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HDP co-chairperson and 10 deputies go on hunger strike to support jailed deputy

Co-chairperson of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Pervin Buldan announced on Monday that she and 10 other deputies from her party would go on a hunger strike for two days starting from tomorrow to support jailed deputy Leyla Güven.

Güven, who was elected to parliament in the June 24 elections, has been imprisoned since January of this year. She is staging a hunger strike as well to protest the isolation of the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Buldan told BBC’s Turkish service on Monday that the political parties have been quiet about the case of Güven. Buldan said their hunger strike would be symbolic in an effort to display solidarity with Güven and direct attention to the silence on her case.

Meanwhile, party headquarters issued a statement saying that the hunger strike would be expanded across Turkey to protest the detention of its members.

Turkey has been cracking down the Kurdish political movement particularly since a coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

A peace process between the government and the PKK had failed in the wake of the June 7, 2015 elections after the HDP resisted the idea of an executive presidency and garnered unexpected support.

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