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Yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Ankara’s call by the European Court of Human Rights to release Kurdish dissident Salahuddin Demirtaş after serving four years in prison.
He said that the European Court had issued a “political” ruling by publishing its decision before Demirtaş had exhausted all his judicial appeals before the Turkish courts.
Demirtaş was found guilty of spreading “terrorist” propaganda in 2018 and faces other charges for which he could face up to 142 years in prison.
The 47-year-old brought his party, the HDP, to parliament for the first time in 2015 and faced Erdogan in the 2016 presidential election.
He was in third place with 10 percent of the vote.
The Turkish authorities accuse the Peoples ‘Democratic Party of being a political front of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has rebelled against the Turkish state since 1984.
Demirtaş is also accused of fueling the 2014 protests, which reached Turkey after the “Islamic State” (ISIS) tried to control the Syrian border town of Kobani, whose population is mainly Kurdish. The unrest in Turkey claimed 37 lives.
On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Turkish authorities violated Demirtaş’s right to freedom of expression by imprisoning him as a “cover-up for a hidden political objective.”
Turkey is bound by the decision of the Court, which is based in Strasbourg, as it is a member of the Council of Europe.
But Erdogan considered the court’s decision to be full of “double standards” and “hypocrisy.” He said the court must “know what he stands for, who supports a terrorist.” He added: “He (Demirtaş) is guilty in the eyes of our nation not because of his political beliefs, but because he did not distance himself from the terrorist groups that were responsible for killing dozens.”
Erdogan’s remarks came moments after the European Court of Human Rights announced that he had been subjected to a “widespread electronic attack” shortly after he published the ruling on Demirtaş. The court confirmed that the attack disrupted their location for a few hours.
“At this time, it does not appear that any data has been lost,” the court news agency said. It indicated that it has not yet determined the identity or origin of the party that carried out the cyber attack.
