Demokrasi Partisi

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Demokrasi Partisi (DEP)
Democracy Party
Demokrasi Partisi (DEP) .png
Party leader Yaşar Kaya
Hatip Dicle
founding May 7, 1993
Place of foundation Ankara
Prohibition June 16, 1994
Headquarters Ankara, Nectibey Caddesi
Parliament seats 18 of 450

The Demokrasi Partisi ( German  Democratic Party DEP) was a political party in Turkey that existed from May 1993 to June 1994 and focused on solving the Kurdish question . Its predecessor was the Halkın Emek Partisi (HEP). Her successor was the Halkın Demokrasi Partisi (HADEP).

Origin and history

While the HEP was being banned, the Democratic Party ( Demokrasi Partisi = DEP) was founded on May 7, 1993 and Yaşar Kaya , the owner of the daily Özgür Gündem , was elected chairman. He and seven other board members were arrested shortly afterwards. However, the Kurdish MPs joined this party. One of them, Mehmet Sincar , was murdered in Batman on September 4, 1993 . At the party's first congress on December 12, 1993, Hatip Dicle was elected chairman. In November 1993 an application was made to ban the party. In March 1994 the immunity of deputies of the DEP was lifted. They were arrested and tried in a State Security Court. On June 16, 1994, the party was banned. In December 1994 the MPs were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Both the ban on the party and the proceedings against the MPs were seen by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) as a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Alignment

Like the HEP, the following party, DEP, advocated the right of peoples to self-determination and the right to instruction in their mother tongue. Both parties were suspected of being the extended arm of the Kurdistan Workers' Party ( PKK ), which was fighting an armed struggle with the Turkish security forces in the area under a state of emergency (also known as OHAL ) . The suspicion was mainly based on the fact that the party officials refused to call the PKK a " terrorist organization ". Although other currents among the Kurds and parts of the left in Turkey were involved in the founding of the HEP, like the DEP it remained an ethnicity- based party for the Kurds in southeastern Turkey . Neither the DEP's program nor its statutes were decisive in banning the DEP, but rather speeches by functionaries, some of whom they had given abroad.

The proceedings against deputies of the DEP

At the instigation of then Prime Minister Tansu Çiller , Turkey's parliament withdrew immunity from six DEP MPs and one non-party (Kurdish) MP on March 2, 1994. They were the chairman of the DEP and MP for Diyarbakır Hatip Dicle, the MP for Şırnak, Orhan Doğan , the MP for Muş, Sırrı Sakık , the MP for Diyarbakır, Leyla Zana , the MP for Mardin, Ahmet Turk and the Şırnak MP for , Mahmut Alınak . Shortly afterwards, DEP MP Selim Sadak was also deprived of immunity. After an application to the Constitutional Court to declare the parliamentary decision to be invalid was only successful for Selim Sadak, six members of parliament were arrested on March 17, 1993. A case of high treason was opened against her before the State Security Court (SSG) in Ankara.

When the party was banned, 13 deputies of the DEP lost their mandate . Remzi Kartal, Ali Yiğit, Zübeyir Aydar , Mahmut Kılınç, Nizamettin Toğuç and Naif Güneş went abroad. Selim Sadak and Sedat Yurtdaş stayed in Turkey. They surrendered to the Ankara Public Prosecutor's Office on July 1, 1994 and were detained on July 12, 1994. Proceedings were opened against them in September 1994, which on November 9, 1994 were combined with those opened on August 3, 1994 against the other MPs.

On December 8, 1994, the Ankara SSG sentenced MPs Leyla Zana, Selim Sadak, Ahmet Türk, Hatip Dicle and Orhan Doğan to 15 years' imprisonment each under Article 168 of the Turkish Criminal Code . Sedat Yurtdaş received a prison sentence of 7 years, 6 months, and Sırrı Sakık and Mahmut Alınak received sentences of 3 years and 6 months each. On October 26, 1995, the Court of Cassation upheld the sentences against Leyla Zana, Selim Sadak, Hatip Dicle and Orhan Doğan. The sentences for Sedat Yurtdaş, Mahmut Alınak, Sırrı Sakık and Ahmet Türk have been lifted. They were acquitted during the appeal. On July 17, 2001, the ECHR ruled that this trial was not fair. In the decision of the ECHR, not only the presence of the military judge was criticized, but also the insufficient time the defense had to comment on a changed criminal charge. It was also criticized that the defense did not have the opportunity to interview key witnesses at the main hearing.

In response to international pressure, the process was resumed at SSG Ankara. 15 negotiations took place, which ended in a new conviction. On July 14, 2004, the Court of Cassation overturned this judgment, having previously ordered the defendants' release. It had to be negotiated again. In the meantime, the SSG Ankara had been renamed the 11th Chamber for Serious Crimes Ankara. The trial was held again until March 7, 2007 and this time the court imposed sentences of 7 years and 6 months imprisonment for the same offense because Article 168 of the Criminal Code of Turkey (TCK) old version required a higher sentence than the article corresponding to it 314 TCK new version, which has been in force since June 1, 2005.

The ban on DEP

On November 2, 1993, the public prosecutor applied to the Court of Cassation to ban DEP. The party violated the constitution and the party law. Two speeches by the former DEP chairman were seen as evidence that the party had undermined the integrity of the state and the unity of the nation. On June 16, 1994, the Constitutional Court decided to ban the DEP. Thirteen MPs, including Hatip Dicle, were stripped of their seats.

On August 23, 1994, Hatip Dicle lodged a complaint on behalf of the party with the European Commission for Human Rights (ECMR). She declared the complaint admissible on September 2, 1996 and referred it to the ECHR on November 1, 1999. In its decision of December 10, 2002, the ECHR recognized a violation of Article 11 of the ECHR (freedom of organization). In the judgment, the ECHR initially criticized the fact that the constitutional court in Turkey had not checked whether the party's statutes were legal. It focused solely on the party's actions. The ECHR therefore declined to deal with the allegation that some members of the party had been convicted. As for the declaration of the Central Committee and the speeches, in the opinion of the ECHR they contained a harsh criticism of Turkey's policy regarding citizens of Kurdish origin. But it cannot be seen that fundamental principles have been violated. For the assessment it is important whether the leading persons in the party have spoken out in favor of the use of violence as a political means. But that is not the case. Only a speech given in Iraq could be understood as a call to violence. However, this is the view of a single person who once headed the party. However, the speech was given abroad and not in the Turkish language, so that it should have had little effect in Turkey. For these reasons, such a speech could not lead to such a drastic measure as the dissolution of the party.

Murders of politicians and attacks on DEP offices

From the ranks of the DEP, like the predecessor party HEP or subsequent parties such as DEHAP or HADEP, members and functionaries were among the civilian victims of the violence, which was particularly violent in Turkey in the 1990s. The most famous victim was the MP for the Mardin Province, Mehmet Sincar. He was murdered together with Metin Özdemir, a party official, on September 4, 1993 in Batman. On August 19, 1993, DEP politician Mehmet Yeşil was murdered in Batman. Other fatalities from 1993 are: Musa Ak (August 20, 1993 in Diyarbakır), Habip Kılıç (September 2, 1993 in Batman), Abbas Demiroğlu (September 18, 1993 in Diyarbakır), Şevket Epözdemir (November 26, 1993 in Tatvan ) and Eyüp Gökoğlu (November 4, 1993 in Urfa). The annual report of the Foundation for Human Rights in Turkey for 1994 listed 26 politicians killed. These included members of bourgeois parties such as the RP , CHP , DYP and the ANAP . 17 politicians, however, had been active for the pro-Kurdish parties HEP, DEP and HADEP.

DEP offices were shot at and bombed in various locations. On February 18, 1994, a bomb exploded at the party's headquarters in Ankara. One person was killed and 16 people were injured.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the message from Bianet from December 12, 2009 1990'dan Bugüne, HEP'ten DTP'ye Kürtlerin Zorlu Siyaset Mücadelesi ; Accessed July 5, 2015
  2. ↑ See the Institute for Strategic Thoughts (tr: Stratejik Düşünce Enstitüsü ) Parti Kapatma, HADEP ve AİHM ( Memento of the original from July 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article dated January 3, 2011; Accessed July 5, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sde.org.tr
  3. ↑ See a post by İbrahim Güçlü on gelawej.net from April 29, 2014 with the title HDP: Devlet Projesinin Yeni Aşaması ve Kürtlerin Bağımsız Örgütlenmesinin Sabote Edilmesi… ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Accessed July 5, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / m.gelawej.net
  4. ↑ See a study by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (tr: Siyaset, Ekonomi ve Toplum Araştırmaları Vakfı = SETA) from March 2009 with the title ÖRGÜT İLE PARTİ OLMA GERİLİMİNDE DTP ( Memento of the original from July 8, 2015 on the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Accessed July 5, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / arsiv.setav.org
  5. ↑ a b c Compare the judgment of the ECHR (French) on the pages of the ECHR ; Accessed July 5, 2015
  6. ↑ Hürriyet of November 15, 2007 TBMM'nin dokunulmazlık bilançosu: 40 milletvekili ; Accessed July 5, 2015
  7. ^ See the annual report of the Foundation for Human Rights in Turkey (Turkish) for the year 1994, Ankara September 1995, p. 348
  8. ↑ See the annual report of the Foundation for Human Rights in Turkey (Turkish) for the year 1994, Ankara September 1995, p. 351
  9. ↑ See haber3.com of June 9, 2004 İŞTE MECLİS'TEN CEZAEVİNE DEP'LİLERİN KISA ÖYKÜSÜ ; Accessed July 5, 2015
  10. ↑ a b See the report by Helmut Oberdiek: New findings on unfair court proceedings in Turkey ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Pro Asyl Frankfurt 2008, p. 53ff; Accessed July 5, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.proasyl.de
  11. ↑ See the DTF report of December 11, 2009 on the ban on the Democratic Society party ; Accessed July 5, 2015
  12. ^ See the annual report of the Foundation for Human Rights in Turkey (Turkish) for the year 1993, Ankara June 1994, pp. 305–306
  13. ↑ See the annual report of the Foundation for Human Rights in Turkey (Turkish) for the year 1994, Ankara September 1995, p. 343
  14. ↑ See the annual report of the Foundation for Human Rights in Turkey (Turkish) for the year 1994, Ankara September 1995, p. 345