Turkey: Attorney General Bekir Sahin calls for ban of HDP before constitutional court

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Many supporters and representatives of the HDP are in prison - before the election, Turkish President Erdoğan hopes that the opposition party will be banned

Photo: YASIN AKGUL/ AFP

A few months before the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey, the public prosecutor's office before the Turkish constitutional court demanded that the pro-Kurdish party HDP be banned on the grounds of "terrorism".

The country's third-largest party is "organically" linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Prosecutor General Bekir Sahin said as he left the courthouse, according to the official Anadolu News Agency.

"Our whole society knows about it."

Erdoğan sees the HDP as the political arm of the PKK

The HDP, the third strongest force in the Turkish parliament, rejects the allegations.

Western countries and civil rights activists have criticized the Turkish authorities' crackdown on the party as politically motivated.

In the 2018 general election, the HDP received almost six million votes and thus 56 of the 579 seats in parliament.

Erdoğan's Islamic nationalist government has been cracking down on the party for years.

Many of their supporters and representatives are in prison.

The HDP was recently excluded from party funding.

"They operate almost like a recruiting office" for the PKK, Sahin accused the HDP.

The PKK, which is fighting the Turkish state in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq, is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey and western allies.

Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regularly accuses the left-wing opposition party HDP of being the political arm of the PKK.

If the left-wing HDP were banned, Erdoğan would sideline an important political opponent in time for the presidential and parliamentary elections, which are expected to take place before June.

The President is currently under immense pressure domestically, especially because of the extremely high inflation rate and other economic problems.

After the election, the HDP could play a central role in forming a government.

At least two-thirds of the 15 members would have to vote for the HDP to be banned by the constitutional court.

According to the HDP, it expects a decision "in the coming months, before the elections".

Last week, the constitutional court had already excluded the HDP from state party funding for the time being on charges of “connections to terrorism”, thereby depriving it of its main source of income.

muk/AFP