Turkey: Another Two kurdish HDP deputies detained over alleged terror links

December 13, 2016 By administrator

AA photo

Ankara police detained two lawmakers from the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) as part of an anti-terror probe on Dec. 13. One of the suspects was later released.

The HDP’s Diyarbakır deputy and parliamentary group deputy chair, Çağlar Demirel, and its Siirt deputy, Besime Konca, were detained in relation to an ongoing probe in Diyarbakır and Batman. Konca was later released under judicial control.

Konca has been probed for her participation in the March 2016 funeral of an outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant and for her speech delivered at the event.

Demirel has been probed for delivering a speech in the Dicle district of the southeastern province of Diyarbakır in the aftermath of military operations against PKK militants.

In her summary of proceedings, Demirel reportedly likened killed PKK militants to “martyrs” and described army operations as “massacres.”

Meanwhile, on the same day, a Diyarbakır court hearing part of the long-running Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) case issued a second order to forcibly bring to court eight suspects in the case, who are all HDP deputies.

Osman Baydemir, Dirayet Taşdemir, Çağlar Demirel, Selma Irmak, Ahmet Yıldırım, Besime Konca, Alican Önlü and Nadir Yıldırım were ruled to be brought forcibly to court after not showing up during their trials.

The detention of Demirel and Konca came amid major operations conducted against a large number of suspects, including local HDP executives, over terror links in 28 Turkish provinces.

The Interior Ministry announced on Dec. 13 that in the operations carried out over two days 568 people, including individuals suspected of conducting propaganda on behalf of terrorist organizations on social media, had been detained.

Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/two-hdp-deputies-detained-over-alleged-terror-links.aspx?pageID=238&nID=107227&NewsCatID=338

Turkey lead the world journalists Jailed at least 81 , fueling global high of 259 Report CPJ

December 13, 2016 By administrator

A record number of journalists are in jail, CPJ census finds
Turkey holds at least 81 journalists, fueling global high of 259
New York, December 13, 2016–Turkey’s unprecedented crackdown on media brought the total number of jailed journalists worldwide to the highest number since the Committee to Protect Journalists began taking an annual census in 1990.
As of December 1, 2016, there were 259 journalists in jail around the world. Turkey had at least 81 journalists behind bars, according to CPJ’s records, the highest number in any one country at a time-and every one of them faces anti-state charges. Dozens of other journalists are imprisoned in Turkey, but CPJ was unable to confirm a direct link to their work.
China, which was the world’s worst jailer of journalists in 2014 and 2015, dropped to the second spot with 38 journalists in jail. Egypt, Eritrea, and Ethiopia are third, fourth and fifth worst jailers of journalists, respectively. Combined, the top five countries on CPJ’s census were responsible for jailing more than two-thirds of all journalists in prison worldwide.
“Journalists working to gather and share information are performing a public service and their rights are protected under international law. It is shocking therefore that so many governments are violating their international commitments by jailing journalists and suppressing critical speech,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Turkey is at the vanguard of this authoritarian trend. Every day that Turkey’s journalists languish in jail in violation of that country’s own laws, Turkey’s standing in the world is diminished.”
This year marks the first time since 2008 that Iran was not among the top five worst jailers, as many of those sentenced in the 2009 post-election crackdown have served their sentences and been released. The Americas region, which had no jailed journalists in 2015, appears on this year’s census with a total of four journalists in prison.
According to CPJ’s census, nearly three-quarters of the 259 journalists in jail globally face anti-state charges. About 20 percent of journalists in prison are freelancers-a percentage that has steadily declined since 2011. The vast majority of journalists in jail worked online and/or in print, while about 14 percent are broadcast journalists.
The prison census accounts only for journalists in government custody and does not include those who have disappeared or are held captive by non-state groups. (These cases-such as freelance British journalist John Cantlie, held by the militant group Islamic State-are classified as “missing” or “abducted.”) CPJ estimates that at least 40 journalists are missing or kidnapped in the Middle East and North Africa.

The census catalogs journalists imprisoned as of midnight on December 1, 2016, and indicates the country where held, charge, and medium of work for each imprisoned journalist. It does not include the many journalists who were imprisoned during the year but released prior to December 1.

Source: https://cpj.org/

Turkish police detained 235 people including pro-Kurdish (HDP)

December 12, 2016 By administrator

Police have detained 235 people including pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) officials over alleged ties to Kurdish militants. One day prior, a PKK splinter group claimed responsibility for bombings in Istanbul.

Scores of people suspected of acting on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were detained in nationwide raids, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said on Monday.

Some 235 people were taken into custody, the interior ministry said in a statement, saying they were suspected of either membership in outlawed groups like the PKK, or of “spreading terror group propaganda.”

Counter-terrorism police conducted early-morning raids in 11 Turkish provinces on Monday, detaining officials in cities like Istanbul and Ankara, the ministry said. The raids appeared to also target officials from the pro-Kurdish HDP political party.

In Istanbul, police took 20 officials into custody, including the HDP’s provincial head in the city, Aysel Güzel, Turkish authorities said. The party’s main offices in the city were also reportedly searched.

Another 17 people involved in the party were detained in Ankara, including the provincial head Ibrahim Binici, Hurrieyet reported. To the south in Adana, a further 25 were taken into custody as part of a large police raid.

The sweeping police raids came after weekend attacks in Istanbul killed 44 people and injured 155, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Ankara. Most of those killed were police officers.

On Sunday, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) – a radical splinter group of the PKK – claimed responsibility for twin blasts outside a soccer stadium in Istanbul.

Following the claim, Turkish warplanes carried out air strikes against PKK targets in northern Iraq, an army statement said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a published statement that those behind the attack would “pay a heavier price” for Saturday evening’s attack.

Turkey has cracked down hard on the HDP both before and especially since a July 15 coup attempt, arresting several national leaders and local officials although the pro-Kurdish party had no obvious connection to the coup plot. The party’s members insist they have no ties to the PKK.

Last month, HDP co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were arrested along with eight others and are being held in pre-trial detention.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union, and the United States.

rs/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claim deadly Istanbul attack that killed 38

December 12, 2016 By administrator

An offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility on Sunday, December 11 for twin bombings that killed 38 people and wounded 155 outside an Istanbul soccer stadium, an attack for which the Turkish government vowed vengeance, Reuters says.

The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), which has claimed several other deadly attacks in Turkey this year, said in a statement on its website that it was behind Saturday night’s blasts, which shook a nation still trying to recover from a failed military coup and a number of bombings this year..

Saturday’s attacks took place near the Vodafone Arena, home to Istanbul’s Besiktas soccer team, about two hours after a match at the stadium and appeared to target police officers. The first was a car bomb outside the stadium, followed within a minute by a suicide bomb attack in an adjacent park.

TAK, which has claimed responsibility for an Ankara bombing that killed 37, is an offshoot of the PKK, which has carried out a violent, three-decade insurgency, mainly in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast.

“What we must focus on is this terror burden. Our people should have no doubt we will continue our battle against terror until the end,” Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan told reporters after meeting injured victims in an Istanbul hospital.

Speaking at a funeral for five of the police officers at the Istanbul police headquarters, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said: “Sooner or later we will have our vengeance. This blood will not be left on the ground, no matter what the price, what the cost.”

Soylu also warned those who would offer support to the attackers on social media or elsewhere; comments aimed at pro-Kurdish politicians the government accuses of having links to the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Europe and Turkey.

In recent months thousands of Kurdish politicians have been detained, including dozens of mayors and the leaders of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), parliament’s second-biggest opposition party, accused of having links to the PKK.

Thirteen people have been detained in connection with the attacks, Soylu said.

A total of 155 people were being treated in hospital, with 14 of them in intensive care and five in surgery, Health Minister Recep Akdag told a news conference.

ТАСС: В Турции задержано более 100 членов прокурдской партии

Reuters. Kurdish militants claim responsibility for Istanbul attack that killed 38

Armenians want to recover their Vatican in Turkey

December 11, 2016 By administrator

The Armenians on Wednesday filed a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights to recover the property of the historic seat of their apostolic church in Sis (Kozan) in Turkey and the right to worship there. “A historical moment,” Lebanon’s Catholicos Aram I said. “For the first time, we are taking legal action against Turkey”.

The “property” consists of a monastery, the Cathedral of St. Sophia and the residence of which there are now only ruins, including two walls of basement near which a playground was installed by the municipality of Kozan. But this place is symbolic. It was the headquarters of the Armenian church under the Ottoman Empire, for more than seven centuries. Sis was also the capital of the ancient Armenian kingdom of Cilicia for two centuries.

In September 1915, during the Armenian genocide, the religious had had ten days to evacuate the place. They took only a few objects and eventually settled on the heights of Beirut at Antelias, where they built a new cathedral.

The Armenian diaspora had initially expected the goodwill of the then Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to obtain this restitution. But two letters addressed by Aram I to M.Erdogan remained unanswered.

In 2011, the Catholicossat of the Great House of Cilicia brought the case to the Constitutional Court of Turkey. It was dismissed this year on the pretext that the Armenian church had not registered its property in a law passed in 1936. Hence the idea of seizing the European Court. A dossier of 900 pages was transmitted Wednesday in Strasbourg.

“This would not be the case if the Turkish government had replied to the two letters of His Holiness Aram. If it had been me, I would have returned immediately this monastery because our record is solid, “said Iranian-Canadian lawyer Payam Akhavan at a press conference in Brussels. He is head of a team of British and Turkish lawyers in charge of following this case.

The lawyer believes that a positive decision by the European Court could pave the way for further refunds, which Ankara evidently fears more than a hundred years after the genocide which caused 1.5 million deaths. Nearly 8,000 ruins of Armenian churches have been identified in the country, outside the Van area. The Armenians were stripped of their possessions while others, who remained in Turkey, were Islamized.

But the lawyer insists on the uniqueness of Sis. “It is not an orchard, not a store, but a place of historical significance,” he said. “We are ready to invest thousands of dollars to restore it and make it a place of worship. This could be of benefit to the municipality as tourists and faithful would come. “

The Armenians want to revive this place of worship and therefore refuse financial compensation. Most of the Armenian community lives today in Istanbul, where it has several dozen churches. In 2007-08, the Turkish government had the Holy Cross Church of Aghtamar restored near Van, but transformed it into a museum where only one Mass can be celebrated each year.

The European Court must first declare the complaint admissible, then the Turkish government will give its opinion before the judgment is pronounced, not for several months or years probably.

Http://www.lalibre.be/actu/international/les-armeniens-entendent-recuperer-leur-vatican-en-turquie-58483699cd70bb41f08e0f95

Turkey wants arrest of 55 people suspected of financing Gulen

December 10, 2016 By administrator

Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for 55 people, including businessmen, suspected of giving financial support to the network of the U.S.-based cleric Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed military coup in July, broadcaster NTV said.

The businessmen suspected of being linked to the cleric’s network allegedly carried large sums of cash, which they have called a “favor”, back and forth between Turkey, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kazakhstan since 2014, NTV said.

Ankara accuses the cleric Fethullah Gulen of orchestrating the July 15 coup bid, in which rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters to attack the parliament and attempt to overthrow the government. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement and condemned the coup, Reuters reports.

Police from the Istanbul financial-crimes unit conducted operations in 57 separate addresses on Saturday to root out sympathizers of Gulen, NTV said. Authorities have detained some of the suspects in the operations, while others are still being sought, NTV said, adding that some were found to be using Bylock, a smartphone messaging app which Ankara says was used by Gulen’s adherents as a communication tool.

Turkey has so far jailed some 36,000 people pending trial and has suspended or dismissed more than 100,000 people from the military, judiciary, public service and others in the crackdown.

Turkey’s Western allies have voiced concern at the extent of the purges under President Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly rejected such criticism, saying Ankara is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad.

Turkey classified Gulen’s movement, which espouses philanthropy, interfaith dialogue and science-based education, as a terrorist network in July 2015. It says Gulen’s followers spent four decades infiltrating the bureaucracy and security forces in a bid to eventually take control of the state.

Turkey: Armenian, Assyrian Writing Removed from Sur Municipality Building in Diyarbakir

December 9, 2016 By administrator

The Armenian and Assyrian writing on the Sur municipality building in Diyarbakir was recently removed and replaced by a Turkish flag.

Armenian and Assyrian Writing Replaced by Turkish Flag

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (A.W.)—The Armenian and Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic) writing on the Sur municipality building in Diyarbakir was recently removed and replaced by a Turkish flag. Istanbul-based Armenian bilingual newspaper Agos reported on Dec. 8 that the sign, which was placed in 2012 and was written in four languages (Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian, and Assyrian), was ordered to change by a state-appointed monitor.

The four-language sign was the initiative of then Sur Mayor Abdullah Demirbaş—a longtime advocate for Armenian rights. Demirbaş worked tirelessly for the Surp Giragos Church reconstruction in 2011. On the occasion of the re-opening of the church, he addressed the Armenians who had gathered there: “Welcome, my brothers and sisters! We are very glad to see you in your own country, your own city!”

He presided over the official inauguration of the Monument of Common Conscience on Sept. 12, 2013, that was erected in Diyarbakir. During those ceremonies, in the name of the Kurdish people, he apologized for the atrocities committed against the Armenians and Assyrians. While visiting Providence, R.I., in 2013, he addressed the Armenian community at Sts. Vartanantz Church, and laid flowers at the Armenian Genocide Monument there.

On Aug. 9, 2015, Demirbaş was arrested by Turkish authorities in Diyarbakir on trumped-up charged. He was imprisoned until October 2015 and was only released due to health concerns, as he suffered from deep vein thrombosis, a serious condition where blood clots form in a vein deep inside the body.

Demirbaş has been continually targeted by the ruling authorities. His latest arrest was part of a larger wave of charges filed against a number of Kurdish politicians following the June 2015 general elections in Turkey, when the ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AKP) won a majority in parliament, but failed to secure a supermajority. Those elections brought the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) into parliament, with 13 percent of the vote. Failing to form a government following the June elections, the government scheduled a snap election on Nov. 1, 2015; the months leading up to the elections saw a number of terror attacks (such as in Suruc and Ankara), a renewed war against the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), and the targeting of Kurdish-dominated areas in the southeast of the country, where the HDP had fared especially well during the elections. Diyarbakir’s Sur district suffered tremendously during this campaign of violence, which transformed the streets into a war zone.

“It is my duty as a human to wish for those with whom I live whatever I wish for myself, and it is worth doing so. This is why I am wishing freedom for the Kurds and I will also wish freedom for the Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Yezidis, and Alevis, no matter what I might face as a result. I know that even if I sleep in a jail cell for a thousand years, I will keep on believing that,” Demirbaş said in an interview with former Armenian Weekly editor Nanore Barsoumian back in March.

Source: http://armenianweekly.com/2016/12/09/armenian-assyrian-writing-removed/

Dailycaller EXCLUSIVE: DNC Official Shared Political Intel With Turkish Government Officials, Paid For Pro-Turkey Op-Ed

December 8, 2016 By administrator

Murat Guzel facebook

Chuck Ross, Reporter

A Turkish-American businessman who is head of the Democratic National Committee’s Heritage Council claimed to have paid a former GOP congressman to write a pro-Turkey op-ed last year and also provided secret updates on his own political activities to members of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inner circle, newly released emails reveal.

The businessman, Murat Guzel, was also interviewed by the FBI earlier this year along with several Turkish nationals linked to its government, other emails indicate.

The bombshell revelations come from the hacked email account of Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister and Erdogan’s son-in-law. The emails, which number more than 57,000, were originally released by a hacker collective called RedHack, but they received little attention in the American press until they were published on Monday by WikiLeaks.

The documents, almost all of which are in Turkish, shed light into many secret activities between Erdogan’s government and U.S.-based operatives working to further Turkey’s agenda.

Guzel, who owns Nimeks, an organic juice company based in Pennsylvania, has perhaps the biggest political footprint of any of the operatives identified in the emails.

He has contributed nearly $300,000 to committees that supported Hillary Clinton for president, and his Facebook page is replete with photos he has taken with the former secretary of state and other top Democrats.

He’s given hundreds of thousands of dollars more to various Democratic politicians, and has visited the White House on several occasions. One of Guzel’s Facebook photographs shows him sitting in on a meeting with President Obama.

And writing under his title as chairman of the DNC’s heritage council and as an officer with the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Council, Guzel endorsed Clinton in an op-ed published in The Hill on Nov. 2.

But in addition to his steadfast support for Democrats and his official positions with the DNC, the emails hacked from Albayrak’s account suggest that Guzel, who is a naturalized American citizen, also appears to have strong allegiances to his native land and to Erdogan.

“To stand by Erdogan and do whatever we can against evil powers is not just an act of kindness but rather an Islamic obligation upon all of us,” he wrote to Albayrak in an Oct. 19, 2014 email which was translated for The Daily Caller by a Turkish citizen.

Erdogan, who is an Islamist, has come under increasing pressure from human rights groups because of his crackdown on the Turkish press and dissenters. RedHack released the Albayrak emails after Erdogan’s government refused to release a group of activists from prison.

Guzel, who is a director at MÜSİAD-USA, a Muslim business association that represents Turkish companies, is seen in the emails reporting his activities to Albayrak as well as to Bilal Erdogan, the son of Turkey’s president, and Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan’s press secretary.

Some of the emails show that Guzel asked the Turkish officials for help in coordinating his political activities in the U.S. In turn, he was directed to coordinate with other U.S.-based operatives to push Turkey’s political issues.

In one Oct. 20, 2015 email, Guzel told Kalin about an op-ed he helped place in The Washington Times written by former Indiana Rep. Dan Burton.

In the piece, entitled “Why Turkey Matters,” Burton, who retired from Congress in 2013, praised Turkey as the U.S.’s “biggest friend and ally” in the Middle East.

Guzel told Kalin that he paid Burton for the op-ed and helped the Republican write the article. A translation provided to TheDC reads:

Congressman Dan Burton is the person invited by us to AKP Delegation Meetings in Turkey and you can find his article about Turkey below. He had worked over 30 years at the state department as a congressman and we were able to get an article from a very important person and we didn’t spent that much money for it. I have worked alot to make this happen but your help and the time that we spend together help him to make the main points of the article. without your and yasin hoca’s help and warm welcome this article had been not written. Congressman and I appreciate it to both of you.

Kalin thanked Guzel for placing the article.

“Yes it was a good work. Thanks. We need to increase this type of writing. We publish this in Turkish,” he responded.

Guzel also told Albayrak and Bilal Erdogan about a meeting he had in Nov. 2014 with Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright.

Cartwright had recently praised Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric from Turkey who lives in exile in the Pocono mountains and is Erdogan’s top enemy. Erdogan has for several years accused Gulen and his millions of followers of attempting to undermine the Turkish government. The rivalry reached a peak in July after Erdogan accused Gulen of masterminding a coup.

In his email, Guzel informed Albayrak and the younger Erdogan that he told Cartwright that the Democrat had been the recipient of illegal campaign contributions made by foreigners who support Gulen.

“You did the job very well,” Albayrak replies. “I need to be very dynamic and active in these matters. It is also important that you act in coordination there.”

In a phone interview on Wednesday, Cartwright confirmed that he met with Guzel. But he said he does not recall that Guzel was threatening in any way. He said that he considers Guzel a friend. He also reaffirmed his support for Gulen.

Cartwright returned the donations from the Gulen supporters shortly after that meeting out of “an abundance of caution,” he told TheDC.

The DNC’s position on Guzel’s behind-the-scenes activities are unclear. The party did not respond to several requests for comment. It’s also not clear if Guzel was working directly for the DNC at the time he sent the emails.

It is also not known how much Guzel allegedly paid Burton and why the retired congressman did not disclose his lobbying activities. Burton, who is registered as a lobbyist for only one other client, is the former head of the Azerbaijan America Alliance. During his time in Congress he was accused by an FBI whistleblower named Sibel Edmonds of accepting bribes from Turkish agents.

Burton did not respond to two requests for comment.

Other emails hacked from Albayrak’s account indicate that Guzel was interviewed by the FBI several months ago.

In a Sept. 8 email, Ibrahim Uyar, an executive at MÜSİAD-USA who co-founded a group called the Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC) along with Guzel, informed Albayrak that he was questioned for an hour by two FBI agents.

“They asked about MÜSİAD and TASC. They are accusing me of trying to intervene in American politics on behalf of our president and working as a secret agent in the name of the Republic of Turkey,” he wrote, according to a translation of the email.

He also said that “they have studied our work in the last two years.”

He added that Guzel and several other MÜSİAD board members, including Mustafa Tuncer, Emre Eren and Halil Danismaz, were also interviewed.

Danismaz is the former president of the Turkish Heritage Organization and was in frequent email contact with Albayrak and Bilal Erdogan.

Reached by The Daily Caller, an FBI spokeswoman declined to say whether the interviews of Uyar, Guzel and other MÜSİAD took place. She said that the bureau does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations.

Guzel, whose email address in the Albayrak trove matches up with one listed in a DNC database, also did not respond to emails requesting comment. Uyar also did not respond to a request for comment.

Update: Turkish economy collapsing, $2.5 billion in cash alone has flown out of Turkey less than a month

December 7, 2016 By administrator

Erdoğan: Currency speculators trying to bring down Turkish economy

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has claimed Turkey’s struggling economy is under attack from foreign exchange speculators, while also praising citizens who have converted their foreign currencies into liras.

“They are trying to destroy our economy through foreign exchange speculation. Are there no problems with our economy? Yes, there are. But our government has been taking the required measures and will continue to do so,” Erdoğan said in a speech to neighborhood leaders in the presidential palace in Ankara on Dec. 7.

He noted that he saw “no economic reason” for the Turkish Lira’s recent plunge, after the lira lost as much as one fifth of its value against the U.S. dollar this year before rebounding slightly on Dec. 6.

Casting recent weakness in the Turkish currency as a plot by outside powers to destroy the economy, Erdoğan has repeatedly called for Turkish citizens to convert any dollars under their mattresses into liras or gold, while urging businesses to conduct more transactions in the local currency.

Turkey has lost 2.5 billion dollars in cash in one month: CHP

Some $2.5 billion is cash alone has flown out of Turkey in less than a month, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chair Selin Sayek Böke has said, criticizing the government for creating “structural problems” with its draconian state of emergency decrees.

“The net outflow of cash since the beginning of November alone is $2.5 billion,” Böke said on Dec. 7, speaking after her party’s central executive board meeting.

She also rejected President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s claim that Turkey was being targeted in an economic war by shady outside forces, saying the government’s state of emergency decrees after the failed July 15 coup attempt had created “structural problems” that paved the way for economic strife.

“In the process that started with the extension of the state of emergency, the discussions on presidential system shift, and the deterioration of relations with the EU, the Turkish Lira became one of four currencies that have lost the most value,” Böke said.

“In addition to structural problems, there are political problems in Turkey. With the state of emergency, democracy has been abolished. The law has been destroyed by decree laws … For the sake of its own political power, the government is engaging in fights with the whole world. Political risks are leading Turkey to break away from the world,” she added.

Turkey: HDP Co-chair Demirtaş is being overtly tortured in prison: HDP lawmaker

December 7, 2016 By administrator

The co-chair of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is being overtly subjected to torture in prison, a HDP lawmaker has said, commenting on the imprisonment of HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş.

“Isolation is a form of torture and our lawmakers and co-chairs are being overtly subjected to torture,” HDP deputy Meral Danış Beştaş said before visiting Demirtaş in the prison in the northwestern province of Edirne, adding that “lawlessness is being implemented.”

“There is isolation, restrictions and lawlessness in every sense,” she said.

Nine lawmakers from the HDP, as well its co-chairs, Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, were arrested on Nov. 4 in a probe that was launched against 14 of the party’s lawmakers over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Saying that Turkey should rectify its mistake, Beştaş noted that “no good can come to Turkey with it.”

“The fact that the co-chair of Turkey’s third biggest party is kept under torture and restrictions doesn’t do anything to benefit Turkey, and Turkey needs to rectify its mistake as soon as possible,” she said.

After being imprisoned, Demirtaş requested to serve his prison sentence in the same cell as one of the party’s lawmakers from the eastern province of Hakkari, Abdullah Zeydan, who was arrested on Nov. 6 and brought to the same prison in Edirne. Demirtaş’s request was rejected.

Accompanied by HDP lawmakers Burcu Çelik Özkan and Erol Dora, Beştaş said the fact that Demirtaş’s aforementioned request was rejected was against decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

“We are here today for Demirtaş’s prison conditions. Unfortunately, he is still being kept in isolation alone. Despite the fact that Zeydan is also serving here, Demirtaş’s and his requests to stay together were rejected,” she said.

Beştaş also said the prison staff were restricting the number of letters that Demirtaş can write.

“We filed applications on three matters and one concerned the letters. Mr. Demirtaş’s parliamentary group meeting talk wasn’t given. It was given after two weeks and it was censored. His letters to European parliamentarians were also not given. This is not acceptable,” she added.