Seven years sentence for holding a banner.

This article taken from http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ highlights how Turkey’s justice system seems to convey the wrong message for a Country that wants to join the EU.

The ruling party’ AKP is currently (see related articles on site) in a struggle with the judiciary to implement changes that aim for a fairer and transparent system, leading to reducing tensions amongst certain EU members about developing further links with Turkey. The AKP is also pushing this battle to limit the power of the judiciary whom it views as anti-AKP.

The judiciary are very anxious about the AKP's past Islamic links.

The following article really puts Turkey's laws into perspective.

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Vesile Tadik, a 49-year-old illiterate woman, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for carrying a banner in favor of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK.
The banner was about Abdullah Öcalan, the convicted leader of PKK. It said: “Approaching Öcalan is approaching peace.” Tadik said in court that she is illiterate and did not know what was written on the banner.

The now-closed Democratic Society Party, or DTP, made a press statement in the Kurtalan district of Siirt province on Dec. 6 regarding Öcalan’s worsening prison conditions. Tadik, recently widowed and mother of six, was among the demonstrators during the statement’s reading and held the banner someone else handed her. Tadik was recorded on a police camera during the demonstration and a criminal case was filed against her on charges of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “committing a crime in the name of a terrorist organization while not being a member of it.”

Tadik was tried without arrest at the Diyarbakır Court for Serious Crimes where she gave her defense in Kurdish because she is not able to speak Turkish. Her testimony was given to the court through a translator. “I was among the group of ladies at the reading of the press statement. They gave me a banner. I cannot read or write. I held the banner without knowing what was written on it. I am innocent. I demand to be acquitted.”

Even though the indictment demanded that Tadik be sentenced for “committing a crime in the name of a terrorist organization while not being a member of it,” the prosecutor said the defendant’s age, gender and illiteracy should be accounted as a whole and requested that she be sentenced only for “making propaganda for a terrorist organization.”

The court sentenced Tadik to 10 months for the propaganda charge, but then went much further and gave her seven years and six months in prison for “being a member of a terrorist organization.” After evaluating the good behavior of the defendant in court that sentence was reduced to six years and three months.