Turkey expels three opposition MPs, arrests them on terrorism charges
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Roshan Amiri
- . October 18, 2021
- . Update: June 6, 2020 7:32 pm
While the HDP leaders were charged and convicted for close links with the banned Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK), Berberoğlu is a journalist who was sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison for sharing a video that showed the National Intelligence Agency supplying weapons to Syrian rebels in 2014. Ever since the failed 2016 coup, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has been frequently using emergency powers and anti-terrorism laws to crackdown on detractors. Opposition
parties and civil society actors in the country have criticised the latest move
as one that will weaken democracy and further entrench the autocratic powers of
the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Opposition MPs shouted slogans
calling the ruling government fascist, “putschist,” and “the enemy of
democracy”. They say it is an effort to shift the public’s focus away from the
economic woes and rising unemployment in the country. The
arrests, particularly those targeting the HDP, is seen to be strategic. The
party had recently asked for an account of the government’s expenses in the war
in Libya and warned that it should concentrate more on the domestic troubles.
Cornering the pro-Kurdish party like this is expected to push it to take a more
hardline approach that would make allying with it in the electoral battlefield
unappealing to other parties. In view of the government’s falling popularity with the public, political observers are expecting that it would call a snap election in order to hold on to its 18-year-old rule. Seen in this light, these arrests have probably been made in order to weaken opposition forces and stop them from coming together against the ruling party, according to analysts. In fact, just prior to this, there was a plan by the members of the opposition to start a campaign across Turkey’s hardest-hit cities in order to reach out to the public and listen to their views. The move has been seen as a precursor to possible snap elections, in which the ruling party hopes to contest a weakened opposition. Related News: Turkey announces new oil exploration plans
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