Charismatic Kurdish leader Selahtin Demirtas was sentenced on Thursday, May 16, to forty-two years in prison, especially for undermining the unity of the state when violence erupted in Turkey in 2014. Prosecutors sought life sentences for 36 defendants, including Demirtas of Selaht.
The former co-leader of HDP, the country’s main Kurdish party (now DEM), has been jailed since November 2016 in the case and has already been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Another former co-chair of the HDP, Figen Yüksekdag, was sentenced to thirty years and three months in prison. 51 year old Mr. Demirtas was indicted on 47 charges, including undermining state unity and territorial integrity and incitement to commit a crime.
When the verdict was announced, several DEM representatives protested the decision in the assembly carrying portraits of the two leaders. “Today we all witnessed a judicial massacre”DEM reacted in a press release, with a condemnation “New dark spot in Turkey’s judicial history”. The governor of Diyarbakır (south-east) banned demonstrations for four days in the Kurdish-majority province and the defense announced its intention to appeal the verdict.
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In this lengthy process, most of the 108 accused were convicted, but some were acquitted. The hearing took place in the absence of the defendants in pre-trial detention before the Sinkan court on the outskirts of Ankara.
Violent protests in October 2014, which killed 37 people in the country, began after an HDP-launched appeal against Ankara’s government’s refusal to intervene to prevent the Syrian city of Kobani from falling to the Turkish border. The hands of Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
Presented in the press as the “Kurdish Barack Obama”, Selahattin Demirtas ran for the Turkish presidency in 2014 and 2018 against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For the last election, he campaigned from his living room.
The ECHR ordered Ankara’s release after he was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison in 2018 for “terrorist propaganda” in one aspect of the case. ” soon “He believes his imprisonment was targeted “Disabling Pluralism” principle.