TURKEY’S pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) party announced a boycott of parliament yesterday over the arrest of its co-chairs and seven MPs.

In the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir, spokesman Ayhan Bilgen said the party will stop participating in parliamentary commissions and the parliamentary assembly.

“Our parliamentary group and central executive committee have decided, after lengthy discussions, to stop, during the most comprehensive and dark attack on democratic politics, our activities in parliament and once again return amongst our people,” he said.

“In the following days we will travel from house to house, neighbourhood to neighbourhood, village to village, district to district and listen to the people’s suggestions and criticisms.”

Referring to the state-appointed custodians to Kurdish municipalities, he said Turkey had become a “custodian republic” and declared that the HDP would grow the “democratic republic against the custodian republic.”

“The government may imprison our co-chairs, those demanding peace, those calling for freedom and justice; it may use violence to continue its hold on power,” he said. “But this will not prevent us from our democratic political struggle.”

HDP co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were arrested on Friday on terrorism-related charges, along with seven other MPs.

The HDP entered parliament last year as the nation’s third-largest party. Arrest warrants were issued for all 59 of the party’s MPs. It denies government claims that it is a front for the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

In a televised speech, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim urged the HDP to “return from this mistake before it’s too late.”

“Come to the parliament and say whatever you want,” he said, but warned: “No politician can be a shield to terror by abusing their position.”

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), an extremist split from the PKK, has claimed responsibility for Friday’s huge bomb outside the police station in Diyarbakir that killed 11 people — an act already claimed by Islamic State (Isis).

TAK said it carried out the atrocity in response to Ankara’s “relentless oppression and attacks.”

On Saturday the secular Kemalist newspaper Cumhuriyet reported that a court had remanded its editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, cartoonist Musa Kart and seven other staff in custody. They were arrested last week for allegedly supporting the PKK and US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, alleged mastermind of July’s failed military coup.

Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu said the arrests were “unacceptable” and dismissed government claims that the judiciary was acting independently.

Thousands marched in Paris, Cologne, Hamburg and other European cities over the weekend in support of the HDP leaders.