20-Year Prison Threat for a Warm Welcome
Kurdish artist Farquin (Yılmaz Dünen) is tried together with three members of a group of people that entered Turkey via the Iraqi border in 2009. Farquin is facing a prison sentence of between seven and 20 years. He is charged with "membership of an illegal organization" and "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization".
A total of 26 refugees from the UN refugee camp in Mahmur and eight former members of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) crossed the border to south-eastern Turkey upon imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's call on 19 October 2009. They followed their own personal decisions as an attempt to push forward the jammed political process of finding a solution to the Kurdish question.
The eighth hearing of the case was held in the beginning of this week. The trial was discussed controversially in the Turkish media. However, the prosecutor presented his final speech on the substance of the matter and the case was postponed to 1 November in order to allow additional time for the defence.
bianet talked to Farqin's lawyer Mesut Beştaş. He said that the final plea of the prosecution considered the people who welcomed the members of the illegal organization as members themselves. The other defendants of the trial are Ayla Yıldrım, Nurettin Turgut and Mehmet Şerif Gençdal as members of the group from Habur. All of them went on stage that day to address the crowd with a speech.
Farqin was hosting the welcome ceremony on a stage installed on the Batıkent Square in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey. He told bianet, "On that day, a general welcome was prepared in Turkey for the peace group from Habur. We wanted to support that as well in Diyarbakır as people who are doing arts and I hosted the welcome. This trial stems from our right to welcome the friends from this peace group when we were on stage, from welcoming them to the capital of hearts, from saying that this peace might be permanent and that this development might bring peace to Turkey and from saying that people in Turkey live in peace".
"I do not think that I could be punished because of that sort of situation but it is very difficult to predict the decision that is going to be given by the judges and prosecutors. We hope that procedures will be dropped because there is no situation that would justify a complaint. There is no situation that would encourage people to violence", Farquin stated. He underlined that it was their aim to support the peace process and that the words quoted in the indictment were in line with that.
Lawyer Beştaş indicated, "The law has to be an area of trust for the people. Unfortunately, we are encountering decisions that remove the legal security". He added that his client was not guilty. (ÖÖ/VK)