Supporters of the Kurdish Freedom Movement had been expecting a ruling in the landmark Kobane trial tomorrow. But news has just come in that the verdict, which had been expected on 17 April, will not take place as planned. The trial, which is being held in the city of Ankara, has kept the co-chairs of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş imprisoned for more than seven years awaiting a verdict. In total 18 of the 108 defendants are still being held in prison.
The Kurdish-led Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) Party had issued a call for solidarity last week, ahead of the planned verdict in Ankara.
108 Kurdish politicians are on trial for allegedly inciting unrest in 2014, which broke out against the Turkish government’s failure to respond to the ISIS siege of Kobane. The prosecution has hinged tweets sent to the HDP’s supporters calling for solidarity.
A series of demonstrations followed in support of the residents of Kobane. Tensions increased after the then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly announced that “Kobane is about to fall”. Multiple deaths occurred due to violence on the streets. However, the majority of the 48 people killed were supporters of the HDP.
The case against the 108 politicians has been denounced as a political attack on the HDP, and part of a state strategy to close the party down. Demirtaş summed up the ridiculousness of the charges when he gave evidence in January 2024. He told the court that “our efforts for the eradication” of “violence and trauma are being branded as terrorism.”
The charges against the defendants include, “looting”, “murder”, “burning flags”, “injuring a public official with a gun” and “disruption of the national unity and the integrity of the country”. The defendants face multiple sentences of aggravated life imprisonment.
Öztürk Türkdoğan, Co-Spokesperson of the Law Commission, told supporters that the defence had been instructed by the court clerk that the verdict would not take place on 17 April. But that a ‘detainee examination’ would take place instead.
According to Türkdoğan, the defence will attend court tomorrow as planned and is demanding that the remaining prisoners be released. He specifically highlighted the urgent need to release the former Diyarbakır (Amed) Metropolitan Municipality co-mayor Gültan Kışanak and former Democratic Regions Party (DBP) co-chair Sebahat Tuncel.
Kışanak and Tuncel have both been imprisoned since 2016. Their imprisonment has now exceeded seven years, the maximum term for those in prison awaiting trial.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently called Kışanak and Tuncel’s imprisonment a “flagrant violation of international human rights law”, while the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the continued imprisonment of Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ is illegal and has the effect of “stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate, the very core of the concept of a democratic society.”
Türkdoğan confirmed that the statement in support of the defendants outside the Sincan Campus Hearing Hall would go ahead as planned. He told Turkish media, “Our expectation is that our friends will be released tomorrow and Turkey will return to the path of the rule of law.”
