HDP deputy faces losing immunity for supporting fellow party member's hunger strike

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A summary of proceedings seeking to have legislative immunity lifted for Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Dilan Dirayet Taşdemir because of supporting another HDP deputy's hunger strike has been submitted to the parliament.

Prosecutors have charged Taşdemir with "praising a crime and criminal" and "provoking the public into animosity and hatred or insulting the public" over a speech on 2019 Women's Day in the southeastern Diyarbakır province.

In the speech, she saluted now-dismissed MP Leyla Güven for her hunger strike demanding the end of the "isolation" of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"... The name of the resistance is Leyla. Happy March 8 to Leyla. Today, Leyla Güven has been resisting with her body for 121 days," she said in the speech. "She is resisting for peace, for freedom. Leyla is guiding all of us.

"... Leyla Güven says, 'The state is committing a crime, it doesn't recognize the law. We once again salute Leyla Güven here."

She then read out Güven's message, in which she said Öcalan had been fighting for women's liberation for 40 years and the isolation of him became more difficult and called for "deepening the resistance" for Öcalan's isolation to be lifted.

Mardin Mayor Selçuk Mızraklı, who was dismissed from office in August 2019 and later sentenced to prison for "terrorism," also had also faced charges for attending events in support of Güven.

Güven ended her 200-day hunger strike in May 2019, after Öcalan was allowed to meet his attorneys.

In the current term of the parliament, two deputies from the HDP and one from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) were previously stripped of MP status.

The HDP managed to win 67 seats in the 600-seat parliament in the 2018 elections.

Also, the government has dismissed 48 out of 65 HDP mayors in the mostly Kurdish-populated eastern and southeastern regions and replaced them with "trustees." (HA/VK)