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Top Turkish court accepts revised indictment to ban pro-Kurdish party

Turkey’s Constitutional Court on Monday accepted a case seeking the closure of the nation’s second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), after a top prosecutor revised and resubmitted an indictment alleging members collude with terrorists.

A man holds HDP flags as members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) take part in a protest against the detention of HDP members, in Istanbul, on Sept. 25, 2020.
A man holds HDP flags as members of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) take part in a protest against the detention of HDP members, in Istanbul, on Sept. 25, 2020. — YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), faces a closure threat once more after the nation’s Constitutional Court accepted an indictment seeking to ban hundreds of members from holding political office on terror-related charges.

The original version of the indictment was filed earlier this year and rejected on procedural grounds. On June 7, Turkey’s Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation Bekir Sahin resubmitted a revised document, which judges in the nation’s top court unanimously accepted on Monday, opening the way for a trial that could shutter the HDP in the coming months.

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