Turkey uses Spain as an example to justify detention of politicians, says Kurdish dissident

Turkey uses Spain and the imprisonment of Catalan leaders as an example to justify the arrest of Kurdish politicians, dissident Eyyup Doru has said in an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN).

While stressing that Turkey is "a fascist regime" and Spain "a democratic state," Doru said that "there was no violence" in Catalonia during the independence referendum a year ago, and therefore it’s "unacceptable" to put people in prison "for expressing their views."

Doru is the representative in Europe of pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), led by jailed politician Selahattin Demirtaş.

Following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights ordering Turkey to end Demirtaş’ pre-trial imprisonment, Catalan pro-independence leaders urged Spain’s Constitutional Court to release them over the similarities between their cases.

Although Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will not abide by the ruling, Doru hopes that "if the EU has a clear position regarding all these anti-democratic actions, this could force the Turkish government to release all political prisoners."