Turkish court sentences Demirtaş to additional jail term for insulting president

Summary:

A Turkish court has sentenced former pro-Kurdish HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş to an additional prison term for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, adding to the lengthy sentences he is already serving. Demirtaş has been imprisoned since 2016 and remains one of Türkiye’s most prominent opposition figures behind bars.

A court in southern Türkiye has sentenced Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish HDP, to one year, five months and 15 days in prison on charges of insulting the president.

The ruling was delivered by the Mersin 14th Criminal Court of First Instance, which concluded that Demirtaş had committed the offence in a series of speeches made in the provinces of Mersin and Diyarbakır. The sentence was handed down under Türkiye’s penal code provisions covering “insulting the president,” a charge frequently brought against opposition figures and critics of the government.

Demirtaş did not attend the hearing, as he is currently being held at Edirne F-Type High-Security Prison, where he is incarcerated for other convictions. His legal team was present in court.

Defence objections rejected

During the hearing, Demirtaş’s lawyers requested additional time to prepare their defence against the prosecutor’s final opinion, citing procedural objections raised in previous sessions. The presiding judge rejected the request, noting that sufficient time had already been granted at an earlier hearing.

Following the refusal, the defence sought the judge’s recusal on the grounds that Demirtaş’s right to a fair defence had been violated. The court dismissed the request. The judge also stated that Demirtaş’s request to attend the hearing in person had been denied for security reasons.

After hearing the defence arguments, the court ruled that Demirtaş had committed the offence in a “continuous manner” through multiple public statements and imposed the prison sentence accordingly.

Background: long-standing imprisonment

Demirtaş, a former presidential candidate and one of Türkiye’s best-known Kurdish politicians, has been imprisoned since November 2016. He has received multiple convictions in separate cases, including for terrorism-related offences and propaganda, which he and his supporters strongly deny.

Despite rulings by the European Court of Human Rights calling for his release, Turkish courts have kept Demirtaş in prison by issuing new indictments and sentences. He is currently serving cumulative prison terms amounting to several decades, making the latest ruling largely symbolic in practical terms but politically significant.

Human rights groups and opposition parties argue that the repeated prosecutions are aimed at silencing dissent and sidelining a key opposition figure. The government rejects those claims, insisting that the judiciary operates independently and that Demirtaş has been convicted of criminal offences under Turkish law.

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