The branch offices of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır (Amed) was raided on Wednesday morning by the police while a simultaneous raid was conducted at the house of the branch co-chair.
The offices at the city’s central district of Bağlar were raided in the context of an investigation by the Diyarbakır prosecutor’s office over allegations of ‘making propaganda for an illegal group’, Mezopotamya News Agency reported.
While the building of the offices was encircled by police, some flags belonging to Free Women’s Movement (Tevgera Jinên Azad) and books, magazines and newspapers were seized.
The Diyarbakır deputies for the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Remziye Tosun and Dersim Dağ, who were present at the scene during the raid later left for HDP’s Diyarbakır offices.
The house of the DBP Diyarbakır co-chair Seval Gülmez was simultaneously raided in the morning, while the raid on the house of the other co-chair Hayrettin Altun was cancelled due to him being under treatment in hospital for COVID-19.
The Democratic Regions Party is the largest single political organisation within the umbrella structure of HDP, and is active in the Kurdish-majority provinces of Turkey.
