Turkish court jails pro-Kurdish politician

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) -  A Turkish court in the city of Tokat jailed a pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy co-chair Alp Altinors on Friday.

 

Turkish police arrested Altinors last week in a raid on his house in the capital Ankara, prompting criticism from his party against the authorities.

 

Altinors is being charged with accusations of "propaganda for terrorism" and "membership to a terror organization," for participating in the funeral of a local HDP executive, Zakir Karabulut (24) who was one of the 102 victims killed in the Islamic State (IS) suicide attack on a Kurdish and leftist peace rally in Ankara on October 10, 2015.

 

Karabulut was a topographic engineering student at a Turkish university.

 

A day after the arrest last week, HDO co-chair Selahattin Demirtas accused the Ankara police of torturing Altinors in detention.

 

Apart from Altinors six other local HDP politicians including the head of its Tokat branch Kadir Akkaya were jailed.

 

Tokat is a Turkish-majority city and province in northern Turkey.

 

In a press release on its website, the HDP condemned the jailing of Altinors as "a blow to democracy and a legal scandal," and called for an immediate release of its top official.

 

The HDP also demanded from Turkish authorities to find and try the perpetrators behind the October 2015 Ankara bombing instead.

 

Selahattin Demirtas declared the allegations against his deputy, an ethnic Turk and one of the founders of the HDP, as ungrounded, in a tweet shortly after the latter's jailing.

 

"Alp Altinors is an honorable revolutionary holding his head high. Not a thief, not a lowlife, not a murderer, not an enemy of the people. He is our pride," said Demirtas in another tweet with a picture of Altinors.

 

(Reporting by Ari Khalidi)

Editing by Ava Homa