Kobani trial

On the 30 December 2020 the prosecution presented an indictment of more than 3500 pages[9] to a court in Ankara in which they charged 108 politicians of the HDP.[5] On the 7 January the court accepted the indictment.[12][13] The same month and based on this indictment, Devlet Bahçeli of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) demanded the closure of the HDP.[14] Other prominent defendants (beside the mentioned above) are Ahmet Türk, Emine Ayna, Ertugrul Kürkcü, Gülser Yildirim, Yurdusev Özsökmenler and Hatip Dicle.[15]

In the first day of the trial on the 26 April, the lawyers of the defense walked out of the court room and the defendants refused to answer questions because some lawyers were not permitted to be present at the hearing.[16]

The second hearing took place on the 18 May. Demirtas questioned the fact that an indictment of over 3500 pages was able to be examined and accepted within less than ten days[15] or how a politician of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) was able to tweet about the proceedings of the court before the HDP or the press knew about them.[17] The HDP Co-chair during the protests Figen Yüksekdag assumed the prosecution had mixed up names, because a speech of Kamuran Yüksek was included into the case-file like one she gave herself.[17]

In the third hearing on 15 June,[18] the court ordered the release pending trial to four defendants including the former mayor of Kars, Ayhan Bilgen.[19] The three others were members of the executive council of the HDP at the time of the protests.[19] One of them had shared two social media posts on Facebook.[19] One was about Selahattin Demirtas and the other one was about a man who lamented his son was killed in service of the Peoples' Defense Units (YPG).[19]

In the fourth hearing, several HDP politicians questioned the evidence presented against them which were an incoming email from the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria asking for help against the Islamic State, being present at an event of an election campaign ones coming from secret witnesses.[20]

In the fifth hearing the court ruled there would be no release for any of the imprisoned defendants.[21] The lawyers of the defense criticized that tweets already examined and approved as a lying within the human right of liberty of expression by the European Court of Human Rights where included in the case file and demanded longer intervals between the hearings.[21]

In the sixth hearing on the 8 November a new presiding judge replaced Bahtiyar Çolak, who had been dismissed after having felt unwell due to COVID-19.[22] The dismissal was criticized by the defendants' lawyers who following stated they would not attend further hearings of the trial as the process was unlawful[22] and the seventh hearing took five minutes as the lawyers and defendants boycotted the trial.[23]

On the ninth hearing twelve imprisoned plaintiffs against the HDP politicians withdrew their former declarations in which they pressed charges against them.[24]

In the eleventh hearing of April 2022 a witness declared the statement he signed before a prosecutor in Antalya does not represent what he said at the time and that in Kobani people defended their democratic rights.[25]