'HDP Youth Assembly Members Tortured in Detention'

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Detained in police raids in several cities, 36 members of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Youth Assembly have been held at the İstanbul Security Directorate for six days.

The HDP İstanbul Provincial Organization said today (November 13) in a statement that they have been tortured in detention, according to Gülay Alabuga, a member of the HDP İstanbul Provincial Assembly. They have been subjected to "naked search and beating," she said.

"The hostile approach of the police at the time of detention turned to imposing a naked search during the placement into the cells and subsequently to assault and torture," Alabuga added.

The 36 people were detained because of chanting anti-war slogans at the HDP İstanbul 3rd Ordinary Congress, Alabuga noted.

"The AKP-MHP bloc's unlawful and arbitrary policies of repression have been replaced by systematic torture practices," she said, referring to the alliance between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Alabuga said torture should end and the detained HDP members should be released.

Ayşe Acar Başaran, an HDP MP and the spokesperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Law and Human Rights, also called the government to "end the crime of torture."

"They began a hunger strike against torture, ill-treatment and degrading treatment," she said.

HDP members arrested for hosting families of prisoners

Four members and executives of the HDP were arrested over hosting the families of the prisoners in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri, Başaran stated.

HDP members arrested in mostly Kurdish-populated provinces were transferred to a prison in Kayseri, which is hundreds of kilometers away from their region.

"The AKP government, which kidnaps the prisoners to distant cities and punishes families, is also trying to break the social solidarity with the families," Başaran said. (AS/VK)