Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Hüda Kaya has been released from detention, joining colleague deputy Adana Meral Danış Beştaş, who was freed on Saturday morning.
Both were taken into custody by police on Friday evening.
Beştaş wrote from her Twitter account on Friday night that police officers had come to her home. Following her tweet HDP Diyarbakır deputy Ziya Pir also wrote on Twitter, saying that Kaya and Beştaş had been detained but adding that police did not detain another HDP deputy, Pervin Buldan, in an effort to correct rumors.
HDP spokesperson Ayhan Bilgen tweeted that Kaya was handcuffed in Afyon for a court case in Diyarbakır. Kaya will be taken to Diyarbakır via İzmir, said the report.
Kaya was released following being briefly detained by the police on Dec. 8.
Kaya’s detention comes after a court in Van province on Friday issued arrest warrants for HDP deputies Lezgin Botan and Adem Geveri.
The court based the decision on the deputies’ absence from hearings in a trial in which they are accused of membership in a terrorist organization and terrorist propaganda.
The two Kurdish deputies are also banned from travelling abroad.
On Wednesday, four more Kurdish deputies were briefly detained.
Turkey has stepped up its crackdown on Kurdish politicians in recent months. Trustees have been appointed to dozens of municipalities in the country’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast, while Turkish courts earlier in late 2016 arrested 11 HDP deputies, including the party’s Co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ.
