Question for written answer E-001549/2021/rev.1 to the Council Rule 138 Dimitrios Papadimoulis (The Left), Konstantinos Arvanitis (The Left), Alexis Georgoulis (The Left), Petros Kokkalis (The Left), Stelios Kouloglou (The Left), Elena Kountoura (The Left) Subject: Continued violations of human rights and civil liberties in Turkey Just days after President Erdoğan announced his supposedly new human rights action plan1, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women, amid allegations that at least 300 women had been murdered in 2020.2 In parallel, on 17 March the decision was taken to strip HDP member Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu of his parliamentary membership, despite him lodging an appeal before the Constitutional Court.3 The Turkish State Prosecutor even called on this court to impose a complete ban on the HDP.4 In this connection, in spite of the ECHR judgment5, Selahattin Demirtaş remains in prison, with the European Parliament among those calling for his immediate release.6 Yet despite the continuing violations of human rights and civil liberties in Turkey, the summit to be held on 25 and 26 March looks set to pave the way for better EU-Turkey relations. In the light of the above, can the Council say: 1. What measures will it take to prevent the HDP from being banned and its Members politically persecuted? 2. What steps will it take to prevent the repression of political pluralism in Turkey and to guarantee civil liberties? 3. What action will it take to address the serious violations of human rights and civil liberties taking place in Turkey? 1 https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210302-erdogan-unveils-turkish-human-rights-action-plan 2 https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-istanbul-convention-council-of-europe-violence-against-women/, https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-quits-istanbul-convention-on-violence-against-women/a-56936323, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/turkey-erdogan-women-violence.html 3 https://www.hdp.org.tr/en/gergerlioglu-has-been-stripped-of-his-deputyship-by-the-order-of-the- government/15181/ 4 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56438070, https://www.euractiv.com/section/global- europe/news/turkey-moves-to-ban-pro-kurdish-hdp-party/ 5 https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22appno%22:[%2214305/17%22],%22itemid%22:[%22001-207173%22]}, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-echr-demirtas-idUSKBN28W1PJ 6 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0028_EN.html PE680.709v02-00.