6.  The applicant was born in 1957 and lives in Diyarbakır.
7.  At the time of the events giving rise to the application, the applicant was the head of the district branch of the Democratic People’s Party (Demokratik Halklar Partisi – DEHAP) in the Ergani district of Diyarbakır.
8.  On 15 February 2005, on the anniversary of the arrest and transfer of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK[1], to Turkey, the Ergani district branch of DEHAP organised a gathering in front of the district branch office in order to read out a press statement. The applicant read the statement in question.
9.  On 31 May 2005 the Ergani public prosecutor filed a bill of indictment with the Ergani Criminal Court against twenty-six persons, including the applicant, charging them with breach of the Marches and Demonstrations Act (Law no. 2911) on account of their participation in the above-mentioned event. They were accused of participating in the gathering and carrying banners with slogans such as “The solution is in İmralı[2]” (“Çözüm İmralı’da”), “Solitary confinement is a crime against humanity” (“Tecrit insanlık suçudur”), “Not EU, not US, Öcalan has the solution” (“Ne AB ne ABD, Çözüm Öcalan’da”) , “The youth is Öcalan’s fedai”[3] (“Gençlik Apo’nun Fedaisidir”), and “Freedom to Öcalan” (“Öcalan’a özgürlük”), as well as posters of Abdullah Öcalan. They were also accused of chanting slogans such as “To the sun, to freedom” (Güneşe güneşe, özgürleşmeye”), “Long live the brotherhood of peoples” (“Yaşasın halkların kardeşliği”), “May those hands which aim to damage peace be broken” (“Barışa uzanan eller kırılsın”), “A tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, we are with you” (“Dişe diş kana kan, seninleyiz”) and “AKP, be careful, do not abuse our patience” (“AKP şaşırma, sabrımızı taşırma”).
10.  On 5 October 2006 the Ergani Criminal Court decided that it lacked jurisdiction to examine the case. It held that the impugned acts constituted the offence proscribed by section 7 (2) of Law no. 3713 and that the accused should therefore be tried by the Diyarbakır Assize Court.
11.  On an unspecified date the Diyarbakır Assize Court remitted the case file to the Ergani Criminal Court.
12.  On 19 March 2007 the Ergani Criminal Court once again decided that the Diyarbakır Assize Court had jurisdiction over the case.
13.  On 10 August 2007 the Sixth Chamber of the Diyarbakır Assize Court began the trial in the case.
14.  On 15 April 2010 the Diyarbakır public prosecutor submitted to the first-instance court his observations on the merits of the case. According to those submissions, the public prosecutor considered that the applicant should be convicted under section 7 (2) of Law no. 3713, as the press statement read out by him had referred to Abdullah Öcalan as the “honourable Kurdish people’s leader”.
15.  On the same day the Diyarbakır Assize Court convicted the applicant of disseminating propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation under section 7 (2) of Law no. 3713. The court based its judgment, among others, on a police report regarding the reading out of the press statement dated 15 February 2005 and a police report dated 23 February 2005 on the examination of a police video recording of the event of 15 February 2005. The court judgment read as follows:
“... it has been decided that Ahmet Kınık and R.A. committed the offence proscribed by section 7(2) of Law no. 3713, as they participated in the reading out of a press statement organised by the DEHAP in Ergani on 15 February 2005 on the anniversary of the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan, and chanted slogans such as ‘The solution is in İmralı’, ‘Solitary confinement is a crime against humanity’, ‘Not EU, not US, Öcalan has the solution’, and ‘The youth is Öcalan’s fedai’. They marched and chanted these slogans without obtaining prior permission.”
16.  The Sixth Chamber of the Diyarbakır Assize Court sentenced the applicant to ten months’ imprisonment but decided to suspend the pronouncement of the judgment (hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması) for a period of five years, under Article 231 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
17.  On 5 July 2010 the applicant objected to the decision of the Assize Court to suspend the pronouncement of the judgment.
18.  On 22 November 2010 the Fourth Chamber of the Diyarbakır Assize Court dismissed the applicant’s objection.