Prison sentence for pro-Kurdish politician in Turkey

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is shocked by the verdicts against several democratic pro-Kurdish politicians and has criticized them in the strongest terms. “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is deliberately trying to get rid of his political opponents. The German Federal Government must not silently accept this, but publicly condemn the Kobane trial and demand the immediate release of Selahattin Demirtaş and other HDP politicians,” stated Tabea Giesecke, expert on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities, on Friday. “These rulings are not only a measure against political opponents, but also a further attempt at intimidation against the Kurdish people of Turkey.”

“On May 16, the former chairman of the pro-Kurdish HDP Party – who has been imprisoned since 2016 – was sentenced to 42 years in prison, and the former co-chairwoman, Figen Yüksekdag, was sentenced to 30 years and there months. The sentences are part of the politically motivated Kobane trial. Before his arrest, Selahattin Demirtaş was one of the most influential political rivals of incumbent Turkish President Erdoğan. 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had already demanded Demirtaş to be release as early as in 2020. “The order of the court is binding. Nonetheless, Demirtaş was not released – but even sentenced to one more year in prison. Thus, the Turkish government is demonstrating that it does not care about human rights and the rule of law,” Giesecke said. 

The Kobane trial is a politically motivated reaction to the protests of 2014, which the HDP had promoted via Twitter. In the course of the protests, the Turkish army was criticized for simply watching the siege of the Syrian-Kurdish border town by Daesh (also known as the “Islamic State”). The General Prosecutor’s Office in Ankara interprets the Twitter post as an incitement to violence. According to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, however, there is no evidence for this.