ANKARA
Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has filed a criminal complaint with Ankara Chief Prosecutor calling for the removal of the parliamentary immunity of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli and one of his top aides.
The HDP’s petition, filed Wednesday, accuses Bahceli, MHP deputy and Secretary-General Ismet Buyukataman, and Bahceli’s political adviser Metin Ozkan of insulting HDP voters and “inciting hatred and animosity”.
At an MHP meeting on Monday, Bahceli appeared to call a group of Turkish voters who voted for the HDP in the June 7 general election "losers" and "dishonorable people".
Since then Ozkan and Buyukataman have repeated Bahceli's words, with Ozkan claiming he had with him "a list of 3,000 dishonorable people", and Buyukataman saying, "MHP, with its honorable past stretching back 46 years, calls a dishonorable person dishonorable."
The HDP petition read: "When all these remarks are considered, it is clear that both the Peoples’ Democratic Party, and around 6 million people who voted for it in the June 7 general election were openly insulted, threatened and targeted, inciting hatred and animosity."
It added that Bahceli, Buyukataman and Ozkan "must be punished for their crimes".
The HDP entered the Turkish parliament for the first time after the June 7 general election, securing 13 percent of the votes and winning 80 seats, the same as the nationalist MHP.
The Turkish parliament is currently on holiday and is expected to reconvene on October 1.
