Turkey sentences former HDP lawmaker to 22 years in jail

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey —  A Turkish court on Monday sentenced a prominent Kurdish former lawmaker who went on a months-long hunger strike to more than 22 years in jail on terror-related charges.

Leyla Guven, a Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker who was stripped of her parliamentary immunity in June, was convicted of “membership of a terror group” and “disseminating terror propaganda” for the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), an AFP reporter said. 

Guven, 56, launched a 200-day hunger strike in 2018 in a bid to end jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan's isolation by securing him access to his family and lawyers.

The PKK, which is seen as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies, has fought the Turkish state for increased rights for the country’s Kurdish minority since 1984. 

Ocalan has been serving a life sentence for treason on a prison island off Istanbul since his 1999 capture.

Despite his almost complete isolation, he is still a key figure of the Kurdish insurgency and the movement generally in the region.

In May last year, he called for an end to hunger strikes by thousands of jailed supporters in Turkey, who were surviving by drinking only salty and sugary water.

Ocalan was allowed to meet his brother Mehmet for the first time in more than two years on January 12 last year, but details of the meeting have not been made public.

In May last year, he was allowed to see his lawyers for the first time in eight years.

Guven was in custody on separate charges when she launched her hunger strike.

She was freed under judicial control last year after serving a one-year term for labelling the Turkish military operation against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) an "invasion."

The government accuses the HDP of links to the PKK, which the party denies.

Founded in 2012, the HDP, a pro-Kurdish leftist party, has been subject to repressive measures from the Turkish government, including party member arrests, since its establishment.

Turkish authorities in September issued arrest warrants for 82 people, including HDP officials, former parliamentarians, and a mayor, in relation to deadly October 2014 protests in Turkey after the Islamic State (ISIS) seized most of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane.   

“The reasons for these operations are politically-motivated and the courts have become tools for this dirty and adversarial policy,” HDP spokesperson Ebru Gunay told Rudaw English at the time.

Guven's daughter Sabiha Temizkan said her mother was convicted for her work with the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Congress (DTK), a civil society group which has not been banned by the Turkish state but remains under close scrutiny.

In a tweet, Temizkan called the Turkish government "the enemy of the law."