A Turkish prosecutor has demanded the continued pretrial detention of Gültan Kışanak, a Kurdish politician and the former co-mayor of Diyarbakır who has been behind bars on terrorism-related charges since October 2016, the Evrensel newspaper reported.
“Her staying in jail is in the public interest,” the prosecutor said in response to a request for Kışanak’s release on the grounds that she has completed the seven-year threshold for detention without a conviction.
Kışanak’s detention was brought up during a hearing on Monday in the “Kobanê trial,” a prosecution concerning a series of protests that took place in 2014 in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority provinces in reaction to clashes between Syrian Kurds and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The deadly 2014 protests erupted as ISIL militants laid siege to the predominantly Kurdish Syrian town of Kobanê. Thirty-seven people died in demonstrations against the Turkish army’s inaction in the face of the ISIL offensive.
“You are trying to invent a legal cover for the authoritarian regime,” Kışanak said during her court statement. “I reject you since I don’t believe you’re conducting a fair trial.”
Kışanak has ongoing trials before two separate courts. She was also sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2019, a conviction that has yet to be upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals.
Incarcerated in Kocaeli province, she was temporarily released in August to attend her sister’s funeral in Elazığ.
Dozens of Kurdish politicians in Turkey are accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.
A government crackdown on Kurdish parties and politicians in Turkey reached new heights following a coup attempt in the country in July 2016.
Dozens of democratically elected Kurdish mayors were removed from office, while a large number of Kurdish politicians, including former party executives, were jailed following the coup attempt.
