A Turkish court on Tuesday sentenced jailed Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş to one-and-a-half years in prison on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
According to the Birgün daily, Demirtaş, who is serving a previous sentence at the Edirne high security prison in western Turkey, did not attend the hearing and was represented by his lawyer. The court convicted him over remarks made in two speeches Demirtaş delivered in Mersin and Diyarbakır in 2015, during a period of intense political tension surrounding Turkey’s elections in June and November of the same year.
In those remarks he accused Erdoğan and then-prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) and Ahrar al-Sham, alleging that the government provided the groups with arms, money and logistical assistance. Prosecutors said the accusations constitute “insulting the president” under Turkish law.
In Turkey thousands of people are investigated, prosecuted or convicted on charges of insulting the president on the basis of the controversial Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). The crime carries up to four years in prison, a sentence that can be increased if the act was committed using mass media.
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 duringthe 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 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in 2018 and again in a final Grand Chamber judgment in 2020 that Demirtaş’ 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.
