Turkey Detains Pro-Kurdish Party Officials, Activist

Turkish police on Friday detained several pro-Kurdish party officials and a human rights activist, as prosecutors increase the pressure on the country's third-largest party.

A top public prosecutor on Wednesday demanded the dissolution of the leftist opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) over alleged links to Kurdish militants.

The move followed the expulsion of an HDP MP from parliament on the same day.

Officers detained 10 people in Istanbul, including three HDP district chairs in the city, state news agency Anadolu reported, over suspected Kurdish militant links.

Police were on the hunt for five others, the agency added.

Ozturk Turkdogan, head of the Ankara-based Human Rights Association (IHD), was also detained on Friday in the Turkish capital and his house was raided, the organisation said.

"Our lawyers are trying to obtain information about this case. His arrest is a blatant human rights violation. He must be released now," the IHD tweeted.

The Ankara chief public prosecutor's office on Friday said it had issued 12 detention warrants for suspects over their alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Ankara says the HDP is the political front for the PKK, which the party denies.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies, and has waged an insurgency against the Kurdish state since 1984.

Turkish media reported that police had also launched an operation to capture 15 suspects accused of making social media propaganda for the PKK in the southern province of Adana.

The indictment to dissolve the HDP put before the Constitutional Court also seeks to ban 687 party members from engaging in politics for five years.

The court took the first step on Friday with the appointment of a rapporteur to conduct the investigation and prepare a report for the court's 15 judges.

It is the latest in a series of crackdowns on the HDP since 2016 during which a majority of its elected mayors have been dismissed and replaced by government-appointed trustees.