Trial against Cologne-based singer in Turkey

Tomorrow, September 3, the trial against the German-Kurdish singer Hozan Cane (stage name) continues. "The accusations against the Cologne-based artist are completely fictional," emphasized Dr. Kamal Sido, Middle East Consultant of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). "Anything less than an acquittal would be a scandal – but, unfortunately, no surprise in view of the politicized justice system in the country." The trial against the German-Kurdish singer was reopened on August 6, after an appeal court had rejected the original verdict against her for lack of evidence. She has already been in prison for 27 months.

In a message to the STP, Cane's daughter, Dilan Örs, expressed hope that her mother might be acquitted tomorrow. She appealed to the German public not to forget her – and to the German government to advocate for her release. "Like Dilan Örs, many people in Germany wish for a clear position against the foreign policy of Turkish President Erdogan," Sido emphasized. "Otherwise, he will continue suppressing the Kurdish population and other minorities in the country as well as the political opposition. Without a headwind, even more people will be imprisoned for flimsy reasons – and tens of thousands of innocent political prisoners will die in prison."

The STP has been in contact with Hozan Cane for years. Among other things, she appeared at a joint conference of the STP and the Friedrich Nauman Foundation in March 2010. The 49-year-old singer was arrested in the city of Edirne shortly before the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey in June 2018, where she had supported the election campaign of the legal pro-Kurdish HDP party. She was accused of terror propaganda, based on content that the singer had shared on her Facebook and Twitter profile between 2014 and 2018. In November 2018, Cane was sentenced to more than six years in prison for membership in the banned Kurdish Workers Party PKK.