[3] In November 1998, after Italy refused to extradite Abdullah Öcalan to Turkey, he was detained together with dozens of other HADEP members and accused for having supported a country wide hunger strike in opposition to the Turkish approach towards the Kurdish Turkish conflict[6] In the same month he was arrested and sentenced to a prison term of one year for speeches he held in 1993.

[6] Several Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom around Jeremy Corbyn condemned the arrest, noting that Bozlak has only pursued a negotiated solution to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.

[3] He reassumed the presidency during the 4th party congress in November 2000, after Demir was sentenced to 10 months in prison for terrorist propaganda.

[10] The HADEP was closed down by the Turkish constitutional court in October 2003[11] and Bozlak was banned from politics for five years.

[13] He maintained that Kurdistan was separated into four parts after World War I and included into a "national-colonial system" and reserved for the Kurds the right for "self-determination".