Parents of girl who died fighting in PKK ranks acquitted of terror charges

ANTALYA

The parents of Ayşe Deniz Karacagil, who died in Iraq’s Raqqa after joining the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), have been acquitted of charges of “making terror propaganda” by attending their daughter’s funeral. 

The prosecutor had demanded up to three years in jail for Karacagil’s mother, Nuray Erçağan, and her father, Ömer Faruk Karacagil.

They were charged with “praising Karacagil’s activities as a member of a terror organization” and “taking pictures in a place where members and symbols of a terror organization were also present.”

Their lawyer Hakan Evcin said no parents should be punished for attending their daughter’s funeral. Eventually, the Antalya 2nd Heavy Penal Court has recently acquitted Karacagil’s parents of all charges.

Karacagil first became publicly known in Turkey as “the girl with the red foulard” during the Gezi protests in summer 2013, spending four months in custody after police and prosecutors linked the color of her scarf to socialism during her interrogations.

A year later, she joined the PKK, adopting the name “Destan Yörük” as her alias.

In 2017, she died near Raqqa fighting in the People’s Protection Units (YPG) ranks, a group that Turkey sees as a terror group for its ties to the PKK.