American magazine: Biden not speaking of Demirtaş, Leyla Guven's arrest is dangerous hypocrisy

On December 21^st, Leyla Güven, member of the Turkish parliament for the Democratic Peoples' Party (HDP) who won her seat in 2018, was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

According to the American National Interest magazine, "The basis of the accusation was the speech delivered by Leyla Güven in 2018 against the Turkish invasion of Afrin which displaced hundreds of thousands of people, empowered extremists, and subjected civilians to brutal militia rule."

A day later, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey must immediately release former co-leader of HDP and presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş who has been imprisoned since 2016 on a political charge somewhat similar to that of Leyla Güven.

The newspaper said: "Senior government officials in Turkey immediately attacked the verdict, reiterating their comical view that Demirtaş - a human rights lawyer, by his training and advocacy for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey - is a terrorist."

 The request for his release was soon rejected, and new charges were submitted against him for criticizing Turkey's inaction against ISIS in Kobane, a sentiment shared by the anti-ISIS coalition led by the United States at the time.

According to the newspaper, by launching new attacks on two elected officials who have faced political repression over their calls for peace, democracy and Kurds' rights, Erdogan is testing Biden administration's commitment to democratic values ​​and international norms.

Despite his willingness to discuss issues of political prisoners around the world during the election campaign and also criticizing Erdogan's tyranny, Biden himself did not say a word about Demirtaş or Leyla Güven.

Biden's chosen national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has expressed concern about similarly unfair arrests of a Saudi feminist and a Ugandan human rights lawyer over the past week, but has specifically excluded the recent cases from Turkey.

Biden team may fear that talking about democracy and minority rights in Turkey could push Erdogan further into Russia or harm NATO.

Opponents of greater engagement into democracy and human rights issues in Turkey have never made clear how they think that Erdogan government will respond to these criticisms, and the catastrophic scenarios they fear are likely to be illogical at best.

In addition, by allowing a US-allied autocrat to attack the foundations of democratic government, Biden team undermines its own pro-democracy agenda ahead of their first day in office.

The newspaper said: "There is no other country in the world that jails many of the legally elected members of its parliament as Turkey does, but some may begin to do so if US policy-makers do not act on this behavior."

Moreover, there have been cases in which Turkey has responded to human rights pressures targeted by the United States by taking action, when the United States pressured Erdogan to release Andrew Bronson, an American held on fake terrorism charges similar to those against Demirtaş and Leila Güven, angering the local public, but finally complied.

It is clear that Biden must change course, and he can start taking signals from Congress, as there is collective condemnation in Congress against Erdogan's crackdown on the opposition.

The American newspaper emphasized: "Allowing Erdogan to nullify the votes of millions of citizens in Turkey who supported Selahattin Demirtaş, Leyla Güven and HDP officials at every level of government is not just bad policy, but rather dangerous hypocrisy."

D.H