Jailed pro-Kurdish politician and presidential candidate in Turkey has delivered a speech from his prison cell via a telephone call to his wife and other family members - a video of which was later broadcast on Twitter.
Selahattin Demirtaş described himself as a "political hostage," devoid of the right to a fair trial. He asked for votes in Turkey's June 24 snap presidential and parliamentary elections, saying "anti-democratic practices" had turned the country into one of the most "unhappy and pessimistic" societies.
"For 20 months, I have been held here under an illegal, unjust and unlawful decision as a political hostage," he told his supporters.
Demirtaş, the former co-leader of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), is accused of being a member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and making propaganda for the group blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies. He risks up to 142 years in jail.
"Moreover, while my hands are tied, the everyday slander campaigns of government officials against me continue on televisions without a break," he said.
"Today the whole country, all our citizens, have become victims of injustice," Demirtaş said. "Turkey as a whole has unfortunately been turned into a prison."
"Demirtaş is not the man who is in a cell in Edirne. It is you. Have confidence in yourselves," he said.
