Turkey has arrested more than 600 people for alleged links to Kurdish militants ahead of a referendum on constitutional amendments that would give the president sweeping executive powers.
The state-run Anadolu agency reported that counter-terror police detained 86 people suspected of being connected to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group in dawn raids on Tuesday in several areas across the country, in addition to 544 detained a day earlier.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said in a statement issued prior to the arrests that Turkish authorities arrested more than 300 of its members and executives on Monday, bringing those held this year to about 1,200.
A dozen of its lawmakers and scores of Kurdish mayors from a sister party have been jailed pending trial, according to the statement.
The party’s executive committee said in the statement that “the basic goal of these operations… is to hold the referendum without the HDP.”
“We will never bow down faced with this persecution and pressure,” the party said, adding “What they are trying to prevent with the detentions and arrests is a ‘No’ (vote in the referendum).”
Turkey will hold a referendum in mid-April on replacing the current parliamentary system with the executive presidency long sought by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The vote will be held under a state of emergency following last July’s botched coup against the Erdogan government.