Physical fights are not uncommon in the Turkish Parliament; This broke out after the ruling party was classified as a terrorist organization.
On Friday a brawl between Turkish deputies during heated debate about an opposition delegate currently imprisoned on what are considered politically motivated charges.
Televised footage showed Ahmet Şık, a representative of the same party as the imprisoned MP, being approached and attacked by a lawmaker from the ruling party of the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan while speaking on the camera platform. Şık had just called members of the ruling party a “terrorist organization.”
In a subsequent scuffle in which dozens of deputies participated, a legislator was beatenleaving drops of blood on the steps leading to the speaker’s lectern. Another member of the opposition was also injured.
Voted and elected politician who was in jail
“It is a shameful situation,” declared Özgür Özel, head of the largest opposition party. “Instead of words flying in the air, fists flythere is blood on the floor. “They are beating women.”
The extraordinary session of the Turkish Grand National Assembly was summoned to debate the case of Can Atalay, which He was elected deputy for the Turkish Workers’ Party from prison.or TIP, in last year’s elections.
had been sentenced the previous year to 18 years in prison for his role in the 2013 anti-government protests, which challenged the government of Erdoğan, then prime minister of Turkey.
Since he was elected, Atalay has been fighting to occupy his seat in Parliamentwhich carries immunity from prosecution and would allow him to leave Marmara prison. Atalay has declared that he will return to prison when his term ends.
Although the Constitutional Court has handed down rulings favorable to his cause, the lower courts have ignored them, unleashing a judicial crisis and igniting a feeling of injustice among his supporters. On August 1, in his third ruling favorable to Atalay, The Constitutional Court declared “null and void” the decision to deprive him of his status as a deputy.
The opposition parties then demanded an extraordinary session to debate the case. The conviction of Atalay and seven other defendants in the Gezi Park case drew widespread criticism from human rights groups and lawyers.
The main defendant, philanthropist Osman Kavala, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. ANDThe European Court of Human Rights has twice requested his releasealleging that his detention was arbitrary and based on political motives.
Las Gezi Park protests began in the summer of 2013 with an ecological camp to stop the development of a central park in Istanbul. Discontent soon spread to other cities as people protested against Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian government.
“Atalay’s personal freedom and security, as well as his right to be elected, which the Constitutional Court ruled had been violated, must be restored,” Amnesty International’s office said on Friday. in Türkiye in a message on social networks.
