HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş’s trial for “openly disparaging the state” over his comments in Cizre has started in the Mardin Criminal Court. Demirtaş is still in Edirne Type F Prison and attended the hearing over the video conference system SEGBIS.

The lawyers demanded the trial be stopped, as Demirtaş has legislative immunity on account of being a member of the parliament.

The lawyers’ demand that Demirtaş be brought to a prison in Mardin, that the trial be stopped, or that Demirtaş be acquitted were not met.

Demirtaş made a defense in the hearing, stating that he had to prepare his defense under dire conditions, and said: “Some of my lawyers are in the courtroom, some of them are here with me. I cannot communicate with my lawyers in the courtroom.”

HDP Co-chair pointed out that there was nothing in the speech mentioned in the indictment that criticized the Republic or the Parliament, and said: “That speech is a criticism and a call for Ahmet Davutoğlu’s government.”

Demirtaş stated that for the first time in the Republic’s history, HDP MPs immunities were lifted by a temporary clause and continued: “There is no difference between me and any deputies serving in the Parliament right now. As the investigation and the prosecution authorities try to protect their right to judge, so should I protect my right to legislate. A jurisdiction authority has forcibly taken the authority to legislate away from me, and I have legislative immunity.”

HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş stated that the speech in question was about Cizre and said: “Our colleagues met with the Minister of Health and the Prime Ministry regarding Cizre. There were meetings with the Ministry of the Interior to send ambulances to people trapped in the basements. Whenever the ambulances approached, they were shot at. One of the civilians trapped in the basement, Mehmet Yavuzel spoke to both the MPs and the minsitry over teleconferencing. Yavuzel said in one of the calls, ‘There are shots fired whenever the ambulance enters the street, they don’t let us leave.’ The then-Interior Minister told our colleagues that there is an ‘uncontrolled group of security personnel that don’t follow orders and act on their own’. The call I made in Mardin was to save the civilians there.

Demirtaş said the foundations for the coup were laid by the civilian deaths in Cizre, Nusaybin and other cities and continued: “If the government had listened to us, the events of Cizre, Şırnak and Nusaybin which laid the foundations for the coup would not have happened.”

HDP Co-chair underlined that the moral and legal responsibility of the events in Cizre, Nusaybin and Şırnak is on the government and continued: “Not one question was asked to coup plotters about the events in Cizre, Şırnak and Nusaybin. I believe it will be of use to listen to my MP colleagues who spoke with the ministries at that time as witnesses. I demand that the ministry be asked about how many of the governors, district governors and commanders on duty in Şırnak and Cizre were involved with the coup and how many are accused of being a member of FETÖ, and that information be added to the case file.”

Lawyers submitted their demands on the case after Demirtaş’s defense.