Turkish Daily News  
28 February 2002

People's Democracy Party (HADEP) leader Murat Bozlak will make his verbal defense on Friday at the Constitutional Court. 

The Constitutional Court will hear the verbal defense of HADEP's Bozlak on March 1 as a part of the closure case which was opened three years ago. 

Vural Savas, who at the time was the Court of Cassation prosecutor, opened the closure case against HADEP, Turkey's only legal Kurdish party, in 1999, on charges of having organic ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). 

The Constitutional Court has banned HADEP's predecessors, such as the People's Labor Party (HEP) and the pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) on charges of being under the command of the PKK, and staging activities upon the directions of the terrorist organization. 

The PKK declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999, but Turkey rejected the cease-fire and sporadic fighting continues. 

The conflict has claimed the lives of some 37,000 people since 1984. 

It is claimed that HADEP congresses were used as a propaganda tool for Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK. 

It is also alleged that seminars held by HADEP were imposing hatred against the constitutional order and united state structure of Turkey. 

In an earlier interview with Reuters news agency, Bozlak said that if the Constitutional Court banned his party, millions of Kurds would still wage a peaceful struggle to gain wider cultural rights. 

Southeastern province of Diyarbakir Mayor Feridun Celik also stated that the possible closure of HADEP, which received 1.5 million votes, would disappoint millions of people seeking the improvement of human rights and basic rights and freedoms.