German-Kurdish singer jailed in Turkey on terror charge

ISTANBUL

A German-Kurdish singer was sentenced on Nov. 14 to more than six years in prison in Turkey for membership of a terrorist organisation, her lawyer said.    

Saide Inac, who performs under the name Hozan Cane, was arrested in Turkey on June 23 while attending a campaign event for the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections.    

The court in Edirne, northwest Turkey, sentenced her on Nov. 14 to six years and three months in jail, her lawyer Mustafa Peköz said, adding that she would appeal.    

According to her family, the prosecution relied on photographs of Inac with members of the YPG, which Turkey considers to be the Syrian branch of the illegal PKK.

Inac was convicted of being a member of the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

But Inac’s relatives say the pictures were taken from a documentary she made about the persecution of the Yazidi religious minority by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).    

The imprisonment of the singer, who lives in Cologne, comes amid a thaw in relations between Turkey and Germany after a series of spats.