Leyla Zana - Recent Political Activities

Recent Political Activities

As of 2007, Zana is active in human rights issues in Turkey and working in the new party she co founded in 2005. One controversial idea is her proposal to reorganize Turkey into a set of federal states, one of them being Kurdistan.

In April 2008, Zana was sentenced to two years in prison by Turkish authorities for allegedly "spreading terrorist propaganda" by saying in a speech, "Kurds have three leaders, namely Massoud Barzani, Celal Talebanî and Abdullah Ocalan." Massoud Barzani is the president of the Kurdistan federal region in Iraq, Celal Talabani is the ethnic Kurdish president of Iraq, and Abdullah Ocalan is the imprisoned Kurdish leader of PKK in Turkey.

In December 2008, Zana was sentenced to another 10 years in prison by the Turkish court. The court ruled that she had violated the Turkish penal code and the Turkish anti-terror law in nine different speeches. The European Union Turkey Civic Commission called on the European Union and the international community to take political action and strongly condemn Turkey for having convicted Leyla Zana to ten new years in prison. Leyla Zana released the following statement to the EUTCC:

“The case against me is a violation against freedom of thought, and represents a threat to every Kurd in Turkey. The decision of the court is just another way to repress, silence and punish the Kurds. The mentality governing this country is that problems can be resolved by anti democratic and repressive means and that unfair trial can provide political and social peace. But despite all this, our people will claim their legitimate rights, and will continue to struggle for this as long as it takes”.

On 28 July 2009, at the 4th Diyarbakir High Criminal Court, Leyla Zana was sentenced to 15 months in prison because of a speech she had made at SOAS in the University of London.

In December 2009, Turkey banned the DTP due to alleged links with the PKK and Leyla Zana as well as Ahmet Türk, Aysel Tuğluk, Nurettin Demirtaş, Selim Sadak and 30 other Kurdish politicians were banned from politics for 5 years.

She was re-elected to Parliament in the 12 June 2011 general election.

On July 1st 2012, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met Leyla Zana in his office. This meeting took place when in a recent Hürriyet interview that Leyla Zana said that was hopeful Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would solve the Kurdish issue. These words were criticized as 'naive' by the BDP leadership, but was welcomed by the Turkish government.