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Turkey's crackdown on freedom of expression highlighted in new report arabnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from arabnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
ANKARA: The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday ordered Turkey to immediately release jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas. In their ruling, the chamber’s judges said the 47-year-old’s human rights had been violated and his pre-trial detention for years served as a cover for narrowing pluralism in the country. The court found that Turkey had interfered with the freedom of expression of the former leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) by lifting his parliamentary immunity and violated his right to be elected for parliament. Demirtas, who has been in prison on terror-related charges since November 2016, was a two-time presidential candidate against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and co-chaired the HDP between 2014 and 2018.