Baydemir Risks Prison
For Sending Out Kurdish Invitations
The New Anatolian / Ankara
Jan 19, 2007
The Interior Ministry yesterday
launched yet another probe into Diyarbakir's controversial pro-Kurdish mayor
over Kurdish-language invitations he sent out last year for a culture and art
festival.
Mayor Osman Baydemir, who has spent many hours defending himself in courtrooms,
now may face time behind bars for sending out Kurdish invitation cards for the
Sixth Diyarbakir Culture and Art Festival -- held last May -- to state
officials, including the president and the premier.
Former Diyarbakir Chief Public Prosecutor Huseyin Canan, who also received an
invitation, triggered the process which ended up with an inspector's report
submitted to the ministry.
The report said that the cards violate Article 22 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK)
as well as a law requiring use of the Turkish language in economic institutions
and a 1928 law on the adoption and use of the Turkish alphabet.
