 |
|
 |
Turkey:
Kurdish singer Rojda charged with 20 months imprisonment
|
|
In a court in Diyarbakır on 25 March 2010, the Kurdish singer Rojda Şenses was charged with one year and eight months imprisonment for ‘conducting propaganda for a terrorist organisation’ in two separate concerts.
Rojda Şenses testified in court in Istanbul on 11 February 2010. She has previously been invited to participate in a breakfast meeting by Prime Minister Erdoğan within the framework of the democratic expansion. Even so, she now received her sentence from Diyarbakır’s Special Authority High Criminal Court of one year each for having performed the song 'Heval Kamuran' in a concert at the 9th Diyarbakır Culture and Art Festival, as well as in another concert.
The sentence was later decreased to ten months served in prison for each count, totaling one year and eight months.
47 persons on trial in 2009 In 2009, 47 people were on trial in Turkey under the charges of "making propaganda for a terrorist organisation" or "exposing the identities of public officials fighting terrorism." 23 people were convicted to a total of 58 years in prison, according to Antenna-tr.org.
Arrested in February Rojda Şenses was first arrested in her home in the Gaziosmanpaşa Karayolları quarter of Istanbul on the evening of 9 February 2010. She was held at the Istanbul Police Directorate and later on transported to the Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court. There she gave her statement in the presence of her lawyer Hüseyin Çalışçı.
In an announcement Rojda made after she had given her statement in court, she said: "We appear to be potentially guilty unless some laws are going to be amended. I will give my statements at all the trials," (quote by journalist Uygar Gültekin who reported about Rodja’s case to Bianet).
|
|
 Kurdish singer Rojda in concert in Diyarbakır Culture and Art Festival.
Photo by Mehmet Masum Süer
 Turkey
|
|
 |
| Related reading on freemuse.org |
| Turkey: Grup Yorum member still in detention |
| Musician Seçkin Aydoğan, member of Group Yorum, was not discharged at the first hearing of the lawsuit against him and four others in İstanbul 15th High Criminal Court |
| 10 April 2012 |
 |
| Turkey: Killed for requesting a Kurdish song |
| A weekend in December 2011 ended tragically when a man was brutally murdered after he requested that musicians in a bar sing a folksong in Zaza Kurdish, his native language |
| 03 January 2012 |
 |
| Turkey: Ferhat Tunç in court once again |
| Kurdish singer Ferhat Tunç is the target of seven investigations and two trials due to speeches he held during his campaign for the general elections in June 2011 |
| 16 December 2011 |
 |
|
|
 |