Leyla Güven faces prison sentence for calling Kurdish leader “Mr. Öcalan”

In 2012, the Turkish Court of Cassation ruled that calling Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan “Mr.” is a “freedom of expression”. Nevertheless, the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-chair Leyla Güven who remains in jail stands trial at Hakkari 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance for calling Öcalan as such.

The former MP was stripped of her parliamentary immunity on 4 June 2020. There is another ongoing lawsuit against her at Şırnak Criminal Court of First Instance with the same accusation. Güven is charged with “praising the crime and the criminal” and “inciting the public to hatred and enmity” in two cases.

Güven told the court “I don’t think there is anything that would constitute a crime in my statements.”

Güven’s lawyer Serdar Çelebi said, “It was stated in the decisions of the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights that this expression is not a crime.”

The prosecutor demanded that Güven be sentenced to from 3 to 5 years in jail.

The court accepted the request for additional time and postponed the hearing to September 22.