Kurdish lawyer sentenced to six years imprisonment

The Kurdish lawyer Ruşen Seydaoğlu has been sentenced to six years and three months imprisonment for membership of a terrorist organisation at the Diyarbakir 8th Heavy Penal Court. Like thousands of others, the lawyer is charged with activities in the civil society umbrella organisation Democratic Society Congress (DTK).

In Northern Kurdistan, the association is regarded as the framework of democratic social organisation and is repeatedly reclassified as an armed terrorist organisation in proceedings against the Kurdish opposition. Despite a contrary assessment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the Selahattin Demirtaş verdict, the DTK has been declared a “PKK structure” by the Turkish government and the treatment by the judicial authorities is shaped accordingly.

The criminalisation of the DTK goes hand in hand with a political campaign of destruction against the Kurdish part of the population, which has been going on since 2015. The chief public prosecutor’s office in Diyarbakır believes that the platform was set up on the “orders” of the imprisoned PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan with the declared aim of destroying the “unity and integrity of the Turkish state” and thus the “essence of Turkishness”.

In addition to her legal work, Ruşen Seydaoğlu is a long-time activist of the Kurdish women’s movement and writes for various publications, including as an editorial member of the Jineolojî magazine. She explained in court that her work for the DTK could not be considered independently of her identity as a woman and a Kurd. She stressed that her work is part of the women’s liberation struggle.