Armed attack on pro-Kurdish HDP as Turkey detains lawmaker
ANKARA, Turkey (Kurdistan24) - Turkey detained yet another pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker, Nimetullah Erdogmus on late Thursday night, as the party's headquarters in Ankara came under fire by a gunman.
Ankara anti-terror police units arrested Erdogmus as he was leaving the Parliament, said his colleague Filiz Kerestecioglu of Istanbul on Twitter.
Erdogmus who represents a Diyarbakir constituency was subsequently taken to hospital for a health check before interrogation by a prosecutor, reported Kurdistan24 Bureau at the Turkish capital.
A retired Muslim cleric, he was the leading figure in 2011 "civil Friday prayers" in several Kurdish provinces as a part of a civil disobedience campaign organized by a now-dissolved, HDP sister Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).
The HDP said Erdogmus was detained in a probe related to the prayers.
A constitutionally secular country, Turkey has a Directorate of Religious Affairs, a state-funded institution solely devoted to Sunni Islamic affairs including paying wages for imams, running mosques and deciding the content of Friday sermons read nationwide.
Erdogmus arrest followed the armed attack at midnight on HDP headquarters in central Cankaya district in which the attacker fired at least four shots.
Ankara police later at night caught the suspect identified as A.T.G who used a pump rifle, according to the government-run Anadolu Agency.
HDP spokesperson Ayhan Bilgen held President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rhetoric responsible for the attack, saying he instigated the gunman his Wednesday declaration of "a national mobilization" against terror.
Turkey's leadership accuse the HDP of being the political wing of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has been fighting government troops for decades over repressed Kurdish rights.
There are already 12 HDP lawmakers, including the party's co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, accused of separatism and disseminating propaganda "on behalf of a terror group" held in pre-trial imprisonment since early November.
Editing by Ava Homa