Group of Artsakh MPs submit motion to Armenia’s Prosecutor General to change Kocharyan’s precautionary measure

August 7, 2018 By administrator

A group of MPs of the Republic of Artsakh on August 7 have submitted a motion-request to Armenia’s Prosecutor General to change the precautionary measure selected against 1st President of Artsakh and 2nd President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, Artsakh Parliament Speaker’s spokesperson Anush Ghavalyan said on Facebook, reports Armenpress.

The lawmakers have taken into consideration the services provided by Robert Kocharyan in the state-building process of Artsakh and Armenia.

Robert Kocharyan has been charged on July 26 over the 2008 March 1 case, under the Article 300.1 part 1 of the Criminal Code for breaching the constitutional order of the Republic of Armenia. He has been remanded into custody.

MPs of the Armenian Parliament have launched a petition on changing Kocharyan’s precautionary measure. 46 MPs joined the petition.

Iraqi parliament to strip Kurdish MPs of immunity, putting them on trial

October 3, 2017 By administrator

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Iraqi parliament has asked the Federal Court in a letter to take legal measures against Kurdish MPs who voted for independence from Iraq in last week’s referendum. the Erbil-based Rudaw TV said on Tuesday,

The issue was raised by Salim al-Jabouri, speaker of the parliament, together with the Shiite National Alliance, the largest faction in the parliament.

The letter calls for stripping those Kurdish MPs involved in vote of immunity and going as far as putting them on trial.

According to the letter, their membership in the parliament will be suspended, too.

Jabouri said in a press conference that the parliament’s decisions against those involved in vote was not a ‘collective punishment.”

He said the parliament would commit to the Federal Court’s rulings against the Kurdish MPs.

Rudaw’s Akam Hashim, citing Shiite MPs, the Kurdish parliamentarian were denied entry into the parliament by them on Tuesday on the same ground.

Hashim added that barring the Kurdish MPs came when the State of Law faction collected and presented a number of signature to the speaker of parliament to prevent the Kurdish MPs from entering the parliament hall.

Rudaw’s reporter from the scene said that the Kurdish MPs were also told to return to Kurdistan.

A Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) MP said the parliamentarians had returned to Baghdad to advocate for the rights of the Kurdish people.

And Masoud Haideri, an MP from the Change Movement or Gorran denied they were barred from entering the parliament hall, saying “no one could stop us from entering the parliament as we constitute one of the main components in Iraq: the Kurdish nation.”

MPs from all Kurdish parties, excluding the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), returned to Baghdad to attend the new parliamentary sessions.

At least 175 MPs have attended today’s session.

The Iraqi parliament recently issued a set of punitive measures against the Kurdistan Region in response to the referendum, including a flight ban.

Armenian MPs will travel to Baku

August 30, 2017 By administrator

YEREVAN. – Armenian MPs will travel to Baku to participate in the forum organized by education and culture committee of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.

Armen Ashotyan, the chairman of standing committee on foreign relations and Mane Tandilyan, member of the opposition Yelk bloc will visit Baku on September 22.

The statement released by Ashotyan says the issues related to women’s health and gender equality will be discussed at the forum in Baku.

Turkey stops European MPs from visiting pro-Kurdish HDP head

November 21, 2016 By administrator

A delegation from the Party of European Socialists (PES) speaks to media after being denied visit to the leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) party Selahattin Demirtas, imprisoned in Edirne, on November 21, 2016, in front of the Erdine Prison. (Photo by AFP)

Turkish authorities have not allowed a group of national European legislators and members of the European Parliament to visit the chairman of the left-wing and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who has been held in prison for nearly a month.

Dozen members of the Party of European Socialists (PES) together with national lawmakers from Sweden, France and Austria sought to visit Selahattin Demirtas at the maximum security prison in northwestern Turkish city of Edirne on Monday, but Turkish gendarmes blocked the approach road to the detention facility and did not let them move forward.

The European parliamentarians subsequently decided to convene an unplanned press conference in the street.

“He is not abandoned. He is not alone. Our political family is in solidarity with him,” PES President and former Bulgarian prime minister, Sergei Stanishev, said.

He added that there can be “no compromise” on political standards as Turkey tries to join the European Union.

The Turkish government’s has been pursuing its EU membership bid since the 1960s. The formal negotiations started in 2005. But the process has been mired in problems, and only 16 chapters of the 35-chapter accession procedure have been opened for Ankara so far.

Meanwhile, vice co-chairman of HDP responsible for foreign affairs, Hisyar Ozsoy, has denounced the Turkish officials’ procrastination to consent to visits to Demirtas.

“There is a serious policy of isolation… They have reduced relations with the outside world to the lowest level,” he said.

Earlier this month, 13 HDP legislators were arrested over alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group.

Party leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag remain in custody along with eight others, waiting to stand trial on terrorism-related charges.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK, which has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984, and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country’s troubled southeastern border region as well as Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and northern Syria.

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) withdraws from Turkish parliament “VIDEO”

November 6, 2016 By administrator

European envoys summoned as Turkey’s political crisis deepens

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) has said it would boycott parliament after its senior members were arrested. A leaked European Commission report warns Turkey’s democracy is seriously backsliding.

The HDP said on Sunday it was “halting its legislative efforts” after its leaders and other lawmakers were detained and said it would no longer take part in general assembly sittings. “After discussions with our parliamentary group and our central executive board, we have decided to halt our legislative efforts in light of everything that has happened,” party spokesman Ayhan Bilgen said in a statement read out in front of its offices in Diyarbakir, the de facto capital of Turkey’s predominately Kurdish southeast.

Bilgen later clarified that the party, Turkey’s second-largest opposition bloc, was not fully withdrawing from parliament and its deputies would remain members, but they would not take part in general assembly sittings or parliamentary commission meetings.

The co-leaders of the HDP and seven others were detained Friday after refusing to submit to questioning by prosecutors in a counterterrorism investigation. The Turkish government accuses the HDP of links to the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which it denies.

The crackdown on the HDP, which made history last year by becoming the first Kurdish party to cross the 10 percent electoral threshold and enter parliament, has been roundly criticized by Western governments and rights groups.

“The kind of detentions of democratically elected members of parliament we are seeing in Turkey today is an assault on the right to political representation and participation for millions of voters and defies fundamental principles of any country that claims to be democratic and based on rule of law and human rights,” Human Rights Watch’s Turkey researcher Emma Sinclair-Webb said in a statement to reporters.

Meanwhile, a radical faction of the PKK, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), claimed on its website responsibility for a bomb blast on a police station on Friday morning in Diyarbakir that killed 11 people and wounded another 100. The government had previously blamed the PKK, but that claim was questioned on Saturday after the “Islamic State” claimed credit, according to the IS-linked Amaq news agency.

Ankara answers EU critics in roundtable meeting with ambassadors

Responding to criticism from European Union countries, including Germany and Denmark, Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik summoned EU ambassadors to an unusual meeting Sunday where he will give an address “on the latest developments in our country,” the ministry said in a statement.

Turkey’s recent crackdown on political opposition and critical media outlets has triggered a damning progress report by the European Commission on its progress toward EU membership, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” reported on Sunday.

The German newspaper said that the report, to be published on Wednesday, described “a significant relapse” in press freedom and said legal decisions over national security and the fight against terrorism were applied “selectively and randomly.”

European officials have been increasingly critical of Turkey’s crackdown on those it suspects of involvement in the attempted coup on July 15-16. More than 110,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants have been detained or suspended. Add the 170 newspapers, magazines, television stations and news agencies that have been closed, leaving 2,500 journalists unemployed, and there are concerns that Turkey is seriously backsliding in its commitment to parliamentary democracy.

Street demonstrations against the crackdown on pro-Kurdish politicians and critical media outlets have been met with heavy-handed force by riot police.

jar/jlw (AFP, Reuters)

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/european-envoys-summoned-as-turkeys-political-crisis-deepens/a-36281438

German MPs get threatening emails over expected Genocide recognition

June 1, 2016 By administrator

Genocide preparation Thousands of emails have been reportedly sent out by the Turkish community to German MPs, threatening the politicians and calling them names in connection with Berlin’s latest attempts to recognize the Armenian Genocide, RT says.

Berlin is looking to adopt a resolution, titled “Remembrance and commemoration of the Genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in the years 1915 and 1916” Thursday, June 2.

Over 500 different Turkish organizations in Germany sent out emails to their local MPs and journalists covering the subject, Germany’s Spiegel Online reported. Turkish citizens have also reached out privately via social media.

Some emails crossed a line, intimidating politicians and threatening the lives of journalists, RT says.

Chairman of the German Greens, Cem Ozdemir, who is of Turkish origin, was one of the MPs who received abusive messages via email, Twitter and Facebook.

“It’s always the same terms: ‘Traitor,’ ‘Armenia’s pig’, ‘son of a bitch’, ‘Armenian Terrorist’ and even ‘Nazi’,” he told ARD.

Journalists covering Germany’s attempts to recognize the Armenian Genocide also received threats such as: “You will be eliminated,” or “Your end will be like that of Hrant Dink [the Turkish-Armenian journalist who was shot in January 2007 by right-wing extremists in Istanbul].”

Armenians also sent out letters supporting the resolution. “Recognition of the Armenian Genocide is important to prevent other genocides in the future,” the spokesman of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Tigran Balayan, told AFP.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined the conversation on Tuesday, warning Germany that if it proceeds with its Armenian genocide resolution, it would hurt the bilateral ties between the two nations.