KCK suspect to be freed to care for kids

CİZRE - Doğan News Agency

Solin (L), the 5-year-old daughter of Hanım Onur (C), has been diagnosed with leukemia while her son, Mithat, suffers from epilepsy. DHA photo

A Diyarbakır court decided today to release Hanım Onur, the mother of two sick children under arrest as part of the court case into the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), Doğan news agency reported.

Solin, the 5-year-old daughter of Hanım Onur, has been diagnosed with leukemia while her 8-year-old son, Mithat, suffers from epilepsy.

The deputy chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Meral Danış Beştaş, told Anatolia news agency that Onur, the deputy mayor in the southeastern province of Şırnak’s Cizre district, was to be released on probation, a new practice in Turkish legislation that is also known as the “legal control system.”

Onur has been banned from leaving the country and has to visit a police station once a week within the province in which she is residing. If she needs to travel to another province for the treatment of her children, then she will sign the sheet in that jurisdiction, according to her terms of release.

“The release order was arranged this way. Onur will be out of prison as soon as the release order reaches the prison and all the other procedures are completed,” Beştaş said.

Onur’s lawyer, Canan Atabay, demanded her release earlier yesterday at Diyarbakır’s 7th Criminal Court on the grounds that her two small children were seriously ill and needed treatment.

The suspect has been imprisoned since September 2011 on accusations of being a member of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In the petition submitted to the court, Atabay said Solin was diagnosed with leukemia one year ago while Mithat was epileptic. Solin has not been responding to treatment because of her mother’s arrest and was showing signs of behavioral disorder due to psychological trauma, the petition read.
Onur’s husband is a fugitive suspect in the same case. The two children were being looked after by their grandparents.

Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Şahin has instructed the Şırnak governor to “do whatever necessary” for the treatment of the two siblings.

An online petition asking for the release of Onur for her children’s benefit has collected almost 40,000 signatures at the website http://imza.la/solin-olmesin. The children’s situation has triggered reactions across the social media world, mainly on Twitter, with many calling on authorities to release the mother.
Şahin intervened and told the governor to bring the two children to Ankara for treatment if their relatives give permission, daily Hürriyet reported.

On Feb. 9, Cizre local administrator Şenol Koca visited the children at the instruction of Şahin, Doğan news agency reported.