Turkey court sentences pro-Kurdish lawmaker to 56 months in prison

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Kurdistan24) - A Turkish court in the city of Diyarbakir on Friday sentenced the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Nursel Aydogan to four years, eight months and one week in prison.

Prison sentence for Aydogan is the first conviction of a member of parliament in years in Turkey.

In its ruling, the heavy penal court judged that the opposition MP Aydogan, "despite not being a member, had committed crimes on behalf of a terrorist organization," said Kurdistan24 Diyarbakir Bureau.

A prosecutor charged her with being a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and disseminating propaganda on behalf of the outlawed armed group that has been fighting Turkish troops in a decade-long guerrilla warfare over government repression of Kurdish rights.

Crimes Aydogan committed, according to the court, were attending at least five protests, and the funeral of at least one PKK fighter.

Aydogan, an ethnic Turk from the northwestern city of Bursa, has represented the Kurdish province of Diyarbakir at the Turkish National Assembly since 2011.

Police arrested her on November 4, 2016 in Diyarbakir along with 12 other lawmakers of the HDP, including its co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.

Authorities have since placed her in the Silivri Prison in Istanbul in pre-trial imprisonment.

Aydogan joined her trial in Diyarbakir via teleconference from Istanbul.

Meanwhile, a prosecutor in Diyarbakir demanded an aggravated life sentence for another detained HDP lawmaker Ferhat Encu for allegedly attacking the subgovernor of the town of Qilaban (Uludere) in Sirnak province shortly after the Roboski massacre in which Turkish warplanes killed 34 Kurdish civilians, many of whom were relatives of Encu.

An aggravated life sentence was also demanded on Thursday by another prosecutor in the city of Van for the HDP's Yuksekdag for speeches she delivered in 2015 and 2016.

Editing by Ava Homa