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N.
Barzani calls for a Federal Democratic Parliamentary State in Iraq.
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Pro-Kurdish
Writer Released From Jail
AFP June 27, 2002 A
prominent pro-Kurdish writer was released from a prison near the Turkish
capital Ankara on Thursday after serving a year for "disseminating separatist
propaganda through the press," Anatolia news agency reported.
A state security court had convicted Fikret Baskaya, an associate professor of economics and the author of several books, for a editorial published in the now-defunct pro-Kurdish Ozgur Bakis (Free View) newspaper in 1999. In his article, which followed the capture by the authorities of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, Baskaya, 62, criticized Turkey's oppressive policies towards its sizable Kurdish minority. Baskaya had earlier served another prison term -- of 20 months -- under a 1993 conviction for "disseminating separatist propaganda" in a book about Turkey's socal and economic development, in which he decried government policies towards the Kurds. The convictions have unleashed harsh criticism by international human rights group against Ankara, which is under pressure to improve its democratic credentials if it wants to join the European Union.
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