Türk decides not to call on DTP deputies to resign

“As a person whose parliamentary membership has been rescinded, it would be immoral to ask my friends to resign from Parliament,” he told reporters on Monday. The pro-Kurdish DTP was shut down last week by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that it has become a focal point of separatist activities due to its close links to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

DTP deputies had announced ahead of the closure of their party that they would resign from Parliament together even if only one of them were banned from politics. The top court ruled to rescind the parliamentary membership of Türk and the party’s former co-chair, Aysel Tuğluk. Thirty-five other members of the DTP, including some of its founders, have been banned from politics for the next five years.

The DTP had 21 deputies in Parliament. With Türk and Tuğluk having lost their status as deputies, the remaining 19 can continue to serve in Parliament if they do not resign. Ufuk Uras, an independent deputy, said he would join the new group likely to be formed under a back-up party created by DTP members called the Democracy and Peace Party to help the new party meet the minimum of 20 deputies required to form a group in Parliament.

Türk also said DTP members would assess the party’s closure in a series of meetings in southeastern Diyarbakır.

Another call on DTP members to stay in Parliament came from Murat Bozlak, former leader of HADEP, a predecessor of the DTP that was also shut down. Bozlak said he believed that DTP deputies should stay in Parliament as independents and try to form a new group. He called on his former comrades, saying: “As yours is a struggle for democracy, you shouldn’t give up in the face of hardship. Do not leave aside democratic gains and resign from Parliament. Carry on your fight in Parliament by setting up a new parliamentary group.”

He said the ruling was not the end of everything. “The most prominent instrument in a democratic fight is Parliament. Kurds should not give up on the democratic struggle. This should not be dropped. People have fought for years, 180 of my friends have been killed in this fight. You had to pay a very high cost for this. What I really want is for these positions that were won so hard, by paying such a high price, to not be abandoned.”

He said the DTP should now involve non-Kurdish and democratic politicians. “They can talk to all democratic segments but the Republican People’s Party [CHP],” he said, noting that the CHP has proven time and again that it has nothing to do with social democracy.

DTP closure ruling published in Official Gazette

The Constitutional Court’s decision to disband the DTP was published in the Official Gazette on Monday.

DP signs were taken off the party’s branches across the country. Door signs indicating the location of  the DTP’s group chamber were also removed in Parliament.

In the decision, it was stressed that the party was shut down in accordance with Articles 68 and 69 of the Constitution and Articles 101 and 103 of the Law on Political Parties on the grounds that it had become a focal point of activities against the country’s integrity due to its connections with the PKK terrorist group.

Türk and Tuğluk’s parliamentary deputy status was automatically forfeit when the court ruling was published in the Official Gazette. Thirty-five other members of the party, including some of its founders, were also banned from politics for the next five years: Abdulkadir Fırat, Abdullah İsnaç, Ahmet Ay, Ahmet Ertak, Ali Bozan, Ayhan Ayaz, Aydın Budak, Ayhan Karabulut, Bedri Fırat, Cemal Kuhak, Deniz Yeşilyurt, Ferhan Türk, Fettah Dadaş, Hacı Üzen, Halit Kahraman, Hatice Adıbelli, Hilmi Aydoğdu, Hüseyin Bektaşoğlu, Hüseyin Kalkan, İbrahim Sunkur, İzzet Belge, Kemal Aktaş, Leyla Zana, Mehmet Salih Sağlam, Mehmet Veysi Dilekçi, Metin Tekçe, Murat Avcı, Murat Daş, Musa Farisoğulları, Mustafa Tuç, Necdet Atalay, Nurettin Demirtaş, Orhan Miroğlu, Sedat Yurttaş and Selim Sadak.

A copy of the court ruling was also sent to the Prime Ministry and Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor’s Office.

Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya, chief prosecutor at the Supreme Court of Appeals, filed a lawsuit in the top court in November 2007 demanding the closure of the pro-Kurdish party. Yalçınkaya alleged that the DTP had become a focal point of separatist actions and that it maintained links to the outlawed PKK, a breach of the Law on Political Parties.