Parliamentary Speaker Şentop: It Wouldn’t Be Right for me to Visit Leyla Güven

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Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa Şentop has stated that it would not be right for him to visit Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Hakkari MP Leyla Güven, who has been on the 173rd day of her hunger strike as of today (April 29).

Güven has gone on a hunger strike with the demand that the isolation of Kurdistan Workers' Party's (PKK) imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan be ended. Not allowed to meet anyone since September 11, 2016, öcalan made a short meeting with his brother on January 13, 2019.

As reported by Mezopotamya Agency (MA), Şentop has made the following remarks regarding the hunger strike of HDP MP and Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-Chair Leyla Güven:

'She started her hunger strike in prison'

"Leyla Güven was elected as an MP on January 24 [2018]. She was in prison back then. And a verdict of release was given for her. We are talking about a hunger strike that started there.

"Why is this hunger strike being staged? We usually see that hunger strikes are a method used in prisons in different countries of the world.

"She could have requests for the improvement of her prison conditions, her own personal conditions. Some protests and, then, hunger strikes could be staged when these requests were not fulfilled.

'Hunger strike is not about her own situation"

"The hunger strike of Dear Leyla Güven is not about her own personal situation or prison conditions. Her request is different. Her request is about the situation of the convicted terrorist head in İmralı.

"It is not something right. A politician can do something, can stage a protest about her own situation, about her own requests. I do not say that it is right, but it is something understandable.

"But she has very different requests and these requests do not solely pertain to her, they are requests about another prisoner.

"From this point of view, I think that this protest which does not have any logic or rationale should be ended.

"Let me also state that I would not find a visit right."

HDP MP made a call to Şentop

In an interview to İrfan Aktan from Duvar news website, HDP MP Tayip Temel made a call to Parliamentary Speaker Şentop to visit Leyla Güven:

"Dear şentop should visit Leyla Güven in her house and listen her request. If he has any opinions, thoughts regarding this issue, he should share them." (EKN/SD)