Turkish Court Orders Co-Chairs of HDP Party Jailed, NTV Says
Turkish Court Orders Co-Chairs of HDP Party Jailed, NTV Says
(Bloomberg) -- A Turkish court ordered Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, co-chairs of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish political party, jailed, according to NTV.
Yuksekdag and Demirtas were among lawmakers from the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, to be detained in overnight raids on Friday. The party is Turkey’s third-largest in parliament, and received more than five million votes in last November’s general elections.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the HDP is a front for a terrorist organization, the PKK, a militant group that’s battled Turkish security forces for more than three decades. In May, Erdogan signed a law removing immunity from prosecution for some 50 HDP parliament members, opening the way for them to be charged on terrorism offenses.
The lira extended losses after the news, declining 1.6 percent to a record 3.16 per dollar as of 4:52 p.m. in Istanbul.
To contact the reporter on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul at bharvey11@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Benjamin Harvey at bharvey11@bloomberg.net, Isobel Finkel