Lawsuit filed to close pro-Kurdish party after lawmaker stripped of parliamentary seat
Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party deputy known to focus on human rights abuses, was stripped of his parliament seat and a lawsuit was filed to close the party March 17.
ISTANBUL — Amid a growing crackdown on Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a lawmaker was stripped of his parliamentary seat March 17 following a conviction for spreading terrorist propaganda in a 2016 social media post.
Later in the day, a Turkish prosecutor filed a lawsuit with Turkey’s Constitutional Court seeking to officially shutter the HDP entirely.
The Turkish parliament revoked Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu's status as an HDP deputy after a court ruled in February to uphold a 2½ year prison sentence for the lawmaker, a relentless critic of Turkey’s human rights record.
After the decision was read out in the parliament’s assembly hall, Gergerlioglu staged a sit-in with HDP deputies that he livestreamed on Periscope, saying that the move went against the will of people who voted for him and that he would not leave the building on his own accord.
