Tahir Elci, head of the Bar Association in Diyarbakir who was briefly detained for alleged “terrorist propaganda” after defending the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), says he regularly receives death threats.
"Some call me directly with their death threats, while others send them over social media," he said in an exclusive interview with Rudaw following his court appearance earlier this week.
"I am not afraid, even though I am worried, because there is a danger," said the 49-year-old top lawyer, who was forced to appear before an Istanbul court on Tuesday to answer for comments made to CNN Turk.
”The PKK is a political movement which has important political demands and which enjoys widespread support, even if some of its actions can be characterized as terrorist acts," he had said on CNN Turk last week.
Elci said he suspected those behind the threats to be "Turkish nationalists and fascists." The police have been informed, he said.
Elci, as head of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, is leading a fact-finding mission into the recent curfews in Cizre and other cities, including Silvan and Bismil.
Elci was born in Cizre, a Kurdish-dominated town on the Iraqi-Turkish border, where Turkish authorities imposed a curfew last month as they went in for an anti-PKK sweep. Many civilians are reported to have been killed in the military operations, though the government denies ordinary people being slain.
Elci has been taking cases to the European Court of Human Rights since 1992 and representing numerous applicants before the domestic courts in southeastern Turkey. Most are criminal matters, mainly on behalf of individuals victimized by clashes between the PKK and Turkish Army.
The Istanbul court this week decided to release Elci, but banned him from traveling outside the country.
Defending the PKK is unlawful in Turkey. The outlawed group fought a three-decade war in Turkey for autonomy for the country’sestimated 15 million Kurds. Since 2002, the PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by the European Union and United States.
But Elci does not agree, he told Rudaw.
"Although I don’t accept all their actions, I don’t consider PKK to be a terrorist organization. It is a political movement," he stressed. The "majority of Kurds think like me on this point,” he said.
Elci says that the Kurds and Turks “won’t get anywhere” as long as they keep calling each other names such as “terrorist organization” and “army of invasion.”
“This makes healthy dialogue impossible and damages the relationship between two peoples who are going to live together. Therefore, we should use more positive words,” he counsels.
He calls the court’s action against him an attack on his freedom of speech.
"It is a hard attack on my freedom of expression and prevents a healthy dialogue with the Kurds," he said. "If politicians, leaders of NGOs, intellectuals and journalists in this country can’t express themselves in their own way, can’t discuss a topic, how will one find a solution to these problems in a democratic way?"
The Kurdish lawyer has received support from the Bar Association in Paris, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International.
“He committed no recognizable crime and this shocking investigation and travel ban should be dropped immediately,“ HRW’s senior Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb said in an earlier press release.
Amnesty called on Turkish authorities “to end judicial harassment of” Elci, and viewed the case “as an overtly political attack on Tahir Elci’s right to freedom of expression.”
Elci is delighted at the support he has received from these organizations.
"The fact that the two major human rights organizations defend my freedom of speech and protest against my treatment s a great thing."
Commenting on the snap general election on November 1, Elci said he hoped this time a government can be formed which will "look for a solution to Turkey's many problems."
Turkey is gearing for the election, which follows an inconclusive poll in June, after which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) failed to muster the seats to form a new government in 45 days.
”I urge the future government to return to dialogue with the representatives (who can address) these problems and not to try to solve them unilaterally,” Elci advised.
He says the only way to make progrees is for weapons to silenced, Kurds and Turks rights be guaranteed in a new constitution and both parties must resume the peace process started in 2013 between Turkey and the PKK.
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