Five opposition HDP lawmakers including co-heads arrested

ISTANBUL

Five lawmakers from the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), including its co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, were arrested on Nov. 4. The probes were launched over the lawmakers' alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Turkey’s opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır deputy Nursel Aydoğan and Şırnak deputy Leyla Birlik were arrested on Nov. 4 in a probe into several of the party’s lawmakers on alleged terror charges, CNN Türk reported. 

The arrests of Aydoğan and Birlik came a couple of hours after the party’s Diyarbakır deputy and parliamentary group deputy chair, İdris Baluken, was arrested by a local court as part of the same probe.
 
Baluken was brought to Bingöl from Ankara after being detained at HDP’s headquarters late on Nov. 4. He was arrested on the same day in the afternoon by a Bingöl court on charges of having links to terrorism. 

Baluken was among a dozen of the party’s leaders and MPs detained on Nov. 4 over similar investigations but was the first among them to be formally arrested by court.  

Baluken reportedly refused to testify to either prosecutors or judges.