Pro-Kurdish party closed – Violence video

Turkey’s highest court has voted for a ban on the country’s largest and most successful pro-Kurdish party due to alleged links with Kurdish separatist groups.

The news caused many protesters to go on the streets.

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According to the accusations Turkey’s chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, argued that DTP (Democratic Society Party) were taking orders from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The DTP holds 21 seats in Turkey’s 550-member parliament.

The EU has expressed some concerns over the ruling on Friday. The DTP is one of many pro-Kurdish party’s to have close down recently but the it is feared the backlash of the DTP being closed down will cause severe violence especially in the eastern and south-eastern regions.

The EU’s Swedish presidency said in a statement reported by Reuters. “While strongly denouncing violence and terrorism, the presidency recalls that the dissolution of political parties is an exceptional measure that should be used with utmost restraint,”

against the indivisible unity of the state, the country and the nation”, court president Hasim Kilic told reporters.
He said DTP leaders Ahmet Turk and Aysel Tugluk had been stripped of parliamentary immunity and banned from politics for five years along with 35 other party members. Mr Kilic also added “all DTP party assets will be seized by the treasury”.

Some 40,000 people have died since the outlawed PKK launched an armed campaign in the mainly Kurdish south-east in 1984.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried to push through a package of reforms aimed at winning over the alienated Kurdish community and persuading militants to lay down their weapons.

The DTP chairman Mr Turk has reacted to the ban by saying “this decision will not help to end the 25 year long conflict, Turkey cannot resolve this problem by closing down parties”.

Kurds make up about 20% of Turkey’s population of more than 70 million.