HDP deputy Uca faces losing legislative immunity for saying 'Kurdistan'

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The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has prepared a summary of proceedings against Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Feleknas Uca for "inciting people into hatred and animosity," the Mesopotamia Agency (MA) reported.

The summary of proceedings sent to the Speaker's Office of the Parliament concerns Uca's remarks during an 2020 event in Aydın province, where she said, "We wanted to reach our mothers, sisters and comrades in the Aegean, the Marmara and Kurdistan."

The event was held as part of a country-wide campaign by the HDP Women's Assembly against "abuse, executions and trustees." 

The investigation into Uca's remarks was launched by the Aydın Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, which later sent the file to Ankara due to "lack of jurisdiction."

The summary of proceedings says Uca's words "Kurdistan" and "Kurdish cities" inciting the public into hatred and "Regions where our Kurdish-origin citizens live are named Kurdistan by Abdullah Öcalan [the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)].

Half of the five-page summary of proceedings is about the PKK, two pages are about the legislation on legislative immunity and the last half page is about Uca's identity information, the event she had attended, the reason for charges and her remarks subject to the investigation, according to MA.

Kurdistan and summaries of proceedings

Recently, the parliament lifted the legislative immunity of HDP Diyarbakır MP Semra Güzel.

Saruhan Oluç, the deputy chair of the HDP parliamentary group, said during the vote that the name Kurdistan has a history and it had been used for hundreds of years.

"The lands in question were named Arz-ül Ekrad, Kurdistan and Kurdiyye before the Republic. Geographical names cannot be changed according to the governments' periodical political agendas and different political positions." (EMK/VK)