A Turkish court on Tuesday ordered the release of a pro-Kurdish opposition politician who has been in prison since April on terror-related charges, local media and his family said.
Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, an outspoken rights defender from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was handed a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence in April for spreading “terrorist propaganda” online over a post he shared in 2016 before he was elected an MP.
He had commented on a story which reported on outlawed Kurdish militants calling on the Turkish state to take a step towards peace.
According to AFP, he has been held in Sincan prison on the outskirts of the capital Ankara since then, having been stripped of his parliamentary seat and immunity.
Last week, the top Constitutional Court ruled that his rights to be elected and engage in political activity had been violated.
The lower court on Tuesday complied with the top court’s verdict and ordered the ex-lawmaker’s release, HaberTurk television reported.
“The ruling was sent to the prosecutor’s office, they will free my father today. I am going to fetch him,” his son Salih tweeted.
The HDP, the third-largest party in the Turkish parliament, has been on the radar of authorities for years with the arrest of several of its lawmakers and leaders, including its charismatic former co-chair Selahattin Demirtas.
Last month, the Constitutional Court put the party on trial over its alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militants, setting the stage for its possible shutdown.
The HDP rejects any links to terror and blasts the crackdown a “political coup.”
