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Armenian-Turkish lawmaker targeted as Erdogan courts far-right

Ethnic Armenian lawmaker Garo Paylan is facing charges of "insulting the Turkish nation" and its president as Turkish prosecutors work to revoke his parliamentary immunity from prosecution.
Garo Paylan, newly elected Armenian lawmaker from the Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), greets supporters during a gathering to celebrate the party's victory during the parliamentary election, in Istanbul, Turkey, June 8, 2015. A record number of women, together with Christians, ethnic Kurds and Armenians, are set to enter Turkey's parliament after Sunday's election, a huge shift for a country that has long viewed demands for diversity as a threat to national unity. A total of 97 female lawmakers

Turkish prosecutors are seeking to lift the parliamentary immunity of an ethnic Armenian lawmaker in order to prosecute and potentially jail him, marking a further escalation of the government’s assault on free expression.

Prosecutors in Ankara have invoked Article 301, which criminalizes insulting the Turkish nation, and Article 299, which penalizes insulting the Turkish president, against Garo Paylan of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the largest pro-Kurdish bloc in the Turkish parliament.

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