Kurdish writer and artist Zehra Dogan after been released from Turkish prison, February 24, 2019. Photo: Screenshot/Jin News
ISTANBUL,— Turkey conditionally freed Kurdish writer and artist Zehra Dogan on Sunday after more than two years in jail for “terrorist propaganda”, her employer said.
Dogan’s case has won the public backing of street artist Banksy since she was sentenced to almost three years in 2017 for her tableau in the mainly Kurdish southeastern town of Nusaybin depicting ravages by state security forces.
The city has been the site of clashes between the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara, and the Turkish military.
Dogan’s release was reported by feminist, pro-Kurdish news agency Jinnews, for whom she worked prior to detention.
“I shall continue to do my work,” she insisted in a video posted to social media for Jinnews, which Ankara has several times tried to close down.
British graffiti artist Banksy highlighted Dogan’s situation last year when she featured in a mural in Manhattan, portraying her in a cell alongside crossed out bars representing days spent in custody.
NGOs have repeatedly slammed what they term increasing erosion of press freedoms in Turkey since the abortive 2016 coup. Reporters Without Borders recently placed the country 157th out of 180 on its world press freedom index.
In July 2015, Turkey initiated a controversial military campaign against the PKK in the country’s southeastern Kurdish region after Ankara ended a two-year ceasefire agreement. Since the beginning of the campaign, Ankara has imposed several round-the-clock curfews, preventing civilians from fleeing regions where the military operations are being conducted.
Observers say the crackdown has taken a heavy toll on the Kurdish civilian population and accuse Turkey of using collective punishment against the minority. Activists have accused the security forces of causing huge destruction to urban centres and killing Kurdish civilians.
The UN on March 10, 2016 accused Turkish security forces of committing serious abuses and killings during operations against Kurdish militants in Turkish Kurdistan.
Turkey is often accused of violating the human rights of its Kurdish minority.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
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