Imprisoned HDP member Mukaddes Kubilay (67), a former elected co-Mayor of Ağrı and ex mayor of Doğubeyazıt, has been denied parole for shaking the hands of other prisoners families during visiting hours.
Kubilay was due for release on 4 August but her family learned of the authorities’ decision to delay this only recently. Her son had flown to Turkey from Europe to greet his mother, expecting her to be released after her long prison term.
The governing administration of Sincan Closed Women’s Prison in Ankara said that Kubilay’s greetings of other prisoners’ families during prison visits had “the potential to cause negative behaviour and polarisation in the prison”.
Speaking to Bianet, her lawyer Nuray Özdoğan said “People have been greeting each other in the visiting rooms of prisons for decades, but in 2022 it became a punishable offence.”
She explained that currently political prisoners’ release times are delayed according to their disciplinary penalties, but that this does not apply in Kubilay’s case as she has never been disciplined in her whole time in prison.
She added that political prisoners rather than those convicted of criminal offences are the main targets of arbitrary rules. Recently, these inventive rules have been used to extend the jail time of political prisoners. “Many prisoners’ release dates are delayed due to these petty discipline penalties,” she said.
“Not of good conduct”
Kubilay’s appointed parole date was 4 August 2022 but the Administration and Observation Board of Sincan Prison declared in their decision dated 11 May that Kubilay had “not demonstrated remorse for what she did”, and that she had “not cut ties with the organisation”.
A sentencing judge rejected this decision due to its vague explanations. But on 27 July, following an appeal by the prosecution, the board of a High Court in Ankara reaffirmed the decision, declaring that she would not be released on her appointed parole date.
On 28 July, the Presidency of the Board decided that Kubilay was “not of good conduct”. The Board indicated her non-attendance at an interview she had been summoned to as additional grounds for this decision. “If prisoners refuse to answer degrading questions about their political beliefs in these illegal interviews, they are labelled as being “not of good conduct,” Kubilay’s lawyer said.
They also claimed that Kubilay chanted slogans on 6 June 2022, though this was not proved by the video recordings that cover the prisoners’ every move, and her lawyer explained that chanting slogans may not be a reason for punishment unless it violates prison security, according to a Constitutional Court decision.
She also added that Kubilay’s parole decision should have been determined by the Law of Prison Sentences as it stood on 8 September 2015, the date of her offence, but that it was in fact determined by an amended version from 2020.
Why was Mukaddes Kubilay arrested?
Mukaddes Kubilay was detained in a police raid on her daughter’s home on 22 December 2016 and formally charged on 26 December.
On 1 March 2017, the government appointed a trustee to her mayoral position in the Kurdish-majority town of Ağrı near the Iranian border.
Her trial was based on events she had attended: press releases, funerals, events arranged by the council. Books seized in the house raid that were also accepted as evidence against her even though they were not banned books, and it was not her home but her daughter’s.
Furthermore, a ‘secret statement’ from an anonymous witness was also accepted, during a hearing of which neither Kubilay nor her lawyer were informed of.
On 16 February 2018, she was sentenced to 8 years, 6 months and 15 days imprisonment for “membership of an armed terrorist organisation” and “making propaganda for a terrorist organisation”. This was later reduced to 7 years and 6 months by a Supreme Court review.
Who is Mukaddes Kubilay?
Since 1990, Kubilay has been an active politician promoting peace and fraternity between the Turkish and Kurdish peoples. In 1999 she was elected the first woman mayor of her home town of Doğubeyazıt, where she was highly popular and served until 2009.
In 2014 she was elected again as a co-mayor of Ağrı.
She was known widely for her promotion of women’s rights and her highly productive work, such as building a women’s hospital and introducing piped water and a sewage system to the town. She was strongly against corruption and nepotism and opened her mayoral door to all those who needed it, whatever time of the day or night.
She is hugely respected by her supporters, her colleagues and her fellow prisoners in the prison in Ankara, where she has served her sentence alongside other imprisoned Kurdish women mayors and co-mayors.
Kubilay’s son Emre had travelled to Turkey to meet his mother from jail, excited to spend time with her. She had already missed the first days of his son, her grandson, and he was desperately disappointed that she had not been released. However he told Medya News:
“My mother is very strong. She is not the only political prisoner that this has happened to. I am so incredibly proud of her and her fellow Kurdish politicians. They are wonderful, amazing people whose only crime is to speak the truth, and for that they are imprisoned. The prison authorities, who made this decision are to meet again in late October to review her release date again. We will be here to meet her with love, dignity and pride whatever day they decide.”
