page_title: Leyla Zana
section_title: Later political activities
hierarchical_section_title: Leyla Zana / Career / Later political activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Kurdish activist Leyla Zana in Brussels, February 3. 2010
context_page_description: Leyla Zana is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin who was imprisoned for ten years for her political activism, which was deemed by the Turkish courts to be against the unity of the country. She was awarded the 1995 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, but was unable to collect it until her release in 2004. She was also awarded the Rafto Prize in 1994 after being recognized by the Rafto Foundation for being incarcerated for her peaceful struggle for the human rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey and the neighbouring countries.
context_section_description: As of 2007, Zana is active in human rights issues in Turkey and working in the new party she co founded in 2005. One controversial idea is her proposal to reorganize Turkey into a set of federal states, one of them being Kurdistan.
  In April 2008, Zana was sentenced to two years in prison by Turkish authorities for allegedly "spreading terrorist propaganda" by saying in a speech, "Kurds have three leaders, namely Massoud Barzani, Celal Talebanî and Abdullah Öcalan." Barzani was the president of the Kurdistan federal region in Iraq, Talabani was the ethnic Kurdish president of Iraq, and Öcalan is the imprisoned Kurdish leader of PKK in Turkey.
  In December 2008, Zana was sentenced to another 10 years in prison by the Turkish court. The court ruled that she had violated the Turkish penal code and the Turkish anti-terror law in nine different speeches. The European Union Turkey Civic Commission called on the European Union and the international community to take political action and strongly condemn Turkey for having convicted Leyla Zana to ten new years in prison. Leyla Zana released the following statement to the EUTCC:
  “The case against me is a violation against freedom of thought, and represents a threat to every Kurd in Turkey. The decision of the court is just another way to repress, silence and punish the Kurds. The mentality governing this country is that problems can be resolved by anti democratic and repressive means and that unfair trial can provide political and social peace. But despite all this, our people will claim their legitimate rights, and will continue to struggle for this as long as it takes”.
  On 28 July 2009, a Court in Diyarbakır sentenced Leyla Zana to 15 months in prison because of a speech she had made at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.
  These prison sentences were overturned by higher courts.
  In December 2009, Constitutional Court of Turkey banned the DTP due to alleged links with the PKK and Leyla Zana, as well as Ahmet Türk, Aysel Tuğluk, Nurettin Demirtaş, Selim Sadak and 30 other Kurdish politicians were banned from politics for 5 years. While this decision forbids them to be members of political parties, it does not prevent them from being elected to the parliament as independent deputies.
  She was re-elected to Parliament in the 12 June 2011, June 2015, and the snap elections of November 2015 
  On 1 July 2012, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met Leyla Zana in his office. This meeting took place after a recent Hürriyet interview in which Leyla Zana said she was hopeful that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would solve the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Her words were criticized as 'naive' by the BDP leadership, but were welcomed by the Turkish government.
  In November 2016, Zana was again arrested along with other lawmakers from BDP/HDP, again accused of affiliation with the PKK.
  In July 2017, Zana's HDP deputy seat was under AKP-lead parliamentary review and potential exclusion for "failing to properly take her oath of office, as well as rampant absenteeism". Zana, arrested in November 2016, missed over 200 legislative sessions.
  On 11 January 2018, Zana's parliamentary membership was revoked for missing 212 parliamentary sessions from October 2016 to April 2017 by a 302-22 vote in the Turkish Parliament, with CHP and HDP MPs in attendance voting against.
caption: Leyla Zana, 2010
exif: {}