We applaud the Diyarbakir 7th High Criminal Court’s decision today to free Hanım Onur from pre-trial detention to care for her two sick children.  The tragedy of the case, in which Onur’s two children, one suffering from epilepsy and the other leukemia, begged the Prime Minister for mercy, had captivated the Turkish public and proven an embarrassment for the Turkish government.

Yet the case also exemplifies a larger problem that has yet to be resolved, Onur was one of thousands Kurdish members of the legal Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party incarcerated under Turkey’s draconian anti-Terrorism laws.

We can only hope that mercy in this case will be followed by a fundamental revision of an unjust law.

UPDATE:

Only hours after being released, police raided Hanım Onur’s home, search for weapons.  They found nothing.