Two young men who drew pictures of electric kettles and wrote the name of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) on walls in İstanbul’s Gazi neighborhood have been arrested on terror charges, the artigercek news website reported.
The youths, Sadettin Köse and Birol Tutuş, who were recently detained, were arrested by the İstanbul 3rd Penal Court of Peace on Tuesday on charges of disseminating the propaganda of a terrorist organization.
HDP presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş frequently refers to his electric kettle in his prison cell in jokes in messages he sends from prison.
When some messages were posted from Demirtaş’s Twitter account on Sept.16, 2017, the administration of Edirne Prison, where he is jailed, searched his cell for a smart phone.
Demirtaş’s messages are posted by his lawyers.
“Naturally, no tweet could be found in the cell. There was only a kettle for making tea, and it was concluded that a tweet could not have been posted from it. If you are even afraid of the Twitter bird, don’t sow corn, then,” Demirtaş tweeted at the time through his lawyers.
Demirtaş has frequently referred to his kettle in his tweets since then.
Turkey will hold snap presidential and general elections on June 24, a year and a half earlier than originally scheduled.
Demirtaş, who faces terror charges, is still in pre-trial detention and has not been convicted of any crime.
Many, including other presidential candidates, have been calling for Demirtaş’s release during the presidential campaign period so the election can take place in a democratic environment and under equal conditions for all the presidential candidates.
On May 21 an Ankara high criminal court rejected a request for the release of Demirtaş from jail in the run-up to the June 24 presidential election.
On May 29, Demirtaş’s lawyers applied to Turkey’s Constitutional Court for his release.