Turkish opposition leader slams heavy sentences for Kurdish politicians

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ozgur Ozel, leader of Turkey’s largest opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), on Thursday slammed the lengthy sentences handed down for several Kurdish politicians over the 2014 protests related to Kobane city, stating that the verdicts were political.

A Turkish court on Thursday sentenced former co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas to 42 years in prison, and Figen Yuksekdag to 30 years and three months, for their alleged involvement in the 2014 protests.

The court also sentenced Ahmet Turk, a veteran Kurdish politician who became the mayor of Mardin municipality during the March local elections, to 10 years in prison.

“It is a case that is suitable for political use in every aspect, with its prolongation, its timing, and the fact that the verdict hearing is postponed until after the election,” said Ozel during a televised interview with Sozcu TV, a local media outlet critical of the government.

In October 2014, the city of Kobane in northeastern Syria (Rojava) was under attack by the Islamic State (ISIS). HDP, now rebranded as Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), called for street protests to ask the Turkish government to open a corridor allowing military aid from the Kurdistan Region to reach the Kurdish city. The protests turned violent and 51 people were killed and hundreds more injured. 

Days after the start of the protests, Demirtas held a press conference in Diyarbakir (Amed) where he criticized the violence while remaining firm in his support for the protestors. The demonstrations ended on his call.

“If a case was opened five years after the incident if the indictment was written directly by the chairman of a political party for years, and then the case was opened, this case is a political case,” Ozel stressed.

Turkey’s chief prosecutor's office filed a case against the pro-Kurdish politicians in December 2020, six years after the Kobane protests. The first hearing for the case took place in April 2021.

“When you look at the sentences given to Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, there is no acceptable side to the things they are accused of and the sentences they received,” Ozel said.

The court also ruled the release of veteran Kurdish politician Gultan Kisanak who has been in jail for over seven years. She later told reporters that people need peace not freedom in Turkey.

“Today, we do not accept the decision made in the Kobane conspiracy trial … on a day when our friends have received such heavy sentences, we actually have nothing to say other than to continue the struggle,” Kisanak told reporters following her release.

The rulings come less than two months after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost the local polls. He has blamed the DEM Party for his party’s failure in metropolises like Istanbul, claiming that the pro-Kurdish party supported the opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu. 

DEM Party fielded its own candidate in the city and later denied supporting Imamoglu. 

“We do not recognize this verdict. Selahattin [Demirtas], Figen [Yuksekdag], and those on trial in the Kobane case have been acquitted in the hearts of Kurds, Turks, workers, women, and youth; they are free," DEM Party Co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan told reporters in Ankara.

Erdogan said earlier this month that he sees a political "softening" in Turkey following his election loss. 

“We have been hearing normalization and softening messages (from the government circles) in these days, but today the HDP, Kurdish politics, and democrats are being attempted to be erased from the political scene," Bakirhan said. 

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