Mayor dismissed for terrorist propaganda

SİİRT – Doğan News Agency

Selim Sadak

Turkey’s Council of State yesterday discharged the mayor of the southeastern province of Siirt upon a request from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, following a local court verdict giving him a 10 month prison sentence.

Selim Sadak, who is an independent mayor, was charged with terrorist propaganda for a speech he made at a festival in 2009.

Diyarbakır Public Prosecutor found Sadak guilty for his use of the words: “I wish the [Turkish] state had heard your [referring to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants] voice on August 15, 1984. None of this would have happened. These young men in the mountains should celebrate this [festival] day without humiliation ... Let us stop the tears of Kurdish and Turkish mothers. But everybody knows that a solution [to the Kurdish issue] is not possible without the PKK and its leader Abdullah Öcalan.” 

Sadak’s words were considered to be terrorist propaganda by the prosecutor, and he was sentenced to 10 months in jail, despite the fact that the prosecutor only demanded five years.

Sadak had been jailed in 2008 for one year for a speech he made at the funeral of a killed PKK militant.