DİYARBAKIR  - The fact that the HDP Diyarbakır Provincial Co-Chairs that were arrested the other day attended the congress of their own party, considered to be a crime by the court. Serhat Eren, attorney of the co-chairs told that even the co-chairs coming to the courthouse for support following the HDP MPs being stripped of their MP status was considered to be a crime.

 

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır Provincial Co-chairs Zeyyat Ceylan and Hülya Alökmen Uyanık, who were detained on October 22 within the scope of the investigation initiated by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, were taken to the courthouse on October 30 after an 8-day detention period. The demonstartions and events attended by the co-chairs, their visits to civil society representatives, and the photographs and documents found at the search made in the party building were referred as the subject of accusation.

 

Eren, who asked, "Will politicians struggling for democracy not be able to make a press statement? Won't they be able to use their right to assemble? Can't they organize a congress in their own party building?", said that the fact that the co-chairs were asked why they attended to the party congress in the party building and who they instructed them to attend the congress, clearly shows the severity of the situation.

 

Noting that the fact that the Co-chairs came to the courthouse for support after HDP MPs were stripped of their status as MPs deemed to be a crime, Eren said: "You won't be a member of HDP, you won't demand your basic rights and freedoms. You won't remind the people of the past attrocities of the state, the murders, the massacres..You won't keep the social memory alive, you won't critisize the government, you will give up being a Kurd...This is what this decision tells us."