Leyla Zana
Leyla Zana was born in Diyarbakir, Turkish Kurdistan in 1961.
In October 1991, she ran for a seat in the Turkish Parliament to represent her hometown of Diyarbakir, in the first elections in Turkey in which Kurds were allowed to participate under their own identity. But,
when she sought to affirm that identity and to speak out for her people, she was arrested, prosecuted on charges of treason and
sedition, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Their crime was to struggle for a peaceful and democratic solution to the
Kurdish question.
She received approximately 41,000 votes, or 84 % of the total vote.
She became the first Kurd to break the ban on the Kurdish language in the Turkish Parliament, for which she was later tried and
convicted of treason. She had uttered the following words:
"I am taking this [constitutional] oath for the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples."
On March 2, 1994, colleagues in the Turkish Parliament revoked her constitutional immunity, paving the way for the Turkish
police to arrest her.
On December 8, 1994, she was sentenced to a fifteen-year prison term by the Turkish State Security Court at the Ankara "Closed" Prison in Ankara, Turkey.
Not long after she was sentenced to prison, Leyla Zana was honored with several international peace prizes. She was given the
Rosa Prize from Denmark, the Aachen Alternative Peace Prize, and the Rafto Association's Peace Prize from Norway, and
most recently she was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Peace Prize from Austria. She has been nominated
her for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was married at the age of 15 and is the mother of two children, Ronay and Ruken.
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