RETRIAL VERDICT AGAINST LEYLA ZANA AND FELLOW MPS

Motion Text

That this House is appalled by the verdict handed down on 21st April by the Turkish court in the retrial of Nobel Prize nominee Leyla Zana and three other former Turkish MPs of Kurdish origin, which confirmed a 1994 prison sentence of 15 years for taking their parliamentary oath in Kurdish and alleged links with Kurdish guerrillas; recalls that the retrial had been allowed after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2001 that the initial trial against the four had been unfair, and under democracy reforms adopted by the Turkish Government; trusts that, following a retrial denounced as unfair by the defendants' lawyer and international observers, every legal means is taken to ensure that the defendants are released and their names cleared; and calls upon the British Government and the international community to continue raising her case and that of her colleagues.