Repression in Türkiye: Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas sentenced to 42 years in prison
A very heavy sentence. The charismatic Kurdish leader already incarcerated, Selahattin Demirtas, was sentenced, Thursday, May 16, to 42 years in prison, notably for undermining the unity of the State, in a case which has already earned Ankara to be condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. The third political force in the Turkish Parliament, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP, now DEM) has been the subject of relentless repression since 2016, the year when Selahattin Demirtas was arrested and imprisoned.
Aged 51, Selahattin Demirtas, former co-president of the HDP, was on trial on 47 charges, including undermining state unity and territorial integrity and incitement to commit a crime. , during an outbreak of violence in Turkey in 2014, reported the Turkish media and the NGO MLSA. The other former co-president of the HDP at the time, Figen Yuksekdag, was sentenced to thirty years and three months in prison. When the verdict was announced, several DEM deputies held up portraits of the two leaders in the Assembly to protest against the decision.
“We all witnessed here today a judicial massacre”reacted in a press release the DEM, denouncing a “new dark spot in Turkey’s judicial history”. His lawyers announced their intention to appeal the verdict, while the governor of Diyarbakir (south-east) decreed a four-day ban on demonstrations in the predominantly Kurdish province.
In this lengthy procedure, most of the 108 accused were convicted, but a few were acquitted. The hearing in Sincan, a suburb of Ankara, took place in the absence of the defendants in pre-trial detention. Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment for 36 defendants, including Selahattin Demirtas. Some of the defense lawyers left the courtroom before the verdict was read to protest against the attacks on the rights of the defense during the trial.
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