Turkey Closing Second-Largest Opposition Party?
by Uzay Bulut • January 17, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Turkey's Constitutional Court is currently in the process of deciding whether to close the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which has 56 Members of Parliament, many of whom are already incarcerated. If closed, the HDP will be the eighth pro-Kurdish party in Turkey to be removed from the legislative process.
Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton strongly recommends that if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his AKP Party corrupt the electoral process in the upcoming elections -- on the heels of other malign actions -- Turkey should be removed from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Since 2015, HDP members and activists have been constantly subjected to detention and arrest.... Democratically elected Kurdish mayors, deputy mayors, municipal council- and staff-members of the HDP and its sister party, DBP (Democratic Regions Party), have also been suspended, dismissed or arrested for alleged terrorism-related offenses. They were then replaced by government-appointed trustees.
"Key to the government's strategy is Anti-Terrorism Law No. 3713, which is used to fully restrict rights and freedoms and silence the voices of human rights defenders. The excessively vague and broad definition of terrorism in the law allows to label peaceful human rights defenders as 'terrorist offenders'." — The World Organisation Against Torture, 2022.
According to a report authored by the Council of Europe and the University of Lausanne, Turkey has the largest population of inmates convicted for terrorism-related offenses. The report, updated in April 2021, shows that at the time there were a total of 30,524 inmates in COE member states who were sentenced for terrorism; of those, 29,827 were in Turkish prisons.
"Vague formulation of the criminal provisions on the security of the state and terrorism and their overly broad interpretation by Turkish judges and prosecutors make all critics, particularly lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, and rival politicians, a potential victim of judicial harassment. This indistinct area under the Turkish Penal code is actively used by the Turkish government to investigate, prosecute and convict opponents." — Arrested Lawyers Initiative report, 2021.
In Turkey, "the rule of law has been virtually destroyed." — Turkish Human Rights Association, December 12, 2022.
"Banning the HDP will further disenfranchise the millions of Kurds in Turkey who demand equal civil, political and cultural rights for their community.... Erdogan has already deprived millions of HDP voters of the democratically elected representation to which they are entitled under domestic and international law... [S]hutting Kurds out of politics at this crucial time may fuel conflict, as they will be deprived of peaceful avenues through which to demand their rights." — Meghan Bodette, Director of Research of the Kurdish Peace Institute, January 2023.
Through the closure of the HDP, Erdogan's state authorities show that they are once again willing and able to overturn election results.
An election that bans the HDP from participation will be an illegitimate one and will be a death declaration of whatever crumbs are left of the so-called Turkish "democracy."
Turkey's Constitutional Court is currently in the process of deciding whether to close the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which has 56 Members of Parliament, many of whom are already incarcerated.
If closed, the HDP will be the eighth pro-Kurdish party in Turkey to be removed from the legislative process.
Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton strongly recommends that if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his AKP Party corrupt the electoral process in the upcoming elections -- on the heels of other malign actions -- Turkey should be removed from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), based on "the international law principle of rebus sic stantibus – 'as things now stand'...", because "Mr. Erdogan hasn't been behaving like an ally."
