Diyarbakir- Northern Kurdistan: In the hearing on 10 June, the Diyarbakir 5th High Criminal Court dismissed the request for the release of Gurbet Çakar, editorial manager of the Rengê Hevîya Jinê women magazine.
Çakar was detained three months ago under charges of making propaganda for Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK). Rengê Hevîya Jinê is the only women magazine in Turkey publishing in Kurdish and Turkish.
Miss. Çakar was detained in the middle of March by the Diyarbakir Public Prosecutor, where she had gone in order to give a statement. She is currently imprisoned in the Diyarbakir E Type Prison.
Özen explained that the cases were opened on the grounds of calling Abdullah Öcalan as the Kurdish national leader and for publishing photographs of Mr. Öcalan and the PKK freedom fighters.
The Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) was founded in 1973 as the result of the continuous and systematic oppressions and the denial of the Kurdish nation by the occupying powers of Kurdistan. The PKK took up arm in 1984 since all the possible political and diplomatic means applied for 11 years in between 1973-84 proved exhausted. The PKK however declared its first unilateral ceasefire in 1993 since it believed the arm struggle had hit its targets. Since 1993 to date the PKK has declared 6 unilateral ceasefires in 6 different occasions and called upon Ankara to solve the Kurdish problem in a peaceful democratic way.
Despite the facts that the PKK has declared 6 unilateral ceasefires and also it sent peace groups in two different occasions yet the PKK is considered as a ‘terrorist’ organization by Ankara and the US. It also continues to be on the blacklist in EU despite the court ruling, which overturned the decision to place the Kurdish freedom movement on the EU’s terror list. “By labelling PKK as a terrorist organisation, the EU and the US are giving Turkey a green light to target its civilians. They gave the Turkish government a free hand to do what it will, a mother of Kurdish martyr said”.
It should be noted that after 1954, apart from the Korean War in1949-52 and the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the Turkish Army operations have continued to be exclusively against the Kurds.