Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Friday, November 4, 2016

Turkish court 'places leaders of pro-Kurdish party under arrest'


by Alara Berrak and Biodun Iginla, France24, Istanbul


    ISTANBUL - 
    A Turkish court on Friday placed under arrest ahead of trial the two co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
    A court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir ruled to remand Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag in custody after they were detained overnight as part of a terror investigation.
    They should now be held in jail ahead of a trial, a date for which has yet to be set.
    A total of 12 HDP MPs were rounded up overnight and in the morning in an unprecedented crackdown on the party that has caused international alarm.
    Hearings were being conducted throughout the day by courts in Diyarbakir to decide whether to remand the deputies in custody.
    As well as Demirtas and Yuksekdag, the head of the HDP's parliamentary faction Idris Baluken and MPs Leyla Birlik and Nursel Aydogan were also placed under arrest by the courts.
    However lawmakers Ziya Pir and Imam Tascier were arrested under judicial control -- the Turkish equivalent of bail -- as was the prominent MP Sirri Sureyya Onder.

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