The Turkish government should immediately release from detention Selahattin Demirtas, former co-leader of the opposition HDP, in accordance with the 2018 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, ARTICLE 19 and Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
The international organization said the Kurdish politician remains behind bars despite several court orders for his release, both by Turkish courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Demirtas's legal ordeal began on November 4, 2016, when the HDP co-chair and 12 other HDP parliamentary deputies were arrested, with prosecutors alleging they had links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The detention of Demirtas and eight other democratically elected Peoples’ Democratic Party members of parliament four years ago this month was the start of the government’s ongoing assault on the party and part of a broader pattern of politically motivated prosecutions and incarcerations in the wake of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
The Turkish government should also review the detentions of the other former HDP deputies, including the co-chair of the party, Figen Yuksekdag, on whose cases the European Court of Human Rights has yet to rule, Ahval reported.
“Over the past four years the Turkish government has distorted and perverted the legal process to serve the political aim of keeping opposition politicians Selahattin Demirtas, Figen Yuksekdag, and other former HDP deputies locked up,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The Turkish government has misused detention and criminal proceedings in a campaign of persecution against Demirtas in particular, including by flouting a European Court of Human Rights’ order to release him and concocting new baseless charges to keep him behind bars.”
Demirtas and the others are being targeted because they led the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s political opposition to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Demirtas and Yuksekdag remain in detention in Edirne F-type and Kandira F-type prison in western Turkey, respectively, and are among six former HDP members of parliament still in prison after being detained on November 4, 2016, and in one case a few weeks later, while they were serving deputies. They are held either in pretrial detention or are serving sentences. Their prosecutions were overwhelmingly based on their political speeches over the years.
On November 4, 2016, courts ordered the detention on terrorism charges of nine members of the party in parliament, including Demirtas and Yuksekdag, hours after police arrested them and three other party members serving in parliament in the middle of the night in a coordinated operation in various cities.
While serving parliament, members usually enjoy a high level of immunity from prosecution for their political activities in office; the arrest and detention of the HDP deputies is based on a controversial temporary constitutional amendment and parliamentary vote in May 2016 that lifted their parliamentary immunity.
Before parliament adopted the constitutional amendment, in 2015 and 2016 President Erdogan had made several speeches pushing for them to be prosecuted and suggesting that the party should not be in parliament because it was indistinguishable from the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
International bodies including the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, which advises on constitutional matters, strongly criticized the way the deputies’ parliamentary immunity was lifted.
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