Top court accepts the indictment seeking closure of opposition HDP

TURKEY’S Constitutional Court has accepted an indictment seeking the closure of HDP or the Peoples’ Democratic Party for alleged ties to the PKK.

The indictment was filed by the chief public prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals and accuses the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of having ties to a designated terror organisation – the PKK.

Back in mid-March, the country’s top prosecutor filed an indictment seeking the dissolution of the HDP, accusing it of colluding with the PKK and seeking to destroy the unity of the state.

Bekir Şahin, the chief public prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals, filed the indictment at the Constitutional Court on Monday.

The indictment was then sent to the Supreme Court.

Turkish leaders have long argued that the HDP is “a little more than a front group for the terrorist PKK”.

The party’s co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ have been in prison since November 2017, accused of having links to the PKK after Parliament voted in mid-2016 to remove immunity for Turkish lawmakers.

In recent years, HDP executives and elected officials have been charged with terrorism-related offences.

On March 17, Turkey’s parliament revoked the seat of an HDP lawmaker, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, in light of a court ruling read out in Parliament.

On February 19, Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals approved the ruling on Mr Gergerlioğlu, who was sentenced to two years and six months for spreading propaganda for the PKK.

Turkey, the US and the EU recognise the PKK as a terrorist organisation.