ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish authorities on Friday detained 12 pro-Kurdish members of Parliament for questioning in terror-related probes, drawing sharp concern from the United States and the European Union.

A car bombing later hit Turkey's largest Kurdish city, killing nine people. Authorities blamed the attack on Kurdish militants, but the Islamic State extremist group later claimed responsibility.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, the co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party, were among those rounded up in the middle of the night. They were later ordered held in custody pending trial on terror-related charges along with seven other legislators. The courts released three others on condition they report regularly to authorities.

The private Dogan News Agency said the two were taken to a maximum security prison in the northwestern city of Kocaeli.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, expressed concern about the arrests on Twitter, saying she had called a meeting of EU ambassadors in Ankara. Governments in Norway, Sweden and Demark summoned their Turkish ambassadors to explain the arrests.

In Washington, both the White House and the U.S. State Department expressed concern over the detentions. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the government was "deeply disturbed" by the arrests, warning that suppressing fundamental freedoms was not an antidote to terrorism.

State Department spokesman John Kirby condemned the car bomb in Diyarbakir but also expressed "deep concern" over the detentions, reminding that "when democracies pursue legal action against elected representatives, they must do so in a manner that reinforces the public's confidence in the rule of law."

Hours after the overnight detentions, there was an explosion in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, near the riot police building. Two police officers and seven civilians were killed, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said up to 100 people were wounded, though most were released after treatment.

Yildirim also said one of the assailants was "caught dead," but did not elaborate.

The U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group reported late Friday that the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency.

The Diyarbakir governor's office said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party claimed the attack, which Anadolu said was carried out with a minibus laden with a ton of explosives.

The blast created a crater near the police building and damaged several buildings and businesses nearby. Television footage showed people walking among glass and other debris near buildings with their windows blown out. Authorities imposed a temporary news blackout after the explosion, barring reports that could lead to public "fear, panic or chaos" and images showing the explosion and its aftermath.

Turkey has been plagued by a series of deadly bomb attacks in the past 18 months, carried out by Kurdish militants or Islamic State extremists.

The Workers' Party has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its allies. A fragile cease-fire collapsed in 2015 and at least 700 state security personnel and thousands of Kurdish militants have been killed since then, according to Anadolu.

Officials said the lawmakers were detained for not appearing in court to testify in ongoing terrorism-related investigations. The government accuses the People's Democratic Party -- the third-largest party in Turkey's parliament with more than 5 million votes in the last election -- of being the political arm of the Workers' Party, an accusation the parties reject.

An Interior Ministry statement said a total of 15 detention warrants were issued by the chief public prosecutors in five mainly Kurdish provinces. Two of the legislators were abroad, and authorities are still searching for one other.

"The kind of detentions of democratically elected members of parliament we are seeing in Turkey today is an assault on the right to political representation and participation for millions of voters and defies fundamental principles of any country that claims to be democratic and based on rule of law and human rights," said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Human Rights Watch's Turkey director.

Democratic Party lawmaker Adem Geveri described the detentions as a "political genocide operation," saying they "officially put an end to the functioning of Parliament in an anti-democratic and unlawful way."

"Now with the HDP removed from the political equation, they will go to an early election and establish an authoritarian Turkey without the HDP, without any democratic opposition," Geveri added, using the Turkish acronym for the People's Democratic Party.

"If you defend democracy, then you defend that those who came with elections should go with elections. Otherwise you'll butcher democracy in Turkey," he said.

Yildirim responded: "If they are elected but go hand in hand with terrorism, they of course need to be made to account."</s>Car Bomb Kills 8 In Turkey After Pro-Kurdish Legislators Detained For Questioning

Enlarge this image toggle caption ILYAS AKENGIN/AFP/Getty Images ILYAS AKENGIN/AFP/Getty Images

A car bomb in the largest majority-Kurdish city in Turkey has killed at least eight people and wounded scores more, shortly after a dozen pro-Kurdish Turkish legislators were detained by the government for questioning.

Diyarbakir is the largest city in southeast Turkey, a majority-Kurdish region. The car bomb hit Friday morning near a building used by riot police, killing both police and civilians, The Associated Press says.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said one of the assailants was "caught dead," though he did not elaborate, according to the AP.

"The Diyarbakir governor's office said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, had claimed the attack," the wire service says.

The explosion came just hours after 12 pro-Kurdish legislators in Turkey were detained by authorities. The lawmakers in custody include the two leaders of the pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP, the BBC reports.

The legislators are accused of failing to cooperate with counter-terrorism efforts and spreading propaganda for the PKK.

"Turkish politicians normally have immunity from prosecution but this was removed from the HDP and some other MPs in May," the BBC reports. "Last month, the joint mayors of Diyarbakir ... were also arrested as part of a terrorism investigation."

Enlarge this image toggle caption Ilyas Akengin/AFP/Getty Images Ilyas Akengin/AFP/Getty Images

One member of the Turkish parliament who is currently traveling abroad told the BBC the overnight crackdown "is nothing to do with procedural law, criminal law, any law whatsoever or the constitution."

Another HDP legislator told the AP the detentions "officially put an end to the functioning of Parliament" by removing the opposition.

European diplomats have expressed alarm over Friday's developments, with a spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry calling the arrests a "drastic intensification of the situation" in Turkey, the AP reports.

Turkey remains under a state of emergency, declared after the failed coup attempt this summer. It grants broad powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Meanwhile, watchdog groups in Turkey report a crackdown on Internet freedoms, the AP writes:

"The TurkeyBlocks monitoring network is reporting that access to various social media and messaging apps have been restricted as of 1:20 a.m. Friday, coinciding with the detentions of 12 pro-Kurdish politicians. "Users nationwide have been complaining about restricted access to various social media and messaging, including Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Skype. "TurkeyBlocks confirmed the restricted access, saying its monitoring probes have identified 'throttling at the ISP level as the source of the slowdowns, with the majority of Internet users affected at the time of measurement.' "Rights activists say restricting access to the Internet is aimed at preventing calls for demonstrations."

In Diyarbakir, site of Friday's explosion, Internet access had been restricted last week, the AP reports — after the arrest of the city's co-mayors.</s>People watch the damage after an explosion in southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, early Friday, Nov. 4, 2016.

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish authorities on Friday detained 12 pro-Kurdish members of Parliament for questioning in terror-related probes, drawing expressions of concern from Europe and the U.S., while a car bomb attack in the largest Kurdish city, reportedly claimed by Kurdish militants, killed nine people.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, the co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party, or HDP, were among those rounded up in the early hours. They were later ordered held in custody pending trial on terror-related charges along with three other legislators. The courts meanwhile, released three other lawmakers on condition that they report regularly to authorities.

The detentions provoked worried reactions from outside Turkey. The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, expressed concern on Twitter, saying the EU was in contact with authorities and adding that she had called a meeting of EU ambassadors in Ankara.

Tom Malinowski, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, tweeted that he was "deeply troubled" by the detentions, adding: "When taking legal action against elected reps, democracies have higher duty to justify actions & preserve confidence in justice."

Hours after the arrests, there was a large explosion in the city of Diyarbakir, near the riot police building. Two police officers and seven civilians were killed, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said up to 100 people were wounded, though most were released after treatment.

Yildirim also said one of the assailants was "caught dead," but did not provide details.

The Diyarbakir governor's office said the PKK, claimed the attack, which Anadolu said was carried out with a minibus laden with a ton of explosives.

The blast caused a large crater near the police building and damaged several buildings and businesses nearby. Television footage showed people walking among glass and other debris near buildings with windows blown out. Authorities imposed a temporary news blackout after the explosion, barring reports that could lead to public "fear, panic or chaos" and images showing the explosion and its aftermath.

Turkey has been plagued by a series of deadly bomb attacks in the past 18 months, carried out by Kurdish militants or Islamic State group extremists.

The PKK has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its allies. A fragile cease-fire collapsed in 2015 and at least 700 state security personnel and thousands of Kurdish militants have been killed since then, according to Anadolu.

It was not immediately known if the attack was in direct response to the legislators' detentions.

Officials said the lawmakers were detained for not appearing in court to testify in ongoing terrorism-related investigations. The government accuses the HDP — the third largest party in Turkey's parliament representing millions of Kurds — of being the political arm of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, an accusation the party rejects.

An Interior Ministry statement said a total of 15 detention warrants were issued by the chief public prosecutors in five mainly Kurdish provinces. Two of the legislators were determined to be abroad, and authorities are still searching for one.

"The kind of detentions of democratically elected members of parliament we are seeing in Turkey today is an assault on the right to political representation and participation for millions of voters and defies fundamental principles of any country that claims to be democratic and based on rule of law and human rights," said Human Rights Watch's Turkey director, Emma Sinclair-Webb.

HDP lawmaker Adem Geveri described the detentions as a "political genocide operation," telling The Associated Press that they "officially put an end to the functioning of Parliament in an anti-democratic and unlawful way."

"Now with the HDP removed from the political equation, they will go to an early election and establish an authoritarian Turkey without the HDP, without any democratic opposition," Geveri added.

Main opposition Republican People's Party Chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu denounced the detentions, "If you defend democracy, then you defend that those who came with elections should go with elections. Otherwise you'll butcher democracy in Turkey."

Yildirim responded: "If they are elected but go hand in hand with terrorism, they of course need to be made to account."

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other senior government officials have repeatedly called for the prosecution of pro-Kurdish lawmakers on terrorism-related charges, which was made possible after legal immunities protecting legislators from prosecution were lifted in May.

Hundreds of charges were filed against HDP lawmakers following the lifting of immunity, including "disseminating terrorist propaganda" and "membership in an armed terrorist organization."

Demirtas reacted to the lifting of immunity by saying none of his fellow party members would voluntarily appear in court to testify.

Also Friday, internet users nationwide complained about restricted access to various social media and messaging apps, including Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Skype.

The TurkeyBlocks monitoring network confirmed the restricted access, saying its probes have identified "throttling at the ISP level as the source of the slowdowns, with the majority of internet users affected at the time of measurement."

Rights activists say restricting access to the internet is aimed at preventing calls for demonstrations.

Prime Minister Yildirim said: "Occasionally one might have to resort to such precautions for the sake of security. as a precaution. Once the danger is gone, everything will return to normal."

U.S. official Malinowski tweeted that press freedom and internet access are essential to democratic and economic health, and urged Turkey "to restore information access to its citizens now."</s>CLOSE

Police close a road leading to the headquarters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, (HDP), in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Nov. 4, 2016. (Photo: Burhan Ozbilici, AP)

A huge car bomb killed at least nine people in the largest city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast region Friday, shortly after authorities detained a dozen Kurdish lawmakers in relation to a terrorism investigation.

The violence and the arrests come as Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been increasingly criticized by his NATO allies in Europe for veering toward authoritarianism and away from the democratic values they share.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said up to 100 people were also wounded in the Diyarbakir bombing, the Associated Press reported. Yildirim said two police officers, a technician and five civilians were among those killed.

The incident took place near a building used by riot police and came hours after authorities detained at least 12 pro-Kurdish legislators from the People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, for questioning in terror-related probes. The Diyarbakir governor’s office said Friday's bomb may have been planted by rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, according to the AP.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

Turkey's interior ministry said the lawmakers were arrested for not appearing in court for questioning regarding alleged terrorism and "terrorist propaganda,” according to Turkey-owned Andalou Agency. The arrests came in the form of simultaneous police raids on members' homes, together with a blackout of social media and messaging platforms including Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Prosecutors are investigating the lawmakers' role in calling supporters into the streets in October 2014, after Islamic State militants took the Syrian town of Kobani, Andalou reported. Those protests resulted in several deaths, including two police officers. The government accuses the HDP of being the political arm of the PKK, a claim the party rejects.

HDP lawmakers warned when parliament revoked members' immunity last May that they would not willingly participate in investigations, according to a statement provided by the Turkish embassy in Washington.

"The arrests are just the last step in five days of non-stop repression" against Turkey's Kurdish minority and their leaders, who represent the third-largest voting block in parliament, said Aykan Erdemir, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy.

Erdemir was referring to a series of actions ordered by Erdogan starting Oct. 29, when he issued two emergency decrees.

Those include the dismissal of 10,000 civil servants, the closing of 15 Kurdish media outlets, and the abolition of elections for university rectors or presidents, whom Erdogan will now appoint. They also allow for detainees to be held for up to six months without access to legal counsel, and remove the guarantee of attorney-client privilege. And foreigners can now be deported without a court order.

The actions came after Erdogan had already detained 37,000 people, dismissed 100,000 from government posts and shut down 170 media outlets in the aftermath of an aborted coup July 15. Turkey is also considering restoring the death penalty to its penal system, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung on Thursday.

Together with Friday's detentions, the decrees and other actions are seen as "a civilian coup," Erdemir said. "People are seeing this akin to the 1980 coup and the July 15 aborted coup in the sense that this is an illegitimate grasp of people’s democratic will."

Erdogan is playing with fire, he said.

"The more the Kurdish electorate is disenfranchised, the more Kurdish youth could turn to violence and extremism," Erdemir said. "Turkey's Kurds as of today no longer see any legitimate avenue for political participation."

A series of deadly bomb attacks have hit Turkey in the past 18 months. Turkey says some were carried out by Kurdish militants and others by the Islamic State. The PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish state, has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey and is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its allies, including the United States.

Erdogan's consolidation of power since before last summer's aborted coup has been criticized by leaders in the European Union, where Turkey has been seeking membership. Federica Mogherini, the European Union's top foreign affairs diplomat, said Friday she was "extremely worried" by the arrests and called a meeting of EU ambassadors in Ankara.

Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the EU parliament, went further.

"What happened in Turkey this morning can be added to a long list of events in which the Turkish authorities have failed to respect the rule of law and democratic principles, human rights and press freedoms," Schaake said in a statement on her web site. "It is time the EU attaches consequences to these developments."

Schaake called for the EU to freeze Turkey's membership talks "until meaningful benchmarks towards respect for the rule of law are met."

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2f0RDn8</s>The blast struck near a police station in Diyarbakir where some of the party leaders were being held in a terrorism probe. It tore the facades off buildings and firefighters were searching for people trapped by debris.

A spokesman for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), parliament's second-biggest opposition grouping, said the detention of its two leaders and at least nine other lawmakers risked triggering civil war.

Yildirim told reporters that elected officials who incite and encourage terrorism must face legal proceedings and that they were detained because they had refused to give testimony.

The arrests will heighten concern among Western allies about a deepening crackdown on dissent under President Tayyip Erdogan and about political stability in Turkey, a NATO member and a buffer between Europe and the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

The arrests, which drew swift condemnation from the European Union, come as Turkey has detained or suspended more than 110,000 officials in the wake of a failed July coup. Turkey is considering reintroducing the death penalty, and earlier this week journalists from a leading opposition newspaper were detained.

"Very bad news from Turkey. Again. Now HDP members of parliament are being detained," the European Parliament's Turkey rapporteur, Kati Piri, said on Twitter of a country that is seeking membership of the EU.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said she was "extremely worried" by the arrests and had called a meeting of EU ambassadors in Ankara.

Southeastern Turkey has been rocked by political turmoil and violence for more than a year after the collapse of a ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy.

Access was blocked to social media, including Twitter, Whatsapp, YouTube and Facebook, an internet monitoring group said, and a reporting ban was imposed on coverage of the blast. Asked about the measures, Yildirim said the situation would go back to normal "once the danger is removed".

The lira hit a new low against the dollar of 3.14 after the arrests, while the cost of insuring Turkish government debt against default hit its highest in over a month.

"The reports of increased crackdown and talk of the reintroduction of the death penalty raises concerns about the future trajectory of FDI flows and even EU accession," said Manik Narain, an emerging markets strategist at UBS in London.

Erdogan and the ruling AK Party accuse the HDP of links to the PKK, which is deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The HDP, which won more than 5 million votes in the last general election a year ago, denies direct links.

The government introduced a nationwide state of emergency after a failed military coup on July 15 which gave it broad powers to round up suspects linked to the putsch. More than 110,000 civil servants, soldiers, police, judges and other officials have been suspended or detained, as have journalists.

The authorities have also used the emergency powers to round up pro-Kurdish opposition activists and politicians, including Diyarbakir's joint mayors, who were detained late last month, and has closed all major Kurdish media outlets.

"JUDICIAL THEATER"Police raided the Ankara house of Figen Yuksekdag, HDP co-chairwoman, and Selahattin Demirtas, the party's other leader, in Diyarbakir. A court official said the prosecutor was seeking the formal arrest of Demirtas and that both he and Yuksekdag were in court after police questioning.

"I will not hesitate to be held accountable in front of a fair and impartial judiciary. There is nothing I cannot answer for," Demirtas said in a statement to the prosecutor, which was shared by HDP lawmaker Besime Konca.

"But I refuse to be an actor in this judicial theater just because it was ordered by Erdogan, whose own political past is suspicious," he said.

In a statement on Twitter, still accessible in Turkey through virtual private networks (VPN), the HDP called for the international community "to react against the Erdogan regime's coup", while party spokesman Ayhan Bilgen described the detentions as an attempt to provoke a civil war.

Police also raided and searched the party's head office in central Ankara. Police cars and armed vehicles had closed the entrances to the street of the HDP headquarters.

A group of protesters chanting slogans tried to reach the party offices, but were stopped by police before they could enter the street, a Reuters witness said.

The HDP is the third-largest party in the 550-seat Turkish parliament, with 59 seats. Parliamentarians in Turkey normally enjoy immunity from prosecution, but the immunity of many lawmakers, including HDP deputies, was lifted earlier this year.</s>The blast struck near a police station in Diyarbakir where some of the party leaders were being held in a terrorism probe. It tore the facades off buildings and firefighters were searching for people trapped by debris.

A spokesman for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), parliament's second-biggest opposition grouping, said the detention of its two leaders and at least nine other lawmakers risked triggering civil war.

Yildirim told reporters that elected officials who incite and encourage terrorism must face legal proceedings and that they were detained because they had refused to give testimony.

The arrests will heighten concern among Western allies about a deepening crackdown on dissent under President Tayyip Erdogan and about political stability in Turkey, a NATO member and a buffer between Europe and the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

The arrests, which drew swift condemnation from the European Union, come as Turkey has detained or suspended more than 110,000 officials in the wake of a failed July coup. Turkey is considering reintroducing the death penalty, and earlier this week journalists from a leading opposition newspaper were detained.

"Very bad news from Turkey. Again. Now HDP members of parliament are being detained," the European Parliament's Turkey rapporteur, Kati Piri, said on Twitter of a country that is seeking membership of the EU.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said she was "extremely worried" by the arrests and had called a meeting of EU ambassadors in Ankara.

Southeastern Turkey has been rocked by political turmoil and violence for more than a year after the collapse of a ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy.

Access was blocked to social media, including Twitter, Whatsapp, YouTube and Facebook, an internet monitoring group said, and a reporting ban was imposed on coverage of the blast. Asked about the measures, Yildirim said the situation would go back to normal "once the danger is removed".

The lira hit a new low against the dollar of 3.14 after the arrests, while the cost of insuring Turkish government debt against default hit its highest in over a month.

"The reports of increased crackdown and talk of the reintroduction of the death penalty raises concerns about the future trajectory of FDI flows and even EU accession," said Manik Narain, an emerging markets strategist at UBS in London.

Erdogan and the ruling AK Party accuse the HDP of links to the PKK, which is deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The HDP, which won more than 5 million votes in the last general election a year ago, denies direct links.

The government introduced a nationwide state of emergency after a failed military coup on July 15 which gave it broad powers to round up suspects linked to the putsch. More than 110,000 civil servants, soldiers, police, judges and other officials have been suspended or detained, as have journalists.

The authorities have also used the emergency powers to round up pro-Kurdish opposition activists and politicians, including Diyarbakir's joint mayors, who were detained late last month, and has closed all major Kurdish media outlets.

"JUDICIAL THEATER"Police raided the Ankara house of Figen Yuksekdag, HDP co-chairwoman, and Selahattin Demirtas, the party's other leader, in Diyarbakir. A court official said the prosecutor was seeking the formal arrest of Demirtas and that both he and Yuksekdag were in court after police questioning.

"I will not hesitate to be held accountable in front of a fair and impartial judiciary. There is nothing I cannot answer for," Demirtas said in a statement to the prosecutor, which was shared by HDP lawmaker Besime Konca.

"But I refuse to be an actor in this judicial theater just because it was ordered by Erdogan, whose own political past is suspicious," he said.

In a statement on Twitter, still accessible in Turkey through virtual private networks (VPN), the HDP called for the international community "to react against the Erdogan regime's coup", while party spokesman Ayhan Bilgen described the detentions as an attempt to provoke a civil war.

Police also raided and searched the party's head office in central Ankara. Police cars and armed vehicles had closed the entrances to the street of the HDP headquarters.

A group of protesters chanting slogans tried to reach the party offices, but were stopped by police before they could enter the street, a Reuters witness said.

The HDP is the third-largest party in the 550-seat Turkish parliament, with 59 seats. Parliamentarians in Turkey normally enjoy immunity from prosecution, but the immunity of many lawmakers, including HDP deputies, was lifted earlier this year.</s>Istanbul (CNN) A car bomb targeting a police station in southeastern Turkey has killed nine people, including seven civilians and two police officers, according to state-run Anadolu news agency.

Earlier on Friday morning, Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 100 people were injured in the explosion, 93 of whom have since been released from hospitals.

A large explosion hit the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast region on Friday, Anadolu news agency reported.

Turkish authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for the attack.

The bomb, which damaged cars and nearby building facades, rocked the heavily-populated Baglar district in central Diyarbakir shortly before 8 a.m. local time, the Diyarbakir provincial governor's office said in a statement.

A 30-year-old conflict between the Turkish state and militants from the PKK reignited more than a year ago in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.

The deadly explosion came just hours after more than a dozen members of parliament from a pro-Kurdish political party were detained because they failed to respond to a summons by a prosecutor, according to a statement from the Prime Minister's office.

State media reported that several politicians from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), were detained as part of a terror investigation, following raids on their homes.

The HDP, Turkey's third-largest political party, also claimed their headquarters in Ankara were raided.

Ankara has been accused of cracking down on dissidents since a coup attempt over the summer.

Anadolu reported that party leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag have now been formally arrested along with four party members. Four other people are still being detained without charges, while three others were released but remain under judicial scrutiny and face travel bans.

Demirtas tweeted late Thursday that "police officials are at my door in my Diyarbakir house [in southern Turkey] to detain me by force."

The party said in a tweet that an Internet slowdown was in effect "to prevent reactions through social media" to the arrests.

According to TurkeyBlocks, an Internet monitoring group, access to several social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp had been restricted in the country. An expert for the group said that domestic Internet providers were "throttling" or slowing connection to specific social sites, causing the blocked access.

The HDP said at a press conference in Istanbul Friday that party members have started to stage sit-in protests in front of their buildings.

Branch chief Dogan Erbas also called for a larger protest to take place on Saturday afternoon. He said the detainment goes against democracy and democratic forces in Turkey.

Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, a HDP member, added that Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had two options after the July 15 coup -- "democracy or dictatorship."

"AKP did not hesitate to bring the country [to] the edge of a civil war. What we live today is the early steps of a civil war," she said.

She added: "We will use our legitimate right of resistance. If we do not want Turkey to become Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, we should choose [to] side with democracy and liberties."

Demonstrators took to the streets to protest her detention, and riot police used water cannons to disperse them.

The PKK is identified as a terror group by Turkey, the US and the EU.

The Kurds are Turkey's largest ethnic minority. For much of the 20th century, the state oppressed this community.

Idris Baluken, a member of HDP and a member of the Turkish Parliament, said, "This is an attack on Kurdish identity and dignity. This attack is no different then any attack on Kurdish officials in the last 100 years."</s>A car bomb was believed to have caused an explosion that killed one person and wounded at least 30 others in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Friday, NTV channel said.

The attack followed the overnight arrests of 11 lawmakers from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), whose base is largely drawn from Kurds in the region, as well as leftists and progressives throughout Turkey.</s>ISTANBUL (AP) — A Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in Turkey’s southeast, following a claim by the Islamic State group for the same attack.

TAK, also known as the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, stated on its website Sunday that it conducted the suicide attack in the majority Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in response to Turkey’s “relentless oppression and attacks.”

TAK is an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.

The Friday morning explosion near a riot police building killed at least 11 people, including two police officers.

The Diyarbakir governor’s office says PKK militants were behind the attack, based on radio intelligence and has dismissed the claim of responsibility by IS militants.</s>An Istanbul court on Saturday ordered the formal arrest of nine employees of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, widening Turkey’s crackdown on dissenting voices. The arrests came hours after a bomb in the country’s southeast killed two children.

The formal arrests, which come a day after nine co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were jailed pending trial, are likely to spark more concern among Turkey’s allies about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s intolerance of dissent in the wake of a failed July 15 coup.

More than 110,000 officials, including judges, teachers, police and civil servants, have been detained or suspended following the botched coup. Erdogan’s critics say he is using the coup as a pretext to squash the opposition, while Ankara says the crackdown is necessary to root out terrorists.

The Cumhuriyet staff placed under arrest had been held earlier this week. They include Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, celebrated cartoonist Musa Kart and influential anti-Erdogan columnist Kadri Gursel — some of the most prominent names in Turkish journalism — the state-run Anadolu and private Dogan news agencies said.

The suspects are charged with links to the outlawed Kurdish militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the movement of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Erdogan for the failed coup bid. Gulen denies the accusations.

Like the nine HDP MPs, the newspaper staff will now be held behind bars ahead of a trial, a date for which has yet to be set.

The arrests have heightened concern among Western allies about the political direction of Turkey, a NATO member and a buffer between Europe and the conflicts raging in Syria and Iraq.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said she was “extremely worried” by the arrests, and raised her concerns in a telephone call with Turkey’s foreign and EU affairs ministers late on Friday. The United States, meanwhile, expressed “deep concern”.

Hours after Friday’s detentions, a car bomb killed 11 people and wounded more than 100 near a police station in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir where some of the lawmakers were being held.

The government immediately blamed the PKK for the attack, but the Amaq news agency, which is linked to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, said that its fighters were behind the bombing, the SITE Intelligence Group said. There has so far been no comment from the PKK.

In a separate attack on Saturday, at least two children were killed and four more were wounded when a bomb went off in the south-eastern province of Sirnak. According to the local governor’s office, the bomb had been planted by PKK militants. The deadly blast occurred just hours after authorities appointed a new mayor to the Sirnak municipality in a move to replace municipal officials it accuses of supporting the PKK.

Turkish authorities have also sparked controversy by slapping restrictions on social media and messaging services like WhatsApp.

Users encountered problems on Friday and Saturday loading social media and also using Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections which people often use to circumvent such restrictions. -AFP
A car bomb kills at least eight people and injures up to 100 in Diyarbakır, Turkey.