ISTANBUL — Lawyers for jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas called on Turkey’s judiciary to heed a high court ruling for his release from prison as they prepare to argue his case before a panel of international judges this week.

Demirtas has been behind bars since November 2016 on terrorism-related charges all stemming from political statements he made as chairman of the leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), whose base is overwhelmingly Kurdish. His case has drawn the ire of the European Union and rights groups alike for harming democratic pluralism in Turkey.

A Turkish appeals court approved Demirtas’ release last week, seemingly reversing the judiciary’s stance that has rejected 70 previous motions to set him free. The law requires Demirtas be paroled after serving the required minimum time of the single sentence he has received, calculated by including his lengthy pre-trial detention, lawyer Mahsuni Karaman told reporters at a press conference on Saturday.

The government has already refused to implement an order from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) made late last year to release the 46-year-old former human rights lawyer after finding his rights were violated by his lengthy detention and a politicized judiciary.