TURKEY: Former Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ms Leyla Zana and three other Kurdish campaigners were freed from a Turkish jail yesterday in a move hailed by the European Union, which had warned that their detention could wreck Turkey's EU bid.
The four former parliamentarians walked free after serving 10 years of a 15-year sentence for links to Kurdish rebel guerrillas.
They were mobbed by hundreds of ecstatic supporters singing, dancing, waving Kurdish flags and hurling flowers. Ms Zana, diminutive and bespectacled, was briefly knocked to the ground in the melee before being driven away.
The European Commission, which had warned that the former MPs' continued detention could wreck Turkey's drive to join the EU, hailed the decision of Turkey's appeals court to release them.
The ruling, freeing them pending appeal, coincided with historic first Kurdish-language broadcasts on state television, and the start of an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights on the fate of jailed Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan.
"Turkey's 80-year ban on the Kurds is over today," Sirri Sakik, another former Kurdish lawmaker, said outside Ankara's Ulucanlar prison before their release.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Mr Günter Verheugen said in a statement: "Today's decision is a sign that the implementation of political reforms, which Turkey has been introducing in the past two years, is gaining ground. The Commission trusts that the future sessions of the trial of Ms Zana and her colleagues will be conducted in accordance with the basic provisions on fair trial and that the verdict of any future trial will reflect these principles," he added.
Ms Zana carried great symbolic importance both for supporters and those who see her as threatening Turkish unity.
For decades Turkey denied the very existence of its Kurdish minority, terming them "mountain Turks". Courts came down hard on public expressions of Kurdish identity, especially after the outbreak of armed separatism in 1984. Kurds form an estimated 12 million of Turkey's 70 million population.
A state prosecutor called this week for the annulment of their sentences, and a court official said an appeal court would start hearing the case from July 8th.
"This will make things easier for us politically, both domestically and abroad," Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said.
- (Reuters,additional reporting by Omer Berberoglu)