The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Central Executive Board issued a statement to reject the “hostile sentence against DTK co-chair Leyla Güven.
Leyla Güven was sentenced on Monday to 22 years and 6 months in prison. The HDP said in its statement: “The sentence of 22 years and 6 months in prison in the legal case in Diyarbakır against Ms Leyla Güven is the result of the applied enemy law. Güven is the co-chair of recently closed Democratic Society Congress (DTK). She was also HDP’s Hakkari deputy until early June 2020, when she was unlawfully stripped of her parliamentary mandate.”
The HDP added: “With this verdict, judicial organs have once again shown that they act in line with the interests of the government. This hostile decision is not only against Leyla Güven and the DTK, but also against all Kurds and the opposition. Leyla Güven is a person of struggle who devoted her life to peace; she is a monument of honor. Neither Leyla Güven nor we will give up the struggle due to prison sentences and arrests.”
The statement by the HDP Central Executive Board also reminded that “co-chaired by Leyla Güven, the DTK is a civilian, democratic institution that played a crucial role in the most critical periods for peace building in these lands. DTK is an interlocutor of democratic negotiations, resolution, and peace initiatives.”
The HDP remarked that “with this sentence the government has once again shown that it will insist on the deadlock with respect to the Kurdish issue. Criminalizing an institution like DTK with such methods is to whistle in the wind. This has been tried out dozens of times in recent history, and the result has always been the same. Our people have always responded to every attack on the struggle of Kurds for rights and peace. We refuse to recognize this unlawful, hostile prison sentence.”