Erdogan rejects the ruling of Strasbourg to liberate the kurdish leader

The president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that his country does not abide by the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which requires the release of Selahattin Deneme bonusu Demirtas, the former leader of the Democratic Party of the Peoples (HDP), training prokurda and third most voted of Turkey. “The decision of the ECTHR does not concerns us. Until now, it has issued many rulings related to terrorist organizations, all contrary to us,” said Erdogan in a statement to the agency, Turkish Anadolu. The Turkish leader accused the court of "supporting terrorism" with his ruling.

Demirtas remains in prison since November of 2016 and is facing 142 years in jail for a long list of crimes, from “glorifying terrorism” and “incitement to hatred” to participate in the “leadership of a terrorist organization” due to their alleged ties with the armed group PKK, which the political kurdish has always denied.

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In a decision Tuesday, the court based in Strasbourg ruled that there was “reasonable suspicion” to justify the arrest of Demirtas, but not so to prolong their detention for two years without there having been a final judgment on their cases. His imprisonment had as its object, says the court, “to suppress pluralism and restrict the freedom of political debate” in Turkey because it “interfered with the right to be elected and serve as parliamentarian” of the detainee. From the jail, Demirtas ran as the candidate for the presidency in the elections of last June, but was not able to carry out an election campaign in conditions and only garnered 8.4% of the votes.

For all this, the ECHR demands that Turkey “to put an end to the detention” of Demirtas “in the shortest possible time”, as well as to pay 10,000 euros in damages and 15,000 in respect of legal expenses. Demirtas said that the sentence demonstrates your condition “political hostage”, in a statement filtered through his lawyer Mahsuni Karaman, who demanded that we apply the ruling immediately because, as made clear by the court of Strasbourg, the continuity of the imprisonment represents “a violation” of articles 5.3 (on the right to a fair trial) and 18 (relating to restrictions on the basic rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Erdogan considers that this decision does not exhaust the legal resources of Turkey and crossed it out, in a speech in Ankara on Wednesday, a decision İmajbet that “supports terrorism”. The president steam justified the prolonged detention of Demirtas, as well as the other tens of thousands of people, at the risk of absconding, and gave as an example the case of journalist Can Dündar, who is exiled in Germany “from which he directed a smear campaign against Turkey”. In addition, attacked “the institutions of the European Union” for its alleged support to armed organizations: “Those terrorists, who I like to become weapons against you on the day which touch their interests.”

to The contrary of what was said by Erdogan, the ECHR does not depend on the EU but of the Council of Europe, an institution of which Turkey is a founding member. The Strasbourg court reminded the Government of Ankara that its decisions “are binding for all member States”.

With everything from the Turkish Ministry of Justice, blend together the words of the representative of an islamist, calling them “personal opinion”, and they deny that there is a “order” or a “decision in advance”. “The trial is still ongoing and will be the independent judiciary of Turkey to make a decision. The court that judges Demirtas must evaluate the sentence and its arguments, and shall decide in accordance with our laws. In this Ministry or in the Government we think that is a judgement good or bad but we can not tell the court whether it should apply or not,” explained to this newspaper a source in the Turkish Ministry of Justice.

The fear is that the president's statements Turkish to exercise pressure on the court. Erdogan has criticized with hardness other judicial decisions in recent years that conflicted with their position. About a third of the total number of judges and prosecutors of turkey have been fired since the failed coup attempt in 2016 and the opposition complaint that in their place have been appointed togados favorable to the islamist turks. “The sentence should have important implications in a country in which civil society members are routinely jailed for long periods under trumped-up charges”, said in a statement the director of research for Amnesty International in Turkey, Andrew Gardner: “in Addition, it exposes the pernicious and improper influences of the policy of Turkey in a judicial system that does not work”.