Dur­ing the press con­fer­ence held in Ham­burg after the G20 meet­ing, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared the fol­low­ing con­cern­ing Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş — the Co-Pres­i­dent of the HDP Par­ty jailed since Novem­ber 4:

This man is a ter­ror­ist. He is such a ter­ror­ist that he sent my Kur­dish broth­ers into the street and had 53 of my Kur­dish broth­ers killed by oth­ers Kurds. This is only one of his crimes. He is cur­rent­ly before jus­tice. We will accept the deci­sion jus­tice will ren­der in this case.”

In an open let­ter from his prison in Edirne, Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş answered Erdoğan (Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic and Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the AKP Par­ty). Here is his response, trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish by Renée Lucie Bourges, for Kedistan.


An open call to the President General of the AKP

Before any­thing else, I wish to return to you, as is, the insult you addressed, through me, to the will of mil­lions of peo­ple. More­over, I also want to « thank » you.

You have lift­ed from us the weight of prov­ing that the pro­ce­dure con­duct­ed against us in the name of jus­tice, has noth­ing to do with jus­tice in fact, and that the ver­dict is ren­dered by you, in person.

I make this open call : in the past 8 months, your pros­e­cu­tors and some of the judges at your orders have not found a sin­gle piece of evi­dence con­cern­ing the call to demon­stra­tions and destruc­tion I would have launched dur­ing the events of Octo­ber 6–8 in Kobanê [see con­text]. If you have such proof, I want you to turn it over to your pros­e­cu­tors who are des­per­ate­ly search­ing for evi­dence against me.

By announc­ing such a ver­dict, even before my tri­al begins, that I am a ter­ror­ist and had 54 peo­ple killed, you have ren­dered all fur­ther judg­ments non­sen­si­cal and use­less, and I « thank » you. Soon­er or lat­er, I will face my judges. There, who is tru­ly the ter­ror­ist and the assas­sin will become clear in the eyes of the pub­lic. Pri­or to that, in the eyes of God, this is already known.

More­over, 44 of the 54 cit­i­zens assas­si­nat­ed dur­ing the events in Kobanê were mem­bers and sym­pa­thiz­ers of the HDP. While our com­rades were being mas­sa­cred in the street, while the towns of Cizre and Sur were being destroyed and civil­ians mas­sa­cred, those who attempt­ed the July 15th coup were at their jobs as pre­fects, com­man­ders, police chiefs, pros­e­cu­tors and judges.

Despite the fact you see that these peo­ple were involved in the July 15th attempts, that they killed hun­dreds of cit­i­zens mer­ci­less­ly, you tried to impute the crimes to me, instead of seek­ing to find out if they played any part in the provo­ca­tions and mas­sacres of Octo­ber 6–8, falling into the medi­oc­rity of revenge against a polit­i­cal adver­sary. This is a true sign of weakness.

Since you’ve been the country’s leader for the past 15 years, you hold the pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty for all that has hap­pened to the coun­try dur­ing this time. Your efforts to make us for­get this aren’t lost on us.

The fact you attack me in your pan­ic and unjust­ly, while I am locked behind four walls, is an atti­tude far removed from courage. I want you to know I fear no one oth­er than God. I will nev­er fall into plead­ing for mer­cy, as if beg­ging for char­i­ty, nei­ther from you, nor for the exe­cu­tion­ers of the per­se­cu­tions per­formed at your com­mand. Even if I know I will spend the rest of my life in jail, I will nev­er accept dis­hon­or and submission.

The HDP and all of its friends, in jail or out­side, will resist fas­cism, and we shall win in the eyes of his­to­ry, you can be sure of it.

I would like you to know that, even though I’m in a type F jail cell, my con­science is clear, I am with­out fear and hap­py. This is why I ask you please, not to « wor­ry » about me.

Sela­hat­tin Demirtaş
Co-Pres­i­dent of the HDP, Peo­ples’ Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party
Edirne Prison, July 10 2017


You can read all the Kedistan article concerning Selahattin Demirtaş 
by following this link.

Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş is accused of « head­ing a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion », of « pro­pa­gan­da for a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion », of « oppo­si­tion to the law con­cern­ing demon­stra­tions and pub­lic gath­er­ings », of « inci­ta­tion to hatred and rebel­lion », and on sev­er­al of these charges, the pros­e­cu­tion is call­ing for a sen­tence of 43 years, and up to 142 years. He is present­ly incar­cer­at­ed in a type F cell in Edirne Prison.

Trans­la­tion by Renée Lucie Bourges
iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com
French ver­sion > Demir­taş à Erdoğan : “T’inquiète pas pour moi”…


Traduction par Renée Lucie Bourges. & rédaction par Kedistan. Vous pouvez utiliser, partager les articles et les traductions de Kedistan en précisant la source et en ajoutant un lien afin de respecter le travail des auteur(e)s et traductrices/teurs. Merci.
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