HDP’s Filiz Kerestecioglu (R) confronts AKP’s Bayram Ozcelik (L) as another lawmaker holds the former during a scuffle at the Turkish Parliament, Ankara, March 7, 2018. (Photo: DHA)
ANKARA (Armenian Weekly)—Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish parliament representing the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), and his fellow party members were attacked on Wednesday at a parliamentary session by lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), reported the Erbil-based Kurdistan 24 news outlet.
HDP’s Filiz Kerestecioglu (R) confronts AKP’s Bayram Ozcelik (L) as another lawmaker holds the former during a scuffle at the Turkish Parliament, Ankara, March 7, 2018. (Photo: DHA)
HDP Member of Parliament (MP) Mahmut Togrul, who represents the Gaziantep Province had his left arm broken, and his colleague Muslum Dogan of Izmir was kicked in the chest during the melee, which reportedly began after members of the HDP accused the government of engaging in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kurdish people in Syria’s Afrin.
“The rhetoric ‘we will give Afrin to its rightful owners’ and announcements to settle refugees [in Turkey] there, is a plan of demographic change in a Kurdish-populated region; it is called ethnic cleansing,â€
