CHP Chair Kılıçdaroğlu to Erdoğan: Who are you?

* Photo: Alp Eren Kaya (CHP) / AA

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Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu addressed the reporters and party members at the 100th Administrative Board meeting of the CHP Intraparty Training Unit yesterday (December 25).

Kılıçdaroğlu also talked about the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) Grand Chamber, which has ruled that former Co-Chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş, who is now behind bars for over 4 years, shall be "released immediately."

Referring to the President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's remarks dismissing the judgement, Kılıçdaroğlu argued that Erdoğan said the ECtHR judgement would not be abided by. "Who are you, who," asked Kılıçdaroğlu and added:

"The European Court of Human Rights gives a judgement, everyone has to abide by this judgement. In other words, not only Turkey, but other countries alo promised that they would implement the judgements to be handed by the European Court of Human Rights and they incorporated this to their Constitutions; if that is the case, then, everyone has to abide by this.

"The European Court of Human Rights has given a judgement on Selahattin Demirtaş. He [Erdoğan] just made a statement yesterday and said, 'I don't abide by this judgement, we won't do it.' Who are you, who?

"You can say this if you are in the state of the person, you might see here as the 'state of the person'. But there is something you must not forget: This is the independent State of the Republic of Turkey founded by Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk] and his friends and it will not be frightened off by you.

"Can you imagine such a picture? You do not abide by the Constitutional Court decisions and the lower courts do not abide by the Constitutional Court decisions, we will not abide by the ECtHR judgements...

"What judgements will we abide by then?

"The judgement of the court instructed by Erdoğan and giving judgements in his will will be abided by and we will expect respect for the state here. No, this cannot happen. We do not accept it in any way."

What did Erdoğan say?

President and ruling AKP Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused the ECtHR of "double standards" over its ruling for the immediate release of Selahattin Demirtaş, the former Co-Chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), who has been in Edirne Prison since November 2016.

Speaking to the AKP parliamentary group on December 23, he claimed that the ECtHR cannot announce a ruling by replacing Turkey's courts. "With taking this decision without domestic remedies being exhausted, the ECtHR performed an exceptional practice," he said.

"However, even if we leave the exception aside, the ruling about Selahattin Demirtaş clearly contradicts with the justifications of the decision of the same court on the Batasuna party in Spain," he added.

"It is clearly double-standard, and even hypocrisy that the court demands the release of a chief person responsible for an attack brutally killing 39 people between October 6-8, 2014," he said, referring to the "Kobane protest" that claimed the lives of more than 50 people in the Kurdish-majority provinces. The government has been accusing the HDP of orchestrating the protests. (EKN/SD)