In the closure case against the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the chairpersons Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar will not give an oral defence before the Turkish Constitutional Court, announced the party's legal committee in Ankara on Thursday. The reason for the decision was that the court unfoundedly rejected several requests by the HDP to suspend proceedings until after the presidential and parliamentary elections on 14 May. “In doing so, the Constitutional Court is guilty of blatant interference in free and fair elections", stated the party's executive board.

Since June 2021, the proceedings to ban the HDP have been underway before Turkey's highest court. The party is accused of terrorism and separatism, among other things. The HDP, on the other hand, speaks of a politically motivated trial. Since January, the legal committee has made three different requests for a postponement of the trial and a postponement of the date for the first oral hearing, which had been set for next Tuesday.

The party argued, among other things, that the party leaders would be in the midst of an election campaign at the time of the scheduled hearing, and that the country and its people had been in a desolate situation since the earthquake disaster in February. However, the Constitutional Court rejected all applications without giving reasons, the committee said.

"It seems impossible to conduct the oral defence in this trial, which will have a significant impact on the history of democracy and law in Turkey, within the current intensive work period," the HDP's legal committee said, adding that, therefore, the decision was taken not to attend the date on 11 April.