05.09.2026 14:40
Former co-chair of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş, who is in Edirne Prison, announced that Selçuk Mızraklı, the former mayor of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality, who has shared the same cell with him for the last 5 years, will be released on Tuesday, September 8. Demirtaş said of Mızraklı, "For the last five years, I was entrusted to him, and he was entrusted to me. He will leave here on Tuesday morning. Now he is entrusted to you." In his post, he also included a dialogue between him and Mızraklı regarding Melih Gökçek's entry into the courthouse chewing gum.
Selahattin Demirtaş, former co-chair of the HDP, who has been held in prison for about 10 years, announced that Selçuk Mızraklı, former co-mayor of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality, who was arrested after a trustee was appointed in his place, will be released on Tuesday, September 8.
"NOW HE IS ENTRUSTED TO YOU"
In a statement on his X account, Selahattin Demirtaş shared the news of the release of Selçuk Mızraklı, who has been in prison for seven years and spent the last five years in the same cell. Demirtaş said of Mızraklı, "At 63, he is Diyarbakır's general surgeon with a heart full of love. He could only serve as mayor for four months. After that, he spent seven years in prison, guiltless, sinless, without evidence, unlawfully." He summarized his cellmate's resilience in prison with the words, "He didn't split the atom, but with his patience and will, he 'cracked' the concrete walls in seven years."
Demirtaş announced Mızraklı's release from prison with these words:
"For the last five years, I was entrusted to him, and he was entrusted to me. He will leave here on Tuesday morning and will be at Diyarbakır Airport by evening. Now he is entrusted to you."
REFERENCE TO GÖKÇEK'S 'GUM'
One of the most striking parts of Demirtaş's post was the dialogue he recounted about watching former Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Melih Gökçek enter the courthouse chewing gum on the television in their cell.
Demirtaş recounted that when the man on screen said, "I didn't jump three times like a grasshopper, but 500 times," he told Mızraklı, "Is the miracle in the gum, Hoca? You couldn't even jump once." He shared that his cellmate replied:
"No," "That's not gum he's chewing; it's human dignity. I never chewed it even once, and I never let it be chewed."
REFERENCE TO MGK DECISIONS
Shaping his message around a puzzle they solved in the cell, Demirtaş stated that for the nine-letter word "brotherhood," Mızraklı said, "Its question is harder than its answer"; he noted that Mızraklı read the question for the six-letter word "justice" as "the complementary part of human dignity that does not come even if late, and is thought to be able to come with an MGK decision." When they came to the five-letter word "WILL," Demirtaş wrote that in response to the question "What is its question?", Mızraklı replied, "It has no question," "It only has an answer."
Demirtaş concluded his statements with the words, "Dr. Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı, Diyarbakır's pure-hearted sage who served seven years in prison against four months as mayor, and will be released on Tuesday, September 8, before 'brotherhood' visits him," and the Kurdish phrase "Tû her hebî Mamoste. Her bijî. Biçe rêya te her tim vekirî be." (May you exist, teacher. Long live. Go, may your path always be open.)
HE COULD SERVE ONLY 4 MONTHS
Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı, who was elected Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Mayor with 63 percent of the vote in the 2019 local elections, was removed from office by a decision of the Ministry of Interior in his fourth month in office (August 2019), and a trustee was appointed in his place. Shortly after, he was arrested on October 22, 2019, and sent to prison.