PROGRESSIVES have been urged to rally in defence of Turkey’s opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is facing a renewed threat of being shut down.

Its supporters say it is the darkest day for democracy in the country’s history.

Late on Monday, Turkey’s Constitutional Court announced that it had accepted a file demanding the party be shut down on grounds that it is splitting national unity and is an arm of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

When submitted in March, the file was rejected due to unspecified deficiencies, but was resubmitted by the chief public prosecutor earlier this month. 

The indictment also calls for a political ban on some 500 democratically elected HDP politicians and the freezing of the party’s bank accounts until the case is concluded — a move rejected at this stage of the prosecution.

The allegations contained in the file centre on the so-called Kobani case, which is currently under way and could see 108 leading HDP figures, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, jailed for life.

They are charged with responsibility for the deaths of 37 protesters in the mainly Kurdish south-east of Turkey in October 2014 after the HDP called on people to take to the streets in defence of the nearby northern Syrian city of Kobani, which was being held under siege by Isis.

More than 50 people were killed as Turkish security services and government-allied paramilitary gangs violently put down the protests. None of those who fired the bullets face prosecution.

Today, HDP officials warned of “a political lynching” and said they “once again invite [the] international democratic community to express solidarity and to act against these unabashed efforts to destroy the HDP and deny the will of millions.

HDP Solidarity UK says the party has represented a real step forward for democracy in the country, bringing together environmentalists, trade unionists, socialists and others in unity with the Kurdish community since it was founded in 2012.

The HDP’s electoral breakthrough in June 2015 ended the parliamentary majority of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice & Development Party (AKP) and brought the country’s so-called Kurdish question into parliament.

But the party has come under intense pressure ever since; 20,000 members have been detained since 2016, 10,000 of whom have been jailed, including more than 200 elected officials and at least seven MPs.

More than 50 of the councils won by the party in 2019’s municipal elections have been taken over by government-appointed “trustees.”

“HDP is the only force standing in the way of [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s illegal wars and invasions in northern Syria, Iraq, Libya and other arenas. It is the only force in parliament that will expose Turkey’s war crimes and genocide,” HDP Solidarity UK said today.

The group said the latest attack is “the biggest assault on a legal political party since World War II.”

“It is the only force in parliament standing up for women’s rights, against femicide, against rape and for the implementation of the Istanbul Convention.

“It is the only force in parliament standing for workers’ rights, supporting trade unions and those in struggle. It is the only force that is standing up for LGBT rights against a bitterly homophobic and reactionary government.

“It is the only force supporting the rights of Kurds, Turks, Alevi, Armenians, Syrians, Circassians and other minorities. In short, the HDP is the only force standing for freedom, democracy and equality.”

The group is calling for urgent messages of solidarity to be sent to the party via [email protected].