The Nobel Peace Prize nominee Leyla Zana, who has championed Kurdish causes in Turkey from a prison cell for the past 10 years, was released last week with three fellow ex-MPs in an unexpected move aimed at bolstering Turkey’s attempt to join the European Union.
Jubilant crowds rushed to Ulucanlar prison in Ankara on Wednesday to see their release within hours of a court issuing the ruling pending their appeal.
At the same time, Turkey has allowed Kurdish language programmes to be broadcast for the first time, and the European Court of Human Rights has begun examining an appeal by the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
”Turkey’s 80-year ban on the Kurds is over today,” the pro-Kurdish former MP Sirri Sakik told Reuters as supporters gathered outside the prison. ”It shows Turkey recognises the Kurdish reality.”
Kurds make up a fifth of Turkey’s 72-million people. But, after a long and bitter history of hatred, the authorities once refused even to recognise them, preferring to call them ”mountain Turks”.
More than anyone else, Zana (43) came to symbolise their struggle. The four MPs were jailed for 15 years in 1994 after being convicted of collaborating with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which was then fighting for autonomy in the south-east. About 37 000 people are believed to have died during the conflict.
Although the four are to be retried next month, observers said their release was bound to please the EU.
The Islamic-rooted government party, Justice and Development, has recently stepped up its reform programme, passing EU-directed policies at breakneck speed before the union decides in December whether to open membership talks with Ankara. — Â