Special Focus Cases
Leyla Zana, Prisoner of Conscience
TURKEY
 Leyla Zana |
Leyla Zana has been honored with many international peace prizes, but she has been unable to accept them in person. She remains in a Turkish prison for her courageous defense of human rights and commitment to forging a peaceful, democratic resolution to conflicts between the Turkish government and its minority Kurdish population. When the European Parliament awarded her its Sakharov Prize in 1995 for defending human rights, she had been jailed for one year of a 15-year sentence.
Leyla Zana is the first Kurdish woman elected to Turkey's Parliament who openly and proudly identified herself as a Kurd. At her inauguration in 1991, she took the oath of loyalty in Turkish, as required by law, then added in Kurdish, "I shall struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live together in a democratic framework." Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish, prohibiting the language in education and broadcast media. Leyla Zana not only spoke before Parliament in Kurdish, but also wore a headband with the traditional Kurdish colors of yellow, green, and red. Parliament erupted with shouts of "Separatist," "Terrorist," and "Arrest her."
Leyla Zana's parliamentary immunity prevented authorities from arresting her for three years. In 1994, Leyla Zana and three other Kurdish legislators - Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak - joined the newly formed Democracy Party. Turkish authorities had long maintained a practice of closing down political parties that address Kurdish rights issues. Authorities banned the Democratic Party, lifted the parliamentary immunity of Leyla Zana and her colleagues, and arrested them.
Based on her actions at the inauguration and subsequent speeches and writings in defense of Kurdish rights, a Turkish court began trying Leyla Zana in September 1994 for treason. The charges later were reduced to membership in the illegal armed Kurdistan Workers' Party. Prosecutors in her flagrantly unfair trial presented witnesses who themselves faced prosecution or who later retracted their statements, which they said were extracted under torture. The court convicted Leyla Zana and her co-defendants in December 1994 and handed down sentences of 15 years' imprisonment.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled Leyla Zana's trial unfair in July 2001. In its bid for membership in the European Union, the Turkish government adopted numerous reforms in August 2002, among them the right of Turkish citizens to judicial review of any verdict in a trial judged unfair by the European Court of Human Rights. The new law specifies that it is not retroactive, however, thereby preventing Leyla Zana from invoking it.
Amnesty International considers Leyla Zana to be a prisoner of conscience and has appealed for her immediate and unconditional release.
Background
Recent legislation in Turkey that lifts some restrictions on free expression and on the use of Kurdish in broadcasting and education, among numerous other reforms, follows decades of conflict between Kurds and Turkish authorities. Kurds constitute about one-fifth of Turkey's population, and Turkish authorities have treated Kurdish ethno-lingual diversity as a threat to national unity.
Although armed conflict between government forces and the opposition Kurdistan
Workers' Party had virtually ended by 2000, repression of pro-Kurdish political
parties and organizations has continued. Local party offices regularly have
been raided, and their officials and supporters have been detained, tortured,
and killed.