Imprisoned Kurdish politician in Turkey sentenced to eleven more years

Former HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) deputy Leyla Guven was given an eleven years and seven months prison sentence by a court in Turkey’s southeast city of Diyarbakir on charges of "propaganda for a terrorist organisation," for what she said in three different speeches.  

The 58 year old politician, who is currently serving her 22 year sentence in Elazig Prison for ‘being a member of PKK’ (Kurdistan Workers Party) did not attend the trial in person, but through a video conferencing system.

Leyla Guven had already spent five years in prison after she was arrested in 2009 when she was the mayor of the Viransehir district of Urfa.

Guven was arrested again in January 2018 for labeling the Turkish military operation against a Syrian Kurdish militia an “invasion.”

In April this year, Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that the rights of Guven were violated when she was kept in prison following her re-election in the 2018 elections.

While behind bars in 2018, Guven went on a hunger strike for 200 days to protest the prison conditions and isolation of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group that has been waging war against the Turkish state for four decades.