Turkey to extend state of emergency for fifth time

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Ankara is to extend a state of emergency in place since last year for the fifth time, said an official from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Friday.

Head of AKP's parliamentary group Mustafa Elitas said a motion by the Prime Ministry is to be presented to the assembly after a national security council meeting next week, reported Kurdistan 24's Turkish language service.

Lawmakers from the AKP and its far-right ally in the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are expected to support the bill that would extend the state of emergency by another three months, a practice President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government repeated since the 2016 failed military coup attempt.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) that view Erdogan as an increasingly authoritarian leader have opposed previous extensions.

Erdogan government's main argument for the state of emergency has been resisting 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 a 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 one hundred thousand civil servants and ordered the closure of hundreds of media outlets, NGOs, cultural centers, private schools, and hospitals over the allegations of having ties to "terrorist" groups detrimental to national security.

There are also over 160 journalists, and media workers behind bars as the co-leader of 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 Ava Homa