Kurdish community leaders have knocked back claims an Australian woman arrested in Istanbul last week has any links to terrorism.
Turkish authorities detained Cigdem Aslan, also known as Lenna Aslan, as she tried to return home to Melbourne last week, accusing her of conducting activities for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is a banned terrorist organisation in Türkiye and Australia.
The group, also known as the PKK, has fought a long-running insurgency against Türkiye, which has a hardline policy against support for Kurdish groups.
But Mahmut Kahraman, the co-president of the Kurdish Democratic Community Centre of Victoria, said Ms Aslan had no connection to the PKK and that he believed her arrest was politically motivated.
Mr Kahraman said he had known Ms Aslan since 1997 and described her as one of his best friends.
“One hundred per cent lie, nothing is true,” he said.
“It’s definitely 100 per cent [politically] motivated.
“She [is] a single mum, [she’s] a hardworking woman and she raised almost two daughters alone and she’s a multicultural health worker.
“[She’s] concerned about human rights … whatever [the] Turkish government [is] saying [is] totally false.
“She doesn’t have any connection with Kurdistan Workers’ Party or any other organisations.”
Lenna Aslan was detained at the airport as she prepared to board a flight from Istanbul to Melbourne. (ABC News)
Mr Kahraman said Ms Aslan had been in the country for about a month to visit family members in Ankara.
He said she had previously visited Türkiye without issue, as recently as earlier this year.
“She’s been there no problem at all, she went there, she came back … she’s got many family members in Türkiye,” he said.
Mr Kahraman said he had not been able to talk to Ms Aslan, but said a lawyer saw her two days ago.
“She is generally OK but she … [has] ongoing some health issues, she couldn’t access some of her medications,” he said.
He said the situation has been confronting for Ms Aslan’s daughters.
“They’re so upset, shocked,” he said.
“Suddenly having their mum on TV … being [promoted] as a member of [an] organisation which in Australia [is] also outlawed … suddenly [promoted] like a terrorist, this is terrible, I wish our government [would] do something here.”
Claims other Kurdish Australians detained
Mr Kahraman said he was concerned for Ms Aslan’s welfare.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to Lenna … whether she’s going to stay in jail for a long time,” he said.
He also claimed that other members of Australia’s Kurdish community have also been detained by Turkish authorities in the past six years.
“Some of them keep it silent, government could arrest them for a couple of days, give their passport back,” Mr Kahraman said.
“Some of them [had their] passport … confiscated for four months, six months,” he said.
“If I go … today [to] Türkiye, same thing can happen to me, you’ll see me on news, they will say, ‘Oh, we arrest a member of Kurdistan Workers’ Party’,” he said.
“This is [an] ongoing pressure on [the] Kurdish community, who [are] living in diaspora.”
Kurds account for about 18 per cent of the Turkish population and the community is concentrated in eastern and south-eastern Türkiye, as well as northern Iraq and Syria.
The “complicated” history of the ethnic group dates back to World War II and the Ottoman empire, according to Professor Amin Saikal, a middle east analyst at the Australian National University and the University of Western Australia.
Professor Amin Saikal says Türkiye has recently tightened control over its local Kurdish community. (Supplied: University of Western Australia)
Professor Saikal said that during the conflict, Britain promised the Kurds an independent state but reneged after the war.
“If the British had to fulfil their promise, then they would have to really carve out independent Kurdistan out of three countries,” he said. “And probably the British decided not to go ahead with it.”
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was founded in 1979 with the intention of pursuing autonomy and possibly independence from Türkiye.
The group has fought a long-running insurgency against the country, in which an estimated 40,000 people have been killed.
Professor Saikal said that in recent years, Turkish authorities had tightened control over the country’s Kurdish population.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance to Ms Aslan.
“Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further comment,” a spokesman said.
