Pro-Kurdish HDP deputy Yıldırım to be stripped of parliamentary status for insulting Erdoğan – Stockholm Center for Freedom

17.2.18

Pro-Kurdish HDP deputy Yıldırım to be stripped of parliamentary status for insulting Erdoğan – Stockholm Center for Freedom: Yıldırım, the HDP’s Deputy Group Chair at the Turkish Parliament, had called Erdoğan “the palace’s shoddy emperor” during a September 2015 speech he gave in protest of the Turkish government forces’ human rights violations at urban centers in clashes with PKK militants.

Two years later, a court in the Kurdish city of Muş trying the deputy handed down the prison sentence for 14 months, depriving him from certain political, civic, custodial rights, including his right to be elected to Parliament, to get appointed to any state, provincial, municipal or neighborhood position. Yıldırım also could not exercise his right to join a political party, charitable organization, NGO, syndicate, or corporation according to the 53rd article of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).