Abdullah Zeydan, former MP for the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and who has been sharing a prison cell in Turkey’s Edirne Prison for the last five years with former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş was released last night.

Speaking to the press upon his release, Zeydan expressed his gratitude to Demirtaş and to all those who supported him during his prison term.

“I would like to thank our dear co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, with whom I shared a cell, for the five years I lived with him. Every second of these five years gave me such honour. I have learned so much from him,” he said.

“I also thank the HDP officials, our co-chairs and MPs, our lawyers, our dear people who have prayed for us and supported us, all the political captives who have been in prison for so long and my party branches of Edirne and Hakkari. I thank all of them for their solidarity.”

Zeydan then went on to state that his imprisonment was part of a civilian coup against democratic representation:

“We were the elected representatives of the people and we have been unjustly held as hostages for five years. So there is actually nothing that has been bestowed upon us today. We were elected deputies, just like those for the AKP and CHP, and even more so because we were elected by greater margins. Unfortunately, there was a coup against the will of the people, and elected deputies and co-chairs were arrested. We will continue with our democratic struggle for the freedom of all political captives.”