Turkish Man Acquitted For Naming His Baby Girl "Kurdistan" Gets Jail For Another "Crime"

Turkey wants to join the E.U. but as progressive as it might seem in some areas, its secularism for one, it's as oppressive as it gets in other areas. When his daughter was born in 2008, Ahmet Atış, decided to call her “Helin Kürdistan”. It was probably not the greatest name to call your child considering the troubles between the Kurds and the Turks, but naming a child "Kurdistan" should not get you prosecuted and a potential prison term. And yet that's exactly what Ahmet faced for “making propaganda for a terrorist organization.”

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Now as far as I know "Kurdistan" itself is not a terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Workers Party (aka PKK), on the other hand, is considered a terrorist organization by the USA, Turkey and the EU, but since when is naming your child a crime punishable by time in jail, regardless of the intent behind giving that child a certain name. After insisting that "making propaganda" was not the reason for naming his baby girl Kurdistan, the courts did acquit him on the charge, but he did not get away scot-free. He will spend the next 8 plus years in jail for something that he might not have committed.

The defendant was sentenced for attending a demonstration held on April 4 on the occasion of the birthday of Abdullah Öcalan, the convicted leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, and throwing stones at police officers.

For the second crime, prosecutors charged Atış with “committing a crime in the name of a terrorist organization,” “behaving against the law for the purposes of gathering and demonstration marches” and “making propaganda for a terrorist organization,” for which a total sentence of 20 years was demanded by the prosecution.

In defense, Atış’s lawyer, Muzaffer Demir, said his client’s face was clear in only one of the photographs shot during the demonstration and that there was no evidence of him shouting illegal slogans or throwing stones at the police.

“In the expert report, it says, ‘When the photograph is zoomed into [the face of the suspect] there are similarities.’ There cannot be such a thing in criminal justice,” Demire said.

Is it a crime to participate in a demonstration? If that's the case, too bad we don't have those kinds of laws for all the "kill the infidel" style demonstrations by groups like the now-defunct Shariah4UK in places like England where they too are inciting violence and the overthrowing of a government. And to be sentenced to 8 years in prison is just overkill.