[2][3] KCK contract defines the highest authority of the organization in Article 11 as follows: The Founder and Leader of Kurdistan Democratic Society Confederalism is Abdullah Öcalan.

He oversees the compliance of Kongra Gel General Assembly decisions with the line of the democratic, ecological and gender freedom revolution.

Cemil Bayık and Bese Hozat took these new positions, while Karayılan was made commander-in-chief of the People's Defence Forces (HPG), the PKK's official armed wing.

[8] The Presidential Council has six members, an equal number of men and women: Cemal Bayık, Sozdar Avesta, Murat Karyılan, Mustafa Karasu, Bese Hozat and Elif Pazarcik.

As Article 21 of the KCK contract details, provincial-regional assemblies come into being in compliance with the geographical and ethno-cultural characteristics of the countries in which they operate.

[11][dead link‍][12][better source needed] The philosophy of the KCK is described in the foreword to the agreement (sözleşme) that the Kurdistan People's Congress (Kongra-Gel) accepted on 17 May 2005.

[16]The ideology of democratic confederalism draws heavily on theories of libertarian municipalism, social ecology, and Communalism developed by American anarchist and political philosopher Murray Bookchin, whose works Öcalan read and adapted for the Kurdish movement in the early 2000s while in prison.

Öcalan has even described himself as a "student" of Bookchin, and the PKK hailed the American thinker as "one of the greatest social scientists of the 20th century" when he died in 2006.

The KKK, standing for Koma Komalên Kurdistanê, was established at the Kongra-Gel's 3rd Congress in Qandil with 236 delegates in May 2005, in accordance with Öcalan's concept of democratic confederalism.

[15] In May 2007, at the 5th Congress in Qandil attended by 213 members representing the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq and abroad, the KKK's name was changed to the KCK.

[25] By July 2012, the Democratic Turkey Forum had identified 54 trials against alleged members of KCK, involving 1,818 defendants, some 800 of them in pre-trial detention.

Special heavy penal courts in various cities such as İzmir, Adana, Erzurum and Diyarbakir are conducting trials against groups from different towns.

4 of 10 November 2010 stating that the defendants should not be allowed to speak Kurdish since they had testified to the police and the arresting judge in Turkish.

Ahmet Türk, a former mayor of Mardin was sentenced to 15 months and Hatip Dicle the co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) to 9 years imprisonment.

[34] On the second day a speaker from the national TV and radio stations TRT started to read a 133-page summary of the indictment.

[35] After the 8th session Istanbul Heavy Penal Court 15 decided on a lengthy break until 1 November 2012 and ordered the release of 16 defendants, including Prof. Dr. Büşra Ersanlı [fr; tr].

[36] On 16 July 2012 Istanbul Heavy Penal Court 16 started to hear the case of 50 defendants, 46 of them lawyers and 36 of them in pre-trial detention.

[37] The 892 page indictment accuses the defendants to have formed a "committee of the leadership" (tr: Önderlik Komitesi) and asked for sentences between 7.5 and 22.5 years' imprisonment.

On 28 November 2011, İzmir Heavy Penal Court passed its verdict and sentenced 25 defendants to 6 years, 3 months' imprisonment.

[42] Frequent use of arrests instead of judicial supervision, limited access to files, failure to give detailed grounds for detention decisions and revisions of such decisions highlight the need to bring the Turkish criminal justice system into line with international standards and to amend the anti-terror legislation.

[43] The evidence against the defendants is largely based on wiretaps, surveillance of an office some of the accused frequented, intercepted email correspondence, and testimony from secret witnesses.

[44] Prosecutions brought under anti-terrorism legislation have frequently been based on secret witness testimony that cannot be examined by defense lawyers.