Turkey Urged Not to Close Pro-Kurdish Party Ahead of Elections

Members of pro-Kurdish party Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) shout slogans against the government in Istanbul, September 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/SEDAT SUNA

Adding their voices to the outcry, Germany's Social Democratic Party, SPD and Left Party issued a statement on Tuesday condemning the court case, which comes ahead of vital elections in May in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party face a strong challenge to their rule.

"We demand an end to the politically motivated court case to ban our sister party HDP," the German SPD said in a message on Twitter on Tuesday.

"We know from our own past that you can ban our institutions, but you can never silence our ideas for equality, justice and freedom," it added.

Several other political parties at the EU level also voiced support for the HDP.

"We stand in solidarity with our associate party, HDP who are facing a politically motivated trial initiated by President Erdogan threatening to ban them from the upcoming elections in Turkey. This is a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights," the Party of European Socialists wrote on Twitter on Monday.

The European Greens, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and the Greens-European Free Alliance have also expressed opposition to the closure of the HDP.

In 2021, Turkey's Constitutional Court agreed to hear an indictment submitted by the chief prosecutor seeking to close down the HDP, alleging that it had "committed crimes against the state and the unity of the country and its people".

The Constitutional Court in January blocked the HDP's bank accounts from receiving state financial support pending a final court decision on the party's closure but then reversed this decision on March 9.