İskender Kahraman, who is serving time in the Van F-type Prison for membership in the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), applied to the prison administration saying he would like to subscribe to the Kurdish daily Azadiye Welat (The Free Country). The prison administration couldn't turn down the demand for the Kurdish newspaper, as Law No. 5271 allows prison inmates to subscribe to periodicals they want as long as they pay for it. The prison administration applied to the prison judge, who ruled that Kahraman would have to pay TL 90 per page of the 12-page daily to cover translations costs, amounting to TL 1,080.
The total cost of the paper would be TL 1080.50 with the price of the paper added, 2,160 times more than the paper’s market price, making it the most expensive newspaper in the world. The prison administration said they wouldn’t let the newspaper in as Kahraman won’t pay the fee.
Kahraman appealed the prison judge’s ruling at the Van 2nd High Criminal Court, but his objection was overturned. He later filed charges at the European court, accusing Turkey of violating his right to communicate in his native language.
Meanwhile, Kahraman’s story also brought to the spotlight the fate of the editors of Azadiya Welat. The Radikal daily said Azadiya Welat has had to replace six editors in three years since it started its publication in 2006 because the editors either had to flee the country to avoid imprisonment or were jailed. On Wednesday, news reports stated that the paper’s current editor was sentenced to 21 years in prison for publishing PKK propaganda.
Eser Uyansız, the paper’s publisher, was quoted by Reuters as saying, “I believe that the pressure implemented on us is contradictory to the Kurdish initiative,” referring to an initiative launched by the government to expand cultural rights and freedoms extended to Kurds. “Limiting freedoms will only harm Turkey and its EU membership efforts as well as its effort for peace with Kurds.”
In related news, agencies reported that popular Kurdish singer Rojda, who was invited along with other artists to meet with the prime minister to talk about the Kurdish initiative, was detained on Thursday by police while she was in her home in İstanbul’s Gaziosmanpaşa district. The singer was detained on charges of spreading “PKK propaganda” for singing a Kurdish song called “Heval Kamuran” at a festival in Diyarbakır last year.
