Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled that Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu’s rights to be elected and engage in political activities as well as his right to liberty and security were violated through his imprisonment, the Turkish media reported.
Gergerlioğlu is a former pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker and a prominent human rights activist. He was stripped of his parliamentary status in March and was subsequently jailed.
In a series of tweets he posted on Wednesday, Gergerlioğlu’s son, Salih Gergerlioğlu said he believes that his father will be a free man soon. “My father is being released from prison. He is being released!” he said
Gergerlioğlu was stripped of his status in parliament on March 17 after conviction of disseminating “terrorist propaganda” in a 2016 social media post, where he commented on a story that reported on outlawed Kurdish militants calling on the Turkish state to take a step towards peace.