The Turkish Election: The Dangers of Sidelining the Political Aspirations of the Kurds
Posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2015 at 4:22 pm
Author: Feature Writer
Gc contributor: Paul Iddon
It’s been 25-years since the first, technically legal pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey, the People’s Labour Party (HEP), was formed. The party was banned in the summer of 1993 due to its open promulgation of cultural and political rights for Turkey’s Kurds; a similar pro-Kurdish party called the Democracy Party (DEP) emerged around the same time but was also banned in the summer of 1994 for promoting Kurdish nationalism. At the time it was accused of having close ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for seeking the same rights as that group had been fighting for. However, unlike the PKK, the HEP saw diplomacy as the best way to forward the rights of Turkey’s marginalized and repressed Kurds.
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