ISTANBUL, Oct 14 (AFP) - A Turkish court issued an arrest warrant Thursday against a leading human rights campaigner who is standing trial for insulting the Turkish military, Anatolia news agency reported.
In ordering the arrest of Eren Keskin, the court cited her failure to appear before the judge despite repeated summons.
The prosecution is seeking six months to three years in jail for Keskin over a speech she made at a conference in Cologne, Germany, in March 2002, in which she allegedly accused Turkish soldiers of sexually abusing women.
Turkey's biggest-selling newspaper, Hurriyet, quoted Keskin as saying at the time: "Women's issues cannot be resolved as long as the country (Turkey) is not run by civilian forces. The soldiers are practicing sexual assault. They take even married women to virginity tests just to torture them."
Keskin, a lawyer by profession, is known for her efforts as a campaigner for the rights of Turkey's Kurds.
She is one of the lawyers of a Kurdish woman whose claims of torture and multiple rape at the hands of paramilitary gendarmerie troops in the early 1990s prompted judicial authorities last October to indict 405 soldiers.
The plaintiff said she was blindfolded when abused, leading the prosecution to charge all soldiers who served during that period in two gendarmerie posts, where she claims the abuse took place, in Mardin province.
Turkish authorities have generally been reluctant to probe allegations of mistreatment by security forces in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, the scene of a bloody conflict in the 1980s and 1990s between Kurdish rebels and the army.
Turkey's rights record is under close scrutiny by the European Union, which it is seeking to join.