KURDISH POLITICIAN IN TURKEY SENTENCED TO SIX MONTHS IN PRISON FOR REFERRING TO ABDULLAH OCALAN AS " MR. OCALAN"

In yet the latest example of how the nuances of language can be used to silence and harass dissident voices in Turkey, we now read that Ahmet Turk, a leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, has been sentenced by a court in Diyarbakir to six months imprisonment for referring to jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan as "Mr. Ocalan."

The court stated that the prefix "Mr" implied respect for the leader of the Kurdish Workers' Party who is serving a life sentence of imprisonment after being found guilty of treason for leading a decades long armed struggle in Turkey's Kurdish regions.

A BBC report states that this is the second conviction for Mr. Turk in the past seven days. Last week he and another DTP official were sentenced to an eighteen months jail sentence for distributing party materials in the Kurdish language. Turkish law allows the distribution of political literature only in Turkish.

The Democratic Society Party , despite being a legitimate political body working for democratic and minority rights for Kurds in Turkey, claims to have been subjected to various forms of harassment in the lead-up to Turkish elections later this year.