ANKARA - Four former deputies of the outlawed Democracy Party (DEP), who were released from prison last month, were indicted because of the speeches they had made in eastern and southeastern provinces and towns and for the crimes they had committed, Police Department Deputy Director General and spokesman Ramazan Er said.
Holding a weekly briefing, Er said four former DEP deputies had been released, pending a Court of Appeals decision on their retrial, but soon after their release, they started a political tour and delivered speeches in a language other than the official language of the nation in eastern and southeastern provinces of Diyarbakir, Sirnak, Siirt, Van and Bitlis and towns of Kiziltepe and Nusaybin.
Er said that it was reported that those four people had chanted slogans in favor of an illegal organization, spoke Kurdish and violated the Traffic Law and the Law on Rallies, Marches and Demonstrations.
Replying to a question, Er said that it was a legal obligation to talk in the official language of Turkey --i.e. Turkish-- when making propaganda speeches, according to the Political Parties Act.
On Thursday, the Court of Appeals heard arguments of defense attorneys who affirmed that the four ex-deputies did not receive a fair trial earlier this year, in a court where prosecutors, who also asked for a retrial, demanded that the sentences be overruled because of procedural violations during the hearings. The court said it would make public its verdict on July 14. Zana and the other three were elected to the Turkish parliament in 1991 but they were stripped of their legal status of deputy. They since have served 10 years of their 15-year sentence in prison.
(MS-ULG) 09.07.2004