SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Defence lawyers walked out of court on Monday alleging unfair treatment at the start of a trial of members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) over 2014 protests that began during an assault by Islamic State (ISIS) on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.
The defence lawyers said some of their colleagues had not been allowed into the courtroom for “arbitrary, unlawful” reasons at the first hearing in the case against 108 defendants, including HDP officials and members.
“We went outside with our colleagues so as not to become a party to this crime,” defence lawyer Mehmet Emin Aktar said outside the courthouse during the morning session.
The defendants refused to respond to questions by the judge during the identification process without their lawyers present, saying their right to defense was being violated. Defendants connected via video link tapped their cameras and clapped in solidarity, the HDP said.
“Even though we are sitting in the defendant’s seat, we represent the people’s will,” said Selahattin Demirtas, former HDP co-leader and one of Turkey’s most prominent politicians.
All the defense lawyers were subsequently allowed in.
The court proceeded to read part of the 3,530-page indictment in the afternoon session. It later rejected requests for the panel of judges to be recused and postponed the hearing until May 3, the HDP said.
The HDP says this week’s case is another step by authorities to damage the party after a prosecutor filed a case for its closure in March over alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Critics say Turkish courts are under President Tayyip Erdogan’s influence, claims he and his AK Party (AKP) deny.
“Conspiracy Case”
Thirty-seven people died in the 2014 protests, which were triggered by accusations that Turkey’s army stood by as the ISIS militants besieged Kobani, a Syrian border town in plain view of Turkey.
The 108 defendants, including Demirtas, are charged with 37 counts of homicide and disrupting the unity and territorial integrity of the Turkish state. They could be sentenced to life in jail without parole if convicted.
Twenty-eight defendants are currently in jail.
The indictment accuses the defendants of instigating the protests, a claim the HDP denies.
The HDP has come under increasing pressure from Erdogan’s AKP and its Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) allies in recent years.
Those steps culminated in March when a top prosecutor filed a case with the Constitutional Court for the closure of the HDP over alleged links to the PKK, which has fought a decades-long insurgency.
The indictment was sent back on procedural grounds but can be re-submitted. The HDP denies the charges.
In December, the European Court of Human Rights called for Demirtas’ release, saying he had been held for more than four years in prison to limit pluralism and debate. It said the evidence did not back up the terrorism charges directed at him.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
