Leyla Zana is 'our own Nelson Mandela', say supporters
Darkness has already fallen over Turkey's southeastern mountains when Hakkari's favourite folk singer bursts into song.
'Leyla, Leyla, Leyla,' he wails, the amplified sounds of his four-string saz reverberating around the decrepit city hall.
The audience whoops, younger members leaping up to form a tight line of bobbing dancers, their elders clapping. Leyla is a common enough name in Turkey. But they all know who the singer is referring to: the 43-year-old Kurdish politician Leyla Zana.
'Our own Nelson Mandela,' said one. 'The Kurds' best hope,' said another.
Her friends extend far further than Diyarbakir, Turkey's most southeasterly city. Widely seen in Europe as a prisoner of conscience when she was sentenced to 15 years behind bars in 1994 for alleged links to the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, this former Turkish MP was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for freedom of speech in 1995.
She collected it this October, four months after being released by a Turkish government desperate to squeeze an accession date to the European Union out of Brussels this month.