Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Figen Yüksekdağ, who has been in jail for three months on terror charges, has lost her parliamentary status for a prison sentence she received in a previous case.
Figen Yüksekdağ lost her seat over her conviction in 2013 for engaging in terrorist propaganda.
According to the constitution, the loss of the parliamentary seat "through a final judicial sentence or deprivation of legal capacity, shall take effect after the final court decision in the matter has been communicated to the plenary" of the parliament, without the necessity for a vote.
Yüksekdağ, HDP's co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş, and 11 other party legislators were arrested in November over terror charges.
Yüksekdağ, who was also the party’s lawmaker from the eastern province of Van, currently faces over 80 years in prison.
The HDP tweeted its rejection of Yüksekdağ's ban as "non-existent". On Monday, it appealed to the European Court of Human Rights over what it said was the unlawful imprisonment of its two leaders on terrorism charges.
The government accused the lawmakers of ties to the armed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which they denied.
