Turkey sentences former opposition MP to 22 years in prison
A Turkish court Monday sentenced Leyla Guven, a deputy with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) who was stripped of her parliamentary seat and legal immunity in June, to more than 22 years in prison on terrorism-related charges.
ISTANBUL – A former opposition party lawmaker who was stripped of her parliamentary seat and legal immunities in June was sentenced Monday to 22 years and three months in prison on terrorism-related charges.
Leyla Guven was convicted for membership of a terror group and disseminating terror propaganda, among other charges, by a Diyarbakir court that issued a warrant for her immediate arrest following a hearing Monday.
Guven, a former deputy of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), is among dozens of HDP deputies and members who have faced legal proceedings for alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that has fought the Turkish state since 1984. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization in Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
State prosecutors have increasingly put pressure on the HDP in recent years, jailing its former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag in 2016, and replacing many of the party’s municipal mayors with state-appointed trustees following local elections in 2019.
