Turkey’s highest court on Monday has accepted an indictment by a top prosecutor seeking to disband the country’s opposition pro-Kurdish party on terror-related charges.
The Constitutional Court ruled in favour of hearing the case against the People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, which was filed by the chief appeals court prosecutor who is accusing it of allegedly colluding with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and of seeking to “destroy the unity of the state.”
The prosecutor is demanding that the party be dissolved, that it be deprived of treasury funding and that about 450 party members be barred from holding political office for five years.
This was chief prosecutor Bekir Sahin’s second petition seeking HDP’s closure after the Constitutional Court rejected a previous attempt in March, citing procedural deficiencies.
There was no immediate comment from the HDP, which has said previously that the case against it is politically motivated.