Turkey arrests, expels pro-Kurdish MP after parliament immunity revoked

Turkish pro-Kurdish opposition lawmaker Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu was detained and dragged away from parliament by police as he refused to leave parliament for several days after his seat was revoked.

Gergerlioglu "was brought out by force while he was in pajamas and slippers" by "nearly 100 police officers", the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) said in a statement on Sunday.

The former physician-turned-politician, who hails from the western Kocaeli province, was found guilty in February 2018 of “spreading terrorism propaganda” online.

He has been handed a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for the media posted in 2016, with Turkey’s top appeals court upholding the sentence on February 19, 2021.

On March 15, the speaker of Turkey’s parliament informed Gergerlioglu that his parliamentary immunity had been revoked and he had to leave parliament eventually.

The arrest came amid heightened crackdown on the HDP and during a tumultuous weekend in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired the central bank governor and annulled an international agreement on protecting women from violence.

The expulsion of the pro-Kurdish MP, who is an outspoken human rights defender and a diehard critic of Erdogan, was widely criticized by local and international human advocators of human rights.

After his detention by police, the prosecutor's office in Ankara announced he was freed.

Gergerlioglu, who has rejected his charges, said police manhandled him, injuring one of his fingers and neck.

"You used to be able to see this kind of scene in the 1990s. Unfortunately nothing has changed," Gergerlioglu said during his arrest, according to his party.

He was referring to a decade marked by a flaring of the Kurdish conflict in southeastern Turkey, when several pro-Kurdish lawmakers were arrested.

Gergerlioglu had remained holed up in a room in the parliament since Wednesday.

The HDP published a photo of Gergerlioglu being dragged away out of the room wearing a black T-shirt.

The Turkish government has long accused the HDP of having links to the PKK, which is listed as terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the EU. The group has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

The HDP, the third largest party in the Turkish parliament, has been under crackdown since 2016 with the arrest of several of its lawmakers and leaders, including its charismatic former co-chair Selahattin Demirtas.

Demirtas, a two-time rival to Erdogan in presidential elections, has been in detention since 2016 despite calls for his release.

The top public prosecutor in Ankara had on Wednesday demanded that the HDP be dissolved over its alleged links to the PKK.

Many countries have condemned Ankara's bid to shut down the pro-Kurdish HDP.

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