Security

Kurdish Islamic party's headquarters attacked in Adana, one member killed

Huda-Par Provincial Chairman Salih Demir was injured in the attack, while Provincial Secretary Sacit Pişgin succumbed to the injuries he sustained from the knife attack.

Kurdistan 24 2023/07/22 21:52

The headquarters of Huda-Par in Adana. (Photo: Anadolu Agency)

Turkey Adana Free Cause Party AKP

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Huda-Par (Free Cause Party) announced in a statement on Saturday that a man attacked their headquarters in the southern Turkish city of Adana with a knife, injuring one member and killing another.

Huda-Par Provincial Chairman Salih Demir was injured in the attack, while Provincial Secretary Sacit Pişgin succumbed to the injuries he sustained from the knife attack.

The attacker was arrested afterwards and an investigation is currently underway, the Turkish Interior Ministry announced.

Meanwhile, Huda-Par Deputy Chairman Khalaf Yilmaz revealed to Turkish media that the attack took place during evening prayers when they were in the mosque at the party’s headquarters.

Furthermore, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) condemned the attack and confirmed that the investigation results will soon be announced. The Huda-Par is one of the parties in the AKP-led coalition, whose candidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the presidential election in May. The party had several candidates within the AKP list in the parliamentary elections, which won 268 seats.

The Huda-Par is a politically-active Kurdish-Islamic party in Turkey, led by Zekeriya Yapicioglu. The party has been linked to the Kurdish Hezbollah, a Sunni Islamist group separate from the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah. In the 1990s, the Kurdish Hezbollah was implicated in extrajudicial killings, and Kurdish activists accused the government of utilizing this Islamist group in its conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).