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On the occasion of Human Rights Week, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has issued the Report on Violations of Rights for 2019.
Underlining that 15,530 people have been detained in the operations against the HDP and its constituents since 2015, the report has indicated that 6,000 people from the HDP, including 750 party members and executives, have been arrested since then.
"In the shadow of conflict-ridden process that started in 2015 and has escalated since then, Turkey is nearing 2020 as a country where human rights are disregarded", the party has stated in its report.
200 members and executives arrested in 2019
Indicating that at least 1,674 HDP members and executives were detained in 2019 and 200 of them have been arrested, the report has shared the following information in brief:
* Since August 19, 2019, when the "Trustee Operations" started in the wake of March 31 local elections, 17 HDP co-mayors have been arrested and trustees have been appointed to HDP's 28 municipalities. (Editor's note: After the report was prepared, three more HDP district co-mayors have been arrested in Turkey's eastern province of Van.)
* Since July 2015, 16 HDP MPs, including Co-Chairs, 7 Central Executive Committee (MYK) members, 21 Party Assembly (PM) members and over 750 provincial and district party executives have been arrested.
* Seven HDP MPs are currently arrested. Moreover, 11 HDP MPs have been relieved of their MP duties.
Condition of 26th term MPs
* 26th term (previous term) HDP MPs Figen Yüksekdağ, Selahattin Demirtaş, Çağlar Demirel, İdris Baluken, Gülser Yıldırım, Selma Irmak and Abdullah Zeydan are currently "held hostages".
* The main trials cited as the reason for the arrest of former HDP Co-Chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ on November 4, 2016 still continue. İdris Baluken has been sentenced to 16 years, 8 months in prison, Çağlar Demirel has been sentenced to 7 years, 6 months, Abdullah Zeydan to 8 years, 1 month, 15 days and Selma Irmak to 10 years in prison.
* In 2019, 26th term MPs Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Ferhat Öncü as well as Burcu Çelik Özkan were released.
* HDP's 26th and 27th term (previous and current term) MPs Behçet Yıldırım, Lezgin Botan, Leyla Birlik, Ziya Pir, Altan Tan, Dilek Öcalan, Ahmet Yıldırım, Osman Baydemir, dem Geveri, Mahmut Toğrul, Besime Konca, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, Nursel Aydoğan, Filiz Kerestecioğlu, Ayşe Sürücü, Tayip Temel, Pero Dündar, Leyla Güven and Musa Farisoğulları have not been arrested though they were sentenced to prison.
107 people participating in election campaign arrested
* In the March 31 electoral process, 750 people from the HDP participating in election works were detained and 107 of them have been arrested.
* HDP's nine co-mayor candidates, nine municipal council member candidates, six provincial co-chairs, six district co-chairs, 13 executives, one MYK member, six PM members were detained and one co-mayor candidate, one municipal council member candidate, one district co-chair, two provincial co-chairs, two executives and one PM member have been arrested. (EKN/SD)
