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Turkey Sentences HDP Co-Chair to One Year In Prison

TURKEY SENTENCES HDP CO-CHAIR TO ONE YEAR IN PRISON

The following article was originally published in NRT on April 11, 2012.

SULAIMANI – The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair, Figen Yuksekdag, was sentenced to a one year jail term on terrorism charges, Anadolu Agency reported on Tuesday (April 11).

Judicial sources told the Turkish state-run news agency that Yuksekdag was sentenced for “making propaganda for a terrorist organization.”

A court removed Yuksekdag from her seat in the Turkish parliament after she was upheld from her initial conviction on September 22 on terrorism charges.

The sources who spoke under condition of anonymity added that Yuksekdag also became ineligible for party-political membership after the court upheld the sentence in accordance with the constitution of Turkey.

HDP co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were jailed pending trial on November 4 after refusing to give testimony in a probe linked to “terrorist propaganda”.

Turkish authorities accuse the opposition party, the HDP – which is the third-biggest grouping in parliament – of links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). HDP denies the accusations.

The PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and is fighting for Kurdish autonomy, is deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, as well as by Turkey.


This article originally appeared in NRT.

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