On Thursday 16 May, a verdict was reached in the eight-year-long Kobane Conspiracy Trial. Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş was sentenced to a total of 42 years imprisonment, while co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ received a 32-year prison sentence. Many of their co-defendants received sentences in excess of 15 years.
The conspiracy case arose from the events of 6-8 October 2014, where people rose up all over southeast Turkey over Turkey’s supportive stance to the ISIS siege of the city of Kobane in northern Syria. Tensions on the streets and clashes with the police and fascist groups led to the death of 48 people. The majority of those killed were HDP supporters. However, the state, motivated by destroying its political opponents, launched an overarching conspiracy trial against HDP members.
Parliamentary immunity was stripped from MPs in 2016 to allow for the prosecution of 108 HDP politicians for charges including encouraging the uprisings and being members of a ‘terrorist organisation’. The Kobane Conspiracy Case has been widely criticised as an attack on democracy in Turkey. Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ’s imprisonment has been the subject of legal rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, and criticism by the European parliament.
Tuncer Bakırhan and Tülay Hatimoğulları, co-chairs of the People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party, which is the political successor to the HDP, said that the verdicts in the trial showed that the Turkish state was aligning itself with ISIS and fascism. Bakırhan told the press conference yesterday: “another dark stain is added to the history of Turkey’s law and judiciary. In a period where gangs and mafias roam freely, and trials such as those of JITEM end in acquittals—JITEM, which massacred Kurds in acid wells and committed thousands of unsolved murders—Kurds, democrats, and politicians are being punished.” The Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism (JITEM) was a special force that disappeared, tortured and massacred Kurdish people in the 1990s across Turkey. The Turkish courts have been notorious in their refusal to hold JITEM members to account for their crimes.
“We do not recognise this verdict. Selahattin, Figen, and those on trial in the Kobanî Case have been acquitted in the hearts of Kurds, Turks, workers, women, and youth; they are free,” Bakırhan said. “In the courtroom in Sincan where this hearing was held, the spectre of the military coups of 12 September and 12 March has resurfaced,” he added, referring to the military coups in 1980 and 1971 respectively.
Bakırhan warned that the verdicts may herald a hardening of the Turkish state’s stance toward the movement, after a period of relative calm following the 31 March elections. “We have been hearing normalisation and softening messages (from the government circles) in these days, but today the HDP, Kurdish politics, and democrats are being attempted to be erased from the political scene. On 31 March (in Turkey’s local elections), Kurds, workers, gave a great response to this unjust order, these judicial decisions influenced by the government. Those who do not understand this response have done a great harm to Turkey’s democracy and the future of the country. But they should know very well that we Kurds, workers, and the poor will nullify these dirty decisions as always, shoulder to shoulder in solidarity on the field. We will liberate our friends one day. Let those who made this decision know very well that those days are not far off. I respectfully greet our friends who stand in solidarity with us… We promise that this solidarity, this struggle, will continue more comprehensively and larger from now on,” he said.
Co-chair Hatimoğulları called the verdicts a “massacre of justice”. According to Hatimoğulları, the defendants, “Have been sentenced to hundreds of years in total.” She continued, “Just as the indictment was written in the [Presidential] Palace and the MHP [Nationalist Movement Party] Headquarters, this decision has also been written by the same circles. There is no judiciary left in Turkey. Another legal coup, another political coup has just taken place. Our friends, who have been unjustly and unlawfully sentenced… have already been acquitted in the conscience of the whole world’s public opinion.”
She concluded that the court’s decision “indicates support for ISIS, an organisation regarded as an enemy of the people, women, and humanity, aiming to spread significant disaster across the Middle East… with its verdict, the court once again shows that it is on the side of ISIS and fascism… We do not recognise this decision, it is null and void.”
DEM Party spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan announced on Friday that the party was calling for demonstrations in Diyarbakır (Amed), Adana and Istanbul, despite the Turkish state’s four-day protest ban. The protests will be held on Saturday 18 May.
