Turkey arrests pro-Kurdish party’s parliamentary candidate

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish police on Wednesday arrested a parliamentary candidate of the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party for alleged links to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Istanbul. 

Ayten Donmez, who is running for Turkey’s parliamentary elections on the ticket of the newly-established Green Left Party in Kocaeli province, was arrested in her house in Istanbul on Wednesday, for charges that include “membership in a military terrorist group” and “breaking the law regarding prevention of financing terrorism,” according to the state-owned Anadolu Agency. 

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is fielding its candidates under the Green Left Party as the former is facing a closure case at the Turkish constitutional court.

Both parties are yet to comment on the arrest.

The state media posted pictures of Donmez, wearing traditional Kurdish clothes with someone who is believed to be a member of PKK, in a mountainous background. The location and the time of the photos are unknown.

The independent news outlet, Bianet, reported that the candidate's arrest is part of a wider investigation into the activities of the pro-Kurdish party in Kurdish area. 

Turkish officials have accused the HDP of being the political wing of the PKK for years, and Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu claimed on Tuesday for the first time that the new pro-Kurdish party is affiliated to the PKK as well. 

HDP has denied any links to the PKK but it has said that the party respects the ideology of the group’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.  

This is not the first time that Kurdish politicians in Turkey have been accused of having links to the PKK for their photos with alleged members of the PKK. 

In January last year, Turkish media published photographs of HDP lawmaker Semra Guzel with a PKK fighter. She was accused of being a member of the group. The lawmaker confirmed the photographs, saying she and the fighter were college colleagues and later got engaged, adding that the pictures were taken during the short-lived peace process between the PKK and Turkey in 2013. 

She was arrested in September same year in Istanbul after going into hiding for months.   

PKK is a Kurdish armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara considers it a terrorist organization. 

Turkish police arrested at least 110 pro-Kurdish lawyers, journalists, activists and politicians, including a senior official of the HDP, on Tuesday for alleged links to the PKK ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections.