Politics

Turkey detains over 200 pro-Kurdish HDP officials

Turkish authorities on Monday arrested 235 people, most of them pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) officials and members, in a wave of detentions across the country.

Ari Khalidi 2016/12/12 13:50

middle east HDP Turkey

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Turkish authorities on Monday arrested 235 people, most of them pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) officials and members, in a wave of detentions across the country.

Police units raided HDP’s local headquarters and the houses of their respective local heads in the cities of Istanbul, Ankara, Adana, Mardin, Manisa, Hakkari, Gaziantep, Izmir, Kayseri, Siirt, Sanliurfa and Mersin, according to a press release by the Interior Ministry.

The mass detentions follow a crackdown that has seen the sacking and jailing of at least 44 elected mayors of Kurdish population centers, including HDP co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas, Figen Yuksekdag, and eight other lawmakers.

The early morning operations were conducted as part of various terror-related probes, some about the use of social media in which case the ministry said users were disseminating propaganda on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

In Istanbul, anti-terror units arrested 21 people, including the co-chairs of the HDP Dogan Erbas and Aysel Guzel.

HDP Spokesperson Ayhan Bilgen, who held a press conference in Ankara, said the police were taking revenge on his party after the Saturday Istanbul twin bombing.

Bilgen shared pictures taken after the police raid on his party’s Istanbul headquarters with reporters, showing tables, dossiers, books, and shelves upside down and thrown around.

The attack that killed 44 people was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a militant group with controversial ties to the PKK.

HDP condemned the attack on Saturday and at the Parliament on Sunday.

The largest number of arrests was in the Mediterranean city of Mersin, where police arrested 93 people, officials from the Akdeniz Municipality, HDP, and Democratic Regions Party (DBP).

46 others were still being sought, including the Akdeniz co-mayor Fazil Turk who is a member of the DBP.

The number of HDP members detained in the aftermath of the failed July 15 coup attempt was 7,432 of which 2,345 were put in jail, according to the HDP website.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany

(Kurdistan24 Ankara Bureau contributed to this report)