HDP to appeal to European Court for Turkey's release of its leadership

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) plans to appeal this week to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for the release of its imprisoned Co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.

An HDP delegation of party officials and lawmakers was visiting Strasbourg, France where the ECtHR is based on Monday and Tuesday, according to information from the party’s press bureau.

The delegation of lawmakers Filiz Kerestecioglu, Mithat Sancar, Ertugrul Kurkcu, and Osman Baydemir, will apply to the European Court for a review of Turkish authorities’ detention of the HDP Co-leaders, said Kurdistan24’s Ankara bureau.

Police arrested Demirtas and Yuksekdag along with a dozen other MPs during house raids in several cities in November 2016.

Turkish courts remanded the HDP lawmakers to prisons across Turkey since then.

The country is currently preparing to go to a referendum in April on a constitutional reform package that would give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan executive powers.

Meanwhile, on Monday, police arrested the HDP lawmaker Behcet Yildirim in the city of Adiyaman, the Kurdish province he represents in the Turkish Parliament.

There was an arrest warrant for Yildirim who a local prosecutor accused of “aiding a terrorist organization and disseminating propaganda on behalf of it,” similar charges brought against other HDP lawmakers in detention.

Also on Saturday, MP Mehmet Ali Aslan from the Batman Province was arrested and later released after his interrogation as part of a probe against him.

Alongside Demirtas and Yuksekdag, there are currently 12 HDP lawmakers in prisons across Turkey.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany