TURKEY ACQUITS CHOIRBOYS CHARGED FOR SINGING KURDISH REBEL SONG
CBC News
June 19, 2008 Thursday 12:03 PM GMT
Canada
A Turkish court in Ankara has acquitted three teenage schoolboys of
"spreading separatist propaganda" after they sang a Kurdish song
during a U.S. tour.
Six younger members of the chorus who face the same charges are to
be tried in a juvenile court.
Prosecutors charged them for singing Ey Raqip, translated as Hey
Guard or Hey Enemy, which they say is a rebel song that promotes the
separatist agenda of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.
The United States and the European Union consider the PKK, which
has been fighting for independence in Kurdish areas of Turkey,
a terrorist organization.
The children’s lawyer, Baran Pamuk, said a court ruled Thursday that
his clients, aged 15 to 18, did not intentionally spread Kurdish
propaganda.
He also said it was likely that charges against the younger children
would be dismissed.
In court, Pamuk argued that it was unlikely the children even
understood the words of the song.
The choir, which comes from Diyarbakir, the largest city in the
predominantly Kurdish southeast, performed folk songs in eight
different languages – Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, English, German,
Hebrew, Turkish and Kurdish – during the World Music Festival in San
Francisco last October.
The choir master claims the chorus sang Ey Raqip at the request of
the audience.
The song predates the PKK, having been written by the Kurdish poet
Dildar (1917-48) in 1938 while he was in prison in Iraq.
However, it is sometimes referred to as the Kurdish national anthem.
The lyrics say, in part, "the Kurdish nation is alive with its
language, cannot be defeated by the weapons of any time. Let no one
say Kurds are dead, Kurds are living."
Prosecutors continue to investigate the director of the children’s
chorus.
Amnesty International and the group Freemuse took up the cause of
the choir, saying the case was an effort to suppress free expression.
Turkey has come under intense criticism in the EU over its court cases
against writers and artists, many under laws that make it a crime to
"insult Turkishness."