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Turkey
A supporter of the HDP holds a picture of Selahattin Demirtas at a rally. File photo: Emrah Gurel / AP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A top Turkish court on Thursday accepted a new indictment against jailed Kurdish political leader Selahattin Demirtas that could see him handed a life sentence without parole, according to Turkish state media.
Demirtas, a former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was among 108 suspects named in the indictment from the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office. The indictment was accepted by Ankara’s 22nd High Criminal Court.
The indictment is in relation to the Kobane riots 2014, when protesters across Turkey – especially its Kurdish-majority southeast – took to the streets to express solidarity with Kurds in the northern Syrian city of Kobane, then under attack from the Islamic State (ISIS). Over 30 people died when the protests turned violent. Demirtas has been accused by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s prosecutors of inciting violence at the protests in speeches made at the time.
The indictment calls for 38 counts of life sentences without parole against 108 defendants, including Demirtas, state-owned Anadolu Agency said. Other charges include the burning the Turkish flag, damaging prayer houses, abduction and damaging public property.
The list of suspects includes former HDP co-chair Figen Yuksekdag, as well as other party representatives. Their trial date has yet to be set, according to Daily Sabah, a Turkish pro-government outlet.
Demirtas was detained in November 2016 along with a number of other HDP officials and parliamentarians for their alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey but classified as a terrorist organization by Ankara.
Last month, the European Court of Human Rights condemned his detention and called for his "immediate release". A day later, the court’s website was subject to a cyberattack that briefly put the website out of service. Erdogan dismissed the ruling, accusing the court of “double standards” because it fails to condemn PKK "violence".
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