The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has exhorted Türkiye to immediately release two members of the National Assembly whose detentions were found to contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Committee of Ministers adopted an Interim resolution in the Selahattin Demirtaş (No. 2) group of cases during its quarterly meeting to supervise the implementation of rulings from the European Court of Human Rights.
The European Court found numerous violations of the Convention in two separate judgments concerning Selahattin Demirtaş (in 2020) and Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu and Others (in 2022). The Court notably found that the applicants’ arrests and pre-trial detention pursued an ulterior purpose, in violation of Article 18 of the Convention.
At its last Human Rights meeting of March, the Committee of Ministers expressed its profound concern that Mr Demirtaş and Ms Yüksekdağ Şenoğlu have been continuously deprived of their liberty since November 2016, despite the European Court’s findings.
The Committee of Ministers deplored the absence of a decision from the Turkish Constitutional Court on Mr Demirtaş’s application concerning his detention on remand, lodged in November 2019. The Committee also deplored the lack of a reasoned decision from the Assize Court following its concise decision convicting the applicants in May 2024.
The Committee of Ministers exhorted the authorities to ensure that both issues be resolved in the shortest possible time frame and in the meantime, to ensure the applicants’ immediate release, for example by exploring alternative measures to detention.
The Committee expressed its resolve to consider further action in the absence of developments on these issues before its next human rights meeting, in June 2025.
