{"id":48448,"date":"2026-03-25T18:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/48448\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T18:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:14:13","slug":"istanbul-court-jails-9-for-spreading-pkk-propaganda-in-probe-of-kurdish-nevruz-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/48448\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0130stanbul court jails 9 for spreading PKK propaganda in probe of Kurdish Nevruz celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A court in \u0130stanbul jailed nine people pending trial on Wednesday on charges of disseminating propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK) during Nevruz celebrations held in the city on March 22, the latest legal action in a broader crackdown tied to this year\u2019s Kurdish spring festival celebrations, Turkish Minute<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors had referred 38 detainees to court after police questioned them in the investigation, of whom 29 were released.<\/p>\n

The case is part of a larger sweep launched by Turkish authorities over Nevruz events across the country. Turkish police detained<\/a> 170 people in operations tied to this year\u2019s celebrations, with authorities accusing them mainly of spreading propaganda for the PKK during or around festival gatherings rather than alleging direct militant activity.<\/p>\n

Police said 72 people were detained between March 17 and 22 in nine provinces, while another 98 were detained on March 24 in six provinces.<\/p>\n

Nevruz, the spring festival marked across the Middle East and Central Asia, carries political meaning in Turkey\u2019s Kurdish-majority southeast and in large western cities with Kurdish populations. In Turkey the annual gatherings often serve both as cultural celebrations and as public displays of Kurdish identity, with crowds sometimes carrying banners or chanting slogans linked to jailed PKK founder Abdullah \u00d6calan.<\/p>\n

The arrests come amid Turkey\u2019s renewed peace initiative with the PKK.<\/p>\n

Last month a parliamentary commission approved a roadmap calling for legal reforms to proceed alongside the PKK\u2019s laying down of arms and militants\u2019 reintegration, a move seen as one of the clearest institutional steps in years toward ending a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.<\/p>\n

Kurdish political leaders have since pressed the government to match that roadmap with concrete legal measures. During Nevruz events this week, pro-Kurdish Peoples\u2019 Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) officials called for a \u201cpeace law,\u201d broader steps toward democratization and freedom for \u00d6calan, arguing that a lasting settlement would require legal guarantees.<\/p>\n

However, the latest detentions and arrests show that the government continues to crack down on Kurdish political expression as terrorist propaganda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A court in \u0130stanbul jailed nine people pending trial on Wednesday on charges of disseminating propaganda for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[26788,312,5954,26789,429,5956,131,132,155],"class_list":{"0":"post-48448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stockholm","8":"tag-disseminating-terrorist-propaganda","9":"tag-human-rights","10":"tag-kurdistan-workers-party-pkk","11":"tag-nevruz-celebrations","12":"tag-oppression","13":"tag-peace-initiative","14":"tag-stockholm","15":"tag-sweden","16":"tag-turkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116291178781180426","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}