ERBIL, Kurdistan Region -- A Turkish court tried a jailed Kurdish mayor Wednesday after he spent months in detention awaiting trial. The court ruled to continue his imprisonment.
Selcuk Mizrakli was elected mayor of the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey in March 2019, running on the ticket of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
He and two other HDP mayors were removed from office on August 19 for their alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The PKK is an armed Kurdish separatist group which has struggled against Turkey for decades for the cultural and political rights of Kurds in Turkey. The Turkish government, along with several other NATO countries, considers the PKK to be a terrorist organization.
After being removed from office in August, Mayor Mizrakli was detained by Turkish authorities on October 21. His first hearing was held on Wednesday.
The removed mayor is facing 7.5 to 15 years in prison. Charges against him include “being a member of a terrorist organization” and exploiting his public budget in favor of the PKK.
Mizrakli attended the trial from jail via a government video conference system called SEGBIS, but his lawyers and a number of HDP officials were present in the courtroom, according to independent news outlet Bianet.
The court decided to keep Mizrakli in jail until his next hearing on February 10, 2020.
HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli claimed in a tweet that “slanders and lies” against Mizrakli were heard in the trial. “This decision is the display of a printed instruction. There is no justice in the courtroom.”
On Monday, Turkish authorities arrested Feyme Buluttekin, the HDP mayor for the central district of Sur in Diyarbakir, for terror-related charges after temporarily suspending her for three days.
Founded in 2012, the HDP is accused by Ankara of being the political wing of the PKK.
So far, out of 65 HDP mayors, over 30 have been removed from office since local elections in March, and several of them have been arrested. Most of these arrestees have not been tried yet.
Additionally, 14 HDP candidates who won election have not been given official certification of their win by the electoral commission, according to a November report by the Diyarbakir office of the Human Rights Association (IHD).
Following a failed coup attempt in July 2016, blamed on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s former ally Fethullah Gulen, Turkish security forces cracked down on dissidents including the HDP, despite the party’s condemnation of the attempted coup.
The HDP has referred to the pro-government administrators who replace HDP mayors after their removal as a “Trustee Regime,” stating in a recent report, “We codify the trustees' appointments as a continuation of the denial policy against the Kurds for hundreds of years.”
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