As a crackdown against the Kurdish political movement in Turkey continues, a court in Van province on Friday issued arrest warrants for Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies Lezgin Botan and Adem Geveri.
The court based the decision on the deputies’ absence from hearings in a trial in which they are accused of membership in a terrorist organization and terrorist propaganda.
The two Kurdish deputies are also banned from travelling abroad.
On Wednesday, four more Kurdish deputies were briefly detained.
Turkey has stepped up its crackdown on Kurdish politicians in recent months. Trustees have been appointed to dozens of municipalities in the country’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast, while Turkish courts earlier in late 2016 arrested 11 pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies, including the party’s Co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ.
