Co-Chair of pro-Kurdish DBP jailed pending trial

DBP (Democratic Regions Party) Co-Chair Keskin Bayindir and the party’s Diyarbakir provincial head Hayrettin Altun were sent behind bars on Monday evening while 13 other provincial co-chairs of the same party who were also taken into custody by the police last week within the same investigation were released.

The DBP is a Kurdish political party operating mainly in Turkey’s southeast cities in fraternity with Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who conducts politics nationwide.

Bayindir and Altun were charged with “being member of a terrorist organization”

The DBP provincial heads of Urfa, Antep, Sirnak, Mardin, Agri and Van were also charged with the same crime but were released under measures of judicial review.

The party leaders were detained by the police with dawn raids last week.

Defying the court decision, senior Kurdish political figures staged a protest in front of the courthouse.

Voicing its anger towards the government, DBP Co-Chair Saliha Aydeniz said: "Our organization will grow despite you, and we will be the reason for your fall"

During the protest, HDP group deputy chairwoman Meral Danis Bestas also decried the court decision.

“They only use the judiciary as a weapon,” she said.