A Turkish court in Istanbul ruled in favour of blocking access to 47 news reports that reveals the links between the Islamist Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par) and the Kurdish Hizbullah on Friday.
The court also demanded the removal of articles from relevant news sites upon the request of Hüda-Par’s leader Zekeriya Yapıcıoğlu.
The Hizbullahist roots of the Islamist party came into the media’s focus earlier in the week, after Hüda-Par announced that it will be a part of Turkey’s ruling alliance led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 14 May elections.
The extremist Sunni group, unrelated to the Lebanese Hezbollah, which emerged in southeast Turkey (north Kurdistan) in 1985, just one year after the start of an insurgence led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is known to many in Turkey for the bloodshed and horror it caused in the country’s Kurdish-majority region during the 1990s.
The court said in its decision that the officials of the party denied any involvement in forms of torture cited in some news articles, adding that Hüda-Par is a legal party that is eligible for running in elections according to the country’s Supreme Board of Elections.
The court added that 47 articles published in the media damaged the credibility of Hüda-Par and violated the personal rights of its senior officials.
