MHP calls on high court to ‘do its job’ by banning HDP

ANKARA

The head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has reiterated his call on the Constitutional Court for shutting down the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) after pictures of an HDP lawmaker with a member of the PKK terror organization have been disclosed.

“We don’t want terrorists in parliament. We cannot tolerate seeing for another second the HDP that recruits members to the terror organization within Turkish democratic and political life,” MHP chair Devlet Bahçeli said at a weekly address to his parliamentary group on Jan. 11.

“We expect the Constitutional Court to fulfill its duty,” he added, referring to an ongoing case for the closure of the HDP over terror links. The court has recently received the HDP’s defense and will decide over the fate of the party and its top officials in due course.

Bahçeli’s words came after the pictures of HDP Diyarbakır Deputy Semra Güzel, who is seen with a member of the PKK, were disclosed. A motion for the cancellation of her parliamentarian status has been already launched.

“They will be together with the traitors who fire bullets at our soldiers, and they will shamelessly talk about democracy, freedom, human rights and peace. This is blasphemy; arrogance,” he stated.

Bahçeli also criticized the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the İYİ (Good) Party over their soft condemnation of a PKK attack that killed three Turkish troops over the weekend. “There is not a single reference to the PKK or the YPG. Not a single criticism,” he said, accusing them of trying not to offend the HDP.

The MHP leader also slammed the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), which has argued that Turkey’s national vaccination against the COVID-19, TURKOVAC, had not passed the adequate phases. “If not today, when will it [TTB] be shut down?” asked Bahçeli.