At the Council of Europe, voices are unanimous in denouncing the loss of parliamentary immunity of Turkish opposition MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu and, more generally, the threats of dissolution hanging over the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), accused by Ankara of collusion with terrorism.
Yesterday, Swedish Socialist Thomas Hammarberg and British Conservative John Howell, co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly on Turkey’s monitoring procedure, denounced “another and repeated blow which undermines parliamentary rights and immunity in Turkey” by referring to the case of MP Gergerlioğlu, who was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison on the basis of a non-violent publication that appeared on social networks in 2016 and stripped of his mandate even though his application to the Constitutional Court has not yet been examined. As for the measures taken at the initiative of the Nationalist Party (MHP) to obtain the dissolution of the HDP, they saw it as a “worrying development that adds to the crackdown on political opposition and civil dissent” in Turkey.
This view was shared by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, when asked about the potential dissolution of the HDP by the German newspaper Die Welt. Marija Pejčinović Burić finds this threat of dissolution “very problematic” and recalls the importance given by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights to the “primordial role played by political parties in a democracy”.
“Reassured” by these positions and by statements from both the EU High Representative Josep Borrell and the United States, German Foreign Minister Michael Roth certified the commitment of the German Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on these issues. “For a real democracy, you need a real opposition”, he expounded before an emergency debate on “Developments in Turkey concerning parliamentary democracy“, organised by the Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly.
“We are dealing with the worst-case scenario”, said German Socialist Frank Schwabe at the opening of the debate. In addition to the Gergerlioğlu case, he mentioned the arrest this morning of Öztürk Türkdoğan, co-chairman of the Human Rights Association of Turkey and HDP cadre.
Mr Roth, for his part, had recalled the situation of Selahattin Demirtaş and Osman Kavala, imprisoned since 2016 and 2017 respectively. The European Court has demanded—unsuccessfully—their immediate release. The Committee of Ministers will do its utmost to ensure that these Court judgments are carried out, promised Mr Roth. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)