TURKEY’S opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has called for international solidarity before a trial which has been described as the most important in modern Turkish history opens on Monday.

The HDP, whose 55 MPs make it the third-largest force in the Turkish parliament, is under serious pressure, with 108 leading figures, including former co-chairs Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas, facing life imprisonment on a number of charges.

They have been indicted on 37 counts of murder in the so-called Kobani case, being blamed for calling street protests over government inaction when Isis were holding the largely Kurdish city in northern Syria under siege in 2014.