Kurdish politician Demirtaş gets another jail term

Yüsra Batıhan / DUVAR

A Mersin court on July 19 sentenced jailed former Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş to two years and six months in prison.

The indictment against Demirtaş included his remarks in Diyarbakır, Mardin, Ankara, and Mersin provinces between 2015 and 2017.

Accordingly, Demirtaş accused President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of providing material and moral aid, logistical support, arms, and money to organizations such as al-Nusra, ISIS, and Ahrar al-Sham and of being responsible for the incidents that took place in Turkey between 2014 and 2016.

10 investigations into Demirtaş filed over “insulting the president” and “publicly humiliating the government and state organs” were merged into one case.

During the trial, Demirtaş said, “Today I am speaking from prison, tomorrow I will speak from the power. I am assertive. One day, as Selahattin Demirtaş, I will rule this country with the support of the people.”

Demirtaş also said, “All the states of the world, including the Republic of Turkey, are murderers, built on blood, not holy. States have existed by restricting the freedoms of society. The state is not founded on consent, the state is not holy, why should the Turkish state be holy? Which state was hurt because I said this?”

“While I was making these remarks, the body of Cemile Çağırca from Cizre was kept in a refrigerator. Her body was not allowed to be buried. Cemile Çağırca waited for days to be buried in this refrigerator in front of her family, her body was put in the refrigerator so that it wouldn't smell. This is a naked photo of a woman after being killed. It was published on Twitter. Are these the state, are these state officials? What should I say when I criticize them, should I say '3-5 cops', should I say 'shame on you guys, don't post such things', what should I say?,” he added.

“Give me 60 years, not six years, I will still defend the rights of these people. I have defended human dignity, I would defend it again, and I will not hesitate to be punished. Why would anyone criticize the state for no reason? Look what we went through: A special operations soldier went into a bedroom, wiped his semen on a woman's underwear, took a photo, and posted it on Twitter. They wrote on the wall: 'We committed a massacre, we took the order from you, long man (Erdoğan)'. They wrote on the walls of Kurds: 'If you are a Turk, boast, if not, obey'. Who wrote it, the state wrote it. I criticized this state,” Demirtaş said.

Demirtaş also reminded that some of those officers were arrested over ties to the Gülen network. “They say the state wouldn’t do such a thing? You saw it on July 15th (coup attempt), they bombed the Parliament. You believed that the state bombed the Parliament on July 15, but did not believe it would torture a civilian in Cizre.”

He said the people in the country are suffering economically because of “the slaughter of the law. Every month, pensioners pay 3,000 liras out of their pockets to keep Demirtaş and Kavala in prison. Why? So that this government can stay there, so that the mafia can run rampant, so that the religious cults can flourish with money, robbing the state, plundering. And the people are paying the price.”

The court sentenced Demirtaş to one year, and six months in prison over “Publicly denouncing the government, judiciary, military or police organization of the Republic of Turkey,” and one year, six months over “Inciting the public to hatred and hostility.”

The court then reduced his sentence by six months, sentencing Demirtaş to two years and six months in prison.

Demirtaş has been in prison since 2016. Most recently, he received a 42-year prison sentence in the Kobanê case. 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that he was imprisoned on political grounds and should be released immediately.

(English version by Alperen Şen)