Turkey: Kurdish politician Aysel Tughluq was released from prison

57-year-old Aysel Tughluq, a Kurdish politician who was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison for “participation in a terrorist organization”, was released from prison yesterday Thursday, after the Turkish judiciary accepted a medical opinion that her stay in prison would constitute a threat to her life.

Tughluq had served as vice president of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) before her arrest in 2016.

Kocaeli’s prosecutor’s office ruled that Tughluq’s stay in Turkish prisons would constitute a threat to her life due to her poor health, according to NTV television.

Last August, Turkey’s Constitutional Court rejected a request to release Aysel Tughluk, ordering that she be monitored by a neurologist and a psychiatrist and that her health be evaluated at regular intervals.

According to the Kurdish politician’s entourage, Tughluq’s dementia dates back to 2017, when she was confronted by Turkish nationalists during her mother’s funeral, which she had received permission to attend.

She was arrested for her activities in the “Democratic Society Congress” (DTK), an organization that the Turkish authorities consider to be linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is labeled a “terrorist organization” by Ankara and its Western allies.

Pro-Kurdish circles, most recently the HDP, have been relentlessly suppressed for decades in Turkey. Ankara accuses the party of being a “political window” for the PKK, a charge the party denies, saying it is being targeted because of its strong opposition to President Erdogan.

Selahattin Demirtas, the HDP’s iconic former leader, has also been held since November 2016 on charges linked to “terrorism”.

RES-EMP

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