A delegation of Turkish opposition parties on Thursday called for the release of jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş and demanded that Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu be tried without pretrial detention, after visiting prisons holding prominent political figures and activists.
According to the Birgün daily, the group, representing 13 opposition parties including the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), visited prisons in Edirne, near the Greek border, and Silivri, a high-security complex west of Istanbul that houses many high-profile political prisoners.
In a joint statement the delegation urged authorities to implement rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and called on the government to release Demirtaş and others and ensure that İmamoğlu, widely seen as the strongest presidential challenger, is tried without being held in custody.
The delegation also called for the release of several other jailed figures, including Figen Yüksekdağ, a former co-leader of the pro-Kurdish opposition imprisoned since 2016 on terrorism-related charges; Can Atalay, whose election to parliament in 2023 was not recognized by courts while he remained jailed over his conviction in the anti-government Gezi Park protests; Tayfun Kahraman, an urban planner sentenced in the same case; and Osman Kavala, a businessman and civil society figure serving a life sentence over his alleged role in the same protests.
Demirtaş is one of Turkey’s best-known Kurdish politicians and a former co-chair of the now-defunct Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). He has been jailed since 2016 on terrorism-related charges that he denies, and a Turkish court in May 2024 sentenced him to 42 years in a case over the 2014 Kobani protests, which erupted after calls to protest during the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.
The Kobani trial centers on the events of October 6-8, 2014, when ISIL laid siege to the Syrian town of Kobani. Protests broke out across Turkey, particularly in the southeastern provinces, which are predominantly Kurdish. The Turkish government accuses the leaders of the HDP of instigating the protests, which claimed 37 lives.
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.
The ECtHR ruled in 2018 and again in a final Grand Chamber judgment in 2020 that Demirtaş’s detention violated his rights and said Turkey must take steps to secure his immediate release. In a further ruling in 2025, the court found continued violations and ordered Ankara to pay over €55,000 in damages and legal fees.
İmamoğlu was detained on March 19, 2025, days before the CHP members selected him as their presidential candidate in a future election, along with more than 100 municipal employees and contractors in what prosecutors described as a sweeping corruption investigation.
He faces charges of leading a criminal organization, embezzlement, bid-rigging, bribery and espionage in an indictment prosecutors say documents a decade-long criminal enterprise operating within the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality. The indictment characterizes İmamoğlu’s lawful political ambitions as criminal in nature.
Of the 407 defendants named in the case, 107 are in pretrial detention. İmamoğlu’s lead defense attorney, Mehmet Pehlivan, was arrested as a co-defendant in June 2025 and is being tried alongside his client, a move Human Rights Watch called retaliation designed to restrict İmamoğlu’s ability to mount an effective defense.
The trial began March 9 and is expected to last 45 days of daily hearings. İmamoğlu, who became İstanbul mayor in 2019 after defeating President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s party in a historic upset, is widely regarded as the opposition’s strongest potential challenger to Erdoğan in the presidential election scheduled for 2028.
