Turkey's highest legal body to begin debating closure case against DTP

Turkey's highest legal body will begin debating a closure case against the Democratic Society Party (DTP) on December 8.


The Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor's Office filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court on November 16, 2007, and demanded closure of the political party since it allegedly became a center of actions against Turkey's inseparable unity.

In the indictment, prosecutors also demanded the Constitutional Court to ban 219 members of the political party including Ahmet Türk, Aysel Tuğluk, Sebahat Tuncel, Osman Özçelik, İbrahim Binici, Sevahir Bayındır and Fatma Kurtulan from politics for five years.

Under the Turkish Constitution, majority of votes is required to outlaw a political party. In this case at least 7 out of 11 members of the top court should vote "yes" to ban the DTP.

Founded in 2005, the DTP has currently 21 seats at the parliament. The party won 2009 local elections in nine provinces (Diyarbakır, Batman, Hakkari, Iğdır, Siirt, Şırnak, Tunceli, Bingöl and Van.

Source:todayszaman.com/