Court releases hunger-striking Kurdish MP

A Turkish court has ordered the release of a Kurdish MP who has been on hunger strike for nearly 80 days.

Leyla Guven, 55, launched a hunger strike on November 8 in protest at the prison conditions for Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and her deteriorating health has sparked concerns and rallies to support her cause.

The MP will be monitored after she is freed, the court in Diyarbakir in the Kurdish majority southeast said, although few further details of the terms of her release are yet available.

She has been in jail for a year following critical remarks about Turkey's military operation in the predominantly Kurdish town of Afrin in northern Syria.

Her daughter, Sabiha Temizkan, posted a note on Twitter saying she had been freed.

Few details of the release have been made available and it is unclear whether Guven is already out of prison.

Guven is both an MP for the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) and the co-leader of Democratic Society Congress - an assembly of representatives from civil society organizations, political parties, lawyers and human rights defenders.

The Turkish government accuses the Congress of being linked to the militant Kurdish PKK group, which has waged an insurgency in Turkey for more than three decades, costing more than 40,000 lives.

Since 8 November, Guven has consumed only sugary and salty liquids and a complex of B vitamins.

She was suffering from nausea, fever, severe headaches, insomnia, and unstable blood pressure.

Thousands of people attended a rally last weekend in Diyarbakir in support of Guven. More than 250 political prisoners started their own, indefinite hunger strike in solidarity.

Guven's hunger strike was predominantly to demand an end to the isolation of Abdullah Ocalan.

Guven's hunger strike was aimed at pressuring the government into allowing lawyers and family members to visit PKK leader Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence on an island prison near Istanbul since his capture in 1999.