Kurdish citizens protested across Turkey after a court sentenced Selahattin Demirtas, former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party and two-time presidential candidate, to 42 years in prison.
Turkish Kurds wanted their government to establish a corridor from Turkey’s Kurdistan region to the besieged city so it could receive humanitarian and military assistance. The Turkish government refused, enraging Turkish Kurds who could literally see the fighting in Kobane on the horizon from their homes.
Tuncer Bakirhan, current co-chair of the HDP denounced the verdict as a “black stain on the history of Turkish justice” and a “legal massacre.” “It is a case that is suitable for political use in every aspect, with its prolongation, its timing, and the fact that the verdict hearing is postponed until after the election,” he said of the Kobane prosecutions.