Turkey court orders release of hunger-striking Kurdish MP

Leyla Guven, 55, launched a hunger strike on 8 November in protest at the prison conditions for Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and her deteriorating health has sparked concerns and rallies to support her cause.

The MP will be monitored after she is freed, the court in Diyarbakir in the Kurdish majority southeast said, although few further details of the terms of her release are yet available. 

Guven, whose party has said is suffering a "life-threatening" medical condition, did not attend the hearing, according to an AFP journalist in the court.

She was arrested in January 2018 for her criticism of Turkey's military operation against a Syrian Kurdish militia that Ankara considers an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). 

The MP started the hunger strike in prison and her action was supported by more than 150 prisoners across Turkey in a show of solidarity. 

Guven's hunger strike was aimed at pressuring the government into allowing lawyers and family members to visit PKK leader Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence on an island prison near Istanbul since his capture in 1999.

Ocalan met his brother Mehmet for the first time in more than two years on January 12. The details of that meeting were not yet made public.

In 2012, hundreds of Kurdish prisoners ended a 68-day hunger strike after Ocalan urged them to do so.

Guven's HDP party remains under the scrutiny of Turkish authorities, which accuse it of links to the PKK. Several of its MPs are behind bars, including former party leader Selahattin Demirtas.

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