Legal struggle for Demirtaş 'is also one for the truth'
Jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş's wife Başak Demirtaş has said that the struggle they're putting forward is for truth since "lies are being told whenever Selahattin speaks." "Government spokespeople are trying to create a false perception," she said.
Duvar English
Jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş's wife Başak Demirtaş has said that the struggle for her husband is one for truth.
"Lies are being told whenever Selahattin speaks," Demirtaş told reporters in an online meeting organized to explain the accusations directed at the prominent politician.
Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, the former co-chairs of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who were arrested on Nov. 4, 2016, are being tried in a case related to 2014 Kobane protests with 106 others.
The indictment into the Kobane protests, which took place in October 2014 when dozens of protesters flooded streets in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, outraged over the Turkish government's inaction in protecting Syrian Kurds as ISIS besieged Kobane, was prepared six years later.
While Ankara accuses the HDP of inciting violence, the HDP says that it was doing everything it can to prevent bloodshed via being in contact with government officials.
The first hearing of the case is scheduled to be held on April 26 in the Ankara 22nd Heavy Penal Court. The accusations directed in the case were also cited among the reasons by a state prosecutor for the HDP's closure.
"Our struggle is not a legal one, because the accusations are not only directed at Yüksekdağ and Selahattin in courts, but also in newspapers and television," Başak Demirtaş said.
"Government spokespeople are trying to create a false perception. That's why our struggle is not only legal, but also for truth," she added.
Recalling two European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rulings that urged Turkey to release the jailed politician, Demirtaş noted that the 3,530-page indictment into her husband "has nothing to do with the law."
Selahattin Demirtaş's lawyer Mahsuni Karaman, meanwhile, said that the ECHR rulings are binding even if Turkey acts as if they aren't.
HDP Legal Council chair Ümit Dede for his part said that Demirtaş's team is working hard to prepare for the hearing, which "shouldn't have been opened in the first place."
"This indictment is not actually an indictment. We'll show that it was prepared upon the government's will. We will also prepare a counter-indictment that will show who the real perpetrators were," Dede told reporters.
"The indictment has nothing more than interviews and thoughts. There aren't any acts," he noted.