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Top Turkish Prosecutor Files Case to Close Pro-Kurdish HDP

Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Omer Gergerlioglu and the other lawmakers from his party hold a protest after the Turkish parliament stripped him of his MP status during a session at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey March 17, 2021. (Reuters)
Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Omer Gergerlioglu and the other lawmakers from his party hold a protest after the Turkish parliament stripped him of his MP status during a session at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey March 17, 2021. (Reuters)
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Top Turkish Prosecutor Files Case to Close Pro-Kurdish HDP

Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Omer Gergerlioglu and the other lawmakers from his party hold a protest after the Turkish parliament stripped him of his MP status during a session at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey March 17, 2021. (Reuters)
Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Omer Gergerlioglu and the other lawmakers from his party hold a protest after the Turkish parliament stripped him of his MP status during a session at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey March 17, 2021. (Reuters)

A top Turkish prosecutor filed a case with the constitutional court on Wednesday demanding the closure of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) party, in the culmination of a years-long clampdown on parliament’s third largest party.

Turkey has a long history of shutting down political parties which it regards as a threat and has in the past banned a series of other pro-Kurdish parties.

The HDP had recently come under intensified pressure, with nationalist allies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party (AKP) calling for it to be banned over alleged ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group.

That has coincided with falling poll support for the AKP and its nationalist allies as Erdogan’s government battles the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

The embattled lira extended losses on concerns about the political impact of the move, weakening 2% to 7.64 against the dollar.

“(The HDP) move together with the PKK terrorist group and other linked organizations, they act as a branch of the organization with the aim of breaking the unity of the state,” appeals court chief prosecutor Bekir Sahin said in a statement.

The HDP, which has 55 seats in the 600-member parliament, denies any links to the militants.

The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. It has fought an insurgency against the state in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey since 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Captives killed in Iraq
Earlier on Wednesday Turkey’s parliament stripped prominent HDP deputy and human rights advocate Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his seat over a criminal conviction for spreading “terrorist propaganda” in a social media post.

The HDP says Gergerlioglu, who received a 2-1/2 year jail sentence, was punished for sharing on Twitter the link to a news story that included comments from the PKK.

Pressure on the HDP has grown since Turkey said 13 captives, including Turkish military and police personnel, were executed by PKK militants in Iraq during a failed Turkish military operation to rescue them last month.

Authorities have jailed or unseated many HDP lawmakers, mayors and officials in recent years, fueling concerns about the human rights situation in Turkey.

This month Erdogan announced a plan to strengthen rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression, but his critics say it is just a public relations exercise.

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UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
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UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)

More than 14 million children did not receive a single vaccine last year — about the same number as the year before — according to UN health officials. Nine countries accounted for more than half of those unprotected children.

In their annual estimate of global vaccine coverage, released Tuesday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said about 89% of children under one year old got a first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2024, the same as in 2023. About 85% completed the three-dose series, up from 84% in 2023.

Officials acknowledged, however, that the collapse of international aid this year will make it more difficult to reduce the number of unprotected children.

In January, US President Trump withdrew the country from the WHO, froze nearly all humanitarian aid and later moved to close the US AID Agency. And last month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it was pulling the billions of dollars the US had previously pledged to the vaccines alliance Gavi, saying the group had “ignored the science.”

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has previously raised questions the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine, which has proven to be safe and effective after years of study and real-world use. Vaccines prevent 3.5 million to 5 million deaths a year, according to UN estimates.

“Drastic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threaten to unwind decades of progress,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

UN experts said that access to vaccines remained “deeply unequal” and that conflict and humanitarian crises quickly unraveled progress; Sudan had the lowest reported coverage against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

The data showed that nine countries accounted for 52% of all children who missed out on immunizations entirely: Nigeria, India, Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola.

WHO and UNICEF said that coverage against measles rose slightly, with 76% of children worldwide receiving both vaccine doses. But experts say measles vaccine rates need to reach 95% to prevent outbreaks of the extremely contagious disease. WHO noted that 60 countries reported big measles outbreaks last year.

The US is now having its worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, while the disease has also surged across Europe, with 125,000 cases in 2024 — twice as many as the previous year, according to WHO.

Last week, British authorities reported a child died of measles in a Liverpool hospital. Health officials said that despite years of efforts to raise awareness, only about 84% of children in the UK are protected.

“It is hugely concerning, but not at all surprising, that we are continuing to see outbreaks of measles,” said Helen Bradford, a professor of children’s health at University College London.

“The only way to stop measles spreading is with vaccination,” she said in a statement. “It is never too late to be vaccinated — even as an adult.”