HDP lawmaker loses seat over terror charges

ANKARA

Kurdish issue-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Siirt lawmaker Besime Konca was stripped of her lawmaker status after the definitive court ruling against her was read aloud in the first session of parliament on Oct. 3.

The parliamentary speaker’s office read the prime ministerial letter including the court ruling at the parliamentary session in the general assembly, a procedure that legally stripped Konca of her lawmaker status.

Konca had been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for “making propaganda for a terrorist organization.” There are more than seven ministerial letters on Konca that enable legal authorities to file an investigation on her amid the lift of legislative immunities.

With Konca, the number of HDP deputies stripped of their lawmaker status rose to five, since former co-leader Figen Yüksekdağ and deputies Nursel Aydoğan, Tuğba Hezer Öztürk and Faysal Sarıyıldız had also lost their seats.

After the immunities were lifted, hundreds of letters were issued against 50 HDP lawmakers in parliament.

HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, the party’s former co-chair Yüksekdağ and seven lawmakers from the HDP are currently in jail.