Turkey’s parliament broke another chip off the country’s largest pro-Kurdish bloc today, stripping two of its lawmakers of their seats over absenteeism. The move against Turkey’s third-largest party marks a first in the chamber’s history.
Tugba Hezer Ozturk and Faysal Sariyildiz of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lost their seats for failing to attend any parliamentary sessions since October 2016. Hezer, from Van province on the Iranian border, and Sariyildiz, from Sirnak on the Iraqi border, face a panoply of charges surrounding their alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Both are believed to be in Europe.
Ozturk lost her seat by a vote of 324-20 and Sariyildiz by 328-29. The bulk of the ayes would have come from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which holds 317 seats, and the balance from the far-right Nationalist Action Party, the AKP’s de facto coalition partner.
In February, the parliament stripped former HDP Co-chair Figen Yuksekdag and fellow HDP lawmaker Nursel Aydogan of their seats, also over alleged ties to the PKK. Yuksekdag is currently in prison together with 10 other HDP members of parliament, including the party’s magnetic Co-chair Selahattin Demirtas. Some 79 mayors belonging to the Democratic Regions Party, an HDP affiliate, are also in jail on assorted terror charges.
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