Turkey extends state of emergency hours after Erdogan announces snap elections

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Turkish Parliament on Wednesday extended, for the seventh time, a state of emergency in place since the July 2016 coup attempt for another three months.

A proposal by the Prime Ministry for the extension was approved by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party-dominated assembly (AKP) hours after he called for snap presidential and general elections in late June.

The country’s National Security Council had a day earlier recommended to keep the state of emergency in place, the same day an annual European Union (EU) report on Turkey’s progress urged its lifting “without delay.”

Over the weekend, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) had held sit-ins in all 81 provincial cities across the country in protest of the suspension and curtailing of basic liberties and what they view as increasing authoritarianism by Erdogan.

Lawmakers from the AKP and its far-right ally in the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have strongly backed all the extensions so far.

During a parliamentary session, Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Filiz Kerestecioglu said that heading to polls under the state of emergency was a sign of “weakness” by the right-wing alliance of AKP-MHP led by the President.

HDP’s Spokesperson Ayhan Bilgen told reporters the government and its allies were trying “to save themselves” and consolidate a “one-man regime.”

CHP demanded an end to the state of emergency, arguing free and fair elections could not be held under the current rule.

The Erdogan administration’s main argument for the state of emergency is its fight with the US-based Turkish Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen’s movement which it accuses of masterminding the botched coup via followers within the army.

Ankara also cites its security concerns regarding the decades-long guerrilla warfare by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for a form of self-governance in the Kurdish-majority provinces to the east and south.

Under a state of emergency, the President, empowered by a constitutional reform package narrowly approved by voters in a referendum last April, can bypass the Parliament in enacting new decrees.

The decrees have since last year purged over 100,000 civil servants and ordered the closure of hundreds of media outlets, NGOs, cultural centers, private schools, and hospitals over allegations of having ties to “terrorist” groups detrimental to national security.

There are also over 160 journalists, and media workers behind bars as co-leader of the HDP Selahattin Demirtas remains jailed along with nine other lawmakers from his party.

The Council of Europe (CoE), and international rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have previously called on Ankara to end the state of emergency, citing grave rights violations, including allegations of torture in prisons and abuses of state power by officials.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany