The Turkish parliament has approved a bill allowing its lawmakers to be prosecuted. The third and final vote on the matter was a secret ballot on Friday, with 376 MPs out of 550 voting in favor of the lifting of immunity from prosecution.
The bill garnered enough support to go directly to implementation, avoiding a referendum.
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the midst of a crackdown on free speech and the press, is apparently turning on its own lawmakers for their alleged “support of terrorism,” which implies members of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in particular, and their views on Kurdish groups.
Erdogan called the approval of the bill a decision of “historic” importance for the country.
“Today’s vote is historic. My people do not want legislators who back a separatist terror organization [the Kurdistan Workers’ Party] to sit in parliament. The ruling [Justice and Development] party, the Nationalist Movement Party say: ‘They should not be here,’” he said during a speech in the town of Rize, northeast Turkey. Read full on RT
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