The article below originally appeared in PressTV online on January 4th, 2015.
A co-mayor of the city of Van in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority region has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of having links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
On Monday, a court in Van found Bekir Kaya guilty of being a member of the PKK militant group’s urban wing, the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), Anatolia news agency said. PKK is regarded as a terrorist group by Turkey and many other countries. The group has been fighting for an autonomous region in Turkey’s southeast. More than 40,000 people have been killed since the group took up arms in 1984.
It added that twelve other people were also tried at the court and received jail sentences between 7.5 years and 15 years.
Kaya, 38, was jailed in 2012 over the PKK’s role in Van. He was released in 2013.
The jail sentence came amid growing tensions between the Turkish government and the Kurdish politicians over the recent military campaign against militants with the PKK in the country’s southeast.
Last week, Turkish prosecutors opened a probe against two Kurdish leaders from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, over comments supporting autonomy for the southeast.
Reports also said that the Turkish parliament was about to form a committee to consider removing the immunity of the two leaders to legalize their prosecution.
The Turkish raids against the PKK began in the wake of the July 20 bombing that left 30 people dead in the southern town of Suruc. Ankara blamed the bomb attack on Daesh terrorists.
Following the bombing, the PKK, which accuses the government of backing Daesh in Syria, began targeting Turkish security forces in what is viewed as reprisal attacks.
Since mid-December, curfews have been imposed in the towns of Silopi and Cizre in Sirnak Province as part of the army operations against PKK fighters, promoting angry reactions from the residents of the Kurdish-majority areas.
HDP said 56 civilians lost their lives during curfews in December alone. The Kurdish party also accused Ankara of “ordering a massacre” in Silopi and Cizre.
