After the Green Left Party congress in Ankara, at which the party renamed itself HEDEP, four people were taken into custody on the orders of the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office because they were carrying banners with the portrait of Abdullah Öcalan.
Four people were taken into custody in Ankara on the orders of Ankara's chief public prosecutor's office. They were accused of carrying out propaganda for a “terrorist organization,” the governor of Ankara said in a statement on Sunday evening. Specifically, the accusation was that the four carried banners with the photo of Abdullah Öcalan at a congress of the Green Left Party and shouted slogans in favor of the Kurdish People’s Leader, who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999.
It is not yet known who those arrested are. It is also unclear where they were taken after their arrest.
The Green Left Party held its fourth congress in Ankara on Sunday and renamed itself the People's Party for Equality and Democracy (HEDEP).
Tülay Hatimoğulları Oruç and Tuncer Bakırhan were elected as co-chairs. In speeches after the election, the gender-balanced dual leadership of HEDEP advocated the abolition of the isolation regime on Imrali, where Öcalan has been held as a political hostage since his abduction in 1999. Negotiations aimed at a solution to the Kurdish question were demanded and supported by the delegates and guests at the congress.
