Turkish court convicts two Kurdish ex-MPs

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

   ANKARA, March 12 (AFP) - A Turkish state security court here on  
Thursday sentenced two Kurdish ex-deputies to suspended prison terms 
of less than a year on charges of separatist propaganda. 
   Mehmet Emin Sever was sentenced to 11 months and 20 days and  
Muzaffer Demir to 10 months for public statements in support of the 
outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), court officials announced. 
   The court suspended the sentences, and under Turkish law  
offenders whose sentences are suspended do not go to jail unless 
they commit another crime. 
   Sever and Demir were members of the pro-Kurdish Democracy Party,  
which was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in 1994 for 
cooperation with the PKK. 
   Four other ex-MPs from the Democracy Party are currently serving  
15-year jail terms on charges of collaborating with the PKK. 
   They include Leyla Zana, who was awarded the European  
Parliament's Sakharov prize for freedom of thought in 1995. 
   More than 29,000 people have been killed in PKK-related violence  
in southeastern Turkey since 1984 when the rebels launched an armed 
campaign for a Kurdish homeland. 
   In addition to the Democracy Party, the Constitutional Court,  
Turkey's highest judicial body, has dissolved two other pro-Kurdish 
parties on charges of links with the PKK. 
  	   	

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