HDP Parliamentary Group Chair, Meral Danış Beştaş, said on Monday that HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş and HDP Deputy Secretary Süreyya Önder are hostages.  

The HDP executive was speaking in Silviri, where the trial against the two HDP executives is held. She spoke after the decision to ask 5 years prison term for Önder and Demirtas for “terrorist propaganda”.

“HDP means hope”

Beştaş said, “On 24 June we will show great force and determination and we will free Demirtaş and all our comrades. The people will free them”.

The HDP executive added: “They think they will win by bringing us to court, imposing on us arbitrary proceedings. But they are in a big mistake ... HDP means hope, courage ... We will win with our hope, with our courage, with our strength”.

Talking about the tribunal where Önder and Demirtaş are tried, Beştaş said: “You all see how terrible it was: what we just saw is not a courtroom. There were just 3 people following orders. Indeed - she added - the panic they experience now going to the elections is the panic they are feeling in the trials.

As a lawyer myself I cannot call these trials. They are not acting according to international law”.

“Our friends are hostages”

Önder and Demirtaş are hostages, said Beştaş, adding that all procedures fall beyond any internal and international standard. 

Beştaş addressed the government directly saying: “The AKP and its partner will sink. Politics is not made in courts, politics is made in the squares. If you have the courage, release Demirtaş and face him in the squares”.