More prison sentence for former pro-Kurdish HDP leader in Turkey

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – A Turkish penal court in the city of Adana sentenced Figen Yuksekdag, the former co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), to one year of imprisonment for “insulting” the government.

The charges against Yuksekdag belonged to an October 2015 speech she made during a funeral in Adana for two victims of the twin Ankara bombings by the Islamic State (IS).

The violence had targeted a pro-Kurdish peace rally, killing at least 107 people, wounding hundreds of others.

The blast, with the highest number of casualties, is the worst attack on civilians in Turkey’s history.

Yuksekdag who has been under detention since November 2016 at a prison in the Kocaeli Province east of Istanbul refused to appear before the court via teleconference, reported Kurdistan24’s Ankara bureau.

“The perpetrator of this [Ankara] massacre is the policies of the state. You are the murderers,” Yuksekdag said at the Adana funeral, accusing the government of collaborating with IS.

“Were you not the ones who supported [IS] gangs, enemies of humanity,” Yuksekdag further blamed the government of the then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

She also said authorities would “never find those responsible for the massacre.”

The Adana court deemed Yuksekdag’s remarks “an insult in public to the government.”

On Tuesday, Yuksekdag received one year and six months of imprisonment for a 2015 interview to German media where she called the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) “a people’s liberation movement.”

Yuksekdag is already serving a 10 month’s prison sentence over her conviction in a 2013 terror-related trial.

In February, the Turkish Parliament announced Yuksekdag was stripped off her lawmaker status, a first in decades of modern Turkey’s history.

Since then, another court forced her out of the office of HDP leadership, and the party had to elect a new co-head, Serpil Kemalbay, last month.

Numerous legal actions are ongoing against Yuksekdag, as prosecutors demand up to 83 years of imprisonment.

A government crackdown on HDP in the aftermath of the failed July 2016 military coup has seen over 7,000 people jailed, including the party’s co-leader Selahattin Demirtas and 11 other MPs.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany