Deposed mayor of Dersim sentenced to ten years in prison

The mayor of Dersim, Nurhayat Altun (BDP), who was deposed by the Turkish Interior Ministry in 2016, has again been sentenced to ten years imprisonment for membership of a terrorist organisation in appeal proceedings. The Tunceli 1st Criminal Court thus confirmed the sentence of March 2019, which had been overturned due to formal errors.

Nurhayat Altun was one of dozens of Kurdish politicians who were removed from office and arrested at the end of 2016. Among other things, she was accused of statements made during her term of office and activities for the civil society association Democratic Society Congress (DTK).

The defendant participated in the court hearing via a video conferencing system SEGBIS from Kandira Maximum Security Prison and stated that the trial against her was a political vendetta and that the activities charged did not constitute a criminal offence. The politician said she had been in pre-trial detention for five years and had appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for this reason. The case is still pending, but she assumes that the ECtHR will find a violation of rights, as it did in the case of her colleague Mehmet Ali Bul, who was also arrested.