{"id":44933,"date":"2021-03-18T11:33:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T11:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44933"},"modified":"2021-03-18T11:33:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T11:33:43","slug":"turkey-rejects-international-condemnation-over-hdp-closure-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44933","title":{"rendered":"Turkey rejects international condemnation over HDP closure case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Foreign ministry slams \u2018intervention\u2019 in response to EU and US criticism over the move to close down pro-Kurdish HDP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Turkey says international criticism of a prosecutor\u2019s case to shut down a pro-Kurdish opposition party amounted to interfering with the Turkish judiciary and called for respect for an ongoing judicial process.<\/p>\n

The case to ban<\/a> the Peoples\u2019 Democratic Party (HDP) over alleged ties to Kurdish fighters is the culmination of a years-long crackdown against Parliament\u2019s third-largest party.<\/p>\n

The Turkish move also marks the revival of a long history of Turkey banning political parties, including pro-Kurdish ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone must wait for the ruling the Constitutional Court will make in this process. Commenting on an ongoing judicial process amounts to intervention in the judiciary,\u201d Turkey\u2019s foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n

The foreign ministry statement was an apparent response to the United States and the European Union, who had criticised the move.<\/p>\n

The US Department of State said dissolving the HDP undermined democracy\u202f in Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are \u2026 monitoring the initiation of efforts to dissolve the People\u2019s Democratic Party, a decision that would unduly subvert the will of Turkish voters, further undermine democracy\u202fin Turkey, and deny millions of Turkish citizens their chosen representation,\u201d Department of State spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnapologetically (moving) towards the end of pluralism. What reaction does Turkey expect now from the European Union? A positive agenda?\u201d said Nacho Sanchez Amor, the European Parliament\u2019s rapporteur on Turkey, which is a candidate for EU membership, though accession talks have been stalled for years.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s case to close down the party came on the same day that Turkey\u2019s parliament stripped a prominent HDP deputy of his parliamentary status.<\/p>\n

Turkish President Erdogan has long portrayed the HDP as the political front of the outlawed PKK [File: Reuters]<\/figure>\n

Prosecutor\u2019s claims<\/h3>\n

Supreme Court Prosecutor Bekir Sahin, who filed the case, alleged that the HDP \u201cwas acting together with PKK terrorists and affiliated organisations, acting as an extension of such organisations\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that such activity threatened \u201cto destroy the indivisibility between the state and the people\u201d, according to Anadolu news agency.<\/p>\n

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long portrayed the HDP as the political front of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK).<\/p>\n

Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) allied with Erdogan, hailed the move: \u201cThe HDP is a criminal organisation disguised in a political cloak. It is a historic and moral duty for it to be shut and never to be reopened under another name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The HDP, which won 11.7 percent of the vote in a 2018 parliamentary election and has 55 seats in the 600-member parliament, accused Erdogan\u2019s Justice and Development Party of shaping politics through the courts. It denies any links to the fighters.<\/p>\n

The party condemned the indictment as a \u201cheavy blow to democracy\u201d and called on its supporters to resist.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call on all the democratic forces, the social and political opposition, and on our people to join a common fight against this political coup,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The PKK has fought a rebellion against the state in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey since 1984. More than 40,000 people have reportedly been killed in the conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foreign ministry slams \u2018intervention\u2019 in response to EU and US criticism over the move to close down pro-Kurdish HDP.Turkey says international criticism of a prosecutor\u2019s case to shut down a pro-Kurdish opposition party amounted to interfering with the Turkish judiciary and called for respect for an ongoing judicial process. The case to ban the Peoples\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}