The new Turkey
Garo Paylan,
Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputie

The office of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday demanded from the country’s Parliament to strip the leaders of the main and Kurdish opposition parties of immunity along with 19 other lawmakers, to pave the way for potential prosecution.

The move comes only a week after the European Court of Human Rights, which Turkey is a party to, ruled that Ankara was unjustly and politically holding Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas in detention for two years and that authorities had to release him.

It is also the latest in a far-reaching crackdown on the opposition, Kurdish movement, and civil society that has over the past two years seen the jailing of up to 150,000 people, 50,000 of them now political prisoners.

The Presidency has sent the parliament 43 files containing criminal charges against the Co-chair of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Pervin Buldan, leader of the largest opposition bloc, the Republican People's Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, and other MPs from their respective parties, the state media reported.

If approved by a majority of lawmakers, they will have to face the charges by prosecutors, and also appear in front of courts that could land them in jail—as was the case with Demirtas and a dozen other now-former lawmakers from the previous parliament.

It was not immediately clear what the accusations against them were.

However, earlier reports this month by the pro-government media wrote that charges against the opposition politicians varied from “terrorist membership, terrorist propaganda to insulting the President,” based on their speeches.

Both Buldan and Kilicdaroglu are members of the national assembly which is dominated by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its junior far-right ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the number of whose lawmakers suffices to purge their rivals.

Among HDP MPs targeted by the latest move from Erdogan’s administration are Feleknas Uca and Ayse Acar Basaran of Batman, Dirayet Dilan Tasdemir and Berdan Ozturk of Agri, Nimetullah Erdogmus of Sanliurfa, Ayhan Bilgen of Kars, Bedia Ozgokce Ertan of Van, Imam Tascier and Garo Paylan of Diyarbakir, Mahmut Togrul of Gaziantep, and Filiz Kerestecioglu Demir of Ankara.

Those from the CHP who may lose parliamentary immunity from prosecution are Mehmet Goker of Burdur, Okan Gaytancioglu of Edirne, Mustafa Sezgin Tanrikulu, Mahmut Tanal, and Aykut Erdogdu of Istanbul, Kadim Durmaz of Tokat, Cetin Osman Budak of Antalya. Source

10 April 2018

A Turkish appeals court has sentenced pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Burcu Çelik Özkan to prison for alleged terrorism propaganda, according to a report by the pro-Kurdish Mesopotamia news agency.

Özkan was sentenced to seven years, three months and 10 days on charges of disseminating propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). She had previously been given six years for the same offense by a lower court, but the sentence was dropped and the case retried on appeal.

“You will get the hell out of this place,” Özkan was accused in an indictment of having said to security personnel during the July 7, 2015 general election campaign. “We know well how to turn that Kalashnikov you are pointing at us back towards you.”

Prosecutors also said Özkan attended the funerals of PKK militants Berjin Demirkaya and Özgür Akınel and gave a eulogy at the funeral that constituted terrorist propaganda, charges she denied. “There is no concrete evidence that I attended the funeral,” Özkan said.

She also gave a different account of her actions in 2015 to that of the prosecution, saying that she had been opposing the presence of security forces at the ballot box intended to intimidate voters. “On July 7, 2015 I went to the towns of Sungu and Karaağaç with other candidate colleagues to see electoral and ballot box security in the field. There were security guards waiting at the ballot boxes with Kalashnikovs in Karaağaç,” Özkan said.

“We lodged our objections to them. We faced violence, insults and swearing from the village guards. They hit my hand with a gun.”

The court gave her five years for “threats making use of a terror organization’s power to frighten,” one year, three months for “terrorist organization propaganda” and one year, 10 days for “committing a crime in the name of a terrorist organization while not being a member of that organization.”

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday filed motions against eight HDP deputies for disseminating “terrorist propaganda,” demanding the removal of their immunity from prosecution, the state-run Anadolu agency reported.

According to the report, HDP deputies Osman Baydemir, Alican Önlü, Feleknas Uca, Sibel Yiğitalp, Nadir Yıldırım, Dilek Öcalan, Mizgin Irgat and Garo Paylan also were accused of “humiliating the Turkish nation, the Turkish state, government, military and police,” “violating the Political Parties Law” and “Insulting the president [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan].”

The prosecutor sent motions to the Justice Ministry to forward to the presidency of the Parliament for removal of the deputies’ immunity.

The prosecutor’s office also asked the Justice Ministry for permission to initiate an investigation into HDP deputies Baydemir and Botan for statements they made about a Turkish military operation and “humiliating the Turkish nation, military and police.”

The government’s crackdown on the Kurdish political movement began in late 2016 with the arrest of high-profile politicians, including the party’s then co-chairs, Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş, which led to the detention of at least 5,000 members of the HDP, including 80 mayors. Trustees have been appointed to dozens of municipalities in the country’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast. Source

A criticism by Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Istanbul deputy Garo Paylan to the government based on main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) accusations of the government’s alleged involvement in a multi-million dollar traffic through an off-shore company in the tax haven Isle of Man has prompted a fresh brawl to erupt in parliament.

During budget talks in parliament late on Dec. 20, Paylan lashed out at the government and the Finance Ministry for remaining silent to documents provided by the CHP over alleged lucrative financial transactions of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s inner circle.

“You, Mr. Finance Minister, you should ask [the CHP] where they found the documents. You should put MASAK [Financial Crime Investigation Board] into action, and they should ask: ‘Where did you find them?’ Otherwise friends, we cannot walk with the immorality and those tax immoralities in this country,” Paylan said.

His words drew an immediate backlash from ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Group Chair İlknur İnceöz.

“You are the last person in parliament we will learn a lesson on morality from, and I should specifically clarify that you will never be. You are not even the last person [to give a lesson on morality] in this parliament,” İnceöz said.

Paylan urged İnceöz not to engage in immorality, as his remarks drew reactions from other AKP deputies in parliament. İnceöz also walked up to the HDP sides and Paylan after his remarks.

The parliament speaker later gave a break to the session after the brawl intensified.

Some lawmakers also tried to prevent the brawl from escalating.

Last month, CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu claimed that the president’s inner circle, including his family members, made transactions worth around $15 million to an off-shore company called Bellway Limited in the tax haven Isle of Man between December 2011 and January 2012.

Erdoğan had slammed the documents revealed by the CHP as “fake,” while also filing criminal complaints against Kılıçdaroğlu demanding up to 1.5 million Turkish Liras ($391,450) in compensation for the accusations. Source

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has prepared a summary of proceedings for 12 deputies for violating an article of the rally and demonstration marches law, as well as violating privacy of the trial, as part of the closed-door trial of Cumhuriyet journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül in the case of intelligence trucks bound for Syria.