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The thirds hearing of the Kobane trial takes place in Ankara today. 108 current and former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) members -28 of whom are already in prison, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ – are on trial over the Kobane case, which accuses all 108 people for all the deaths that occured during the October 6-8 2014 protests over the ISIS siege in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane.
International committees and numerous human rights organisations monitored the second hearing of the Kobane trial. Human Rights Association (IHD) have been among these organisations, which have been following the three hearings so far.
Öztürk Türkdoğan, co-chair of the IHD and a prominent human rights lawyer, shared his criticism regarding the Kobane trial with MA.
”This case is a conspiracy against the HDP politicians. There is no connection between the politicians and those who lost their lives in the Kobane demonstrations. I think that noone can achieve any results with such political plots. Politicians should not be judged with such non-related claims,” Türkdoğan said.
Mentioning that being put on a trial in Turkey over sharing opinions has become almost a routine violation of human rights, he said: ‘I am schocked. ‘For example, I have a politician client who only posted a few comments on social media in 2014. He has been charged with 30 different crimes just for being a member of HDP. This is complete nonsense.”
The IHD co-chair underlined the contradictions in the course of the hearings. “The court’s board read the indictment of 3,530 pages in a few days. The court’s board should enter into the Guinness Book of Records. Because no one in the world can read 3,530 pages in a few days. This could never happen in an ordinary legal case file,” he said.
