Demirtas, sentenced to 42 years in prison, and former co-chair Yuksekdag, with a sentence of 30 years and three months, are among the dozens of members of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) -- currently the Democracy and Peoples' Equality Party (DEM) and the third force in the national parliament --, convicted of "incitement to violence", among other crimes, indicated the Turkish newspaper Evrensel. The accusations are based on the speeches of the convicted during the protests against Ankara's inaction in the face of the attack by the 'jihadist' group Islamic State (IS) on the Kurdish city of Kobani, in neighboring Syria. These protests in the Kurdish areas of Turkey degenerated into clashes between supporters of the pro-Kurdish left-wing movement and sympathizers of radical Islamism, with a death toll of 37 and about 1,000 wounded between the two groups. In total, the court named 108 defendants, many of them members of the HDP, although the list also included, with arrest warrants, leaders of the illegal Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Kurdish guerrilla of Turkey, and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Kurdish formation of Syria. Demirtas, who ran as a candidate in the Turkish presidential elections in 2015, has been in prison since 2016, despite the fact that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), whose sentences are binding on Turkey, has ruled that the process violated the rights of the detained politician and demanded his immediate release. In total, 18 defendants are in preventive detention. Some, such as former HDP leader Sebahat Tuncel or former municipal official Gultan Kisanak, were convicted today, but will be released because it is considered that they have already served an essential part of their sentence. Others were acquitted, while dozens of defendants were sentenced to between nine and 13 years in prison for various crimes related to the revolts that occurred between October 6 and 8, 2014 in 35 cities that caused, in addition to the fatalities and injuries, great material damage. In total, 269 public buildings and schools were set on fire, and 1,700 commercial establishments or homes were looted. The defendants have always declared their innocence. Although they admitted that they called for protests against the IS attack on Kobani, they have always denied inciting violence and recalled that most of the deaths in the revolts came from the ranks of the pro-Kurdish left-wing movement. Ahmet Turk, current mayor of the city of Mardin and a veteran figure of the pro-Kurdish movement, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, so the municipality will pass to the control of the Government, as has been usual in the Kurdish regions in recent years. "This is a political sentence. The process was started because we opposed a terrifying organization, the Islamic State. This decision was not made by the judges but by the politicians," Turk said, in statements to the Halk TV channel after the announcement of his conviction. "More than the sentences, I am concerned about peace in this country, it is a serious blow to the democratic future of the country and to the brotherhood between the peoples," he added. MP Sezgin Tanrikulu, of the Republican People's Party (CHP, social democrat and the largest opposition force), also described the sentences as "political" and "unacceptable". Read Also: Turkey re-exports Russian oil to the EU despite sanctions, study says (Portuguese version)