Turkish President Erdoğan slams calls for release of HDP presidential candidate - TRNEWS

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1 Haziran 2018 Cuma

Turkish President Erdoğan slams calls for release of HDP presidential candidate

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slammed calls from opposition parties to release pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been in prison since November 2016.

According to a report by pro-government Hurriyet Daily News, Erdoğan said at a political rally in the southeastern province of Adıyaman on Friday that only the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) demand the presence of the HDP in the parliament.

Erdoğan’s comment came after CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu stressed the importance of the presence of the HDP in parliament in an interview last week. “This party (HDP) has failed to be a real political party as it could not rescue itself from being under the control of the bloody-handed organization,” Erdoğan claimed.

He accused the elected HDP mayors of southeastern provinces, who were later ousted and replaced by state-appointed mayors, of serving the “interests of terrorists” instead of locals. He said a party like this had no place in parliament.

Erdoğan also slammed CHP’s presidential candidate Muharrem İnce who called for the release of HDP’s presidential nominee, Selahattin Demirtaş, from prison. “You (İnce) went to Edirne to visit this person. Wasn’t it this man who was responsible of the killing of 53 people in an attack that occurred after the June 7, 2015 elections in Diyarbakır? Who are you serving for?” he said.

“What are you talking about by asking for his release? There is justice in this country. Fifty-three of our brothers were killed by them,” Erdoğan said, vowing that justice will be served.

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu also said on Tuesday that Demirtaş fitted the perfect profile of a prison inmate. “If not that person who caused the death of 53 people with one order, then who is to be placed behind bars? Can someone explain this to me?” Soylu asked, in an apparent reference to Demirtaş’s call for protests in October of 2014 against what many Kurds saw as Turkish support for the militants of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attacking the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.

Demirtaş has been imprisoned over terror charges since November 2016 but is yet to be convicted. HDP officials had appealed for his release so that he can campaign freely. İnce supported this move and paid a visit to Demirtaş in the Edirne prison.

Many, including his rivals Muharrem İnce, Meral Akşener and Temel Karamollaoğlu, have been calling for Demirtaş’s release during the presidential campaign so the election can take place in a democratic environment and under equal conditions for all presidential candidates.

Demirtaş’s campaign will reportedly appeal to voters of all parties and highlight a process of normalization in Turkey. If he is not released from prison, Demirtaş will conduct his campaign with messages sent from prison through his lawyers.

Demirtaş ran against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2014 presidential election and lost. However, he has remained one of the most popular political figures in Turkey. Erdoğan is the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) presidential candidate for the June 24 election.

The post Turkish President Erdoğan slams calls for release of HDP presidential candidate appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.



from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-president-erdogan-slams-calls-for-release-of-hdp-presidential-candidate/

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