Pro-Kurdish media outlet Mezopotamya Agency (MA) reported that the first hearing of the trial of former lawmakers Huda Kaya, Serpil Kemalbay, Pero Dundar, Fatma Kurtalan and Garo Paylan is set to take place in Ankara.
In October 2014, the city of Kobane in Rojava was under attack by the Islamic State (ISIS). The HDP, now rebranded as Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), called for street protests to ask the Turkish government to open a corridor allowing military aid from the Kurdistan Region to reach the Kurdish city. Tukish security forces heavily cracked down on the protests. The violence resulted in the killing of at least 50 people and the injury hundreds others.
According to MA, the Turkish prosecutor demands a total of 28 aggravated life sentences and 19,680 years of imprisonment for the politicians.
“Just like yesterday, today we strongly underscore that the Kobane case is a conspiracy case,” DEM Party co-Chair Tulay Hatimogullari told journalists in Ankara ahead of the trial.
Last month, a Turkish court concluded a 10-year-old case against dozens of Kurdish politicians for their alleged involvement in the deadly protests in 2014, including Selahattin Demirtas, former co-chair of the HDP, who has been in prison since 2016. Demirtas was handed 42 years in prison.
Hatimogullari noted that despite a 2020 order from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), of which Turkey is a signatory, for the immediate release of Demirtas. Ankara did not abide by the verdict and kept the Kurdish politician in prison.
Hatimogullari called for the implementation of the ECHR verdicts and the immediate release of Demirtas and other prisoned politicians.
The May rulings by the Ankara court came less than two months after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost at the local polls. He has blamed the DEM Party for his party’s failure in metropolises like Istanbul, claiming that the pro-Kurdish party supported the opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu. DEM Party fielded its own candidate in the city and later denied supporting Imamoglu.
Days later, Erdogan endorsed the ruling stating that the decision “renewed faith in the manifestation of justice."
