Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) has requested a parliamentary debate on the release of politicians jailed due to their alleged role in violent protests in southeastern Turkey in 2014 based on a European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling on Tuesday, the Anka news agency reported.
The ECtHR found Turkey in violation of former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş’s rights, one of the defendants in the Kobani trial, in its Tuesday decision.
The protests erupted in 2014 over Turkey’s perceived inaction during the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’s assault on the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria.
In a petition submitted to the speaker of the Turkish Parliament, DEM Party parliamentary group chairpersons Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit and Sezai Temelli called for a general debate in parliament on the implementation of the latest ECtHR ruling and the release of Demirtaş and other imprisoned opposition figures convicted in the Kobani trial.
The move comes just one day after the Strasbourg-based court issued another decision in favor of Demirtaş, who has been in pretrial detention or imprisoned for nearly nine years. The ECtHR found that Turkey violated multiple articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in connection with his continued detention, despite previous rulings ordering his release.
Demirtaş, 52, was among 108 former pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) politicians tried for allegedly inciting the protests. In May 2024 a high criminal court in Ankara sentenced him to 42 years in prison, a ruling that he is currently appealing. The HDP has since been succeeded by DEM Party.
In their petition, the DEM Party politicians claimed that the Kobani trial, in which dozens of other politicians were also handed down lengthy sentences in May, was politically motivated and marred by serious legal and procedural violations.
“This case represents a judicial process driven primarily by political motives, and it stands as a stark example of the breakdown of the rule of law,” their petition read.
The party said the ECtHR ruling clearly reveal systemic violations of legal standards, including the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression. They said that the imprisonment of Demirtaş and others under similar charges was a continuation of politically motivated repression targeting democratic opposition.
The ECtHR said in its ruling that the Turkish authorities failed to provide “reasonable suspicion” that Demirtaş committed a crime and that their actions appeared politically motivated.
“The measures taken by the authorities had been based on inadequate reasoning and had pursued an ulterior purpose, namely that of stifling public debate and limiting the scope of democratic debate,” the judgment said.
The DEM Party called for immediate steps to bring Turkey’s judicial and legislative practices into compliance with European standards and urged lawmakers to confront what they described as the chilling effect of the Kobani case on democratic politics and judicial independence.
The violent Kobani protests resulted in the death of more than 40 people and injuries to hundreds of others. According to public prosecutors, the violence had been prompted by the calls issued by the HDP and its co-chairman Demirtaş.
Demirtaş and other defendants have always denied the accusations and argued that their calls for solidarity with Kobani were democratic and within the framework of freedom of expression.
In 2020 the court’s Grand Chamber had already found Demirtaş’s initial detention to be politically motivated and in violation of his rights. Tuesday’s ruling concluded that those violations had persisted during his renewed detention.
Demirtaş’s imprisonment is widely seen part of a broader crackdown led by President Erdoğan on opposition figures and a tactic to silence political dissent in the country.