Turkey’s Constitutional Court has found a violation of the right to peaceful assembly in a police intervention that prevented a 2019 protest organized by a pro-Kurdish party in Diyarbakır, the Mezopotamya news agency reported Wednesday.
In its unanimous ruling, the court said authorities had failed to establish a concrete threat to public order that would justify stopping the protest, finding a violation of Article 34 of the constitution, which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly.
The case concerned Musa Farisoğulları and Remziye Tosun, former lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the political predecessor of today’s Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), who planned to hold a protest at Koşuyolu Park in Diyarbakır on April 17, 2019.
The demonstration was planned to protest a Supreme Election Board decision barring elected mayors who had previously been dismissed from public service from taking office, as well as restrictions preventing Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), from meeting with his lawyers and family members.
Police blocked the protest under a ban imposed by the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office on gatherings concerning government-appointed municipal trustees, despite Farisoğulları’s assurance that the group would make a brief statement, hold a 15-minute sit-in and disperse. Officers used water cannons to disperse those who had gathered, while Farisoğulları and Tosun were injured during the intervention.
The HDP filed a criminal complaint alleging that police had unlawfully prevented the protest and used disproportionate force. The governor’s office denied permission to investigate the officers for blocking the protest, a decision upheld by the Gaziantep Regional Administrative Court in 2021, prompting Farisoğulları and Tosun to apply to the Constitutional Court.
In a separate investigation, prosecutors decided in February 2024 not to prosecute the officers over allegations of excessive force, a matter the Constitutional Court did not examine.
The HDP won 65 municipalities in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern regions in the March 2019 local elections, but six elected mayors were prohibited from taking office by the Supreme Election Board, while 48 others were removed and replaced by government-appointed trustees.
The Constitutional Court said police had not adequately considered the gathering’s small size, brief duration and purpose, or whether protective measures could have allowed it to proceed peacefully.
The court also found that physical confrontations between some participants and officers after police intervention could not justify the initial police action, even though those who acted unlawfully could be punished individually.
The court declined to order the proceedings reopened, saying the protest was tied to a particular political moment in 2019 and reopening the case would serve no practical purpose.
The court awarded each applicant 10,000 Turkish lira (about $220) in non-pecuniary damages and ordered the payment of 40,664.10 lira (about $910) in legal costs for both applicants.
