As is known, since April 14, 2009 thousands of Kurdish politicians were arrested in political operations under the name of KCK and many cases were filed against them. One of these cases, also known as KCK Main Case involves HDP Parliamentary Group Vice President and Diyarbakır Deputy Çağlar Demirel, Ağrı Deputy Dirayet Dilan Taşdemir, Dersim Deputy Alican Önlü, Hakkari Deputy, Selma Irmak, Muş Deputy Ahmet Yıldırım, Siirt Deputies Besime Konca, Urfa Deputy Osman Baydemir and Van Deputy Nadir Yıldırım. Among these names, our Hakkari Deputies Selma Irmak is still held in Silivri Prison for another investigation.
We also want to state that the prosecutor and the members of the court serving in this case are also arrested on charges of belonging to the Gulenist group, therefore involved with the June 2016 coup plot.
On May 20, 2016, the immunity was retrospectively lifted for a certain period, and the file of our deputies tried on the case was discriminated and continued.
At the court hearing that took place on 10 November 2016 in Diyarbakır, the subpoena to bring our deputies to the court by force was reversed and the hearing was postponed until April 11th, 2017.
On December 12, 2016, there was yet another reversal of the court’s decision to bring in our deputies by force and immediate execution of this new decision, which is unprecedented.
This new decision means that there is a possibility that our deputies mentioned above may also be detained, and arrested -and this is a strong possibility. We witnessed this in the detention and (taking to the Prosecutor's Office), yesterday night, of our Parliamentary Group Deputy Leader and Diyarbakır Deputy Çağlar Demirel and our HDP Women' Assemblies Spokesperson Siirt Deputy Besime Konca, in front of our Party Headquarters. With this step, our party, which is committed to democracy, will suffer a further blow to its political activities; and our party’s ability to participate in the Parliamentary process will be undermined.
Peoples Democratic Party
Press Office
13 December 2016