Kurdish Mother Gets Seven Years for Holding A Poster She Couldn’t Read
Vesile Tadik is a 49-year-old mother of 6. During a press conference held by the Kurdish political party DPT (now banned, see my previous posts on this under the category ‘Kurds’) in December 2009 in the eastern town of Siirt, Vesile Tadik was with a group of other women when someone put a poster in her hand. Ms. Tadik speaks only Kurdish and can’t read or write, so she didn’t know what the poster she held in her hand said. For holding the poster, Ms. Tadik was arrested and has just been sentenced by a court to 7 years and 3 months in jail for “belonging to a terrorist organization and committing a crime in the name of a terrorist organization.” (Click here, in Turkish)
The DPT was a legitimate elected party. The woman had no idea what she was holding. I have no idea what was written on the poster, since the Turkish press didn’t think it was important enough to mention. Well, maybe it really doesn’t matter. Is there no justice in the justice system? No humanity? No nuance in judgment? This is like sentencing Kurdish children to a dozen years in jail for throwing a rock. (Check under the category of ‘Kurds’ for endless examples of this.) What needs to change here?

