Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy

Title	Turkey: Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy
Publisher	EurasiaNet
Country	Turkey
Publication Date	1 June 2009
Cite as	EurasiaNet, Turkey: Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy, 1 June 2009, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4a532cbc2.html [accessed 31 January 2010]

Turkey: Treating minors as terrorists stirs controversy

Yigal Schleifer: 6/01/09

If Turkish prosecutors have their way, Yilmaz, a soft-spoken 16-year-old with a teenager’s pimply face, could spend up to seven years in jail for having joined a demonstration early last year in the town of Cizre, in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Yilmaz (the name has been changed to protect his identity) has already spent 13 months in jail awaiting trial, although he was recently let out on bail. Although he joined a demonstration that took place after the funeral of a young boy who had been run over by a police armored vehicle during an earlier protest, prosecutors say the event was organized by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and are charging the boy with supporting a terrorist organization.

“In each appearance in court, we were telling the prosecutors that we are children, that they should let us go back to our lives,” says Yilmaz.

Yilmaz is one of hundreds of minors, some as young as 13, who have been arrested and jailed in Turkey over the last few years under strict new anti-terrorism laws that allow for juveniles to be tried as adults. Some have even been accused of “committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization” for participating in demonstrations that prosecutors charge have been organized the PKK. Read more