Human Rights says Turkey should compensate Demirtas over abuses

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday, July 9, that Turkey should compensate former Co-chair of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Selahatin Demirtas because his rights were violated during his time in the jail.

Demirtas could not communicate his own thoughts and opinions to those outside the jail, the ruling said.
“The Court held that Turkey was to pay the applicant 2,500 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,000 in respect of costs and expenses,” the European court said in a document published on its website.
On September 7, 2018, Turkey sentenced Demirtas to four years and eight months over alleged links to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which has carried out a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.
The former HDP lawmaker Sirri Sureyya Onder was also sentenced to three years and six months in prison on the same charges.
Both Dimirtas and the People’s Democratic Party denied the accusations of being linked to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party.
In June 2018, he ran for president from his jail cell, coming in third and winning 4.2 million votes.
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