Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Turkey not to remove a pro-Kurdish deputy from his seat in parliament. It\u2019s expected that the Turkish government will strip Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his parliamentary status on Wednesday and jail him.<\/p>\n
Gergerlioglu, a member of parliament for the pro-Kurdish Peoples\u2019 Democratic Party (HDP) representing Kocaeli province in western Turkey, is one of the most outspoken critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s government\u2019s record on human rights, HRW said.<\/p>\n
Gergerlioglu, a physician and longtime human rights advocate, was found guilty in February 2018 of \u201cspreading terrorism propaganda\u201d on the basis of a social media post.<\/p>\n
Last month Turkey\u2019s top appeals court upheld Gergerlioglu\u2019s conviction and sentence of two years and six months in prison.<\/p>\n
On March 15, the Speaker of parliament indicated that steps to strip Gergerlioglu of his seat may be imminent, though the lawmaker has filed a Constitutional Court Court challenge to the prosecution.<\/p>\n
“I will be at the Plenary Session. They can perhaps take me out of the Plenary Session, but I will wait at the heart of the Parliament, at the heart of the nation’s will. We did not win this election easily,\u201d Gergerlioglu said, according to a report by Turkish news agency Bianet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will wait at the Plenary Session to the end, I will not leave it either. The nation sent me here; it will mean imprisoning 90 thousand people along with me,” he added.<\/p>\n
Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that \u201cany move to strip Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his parliamentary seat as a prelude to jailing him would look like a reprisal by the Erdogan government for his brave and vocal stance in support of thousands of victims of human rights violations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA decision of the Constitutional Court is pending on his case and in the meantime the government would do better to seriously address the human rights concerns raised by Gergerlio\u011flu and let him carry on his legitimate parliamentary work as an elected deputy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Since the collapse of the peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK in 2015, some 16,300 HDP members have been detained, with 3,500 of them receiving prison sentences, party officials told Mezopotamya news agency in November 2019.<\/p>\n
Last month, another 700 people were detained in Turkey, including members of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Turkey not to remove a pro-Kurdish deputy from his seat in parliament. It\u2019s expected that the Turkish government will strip Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his parliamentary status on Wednesday and jail him. Gergerlioglu, a member of parliament for the pro-Kurdish Peoples\u2019 Democratic Party (HDP) representing Kocaeli province in western …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[762,126,48,761],"class_list":["post-3118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-deputy","tag-human-rights","tag-turkey","tag-violaation"],"yoast_head":"\n