Turkey crackdown on Kurdish politicians continues
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – An ongoing Turkish crackdown on the two pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and Democratic Regions Party (DBP) continued on Monday and Tuesday with arrests of lawmakers and the seizure of one municipality.
On Tuesday, the Turkish Interior Ministry removed the elected Co-mayor of the town of Karakocan (Dep in Kurdish) Burhan Kocaman of the DBP and appointed the local sub-governor as a trustee to run municipal affairs.
The announcement came from the website of the Ankara-appointed governor of the Kurdish-majority Elazig Province some 150 kilometers (93 miles) northwest of Diyarbakir where Karakocan is located.
Kocaman had already been in prison since September 2016 on the grounds of “disseminating propaganda on behalf” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Moreover, a court last week sentenced him to three years of imprisonment for appointing a member of his municipal council as the co-mayor.
Karakocan is one of a dozen DBP-run municipalities the Turkish government had seized since the beginning of the new year.
According to DBP’s sister party HDP, there are 78 elected Kurdish mayors, including those of the major cities of Van, Mardin, and Diyarbakir in prison.
Meanwhile, police and courts in Diyarbakir continued going after HDP lawmakers on Monday shortly after the release from prison of the party’s head of parliamentary group Idris Baluken.
Kurdistan24 Diyarbakir Bureau said police arrested HDP Spokesperson Ayhan Bilgen and MP Meral Danis Bestas again hours after their release from an earlier detention.
A court referred Bestas to prison for the pre-trial duration as the interrogation of Bilgen by a public prosecutor went on.
Earlier in the day, two other MPs Nadir Yildirim and Lezgin Botan were arrested then released.
Co-leaders of HDP Selahattin Demirtas, Figen Yuksekdag, as well as eight other lawmakers remain jailed as Turkey prepares for a referendum on a parliament-approved bill meant to give unprecedented powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany