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. Selahattin Demirtaş, HDP co-leader known as the ‘Kurdish Obama’, held with at least 11 MPs as post-coup crackdown continues

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The two joint leaders of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) have been detained along with at least 10 MPs because of their reluctance to give testimony for crimes linked to “terrorist propaganda”. The government accuses the HDP — the third largest party in Turkey's parliament with over five million votes in the last election — of being the political arm of the PKK, an accusation the party rejects. 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.
Turkish security forces begin mass arrests of pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MPs, including co-leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ. Internet access is reportedly blocked across southeastern Turkey.