17/05/2024 Monitoring
Following a domestic court judgment delivered yesterday in the so-called Kobane case, the PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Türkiye, Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC) and Jill Mortimer (United Kingdom, EC/DA), made the following statement:
“We are dismayed at yesterday’s verdict of the Sincan Court concerning the conviction for long-term prison sentences of Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, co-chairs of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), and 20 other members of the executive board of the HDP.
The sentences are very harsh: Mr Demirtaş has been sentenced to 42 years of imprisonment and Ms Yüksekdağ to 30 years and 3 months, for ‘attacking the State’s and the country’s integrity’.
According to the defence, the verdict was based on flawed evidence and was conducted under political influence.
As the judgment is not yet final, we call on the authorities to review it in line with international human rights standards and to release Mr Demirtaş and Ms Yüksekdağ as soon as possible, in line with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.”
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The ‘Kobane case’ concerns the defendants’ alleged role in the deadly 2014 protests that erupted as the Islamic State group overran the Syrian town of Kobane, in the vicinity of the Turkish border.
In its judgments of 22 December 2020 and 8 November 2022 concerning facts related to this case, the European Court of Human Rights found that the detentions of Mr Demirtaş and Ms Yüksekdağ pursued the ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate. It thus ordered the applicants’ immediate release.