The Socialists and Democrats, the Greens/EFA and the Left Groups in the European Parliament on Monday shared a statement expressing their solidarity with Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which faces the risk of being shut down by the country’s top court.
“A politically motivated trial against the HDP is ongoing since 17 March 2021. The current President and government of Turkey aim to ban the HDP as the third largest party and second strongest opposition party in the parliament shortly before the elections,” the European parties said in their statement, referring to the forthcoming polls in Turkey on 14 May.
“This controversial procedure, on which the European Parliament has already expressed its opinion several times, follows party-political considerations and not constitutional ones and must not lead to a closure of the HDP,” the statement said, adding that thousands of HDP members and officials, legislators, local councillors and co-mayors have been tried or jailed in recent years mainly on terrorism-related charges.
“As democracy and political pluralism are cornerstones of the European Parliament and its political groups, we underscore our solidarity with the HDP and defend its right to political representation,” the statement said, defining the pro-Kurdish party as one advocating a democratic and pluralistic Turkey.
“We urge authorities in Turkey to end the repression of the party and its attempts to close it down, which are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),” the socialist and green parties said, adding that the closure of the HDP would be an irreversible blow to the democratic system of Turkey and its relations with the EU.
The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) of Germany, which is part of the three-party coalition government in the country, also shared a massage of solidarity with the HDP on Twitter.
“We demand an end to the politically motivated court case to ban our sister party @HDPgenelmerkezi,” the SDP said, referring to the official Twitter account of the HDP.
“We know from our own past that you can ban our institutions, but you can never silence our ideas for equality, justice and freedom,” the SDP added.
