Comma Press and PEN International condemn Selahattin Demirtaş prison sentence

Comma Press and PEN International have spoken out after the Turkish-Kurdish politician and author Selahattin Demirtaş was handed a 42-year prison sentence for inciting protests in 2014. 

Last Thursday (16th May), a Turkish court found Demirtaş guilty of “aiding in undermining the unity and integrity of the state”, “incitement to commit a crime” and “making terrorist propaganda”. He was sentenced to serve a combined total of 42 years in prison.  

Former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Demirtaş was among 108 members charged as part of a probe into protests that took place across Turkey in October 2014. Thirty-seven people died during the protests, which were sparked by accusations that the Turkish army stood by as Islamic State militants attacked the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.  

The trial, which started in 2021, is widely seen as politically motivated, with the HDP facing a potential ban in a separate case and several other members being convicted alongside Demirtaş. 

Demirtaş has been detained since 2016 on “trumped-up” anti-terrorism grounds, PEN International said. New terrorism charges were brought against him in 2019 as part of the “Kobani case”. In 2020, the European Court of Human Rights ordered his immediate release, saying that the author’s rights to freedom of expression and liberty were being violated. 

Demirtaş wrote a collection of short stories while in prison entitled Seher (Dawn) (2017), which received a PEN Translates award in 2018 from English PEN. Devran followed in 2019 and was published in the US by Hogarth. 

In October 2023, Comma published Kurdistan + 100, which featured Demirtaş’ story “My Handsome One” (translated by Amy Spangler), about a female activist who becomes the first president of an independent Kurdish state. The story was written by hand and passed to his lawyer during visits. 

Comma Press released a statement on its website which said that it “utterly condemns the barbaric sentencing of Kurdish writer Selahattin Demirtaş to 42 years imprisonment, in Turkey yesterday, despite the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling for his immediate release”. The independent publisher added: “Demirtaş [...] has already been unjustly detained for seven and a half years, kept from his family and loved ones, and denied fair legal representation.”

Comma Press said it “joins the hundreds of cultural institutions, writers and people around the world in demanding Selahattin’s immediate release in compliance with the ECHR ruling”. 

PEN International also posted a statement, which reads: “The authorities of [Turkey] should release writer, opposition politician and honorary PEN member Selahattin Demirtaş immediately and unconditionally. Anti-terrorism laws should not be used to silence critical voices.”     

The president of the global writers’ organisation Burhan Sonmez added: “PEN International utterly condemns the shocking sentencing of writer and honorary PEN member Selahattin Demirtaş to 42 years in prison. That he continues to languish behind bars despite the European Court of Human Rights ruling for his release makes a mockery of what is left of [Turkey’s] justice system.”

PEN International has long campaigned on behalf of Demirtaş, featuring him in its 2021 Day of the Imprisoned Writer campaign. In a resolution adopted by the Assembly of Delegates of PEN International in September 2022, PEN International specifically urged Turkish authorities to end the prosecution and detention of writers and journalists on the basis of the content of their writing, including in support of Kurdish language and culture.