The Council of Europe’s (CoE) Committee of Ministers has renewed its call for the immediate release of jailed former pro-Kurdish politicians Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ as well as businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala, expressing concern over Turkey’s continued failure to implement European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings.
The calls came during the committee’s June 9-11 quarterly meeting, where ministers reviewed the implementation of ECtHR judgments that remain unexecuted by 24 member states. The committee adopted decisions concerning the Kavala case and the Demirtaş group of cases which also includes applications by former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ and former HDP lawmaker Burcu Çelik Özkan.
In both decisions the ministers reiterated that the execution of the court’s judgments is a shared responsibility of all state authorities.
In its decision on the Demirtaş group of cases, the committee reiterated that the detention of Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ was politically motivated and lacked sufficient legal basis. It expressed profound concern over the lack of progress by Turkey’s Constitutional Court and regional appeals court in examining their pending applications.
The committee also requested clarification regarding former HDP lawmaker Özkan, one of the applicants in the case, asking whether she remains eligible to stand for election. It urged Turkish authorities to ensure that all consequences stemming from the criminal proceedings against her are fully remedied, including the restoration of her right to run for parliament.
Demirtaş was arrested on November 4, 2016, on charges including dissemination of terrorist propaganda and alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In May 2024 Demirtaş was sentenced to 42 years in prison for allegedly undermining state unity during the Kobani protests, which erupted across Turkey, on October 6-8, 2014, when the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) laid siege to the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani. Particularly intense in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces, the protests resulted in 37 deaths.
In its decision on Kavala, the committee urged Turkey’s Constitutional Court to issue a ruling by August 31, 2026, that would allow the authorities to resolve the matter within the domestic legal system. It warned that if Kavala remains imprisoned, it will consider further action at its next meeting in September.
Kavala was arrested in October 2017 and sentenced to life in 2022 for allegedly trying to topple the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. His conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals in September 2023.
The Grand Chamber of the ECtHR held a hearing on March 25 to examine Kavala’s continued detention after the court’s 2019 judgment, which found that Turkey had violated his rights and was obliged to end his detention immediately. The court did not issue a ruling that day.
In a separate decision, the ministers also addressed Turkey’s failure to implement the ECtHR judgment in the case of Myra Xenides-Arestis, a Greek Cypriot woman whose property rights were found to have been violated after she was prevented from accessing her home in northern Cyprus following Turkey’s 1974 military intervention.
The committee expressed deep regret over the Turkish authorities’ failure to respond to an interim resolution adopted in September 2023 and urged Ankara to comply without further delay with its obligation to pay the compensation awarded by the court.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution on April 9, 2025, urging Turkey to fulfill its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights by implementing key ECtHR rulings.
International observers say the Turkish judicial system has suffered “irreversible damage” during the more than two-decade-long tenure of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), eroding public confidence in the rule of law.
Turkey was ranked 118th among 142 countries in the World Justice Project’s 2025 Rule of Law Index.
