Democracy Party (Turkey)
Democracy Party Centre-left | |
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The Democracy Party (Turkish: Demokrasi Partisi, DEP, Kurmanji: Partiya Demokrasiyê) was a pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey founded on the 7 May 1993.[1]
History
1994 local elections
Between 1991 and 1994, more than 50 of its members were murdered.[6] As a result, the party decided to withdraw from the municipal elections which were planned to take place on 27 March 1994.[7] The party justified this decision with the casualties, but personal and material the party had to affront during the last 45 days and that several of the candidates which the party put up for the elections withdrew, as they feared for their life.[7]
Ban
On 2 March 1994, the Turkish parliament lifted the immunity of two deputies from the DEP and Orhan Doğan and Hatip Dicle were detained.[8] On 2 April 1994, occurred a deadly attack on the Bazaar in Istanbul for which the PKK did not claim an authorship. The Turkish Government anyway blamed the PKK but also the DEP.[3] In reaction to the attack, the Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller deemed the DEP just a cover for the PKK and called for end of a PKK presence in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.[3] Until 16 June 1994, six party members were imprisoned and the party was banned.[9]
On 8 August 1994, the deputies Orhan Doğan, Leyla Zana, Selim Sadak and Hatip Dicle were sentenced to 15 years in prison.[10] They were released in June 2009 following a decision of Turkey's Appeal Court,[11] after Turkey experienced some pressure from the European Parliament, asking for their release and condemning their imprisonment.[12]
The DEP was succeeded by the People's Democracy Party (HADEP), established in May 1994.
In December 2002, the European Court of Human Rights held DEP's dissolution to be contrary to Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (freedom of association) and ordered Turkey to pay €200,000 which shall be distributed among the parties members.[13]
Footnotes
- ^ ISBN 978-2-7068-1885-1.
- ^ a b c Cigerli, Sabri; Saout, Didier Le (2005). p.190
- ^ a b c Cigerli, Sabri; Saout, Didier Le (2005). p.191
- ISBN 9780295990491.
- ISBN 978-0-295-99050-7.
- ISBN 9781136587986.
- ^ a b Cigerli, Sabri; Saout, Didier Le (2005), p.192
- ^ Cigerli, Sabri; Saout, Didier Le (2005). pp.192–193
- ISBN 9781136587986.
- ^ "Texts adopted - Thursday, 22 April 2004 - Trial against Leyla Zana and others in Ankara - P5_TA(2004)0377". www.europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
- ^ "Leyla Zana, European Parliament's Sakharov Prize Winner of 1995" (PDF). Europarl. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
- ^ "Texts adopted - Thursday, 22 April 2004 - Trial against Leyla Zana and others in Ankara - P5_TA(2004)0377". www.europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
- ^ ECtHR judgment on application no. 25141/94(in French)
References
- Güney, Aylin (2002). "The People's Democracy Party". S2CID 143548942.