Turkish prosecutors draft summaries of proceedings for pro-Kurdish HDP’s 19 deputies

HDP deputies protested and left a Constitution Commission meeting on May 2, 2016.

The Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office prepared summaries of proceedings for a total of 19 deputies of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and submitted them to the Justice Ministry on Monday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

According to the report the summaries of proceedings have been prepared for deputies for “disseminating the propaganda of a terrorist organization” on May 2, 2016.

The HDP deputies protested and walked out of a Constitution Commission meeting where a proposal to lift the political immunity of deputies was being discussed, in the Turkish Parliament on May 2, 2016.

The prosecutor’s office accused HDP deputies Dirayet Taşdemir, Sibel Yiğitalp, Çağlar Demirel, Hüda Kaya, Ayşe Acar Başaran, Adem Geveri, Mithat Sancar, Ferhat Encu, Gülser Yıldırım, İbrahim Ayhan, Garo Paylan, Bedia Özgökçe Ertan, Meral Danış Beştaş, Mahmut Toğrul, Ertuğrul Kürkcü, Mizgin Irgat, Saadet Becerekli, Nadir Yıldırım and Ziya Pir of spreading propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) while leaving the commission meeting.

Moreover, a Turkish court on Monday sentenced HDP’s former co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ to one year 15 days in prison. Mersin High Criminal Court found Yuksekdağ guilty of “making terrorist propaganda” in her speech in Mersin in 2005.

Yüksekdağ refused to attend the trial via closed-circuit camera system and the verdict was given in her absence. The court decided that in a speech in Mersin, Yüksekdağ “humiliated the Turkish nation, Turkish state and state institutions and organs” and “made terrorist propaganda” and sentenced her to one year and 15 days in prison.

Menawhile, “thieves” have broken into the office of the lawyer of jailed HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, stealing his computer that contains Demirtaş’s plea for the first hearing of the case in which he being tried on terror charges, Doğan news agency reported on Monday.

Thieves late on Sunday stole three computers after climbing through the balcony of the office of former Diyarbakır bar head Mehmet Emin Aktar in the Yenişehir district of the city, just three days ahead of Demirtaş’s hearing.

They left two of the computers on the street and ran away with the computer containing the HDP co-chair’s plea. The Diyarbakır Chief Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into the robbery.

Aktar’s office has reportedly been the target of four attempted break-ins over the past year, two of which failed and two of which saw the stealing of computers.

Demirtaş was initially arrested as part of an investigation launched by Diyarbakır Chief Prosecutor’s Office. The Ankara 19th High Criminal Court later took over his case, setting Dec. 7 as the date for his first hearing.

He has been serving time in an F-Type jail in the northwestern province of Edirne since Nov. 4, 2016, along with 8 other deputies of the party, including Figen Yüksekdağ, a former HDP co-chair, pending trial on terror-related charges. Demirtaş faces hundreds of years in jail over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as well as other charges.

Turkey has stepped up its crackdown on Kurdish politicians since 2016. Trustees have been appointed to dozens of municipalities in the country’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast, while hundreds of local Kurdish politicians have been arrested on terror charges. Ten HDP deputies including co-chairpersons Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ are still in prison. (SCF with turkishminute.com)

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