‘Hello darling’: Jailed Turkey candidate makes speech though wife’s phone

ISTANBUL: It´s not the most conventional way for a presidential candidate to address supporters. But Turkey´s leading Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas is not facing a usual set of circumstances as he campaigns for June 24 elections from jail.

Demirtas on Wednesday issued his first, and possibly only, audio message of the campaign where he will challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, delivered in a telephone call received by his wife Basak.

The charismatic ex-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples´ Democratic Party (HDP) has been jailed since November 2016 on charges of links to outlawed Kurdish militants and is now in a prison in the northwestern region of Edirne.

The HDP produced a slick video of the message, which begins with Basak Demirtas welcoming family members to their home in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.Her mobile rings and it´s her husband. The phone is put on loudspeaker.

“Hello my darling, how are you?” she says, and after some brief pleasantries lets him make the around five minute campaign speech. “Sadly, Turkey has been transformed into a semi-open prison. They are trying to create a society based on fear and reign though fear,” he declared.