Those handling the Kobani case are engaging in criminal conduct by proceeding with an indictment approved by a judge linked to a criminal organisation, Kurdish politician Halide Türkoğlu argued in a press statement on Tuesday.
🔴 DEM Party spokeswoman Halide Türkoğlu (@Halide_Turkoglu) on high profile case against Kurdish politicians in Turkey: "Frankly, accepting this file is itself a crime. Those responsible have thereby engaged in crimes against humanity."#HumanityCrimes | #DEMParty | #KobaniTrial… pic.twitter.com/GuDaEJEHCD
— MedyaNews (@1MedyaNews) December 19, 2023
Türkoğlu, spokeswoman for the Women’s Council of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), delivered the statement at the Sincan Prison Campus in Ankara, preceding the defence of Figen Yüksekdağ, former Co-chair of the now-defunct Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Türkoğlu referred to the trial as the “Kobanê Conspiracy Case”. She described it as a prosecution of all those who resisted the ISIS attacks in 2014 on the Kurdish-majority town of Kobanê in Syria. “Our colleagues [the defendants] continually reveal the biases of the male-dominated judicial process,” she remarked. “Accepting this file signifies a crime in itself. Those who accepted it are complicit in crimes against humanity.”
She further argued that the defendants in the Kobani (Kobanê) Case are being unjustly prosecuted for highlighting and combating crimes against humanity and for advocating human rights, universal values, and the struggle for women’s liberation.
The statement was notably made on the birthday of Figen Yüksekdağ, which Türkoğlu cited as a symbol of women’s liberation. The event concluded with chants celebrating Yüksekdağ and women’s solidarity.
