MilletPress
January 3, 2015
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Following request by AK party leaders, Turkey’s parliament will set up a committee to consider lifting the immunity of two leaders of the main Kurdish party so they can be tried over their call for autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan as solution to end violence, the pro-government Sabah daily said Sunday.
The report came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag — the co-leaders of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) — should have their parliamentary immunity removed for committing a “constitutional crime”.
Sabah said that the parliamentary justice commission would form a sub-committee to discuss the issue before putting it to the general chamber.
A simple majority to strip the two MPs of their immunity would suffice in parliament, where the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) holds more than half the seats, it added.
Turkish prosecutors last week opened a criminal probe against Demirtas for his comments at a conference and then opened a similar investigation against Yuksekdag.
Turkish state still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds numbering to 25 million of the country’s 78-million population, The Kurds demand an autonomy within Turkey.
On December 27, the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), an association of Kurdish political organisations, released a declaration calling for self-rule in Turkish Kurdistan, the country’s Kurdish region in the southeast.
“The rightful resistance waged by our people against the policies that undermine the Kurdish problem, is essentially a demand and struggle for local self-governance and local democracy,” the 14-article declaration said.
Demirtas said last weekend that the Kurdish minority in Turkey had to decide whether to live in autonomy or “under one man’s tyranny”, in an apparent reference to Erdogan.
Demirtas meanwhile hit out at Erdogan’s comments, accusing the Turkish strongman of “giving out verdicts like the supreme court”, the Dogan news agency reported.
The probe comes amid rising tension between the authorities and many in the Kurdish minority over the military’s relentless campaign — backed by curfews — against rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkish Kurdistan.
Several pro-Kurdish mayors in towns throughout the southeast have already been investigated since the summer on similar charges.
According to pro-Kurdish media, 36 Kurdish mayors are currently being prosecuted with half of them in custody.
Turkish authorities violate freedom of expression, journalism and human right in the country amid international silence.