Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the former leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), visited Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), in Edirne F-Type Prison on Tuesday. Demirtaş has been in prison for eight years and was recently sentenced to a total of 42 years on 16 May.
Outlining the purpose of his visit, Kılıçdaroğlu said: “Today I visited Mr Selahattin Demirtaş and Mr Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı in prison. I do not find it right that they are imprisoned for their thoughts. The main principle of democracies is freedom of thought and expression.”
Kılıçdaroğlu was previously a presidential candidate running against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 14 May 2023 general election, which he lost with 48 percent of the vote. Subsequently, he lost the party leadership race to Özgür Özel at the CHP congress. Since then, he has continued to express his views openly on social media and from his office in Ankara.
After the 31 March 2024 local elections, in which his party emerged as the leading party against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the first time, Kılıçdaroğlu publicly opposed the dialogue process initiated with the Erdoğan regime, calling the Turkish President a “dictator”.
Kılıçdaroğlu described Demirtaş as a “defender of democracy and peace” and claimed that “the main person responsible for Demirtaş’s imprisonment is Erdoğan himself”. He concluded his statement with a Kurdish proverb: “Bila mirov kuştiyê şera be ne girtîyê rovîya be.” (A person should be the lion’s dead, not the fox’s captive.) This is the first case of Kılıçdaroğlu using a Kurdish sentence in his political career.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s visit to Demirtaş comes after his previous vote in favour of lifting the immunity of Demirtaş and his colleagues and his controversial direct engagement with Ümit Özdağ, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Victory Party, instead of the HDP during the 2023 general election process. This visit has been interpreted by commentators as self-criticism for his earlier inertia and missteps regarding Kurdish and HDP politicians.
Selahattin Demirtaş has not yet issued a statement regarding this visit through his lawyers.
