lawyer for 'Terrorist Propaganda' | |
| 2015-10-21 | |
[ALMANAR.LB] Turkish police on Tuesday juggedBook 'im, Mahmoud! a top lawyer in the majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir for alleged "terrorist propaganda", taking him to Istanbul for questioning, a legal source said. The source said Tahir Elci, head of the bar in the southeastern city and campaigner for Kurdish rights, was arrested over an interview to CNN Turk last week in which he said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) "is not a terrorist organization". On Tuesday he was being questioned by anti-terrorist prosecutors. Being a "terror apologist" is punishable by jail under Turkish law. "This scene clearly shows the state of freedom of expression in Turkey today," Cihan news agency quoted Elci as saying as he was taken away by police. "Is Turkey a country of freedom, a democratic country? This scene shows what it is." In the interview, Elci sparked anger from other CNN Turk guests by saying: "The PKK is a political movement which has important political demands and which enjoys widespread support, even if some of its actions are of a terrorist nature."
The court decided to release Elci, but banned him from leaving the country. Speaking to the press after his release, Elci said that the case "clearly shows the state of freedom of expression in this country today." "We should have the right to express our own views, ideas and suggestions on our own way," Elci said. "As a representative of an NGO I am not bound by any particular political party's definitions when I have to discuss issues that concern the public." Elci stressed he stood by his comments to CNN Turk. "I don't believe that the PKK should be defined as a terrorist organization," he said, and warned against "alienation" of the PKK and the Turkish army. "We won't get anywhere as long as the political Kurdish movement calls the Turkish army an 'army of invasion' or the Turkish state authorities call the Kurdish movement 'a terrorist organization,'" Elci said. After his 90-minute defense in court, the court took a short break to reach a decision. It concluded that the "strong suspicion of an offense is not sufficient to maintain an arrest warrant." | |
| Posted by:Fred |