Pro-Kurdish HDP lawmaker released in Turkey
Baluken was a member of a negotiations team between the jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and the Turkish Government during 2013-2015 peace talks.
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Kurdistan24) – A Turkish court in the city of Diyarbakir on Monday decided to release pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Idris Baluken from pre-trial imprisonment almost three months after his arrest.
The Kurdistan24 Diyarbakir Bureau said Baluken, who is also the head of HDP’s parliamentary group, was set free because the court heeded an earlier Supreme Court decision to review the situation of detained MPs.
The Kurdish MP attended his trial at the heavy penal court in Diyarbakir via teleconference from the prison where he was held in the northwestern province of Kocaeli, east of Istanbul.
Baluken, after MP Leyla Birlik, is the second pro-Kurdish lawmaker Turkish authorities have released since the beginning of the new year.
Turkish anti-terror police units conducting house raids arrested Baluken alongside a dozen HDP lawmakers including the party’s two Co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag on Nov. 4.
With Baluken’s release, 10 HDP MPs remain in prison.
Later the same month, a prosecutor in the city of Bingol filed a suit against Baluken.
The suit included a demand of an aggravated life sentence for the HDP MP and 15 years in prison based on four different accusations.
“Disruption of the unity of the state and territorial integrity of the country, membership in a terror group, disseminating propaganda for a terrorist organization, and participation in illegal assemblies and walks” were the charges brought against the MP who represents his home province of Bingol.
Baluken was a member of a negotiations team between the jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and the Turkish Government during 2013-2015 peace talks.
Meanwhile, again in Diyarbakir, authorities arrested another HDP lawmaker, Nadir Yildirim of Van Province in a move that has become a routine in the past several weeks.
However, after his interrogation by a prosecutor, Yildirim was released.
The wave of detentions targeting Kurdish MPs was meant to appease the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) new-found ally the far-right Nationalist Movement Party before an anticipated referendum to empower President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said an HDP official.
Speaking to Kurdistan24 after hours of detention on Sunday, HDP Spokesperson Ayhan Bilgen said the government was trying to prevent his party from engaging in politics.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
