ISTANBUL: Kurdish politician Aysel Tugluk was released from jail in northwest Turkey late Thursday after a medical report that her dementia did not allow her to remain behind bars.
Tugluk, 57, was the deputy co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) before her arrest in 2016.
The prosecutor’s office in Kocaeli province postponed Tugluk’s sentence after a medical assessment that staying in jail threatened her life, private broadcaster NTV reported.
In August, Turkey’s Constitutional Court rejected a plea for her release even though she was diagnosed with dementia but ordered that she receive regular neurological and psychiatric treatment in hospital.
Tugluk was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison for membership of a “terrorist organization.”
Her supporters believe she developed dementia after witnessing Turkish nationalists attack her mother’s 2017 funeral in Ankara, which the authorities allowed her to attend.
Tugluk was arrested for her activities with the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), an organization that Turkish authorities consider linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara and its Western allies have blacklisted as a “terrorist” organization.
Turkey frees Kurdish politician with dementia from jail
https://arab.news/bv7xc
Turkey frees Kurdish politician with dementia from jail
- Prosecutor's office postponed Tugluk's sentence after a medical assessment that staying in jail threatened her life
- Tugluk was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison
Senior Hamas figure among 7 killed in Israeli airstrike
- Pair of Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza's Deir Al-Balah, killing a Hamas commander
- Boy, aged 16, among the dead
CAIRO: A senior figure in the armed wing of Hamas was among seven people killed on Thursday in a pair of Israeli airstrikes in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, a Hamas source said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident. The Hamas source said one of the dead was Mohammed Al-Holy, a local commander in the group’s armed wing in Deir Al-Balah.
Hamas condemned the strikes on the Al-Holy family, in a statement that did not mention Mohammed or his role in the group. It accused Israel of violating the ceasefire deal in place since October, and attempting to reignite the conflict.
Health officials said the six other dead in the incident included a 16-year-old.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame for violations of the ceasefire and remain far apart from each other on key issues, despite the United States announcing the start of the agreement’s second phase on Wednesday.
More than 400 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers have been reported killed since the ceasefire took effect in October.
Israel has razed buildings and ordered residents out of more than half of Gaza where its troops remain. Nearly all of the territory’s more than 2 million people now live in makeshift homes or damaged buildings in a sliver of territory where Israeli troops have withdrawn and Hamas has reasserted control.
The United Nations children’s agency said on Tuesday that over 100 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, including victims of drone and quadcopter attacks.
Israel launched its operations in Gaza in the wake of an attack by Hamas-led fighters in October 2023 which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s assault has killed 71,000 people, according to health authorities in the strip, and left much of Gaza in ruins.
