HDP to appeal to the Constitutional Court for Gergerlioğlu

The HDP plans to have the revocation of Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu's mandate reviewed by the Turkish Constitutional Court. An appeal to this effect is to be filed on Tuesday.

The HDP wants to have the revocation of Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu's mandate reviewed by the Turkish Constitutional Court in Ankara. An appeal to this effect is to be filed tomorrow, Tuesday, the party headquarters announced. A ten-member delegation will symbolically accompany the walk to the court.

Gergerlioğlu had his parliamentary mandate withdrawn last Wednesday due to a final judgement on terror charges. In February, the Turkish Court of Cassation had upheld a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence against the 55-year-old politician and human rights defender for his appeals for peace directed at both the Turkish state and the Kurdish movement. The judiciary interprets the commitment to peace - in this specific case in the form of a retweet from 2016 - as terror propaganda.

The politician, who is actually a doctor by profession and has made a name for himself as a human rights defender, is defending himself against the ruling with a constitutional complaint. The mandate has been revoked even though the Constitutional Court's decision on his case is still pending. According to the Turkish constitution, a deputy's mandate can be revoked if a criminal offense has been committed that would have precluded candidacy from the outset. The HDP criticizes the judge's ruling as politically motivated.

Gergerlioğlu summoned to “surrender”

Meanwhile, Gergerlioğlu was summoned by the Kocaeli Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on Monday to voluntarily turn himself in to the "judicial authorities" to serve his prison sentence. He was threatened with an arrest warrant in the contrary case.

On the other hand, the deputy’s son Salih Gergerlioğlu is reported to be receiving death threats on Instagram. The message "Good night, death will find you - Jitem" was sent under the alias and picture of contract killer Mahmut Yıldırım. As Yeşil ("Green"), Yıldırım was involved in numerous murders in Northern Kurdistan and Turkey in the 1990s commissioned by JITEM, the informal intelligence service of the Turkish military police (gendarmerie).