Turkey's pro-Kurdish parliamentary opposition launched three months of protests on Tuesday against a state crackdown which has seen dozens of lawmakers and mayors jailed over suspected links to armed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
10 lawmakers of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has initiated “Conscience and Justice Watch” in Diyarbakır, the largest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country.
“Here we call out to the consciousness of 80 million people, to the west of Turkey. As long as our co-leaders Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş, our lawmakers and governors are in jail, our Conscience and Justice Watch will continue. We will continue our conscientious struggle until they regain their freedom,” Osman Baydemir, the spokesperson of HDP, has said in a parliamentary group meeting held in Diyarbakır on July 25.
“Until the state of emergency rule is lifted, our watch will continue. Until those who have lost their jobs, their bread and their lawful share by the decree laws will gain their rights, our stance will continue. We will not stop,” Baydemir added.
The HDP plans to hold round-the-clock, week-long protests led by its own lawmakers in Istanbul, the southeastern city of Van and the western port city of Izmir as part of the campaign.
The HDP protest call came two weeks after Turkey's main opposition party CHP, completed a 25-day 'justice march' from the capital Ankara to İstanbul.
