Constitutional Court: Former HDP deputy Güven's arrest violated her rights

Click to read the article in Turkish

Leyla Güven's arrest after being elected a member of the parliament violated her rights, the Constitutional Court has ruled.

Sabiha Temizkan, the daughter of Güven, announced the ruling on her social media account.

Güven was on remand when she was elected an MP from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the June 2018 elections. A court ordered her release after her election, but after prosecutors appealed the verdict, the court ruled for her arrest again on the same day.

Because of this verdict and the fact that Güven remained under arrest for seven months while she was an MP, the General Assembly of the Constitutional Court ruled on April 7 that her rights were violated, Temizkan said.

Güven was stripped of her MP status in June 2020 because of the "terrorism-related" sentences she had received.

What happened?

The Diyarbakır 9th Heavy Penal Court filed a case against Güven because of her social media posts and statements to the press about the Turkish Armed Forces' (TSK) military operation into Afrin, a Kurdish town in northwestern Syria.

The court sentenced Güven to 14 years and 3 months in prison for "being a member of a terrorist organization" and to 4 years in prison for "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" for each of her two statements in Batman and Diyarbakır.

In another case, Güven was sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in prison for "being a member of an armed terrorist organization." The 16th Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation upheld this ruling.

Attorneys of Güven applied to the Diyarbakır Regional Court of Justice, demanding the return of the verdict of the local court. The 2nd Penal Chamber of the court rejected the appeal on the merits, concluding that there was a suspicion that Güven could escape, that judicial control measures would be insufficient and that the measure of arrest was proportional.

After this verdict, Güven was arrested on December 22. (RT/VK)