Turkey's leading human rights activist, Akin Birdal, will be released from jail Saturday after completing a ten-month jail sentence for inciting "racial hatred," a leading human rights group announced Wednesday.
"We will greet him at the prison gate with flowers," Husnu Ondul, the head of the Human Rights Association (IHD), told reporters.
Birdal, the 1999 laureate of Amnesty International's human rights prize and former head of the IHD, was jailed in June 1999 for "inciting racial hatred" in comments made in 1995 and 1996 calling for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey.
The 52-year-old activist was granted a six-month release on health grounds in September 1999, and re-entered jail in March.
Turkey came under severe criticism from the European Union, the United States and international human rights group for Birdal's conviction on the grounds that it violated freedom of expression.
Birdal had previously served a year in jail for activities deemed supportive of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a 15-year armed campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey.
The activist was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in May 1998 after the alleged confession of a former PKK leader published in Turkish newspapers linked the IHD to the PKK.
In December last year, a state security court handed down jail terms ranging from 10 months to more than 19 years against 10 men for organizing and carrying out the attack on Birdal – ANKARA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
