Turkey is on the point of banning the main Kurdish opposition party
The HDP’s MPs may also be barred from politics
Turkey’s biggest Kurdish party is banned from spending its own money. Its mayors, despite the fact that they have been directly elected, have been removed from city halls and replaced with caretakers appointed by the government in Ankara, the capital. The party’s former leader, Selahattin Demirtas (pictured), has been imprisoned since 2016. And now it looks as though its elected members of parliament could be expelled and the party banned, ahead of national elections that are due to be held in June. Welcome to democracy under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Taking aim at the Kurds”
From the January 14th 2023 edition
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