Turkish Parliament Breaks Out in Another Fight
Fists fly between ruling AKP party and Kurdish party.
The Turkish parliament dived into another fistfight this week as the lawmakers debate changes to the country’s constitution.
The members fought again about stripping some members of parliament of their immunity if they face charges.
The fight “left one person with a dislocated shoulder and a second with a bloodied nose.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) presented the amendment after the president “accused the pro-Kurdish party, People’s Democratic Party, HDP, of being an arm of the outlawed Kurdish rebels and repeatedly called for their prosecution.”
Parliament approved the proposal on Tuesday morning.
The HDP has denied they have connections to the Lenin-Marxist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The U.S., European Union, and NATO consider the party a terrorist organization.
The PKK formally ended their truce with Turkey in November after the AKP swept parliamentary elections. The peace between the two fizzled over the summer when Erdoğan joined the fight against the Islamic State. However, the PKK and Kurds said the Turkish army targeted them instead of ISIS.
Rebels formed the PKK in 1978 among other groups to fight for an independent Kurdistan. Over 50,000 people have died in the past 38 years. The Turkish government and rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan began a peace process in 2012 where the government pushed to disarm the PKK. Ocalan never agreed to the terms, but since the PKK took up arms against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the Kurds have started to embrace the group. The organization helped save the Yazidi minority and retake the city of Kobane.
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Comments
At least the issue is now being properly framed: stripping only Kurdish members of immunity, not stripping all parliamentarians of immunity.
In other words, a political mugging to sweep Kurdish opposition away. It wouldn’t take much of an imagination to predict what people would say if Israel did the same with its Israeli Arab parliamentarians.
It reminds me of a Trump rally.
The Turkish Parliament will be an NHL expansion team next year.
Preston Brooks kicks Charles Sumner’s ass Ver 2.