This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
BASAK DEMIRTAS, who is married to jailed former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas, has been sentenced to more than two years in a Turkish prison on bogus charges.
Ms Demirtas and her doctor each received two years and six months from a court in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir on Thursday for “receiving a medical report contrary to facts.”
This relates to serious health problems that she suffered following a miscarriage in 2015.
Ms Demirtas, who works as a teacher, took unpaid leave to receive treatment so that a replacement could cover her duties and her students’ education would not be affected.
But the court found that she had submitted an inaccurate health certificate and sentenced her to prison on the grounds that there was a three-day difference between the date of her examination and the date shown on the health report.
Her lawyers said that the relevant records, which proved that the medical examination had occurred after a miscarriage, had not been looked at, branding the sentence “unlawful” and “collective punishment” of political opposition in Turkey.
“It is no coincidence that the decision has been issued when Basak Demirtas has come to prominence,” the lawyers added.
The HDP condemned the sentence today as “a revenge attack,” and vowed to respond through “collective struggle.”
The party said: “Basak Demirtas is not alone. She is supported by a great women’s struggle.”
More than 20,000 HDP supporters have been detained since 2016, 10,000 of whom remain behind bars, including more than 200 elected officials and at least seven former parliamentarians.
The so-called Kobani case could see 108 of its leading officials receive multiple life sentences after being charged with the homicide of 37 of party supporters, who were killed by security forces and government-affiliated paramilitary groups in 2014.
They are being held responsible for calling street protests over government inaction while the mainly Kurdish Syrian border city of Kobani was besieged by Isis jihadists.
