14:38 . 24/05
Diyarbakır 5th High Criminal Court has sentenced known Kurdish politician, the former leader of the Democratic Party Leyla Zana to 10 years in prison.
Leyla Zana has opened a path, which Ankara has been trying to close for years sending her to prison. But today already, owing to Leyla Zana, one can see many Kurdish women MPs in the Turkish parliament, including women who took seats in the parliament after being imprisoned.
Kurdish women have got involved in the political fight since 1991 when Leyla Zana became the first Kurdish woman MP in the Turkish parliament. Zana was sentenced to 15 years in prison for delivering her speech in Kurdish during the swearing in ceremony. 17 years later the politician who appeared in the Turkish parliament takes another step. This time, while swearing in, she said the phrase “Turkey’s people” instead saying “the Turkish nation”. Later Zana said this step, which journalists didn’t miss, was a contingency.
“That phrase came out of my mouth and it means this was fixed in my consciousness,” Leyla Zana said implying that not only Turks live in Turkey.
The fact that Zana has never concealed her positive attitude towards Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered to be a terrorist structure in Turkey, moreover in one of her speeches Leyla has called the party’s leader of Abdullah Ocalan the leader of the Kurdish people became the reason for Zana’s imprisonment for two years. Today, too, Zana will appear in prison on the same charges.
