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Kurdish woman activist leaves jail for parliament

GEBZE, Turkey, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - A jailed Kurdish activist elected to Turkey's legislature in Sunday's elections was released Tuesday under legal provisions that grant judicial immunity to members of parliament.

A crowd of supporters greeted Sebahat Tuncel, who ran in Sunday's elections as an independent from Istanbul, as she emerged under tight security from a prison in the town of Gebze.

"Our people have tasked me with an important mission in its struggle for democracy and peace," she said. "I will do my best to fulfill this mission."

Tuncel was jailed nine months ago and was awaiting trial on charges of belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast since 1984.

Turkish law grants full judicial immunity to parliament members. They can be taken to court only if parliament lifts their immunity.

Tuncel is among 24 Kurdish politicians who won seats in Sunday's elections, marking a comeback of militant Kurds to parliament after a 13-year absence.

They ran as independent candidates to circumvent a 10-percent national threshold that would have left their Democratic Society Party (DTP) out of parliament.

They are expected to re-group under the DTP banner once they are sworn in.

Kurdish politicians in Turkey are routinely suspected of being tools of the PKK's separatist ambitions.

The first stint in parliament of Kurds campaigning for minority rights ended in disaster in 1994, when their immunity was lifted on charges of aiding the PKK.

Some of them, including human rights award winner Leyla Zana, were jailed; others went into exile and one joined the PKK.

Since then, Turkey, under European Union pressure, has granted the Kurdish minority a measure of cultural freedom and lifted emergency rule in the southeast.

Kurds, however, still complain of discrimination and ask for Kurdish to be taught in schools and used in all fields of public life.