Turkish court rules academics' rights violated

ISTANBUL - Turkish academics convicted on terrorism charges for signing a peace petition have had their rights violated, the country's constitutional court ruled on Friday, state news agency Anadolu reported.

More than 2,000 academics from dozens of Turkish and foreign universities, calling themselves "Academics for Peace", signed the petition criticising a military crackdown in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.

A total of 203 signatories in Turkey have since been convicted of "terrorist propaganda" with another 578 still on trial, according to Human Rights Watch.

The constitutional court had been hearing an appeal by nine of those convicted over the petition, and narrowly agreed that their rights had been violated.

It ordered retrials for the defendants and ordered compensation of 9,000 lira (around 1,415 euros).

It also said a copy of its judgement would be sent to all lower courts to prevent further violations.

"It's very welcome and overdue news," said Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch, adding that the academics "should never have been prosecuted in the first place".

"The longer term expectation is that everyone should be acquitted and charges dropped," she said.

The peace petition followed the collapse of a two-year ceasefire with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

Fighting then intensified in the southeast and Turkish authorities also imposed months-long curfews in many areas as part of their operations against the PKK.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies.

The petition was also signed by dozens of foreign luminaries and intellectuals, among them American linguist Noam Chomsky and the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek.