TURKEY’S opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) vowed to continue the resistance against a “political coup” as it marked five years since the mass arrests of leading party members today.

“We are resisting inside and outside in all areas of life against the ongoing political coup against the will of the people,” a party statement said.

According to the statement, the state targeted the HDP as the party stood in the way of plans to “institutionalise fascism in Turkey,” but insisted the struggle for freedom and democracy would continue.

“They [the government] will lose, we will win,” it added in a defiant message. “Our party stands tall and continues to be a hope for all the peoples of Turkey.”

Rallies took place across the country marking the anti-democratic move made by Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in November 2016, part of a crackdown following that summer’s failed army coup against him.

They demanded the release of all political prisoners, including the former party co-chair’s Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that Mr Demirtas’s continued imprisonment was unlawful. 

But Turkey has simply dismissed the judgment, insisting that it does not apply to the HDP’s former presidential candidate, as he faces terror charges.

Despite numerous pleas, the Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a member state, has failed to act, while other bodies have raised “concerns” and issued statements with no concrete measures.

He said the situation was “not cruelty for us, but for the people we represent,” adding: “Our comrades will be killed, they will be massacred, but there will be no investigation and their political representatives who voice their concerns will be put on trial.”

Mr Demirtas’s wife Basak remained upbeat and said that justice would prevail.

“Despite everything, we never lost hope during these five years,” she said in a video message.

HDP co-chair Mithat Sancar said the party is the will of the people and is the party “of hope, of equality, and of a democratic future and freedom” for Turkey.

He was responding to comments made by Iyi Party leader Meral Aksenar, who on Wednesday said the HDP must distance itself from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The Turkish state accuses the party of the link to associate it with terrorism.

Some 20,000 party members and supporters have been detained since 2016, 10,000 of whom have been jailed. 

More than 200 councillors, mayors and MPs are in prison, while a bid has been made to close the party down on grounds of its links to proscribed organisations.

The so-called Kobani case, currently underway, seeks multiple life sentences for 108 leading HDP cadres on a range of charges including homicide and disrupting the unity of the state.

They are accused of causing the deaths of 37 people after calling for protests over government inaction when Isis held the largely Kurdish city of Kobani, northern Syria, under siege in 2014.