Kurdish Musician Tunç Tried for Saying "Guerrilla"

Kurdish musician Ferhat Tunç is facing allegations of "making propaganda for a terrorist organization" because he used the word "guerrilla" in a speech during his performance at a concert.

The event on 7 August 2010 was organized by the Association for Sustainment and Support of Culture in Kiğı, a district of the Kurdish-majority city of Bingöl in south-eastern Turkey.

The first hearing of this trial will be held at the Diyarbakır 4^th High Criminal Court on 26 May.

The charges stem from the following statement preceding the concert: "Blood is being shed in this country; the blood of our children we sent to the military, of Kurdish children who have been hiding in the mountains for years, and of the Kurdish guerrilla. We do not want anybody to die. We want this war to stop immediately".

"They define the limits of speaking about peace"

In an announcement made to bianet, Tunç said that many people are facing trial by reason of calling the guerrilla 'guerrilla'. Tunç himself was on trial for the same reason in a different law suit before and acquitted after three years of procedures.

Tunç stated that he would not take anything back and summed up his point of view as follows:

* The guerrilla is called 'guerrilla'. There is no other explanation. I do not think that even literature refers to it in any other way.

* The message I gave to the prosecution was about peace. However, they say I made propaganda for a terroristic organization with that message. So you can talk about peace but they define the limits of that talk.

'Frightening situation but we won't stop'

* Turkish prosecutors open cases against supposedly dissident artists, intellectuals, journalists and writers for any reason they can find. This has become a policy of intimidation. Meanwhile, we can say that freedom of thought and expression do not exist. I find the point we have come to rather frightening.

* We have no intention of moving on with this sort of intimidation trials and threatening cases. This is our country, we want the people in this country to live freely. Also after this, we will continue to stand behind our truth.

* I do not know any more how many trials were filed against me. More than a hundred cases were opened against me. I was just acquitted in a case in Diyarbakır; now they have opened this one. They have recently launched another investigation because I said, 'This ground, this region will not be the region anymore that was turned to hell by ranked killers'. (EKN/EÖ)