Top Turkish court finds no violation of rights for former HDP co-chair Yüksekdağ

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The Turkish Constitutional Court (AYM) has ruled that there was no violation of rights with regards to the pre-trial detention of former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ.

The court argued that Yüksekdağ's pre-trial detention of three years and one month was "proportionate," Mezopotamya news agency reported on Feb. 1. 

"The imprisonment of the applicant during the period when she was a lawmaker and a party's chair lasted four months and five days. The fact that the person who has been arrested is a deputy does not automatically make this [detention] measure disproportionate,” the court said in its ruling. 

The top court calculated the imprisonment term of Yüksekdağ as five years, two months and 19 days. Subtracting a jail sentence handed down to her in 2018, the court determined the total pre-trial detention as being three years and one month.

Former HDP co-chairs Demirtaş, Yüksekdağ and a number of other HDP deputies were arrested on Nov. 4, 2016 on charges related to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in what the party calls "a political coup."

Since then, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) ramped up its crackdown on the HDP, going as far as to seek the party's closure.

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