Three members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party were sentenced to six months each for speaking Kurdish in an election campaign. Although the election campaigners claimed to have welcomed the meeting in Kurdish, they were sentenced for”committing a criminal offence by violating the laws related to oral and written election propaganda to be made in Turkish only”. The sentences come only days after journalist Irfan Atkan was jailed for 15 months, and his editor fined for publishing an article quoting a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party.