Pro-Kurdish party lawmaker released after brief detention

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Ousted pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) parliamentarian Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu has been released from police custody, after being arrested in Turkish parliament early Sunday morning, the MP tweeted.

Gergerlioglu was stripped of his parliamentary membership on Wednesday for a tweet he made in 2016, after being sentenced to two years and a half on February 21, 2018. He had been staging a sit-in at the parliament alongside other parliamentarians in his party since the removal.

"Nobody can turn the Turkish Grand National Assembly, the representative authority of our nation into a stage for illegal propaganda," said the speaker of parliament Mustafa Sentop in a statement published by state media outlet Anadolu Agency (AA).

"What was required in terms of law has been done," he added.

The HDP is the largest pro-Kurdish opposition party in Turkish parliament. It has been facing an increasingly severe crackdown since 2016, with the arrests of scores of its lawmakers and leaders, including former co-chair Selahattin Demirtas. Top Turkish officials have accused the HDP of being the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a claim the party denies.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly Kurds, took part in massive Newroz celebrations on Saturday and Sunday in Istanbul and the Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir (Amed) and Van, at a time where the country's top court is considering shutting down the HDP.

According to the Turkish online newspapers T24, four people were detained during the celebrations held in Istanbul's Yenikapi district for allegedly resisting police and another ten for spreading terrorist propaganda.

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