Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi - HDP) Co-chhair Selahattin Demirtaş issued an open call to Tayyip Erdoğan from the Edirne Prison. Demirtaş sent a letter titled “Open call to the Chairperson of the AKP”, which reads:

“First of all, I return to you your insult to the will of millions of people over my person. But in another aspect, I would like to ‘thank’ you for this admission.

You have spared us the trouble of having to prove that the ‘judicial’ process in motion against us has nothing to do with the law and was personally decided by you.

This is an open call: For the last 8 months, prosecutors under your orders and several judges failed to find a single shred of evidence that I called on people to burn and loot in the streets regarding the October 6-8 Kobanê incidents. If you are in possession of such evidence, I ask you to turn it over to your prosecutors who are desperately searching for something against me.

I offer my ‘gratitude’ to you for declaring the verdict that I am a terrorist and had 54 people killed, before my trial actually started, and therefore making the future trials to come meaningless and unnecessary. Sooner or later I will face a judge. Then it will become clear in the public’s eye who the terrorist and the murderer is. Before that, everything is already clear in God’s eyes.

By the way, 44 of the 54 citizens who were massacred during the Kobanê incidents were HDP members. When our people were murdered on the streets during the Kobanê incidents, when cities were being torn down in Cizre and Sur, when civilians were massacred, those who attempted to stage a coup on July 15 were on duty as governors, commanders, police chiefs, prosecutors and judges.

Even though you see that these people were involved with the July 15 coup attempt and have ruthlessly murdered hundreds of civilian citizens, instead of investigating whether they had a role in the massacre and the provocations of October 6-8, you putting all the blame on me and thus taking revenge on a political rival is absolutely ignorant.

The one responsible in the first degree for every incident that comes to pass in this country is, because you’ve been ruling the country for 15 years, you. Your attempts to make people forget that are not unseen.

You attacking me unjustly in a panic, even though I am behind bars, is an approach far removed from courage. I want you to know that I don’t fear anybody but Allah. I will not be so cheap as to beg for mercy from you or the instruments of tyranny under your orders. I will never accept dishonor and submission, even if I know I will spend the rest of my days in prison.

We as the HDP and all of HDP’s allies will resist fascism in prisons and outside, and have no doubt we will prevail.

I want you to know that even though I am in a Type-F cell, my conscience is clear, I am without fear and I am happy. So, please, don’t ‘worry’ for me.”