April 15, 2008  | The Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey: A Turkish court on Tuesday found 53 Kurdish mayors guilty of praising a criminal group because they asked Denmark to let a television station with alleged links to Kurdish guerrillas continue to operate there.

The mayors described the case against them as a free-speech issue, but Turkey views Kurdish rebels as terrorists and believes Europe is not doing enough to curb sources of support among Kurdish expatriates.

Most of the mayors are members of the Democratic Society Party, a political group that faces possible closure for alleged links to the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which seeks autonomy for the large Kurdish population in southeast Turkey and which has been listed by the European Union and the United States as a terrorist organization.

Tuesday's verdict against the mayors will be used as evidence in the case against the party, said Muharrem Elbey, a lawyer for the Kurdish mayor of Diyarbakir, the biggest city in southeast Turkey.

The state is divided over whether the possible scrapping of a party with 20 seats in Parliament would strengthen the rule of law or push a new wave of alienated Kurds out of the political mainstream and into guerrilla ranks.

The court in Diyarbakir sentenced the mayors to two months in prison, but later commuted the sentence to fines of 1,835 Turkish liras (US$1,400 or €900), citing the mayors' good behavior during the trial. Three other mayors were acquitted. The mayors said they would appeal.

The politicians were indicted in 2006 after writing to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to request that the Roj TV station be kept on air in Denmark. Turkey says the station is a propaganda machine for the rebels.

The station has a broadcasting license in Denmark, but its studios are in Belgium. An investigation into its activities by Danish authorities is under way.

Danish-Turkish relations have long been strained over Kurdish groups based in Denmark.

Kurdistan National Liberation Front, a political group with strong ties to the PKK, opened an office in Copenhagen in 1995, causing protests from the Turkish Embassy. The activities of the office eventually faded out.

Turkey has been under pressure from the European Union to strengthen the rights of Kurds, a non-Arab people distantly related to the Iranians. They constitute about 20 percent of Turkey's population of at least 70 million.

The PKK's rebel commanders often joined the station's broadcasts by satellite telephone from mountain hideouts in northern Iraq, and the station broadcasts images of rebels training or attacking Turkish soldiers.

The mayors have denied supporting the PKK guerrillas.

"The mayors' letter was an appeal for a Kurdish-language television station to remain on air," said Elbey, who represents Diyarbakir mayor Osman Baydemir. "They never praised the content of the broadcasts."

Elbey said that if the appeal fails, he will consider taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. The court's decisions are binding on Turkey.

The prosecutor initially wanted the court to try the mayors for aiding and abetting the PKK, but reduced the charge to praising a criminal group. The earlier charge carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence.