Election Board strip off Hatip Dicle of his mandate

The Supreme Election Board (YSK) unanimously voted to strip off Hatip Dicle’s of his mandate.
Hatip Dicle, was elected MP for Diyarbak?r. He was convicted of “disseminating propaganda of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party” in 2009 by the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court, and the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the decision in March of this year. The court sentenced Dicle to one year, eight months in prison on terrorism charges.
Dicle is also currently on trial in the 6th Diyarbak?r High Criminal Court as a suspect in a separate investigation into the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK). He was detained in December 2009 as part of the KCK probe and has been in custody since.

Dicle’s lawyers had appealed to the 11th Ankara High Criminal Court to cut the prison term he had served as a detainee during the KCK investigation from his earlier conviction of 20 months on charges of “disseminating propaganda of the PKK.”

Last week, the Ankara court decided to cut 453 days, the period he had served as a detainee during the KCK probe, from the sentence he originally received in 2009.

BDP Chairman Hamit Geylani had stated earlier in the day that “Dicle is our red line. The BDP is both a lock and key for Parliament. We have the power to lock all unfairness and unlawfulness in Parliament. We do not recognize any power to ignore the national will that elected Dicle a deputy”.

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