MESOP NEWS : GREAT LUCK OR GREAT PUNISHMENT ? Kurdish MPs among 130 to be stripped of Turkish citizenship

By Rudaw – 5 June 2017 – ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkey has released a list of 130 people including Fetullah Gulen in addition to several Kurdish politicians who could be denaturalized, according to a Ministry of Interior on Monday.

 In addition to Gulen, an Islamic preacher in self-imposed exile in the United States who Ankara believes orchestrated last summer’s failed coup, three Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies will have their citizenship revoked “if they do not return to Turkey within three months, CNN Turk reported.”HDP deputies Faysal Sarıyıldız and Tugba Hezer Ozturk and former HDP deputy Özdal Üçer are on trial in abstentia.
Sarıyıldız, 42, has tweeted many things critical of Turkish security forces including a May 22 incident with photos of an older woman being dragged which he described as “barbarization, banditry and the peak point of lowness.”

Ozturk, 27, is from Van. She has retweeted several articles crtical of last month’s incident at the Turkish embassy during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington, D.C.

Ucer, 43, is from Gürpınar and was elected from Van.

The names include alleged 130 alleged Gulenist, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), HDP, and ISIS members, according to CNN. Turkish authorities have repeatedly requested Gulen’s extradition from the United States.
Several thousands of people have been arrested since the failed July coup last year, many of them for allegedly supporting the PKK, or the Islamist Gulen Movement which Ankara has been accused of masterminding the attempted coup.
According to HDP Spokesperson Osman Baydemir, around 10,000 HDP supporters including mayors and city officials associated with the HDP have been arrested, although some of the detainees have been released with or without bails.  www.mesop.de