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Turkish Police Arrest Pro-Kurdish HDP Officials

Turkish police walk in front of the Metropolitan Municipality headquarters in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Reuters file photo
Turkish police walk in front of the Metropolitan Municipality headquarters in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Reuters file photo
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Turkish Police Arrest Pro-Kurdish HDP Officials

Turkish police walk in front of the Metropolitan Municipality headquarters in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Reuters file photo
Turkish police walk in front of the Metropolitan Municipality headquarters in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Reuters file photo

Turkish police detained three district heads of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and seven others in Istanbul on Friday over alleged links to militants, police said, two days after a court case began over banning the party.

Separately, Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD) co-chairman Ozturk Turkdogan was arrested by police at his home, IHD said, prompting human rights groups to call for his release. Turkdogan was then released on Friday evening, the association said.

A prosecutor filed a case with the Constitutional Court on Wednesday demanding a ban on the HDP, the culmination of a years-long crackdown against parliament’s third-largest party. The HDP called it a “political coup”.

State-owned Anadolu news agency said on Friday that police arrested the 10 people over alleged links to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants - deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. Prosecutors have ordered 12 arrested in total, including former provincial heads of the HDP, it said.

Media reports said Turkdogan was detained as part of those raids. Human Rights Watch Turkey director Emma Sinclair-Webb called for his immediate release on Twitter, addressing the country’s foreign and justice ministers.

“In Brussels you talk about dialogue with civil society but the reality at home is dawn raids and arrest of human rights defenders,” she said.

European Council President Charles Michel is scheduled to hold a video conference with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen on Friday. EU leaders are then due to discuss strained ties with Turkey at a summit next week.

Police in Istanbul staged raids in four areas and detained two top HDP officials in the district of Kagithane as well as its Besiktas district head among 15 suspects sought, the city’s police headquarters said.

Erdogan unveiled a “human rights action plan” this month, saying Ankara would strengthen the right to a fair trial and the right of freedom of expression. Critics say the plan fails to tackle an erosion of human rights in the country, however

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At Least 13 People Killed in Pakistani Strikes on Suspected Militant Hideouts in Afghanistan

In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
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At Least 13 People Killed in Pakistani Strikes on Suspected Militant Hideouts in Afghanistan

In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)

Local Afghans and the Pakistani Taliban said Wednesday that civilians, including women and children, were killed after Pakistan launched rare airstrikes inside neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistani security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told The Associated Press that Tuesday's operation was to dismantle a training facility and kill insurgents in the province of Paktika, bordering Afghanistan.
Residents in the area told an AP reporter over the phone that at least 13 people were left dead, adding that the death toll could be higher. They also said the wounded were transported to a local hospital.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed that 50 people, including 27 women and children, have died in the strikes.
Pakistan has not commented on the strikes. However, on Wednesday, the Pakistani military said security forces killed 13 insurgents in an overnight intelligence-based operation in South Waziristan, a district located along eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The strikes are likely to further spike tensions between the two countries. Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government denounced the attack, saying on Tuesday that most of the victims were refugees from the Waziristan region and promising retaliation.
The TTP is a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
In March, Pakistan said intelligence-based strikes took place in the border regions inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan has seen innumerable militant attacks in the past two decades but there has been an uptick in recent months. The latest was this weekend when at least 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed when TTP attacked a checkpoint in the country’s northwest.
Pakistani officials have accused the Taliban of not doing enough to combat militant activity across the shared border, a charge the Afghan Taliban government denies, saying it does not allow anyone to carry out attacks against any country.