A Kurdish politician was sentenced to 1 year in prison for making propaganda for an outlawed organization by reading a poem.

Member of town council Cevdet Yasar read one of his poems in Kurdish New Year celebrations in Bulanik, a district of Mus province.

Van 4th Criminal court ruled that Yasar made propaganda for the Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) by reading the poem and sentenced him to 1 year in prison.

Yasar appealed to the Turkish High Court and claimed innocence.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself was imprisoned for months for reading a poem in Siirt in 1998.