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Selahattin Demirtaş in the year of his arrest: He has been in custody since 2016
Photo: Sedat Suna / dpa
Shortly before the elections in Turkey, the imprisoned Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş told SPIEGEL: "I'm still in politics. I've never been outside." This sentence has now lost its validity. The former head of the pro-Kurdish HDP has announced his retirement from active politics.
Demirtaş was one of Turkey's most important opposition politicians and a major opponent of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He was associated with the hope of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict. In 2016, Demirtaş was arrested in Turkey on suspicion of terrorism. He has been in prison for more than five years. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly called for his release.
Even from prison, the politician has repeatedly expressed himself politically via Twitter in recent years. He also gave written interviews through his lawyers. Now he has again faced questions from journalists.
On Twitter, Demirtaş said he shared two paragraphs from an interview with the Turkish platform Artı Gerçek, which is scheduled to be published in full on Thursday. He will continue the resistance from prison, but is withdrawing from active politics, it says. He also apologized for not being able to offer the people a more dignified policy.
Last Sunday, incumbent Erdoğan prevailed over challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the run-off election for the presidency. He was re-elected as president for another five years. This is likely to put an end to hopes that Demirtaş will be released from prison. Erdoğan had already indicated that there would be no release for the Kurdish politician under him.
Erdoğan has systematically criminalized the HDP in recent years. In addition to Demirtaş, hundreds of other party members are in custody.
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