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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Four provincial co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) were detained by Turkish security forces after fresh raids in Diyarbakir province on Thursday, according to the party.
“Following a long-lasting search and raid on our provincial office in Amed and Yenisehir [central district] office, our co-chairs were detained,” the HDP said in a tweet on Thursday afternoon.
Diyarbakir (Amed) office co-chairs Zeyyat Ceylan and Hulya Alokmen were taken into police custody, as well as Kasim Kaya and Remziye Sizici in Yenisehir.
The reason behind the raids is not clear but the state-owned Anadolu Agency (AA) reported that the security forces found many documents, including posters of Abdullah Ocalan leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its members.
The PKK is a Kurdish armed group fighting for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey.
Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organization and accuses the HDP of being the political wing of the group. The HDP has denied any links to the PKK but refuses to call it a terrorist organization.
Turkish security forces have conducted regular raids against the HDP in recent years, detaining and arresting scores of its members and officials. Most of them have been charged with links to the PKK.
Nine HDP parliamentarians have been detained since November 2016, according to the latest available party data, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag. At least 30 former HDP officials have also been detained. Most of them have been held on terror-related charges.
The HDP gained 65 of over a thousand municipalities in local elections held last March, but six mayor-elects were prohibited from taking office, on the grounds that they had previously been dismissed from mayorship by the government.
According to data from the HDP, 47 of the 59 mayors permitted to take office have been dismissed, then replaced with trustees appointed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) majority government.
HDP Diyarbakır lawmaker Semra Guzel said "there is no logical reason for them to search the provincial building which is kept under their surveillance for 24 hours,” referring to regular gathering of a number of parents in front of the HDP offices, claiming their children have been abducted by the PKK. The parents have called on the HDP to play a role in returning their children.
“Political conspiratory operations have been carried out against our party in various ways for a long time,” the HDP’s Women’s Council spokesperson Ayse Acar Basaran said during a press conference.
The raids “once again demonstrate that the HDP is banned from doing politics,” she added.
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