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CHP deputy urges party to boycott Parliament in protest of deputy ban

June 23, 2011, Thursday/ 18:23:00/ TODAYSZAMAN.COM

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Mersin deputy Ali Rıza Öztürk urged his party to boycott Parliament in protest of what he called a “damaged national will,” after courts denied a request to release two jailed CHP deputies and stripped a pro-Kurdish independent deputy of his position as a lawmaker.

The Supreme Election Board (YSK) voted unanimously on Tuesday night to strip Hatip Dicle, one of the six jailed deputies, of his elected position due to an earlier separate terrorism-related conviction. Dicle was endorsed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

The 13th İstanbul High Criminal Court on Thursday ruled to deny requests filed by two jailed suspects in the ongoing case into an alleged coup plotting group, Mustafa Balbay and Mehmet Haberal, for their release on the grounds that they were elected as deputies in the June 12 elections. “Both this decision and [the] Dicle ban, first of all, are decisions that are against the national will,” Öztürk told the ANKA news agency.

His remarks came as the CHP's Central Executive Board began an extraordinary meeting following the announcement of the court ruling. CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is expected to make a statement after the meeting ends. Öztürk is not a member of the Central Executive Board.

Earlier on Thursday, 30 of the 36 independent deputies who were elected in the June 12 elections with the support of the BDP announced that they are refusing to enter Parliament in protest of the Tuesday decision by Turkey's election board regarding Dicle's position as a deputy.

Öztürk claimed that the decision not to release the jailed deputies is a way of “threatening the national will.”

Criticizing Thursday's decision to not release Balbay and Haberal and terming it a “threat to the national will,” Öztürk urged his party not to enter Parliament to protest the decisions. “If the national will is damaged or threatened, then what are representatives of the nation doing in that Parliament? None of the deputies should join Parliament until the incident is resolved,” Öztürk underlined.

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