Indictment into 2014 protests 'a historic opportunity' to close HDP, Bahçeli suggests

President Erdoğan visited Bahçeli at his home in Ankara on January 6 (Photo: AA)

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Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chair Devlet Bahçeli, an ally of the government, suggested that the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) should be closed based on a new indictment into the 2014 Kobanê protests, which he described as "treason."

The indictment accepted on Friday (January 8) requests aggravated life sentences for 108 people, including Selahattin Demirtaş, a former co-chair of the HDP, on more than 30 charges, including "disrupting the integrity of the nation and the state."

More than 40 people were killed in Kurdish majority eastern and southeastern provinces during the protests, which began after ISIS launched an offensive into Kobanê, a Kurdish town in northern Syria.

While the government describes the incidents as an insurgency orchestrated by the HDP upon instructions by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the HDP says most of the killed people were its members and supporters and no effective investigations were carried out into those killings.

Releasing a written statement yesterday (January 11), Bahçeli said the indictment should be considered a "historic opportunity to settle accounts with divisionism and terrorism."

MHP may apply for the closure of the HDP

He called the incidents an "ignoble insurrection" aimed at establishing an autonomous region and then the "so-called great Kurdistan."

"The HDP and other marginal terror parties, which are the puppets of the PKK/KCK, clearly violated the fourth paragraph of article 68 of the Constitution," Bahçeli said and suggested that the Court of Cassation could open a case for the closure of the HDP based on the Kobanê indictment.

The article he referred to prohibits political parties from engaging in activities against the integrity and independence of the state.

If the Court of Cassation failed to take action, the MHP would lodge a case for the closure of the HDP "when the time comes," Bahçeli further said.

According to article 100 of the Law on Political Parties, a party that has a parliamentary group can file a case for the closure of another party.

Bahçeli also accused the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and its ally Good (İYİ) Party of "aiding and abetting terrorism" for their objections to the indictment.

"One of the most savage ones of those [108 people] is the terrorist Selahattin Demirtaş, whom the CHP and the İYİ Party supported and sympathized with," he said.

HDP: Bahçeli committed a constitutional crime

In response to Bahçeli's statement, the HDP accused him of interfering with judicial independence and called on judges to take action.

Noting that the trial regarding the Kobanê incidents had not started yet, Ümit Dede, a deputy co-chair of the party responsible for legal affairs, said Bahçeli violated article 138 of the Constitution, which prohibits interfering with judicial independence and article 288 of the Turkish Penal Code, which prohibits attempting to influence judicial proceedings.

"While the government is continuing to commit a crime by not implementing the [ECtHR] decision about our former co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, these statements are to challenge the universal law," he said in a written statement. "Bahçeli's delusions about the HDP and Demirtaş, which reaches a level of committing a constitutional crime, is an indication of their fear."

"Because of Bahçeli's statement that puts pressure on and gives instructions to the judiciary is a constitutional and legal crime, we call the judiciary for duty.

"We also call on the minister of justice and the parliamentary speaker to lay claim to democracy and the will of the parliament and take a stance against this attitude, which qualifies as an instruction to the judiciary." (EKN/VK)