Turkey jails Kurdish Nobel nominee

A Turkish court has sentenced Leyla Zana, a Kurdish politician and former Nobel peace prize nominee, to two years in prison for spreading "terrorist" propaganda, in Turkish occupied Kurdistan. This sentencing is yet another attempt from the Turkish government to stem the workings of the Kurdish Worker's Party.

The fact that Zana was convicted for a speech she made at Kurdish festival last year, shows the contempt of the Turkish authorities for the Kurdish Worker's Party. Time and again the Turkish government have tried their utmost to hinder the Kurdish Worker's Party.

In the speech, she said that the Kurdish people had three leaders, Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, Kurdish politicians in northern Iraq, and Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader.
Zana came to prominence in 1994 when she was convicted for links to the PKK, which is outlawed in Turkey.

She was released in 2004 after Turkey's appeals court overturned her conviction and that of three other Kurdish former politicians.

Ógra Shinn Féin recognise the efforts of the Kurdish people in their struggle against the Turkish government. In recent months the campaign against the PKK have intensified greatly. At this time the people of Kurdistan need the solidarity of the interneational community in the face of Turkish oppression.

Unfortunately with the likes of Brown and Bush in the hot seat this solidarity is unlikely to be forthcoming.

The cause of the Kurds is the cause of every people who struggle for liberation in this world. Ógra Shinn Féin stand in solidarity with the PKK and the people of Kurdistan.

In the words of Ché Guevara, "try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary."