Turkey arrests then release four Kurdish lawmakers in a day

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Turkish authorities on Wednesday arrested and later released four pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers at different times during the day in Istanbul and Diyarbakir.

First, opposition HDP member Mehmet Emin Adiyaman of the Igdir province announced in the morning hours on Twitter that police detained him from his house in Istanbul.

Taken to the Caglayan Courthouse in Istanbul to be interrogated by an Ankara heavy penal court via teleconference, he was set free seven hours later with a ban to travel abroad and an upcoming trial on March 2, he said on his social media account.

Adiyaman was arrested then released before on December 19, in the city of Gaziantep with charges of disseminating propaganda on behalf of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

In Diyarbakir, meanwhile, police arrested MP Imam Tascier while he was getting out of his home.

A prosecutor accused Tascier, who was released several hours later, of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reported Kurdistan24 Diyarbakir Bureau.

Tascier too was formerly arrested in early November when Turkish authorities clamped down on the HDP, detaining its Co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag as well as ten other lawmakers during house raids at night

At the courthouse where a prosecutor interrogated Tascier, police arrested two other HDP MPs, Osman Baydemir, and Ahmet Yildirim while they were watching a trial.

Baydemir and Yildirim were detained then released after questioning as suspects in the ongoing Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) trials that began in 2009.

Currently, eleven HDP lawmakers including its co-leaders remain in various prisons across Turkey on charges of separatism and terrorism as Turkey prepares to go for a referendum in coming months whether to transfer critical parliamentary powers to President Erdogan.

Editing by Ava Homa