Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu was arrested after Turkish parliament revoked his seat in the parliament. He has been released on Tuesday after the Constitutional Court (AYM) ruled that his rights had been violated. Gergerlioğlu expects his seat will be returned to him. He said that he encountered an atmosphere outside which is no different from prisons.

Gergerlioğlu was interviewed by ANF.

Gergerlioğlu reminded that he was unfairly dismissed from his job and faced unfair measures. “We waited for someone to say stop and finally appealed to the Constitutional Court. Conducting a serious investigation, the Constitutional Court ruled that my freedom of expression and my right to engage in politics were violated. It is very important that this decision was made by a 15-0 unanimous vote. I believe that our resistance is based on principles and that it will benefit others as well.”

Emphasizing that the Constitutional Court gave a lesson to the parliament with its decision, he added, “The person they put in prison is not just a person, I represent the will of the people.”

The HDP deputy revealed that the main reason why he was chosen as a target by the government is that he dealt with the rights violations. “I was a very active deputy. I exposed many rights violations from dismissed public employees to the Kurdish villagers who were thrown from a helicopter, as well as the cases of torture and abduction. However, the last straw was the strip-search cases that I had exposed. They made a decision about me and put me in prison. They wanted to punish me, yet they failed.”

Gergerlioğlu also talked about his three-month jail term in Sincan F-Type Prison, “I renewed myself spiritually, did sports and lost weight. I used my time well: I read 35 books, wrote articles and sent social media posts. Of course, we were subject to violations of rights. My friends sent small gifts such as seashells, notebooks, dried flowers but I was not allowed to receive any of them. Of course, people get upset about such things. They were trying to bring me down spiritually. I legally objected to all of them. The prison conditions were already unhealthy. There was high humidity, the heaters were turned off in the early hours in April, we were cold. It's concrete everywhere and it doesn't catch the sun properly. Despite the pandemic, cleaning materials were not provided by the administration, so we had to buy them. There was also an aggravated isolation, of course, yet we tried to keep our spirits up.”

Explaining his plans for the future, Gergerlioğlu noted that he is waiting for the return of his parliamentary seat which was unlawfully revoked. “Still, it's not clear, because Devlet Bahçeli delivered a formal message at his party’s group meeting that I should not be taken back,” he added.

The HDP deputy also stated that he encountered a repressive atmosphere which is not different from the prisons when he came out, adding that attempts were made to undermine the Kurdish issue. He said that the murder of Deniz Poyraz and the closure case against HDP are the concrete signs of these attempts. “These are not new things. Similar things have happened in the past. There is no point in closing the HDP. We will fight against this understanding as we did in the past. The important thing here is to provide a solution to the Kurdish issue. They are trying to create a more fascist and aggressive political environment. They are attacking journalists. They attacked journalists Bülent Kılıç in Istanbul and most recently Erk Acarer in Berlin.”

Gergerlioğlu underlined that the opposition in Turkey should meet on a common ground based on conscience and democracy against these attacks.

“What needs to be done is to put aside the differences and strengthen the common ground,” he concluded.

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