On 11 April, the Istanbul 13th Heavy Penal Court decreed that the daily Kurdish Azadiya Welat newspaper and the weekly Özgür Mezopotamya (Free Mesopotamia), which had just started being published, should be banned from publishing for one month.

Emine Demir, license holder and editor of the Azadiya Welat newspaper, said that this ban showed the insincerity of the government’s attempts at a solution to the Kurdish question.

The court said that the newspaper had reported announcements of the organisation (i.e. the PKK) and spread organisational propaganda on seven of its pages, thus violating the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 3713.

Interviews and mass graves

One reason given for the ban of Özgür Mezopotamya was a feature on the families of two young men, Mustafa Dağ and Mahsum Karaoğlan, who died when the police intervened with a march to the natal village of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on his 60th birthday. Another news item which pointed to 31 locations in the Cizre and Silopi districts of the southeastern Şırnak province as mass graves was also considered part of the crime.

It has been said that a news item on the 8th page which discussed the results of a survey on Barack Obama in the USA, entitled “Wind of Socialism in the USA”  (Bayê sosyalîzmê li Amerîkayê gur dibe) was also considered part of the “organisational propaganda.”

Most pages considered problematic

In the 11 April 2009 issue of Azadiya Welat, articles on the pages 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 8 were considered as part of organisational propaganda.

An interview with Abdullah Öcalan’s lawyers, commemoration adverts, another article on Obama and thankyou advertisements by winning mayoral candidates of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) were all put into the indictment.

Token gestures

Demir criticised the fact that the government now allowed a state-run Kurdish TV channel (TRT 6) and opened Kurdology departments at universities, but was banning the only newspaper in Kurdish, saying that this showed the insincerity of the government.

Referring to the fact that one reason for the publication ban was statements by Öcalan, Demir argued that even MPs of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were saying that a solution to the Kurdish question needed to take the PKK into account. “All newspapers show Öcalan’s photos and cite his statements. It is normal for us to cover Öcalan’s statements, both because of demands of our readers and because Öcalan is a part of the solution. This decision is antidemocratic.” (EÖ/AG)