Turkey's top prosecutor demands political ban for 451 HDP members

Duvar English

The Court of Cassation’s Chief Public Prosecutor has said that he demanded a political ban for 451 Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) members in the indictment seeking the party's closure. 

“We demand a political ban for 451 people. On top of that, we demanded a block on the party's bank accounts,” prosecutor Bekir Şahin told reporters on June 10.

Şahin also said that the Constitutional Court has 15 days to analyze the submitted indictment.

The prosecutor on June 7 filed a revised indictment to the Constitutional Court for the HDP's closure.

In the 850-page-long indictment, the prosecutor argued that the party closure was an implementation adopted "in all advanced democracies." 

The prosecutor also claimed said the HDP committed crimes against the independence of the state and its unbreakable unity with its country and people.

In the culmination of a years-long crackdown against the HDP, prosecutor Şahin submitted the first indictment calling for the party's closure on March 17. 

The Constitutional Court ruled that the indictment had procedural omissions and returned it to the Court of Cassation on March 31. 

Critics say Turkey's judiciary is under the influence of politics, a claim which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) allies deny.

MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, who has repeatedly called for the closure of the HDP, said the Constitutional Court does not have the option to return the indictment a second time.

"This bloody and dark page should be closed never to be opened," Bahçeli told members of his party on June 8.