Thursday, 24 December, 2020 - 18:00
Detained Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas. (Reuters) Asharq Al-Awsat
The wife of detained Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas said on Thursday she expected Turkey to comply with a call from Europe’s top rights court to free him, but that the country’s overall legal system still needed to be fixed.
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday that Selahattin Demirtas, former leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), must be freed immediately.
The court said Turkey’s justification for his detention longer than four years on terrorism-related offences was a pretext for limiting political debate - a ruling dismissed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.