Turkey, Kurdish journalist sentenced to 138 years in prison

Turkey does not seem to accept, to say the least, the newspaper that gives voice to the Kurdish minority. Emine Demir, former editor of the newspaper Azadiya Welat Kurdistan (in Kurdish, which means 'independence from the motherland'), was in fact condemned today by a court in Diyarbakir, the main town in southeastern Turkey, a Kurdish majority, to well 138 years in prison for 'propaganda in favor of Kurdish rebels'.

The fault of the journalist is to have defended his articles in the cause of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, considered a terrorist organization by the turkish government. For the reporter were taken immediately handcuffed. Will still be able to appeal. It is not the first case of Kurdish journalist convicted of 'made propaganda for the PKK'.

In May it had fallen to the editor of that newspaper always, Vedat Kursum, 36, journalist and publisher delquotidiano. He had been inflicted 166 years in prison. Kursum between the other is in jail since January 30, 2009, when he was arrested at Istanbul while trying to flee to Europe to seek political asylum.

A Kursum was not even allowed during the sit next to his lawyers. The young editor in prison also has contracted a serious hepatitis. Ten months ago, in February, it had fallen instead to Ozan Kilinc, a former editor of the newspaper, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison. The people are almost 30 million Kurds spread, however, between Turkey, home to seven million people of Kurdish ethnicity and constitute 8 percent of the entire Kurdish population, the rest are in Syria, Iran and other Middle Eastern states .

Decades constitute one of the largest ethnic group without a country in the world already for more than a century trying to create a Kurdistan, a nation politically independent and autonomous, but always meeting the obvious opposition of sovereign states. The small Kurdish newspaper, has a daily circulation of just 15,000 copies in the last four years, at least three of its four editors are gone on trial.

The time of each new sentence for Kurdish journalist, issued on the day when he arrived in Diyarbakir turkish President Abdullah Gul, only increases the doubts of the international community on freedom of expression in Turkey.

• 1921, October 26 - BIRTH OF CARLOS OLMEDO (26/10/2010)
• Relatives want justice for Anni Dewani (08/12/2010)
• Forecasters keep eye on looming 'Solar Max' - Annie Hautefeuille and Richard Ingham - Physorg.com (30/12/2010)
• In Your Ear: Music Icon Annie Lennox (21/12/2010)
• Anni: The final pic (10/12/2010)