ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday called on Ankara to not expel an MP from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) from parliament following a “wrongful” conviction of spreading terrorist propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
“Any move to strip Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his parliamentary seat as a prelude to jailing him would look like a reprisal by the Erdogan government for his brave and vocal stance in support of thousands of victims of human rights violations,” Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at HRW said on Tuesday.
“Gergerlioglu’s conviction is a blatant violation of his right to free speech and using it as a pretext to expel him from parliament would show deep disdain for democratic norms and the right to political association,” he added.
Nearly 200 rights organizations and members of civil society from Turkey and abroad sent an open letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month, expressing solidarity with Gergerlioglu.
The lawmaker and a human rights activist was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in February 2018 for a 2016 tweet sharing a news article about a PKK statement that said “peace would come if the government takes one step forward.” The lawmaker is expected to be stripped of his MP status today.
A Turkish court upheld the sentence last month.
The PKK is an armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. It is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara.
Gergerlioglu said on Monday he will “resist” being stripped of his status in parliament.
“I’ll be at the General Assembly when the decision to strip me of my status is being read. Turkey and the whole world would see what it means to take a deputy away from the people,” he told a group of journalists.
“I’ll resist in parliament. They can come and get me from here,” he said. “Some 90,000 people voted for me, so they’d be imprisoning those people with me as well.”
Top Turkish officials have accused the HDP of being the political wing of the PKK, leading to the arrests of scores of their politicians - including former co-chairs and parliamentarians and members - in recent years on terror charges. Almost all of the party’s mayors, elected during 2019 elections, have been removed from office and some of them arrested. The HDP denies any links to the PKK.
Former HDP-co chair Selahattin Demirtas was detained in November 2016, along with a number of other party officials and parliamentarians for their alleged links to the PKK. He faces up to 142 years in jail.
At least 139 HDP members and officials were arrested in the space of a week in February, in addition to 718 people across the country for their alleged links to the PKK.
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