He was accused of spreading “terrorist propaganda". According to the prosecution, he had praised the PKK in 2013 at a time when his party was involved as a mediator in the peace process between Kurds and Ankara, which failed two years later.
Ankara (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Selahattin Demirtaş, a former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and presidential candidate, will serve four years and eight months in jail for “spreading terrorist propaganda”.
Demirtaş, who has been imprisoned in 4 November 2016, came third in the presidential elections of last June.
The charge of "terrorist propaganda" is but one of the many accusations against him. In total, he could get up to 142 years in prison. According to critics and human rights groups, his arrest is politically motivated.
Demirtaş is one of the many political leaders caught up in the crackdown that followed a failed coup in July 2016.
He is not the only HDP lawmaker to be convicted. Sirri Sureyya Onder was convicted on the same charge and sentenced to three years and six months.
The prosecution claims that the two Kurdish MPs praised the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its leader Abdullah Ocalan, during Nawruz celebrations in 2013. Of Zoroastrian origin, Nowruz is the Iranian New Year and is also celebrated by Kurds as well as others in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan for example.
In his defence, Demirtaş said that he made the speech as part of the peace process between the PKK and the Turkish government, which failed in 2015.
After the court's ruling, the Kurdish leader remained defiant, and in a message shared by his party on Twitter, he wrote: "We will not take a step back, we will continue to defend peace."
The Kurds are Turkey’s largest ethnic minority group and have long sought independence. The PKK has spearheaded the military struggle of the Kurdish independence movement but is considered a terrorist organisation by the Turkish government and its Western allies.
Turkey has conducted several campaigns against the Kurds and has accused the HDP of being politically aligned with the PKK.
The HDP is Turkey’s second most important opposition party; it won 67 seats in the June 2015 election.