Turkey detains 110 pro-Kurdish suspects ahead of elections

Police raids come only weeks before Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential vote

Turkish soldiers stand guard as smokes rises from a bus which was attacked by members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Bingol. AFP

Police in Turkey carried out raids on homes in 21 provinces on Tuesday, detaining 110 people for alleged links to Kurdish militants, the country’s state-run news agency has reported.

The raids, which come weeks before the parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14, targeted politicians, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists, Tayip Temel, a deputy leader of the country’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), wrote on Twitter.

“On the eve of the election, the government has resorted once again to detentions out of fear of losing power,” Mr Temel tweeted.

The detained are suspected of financing the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), of recruiting members or of engaging in propaganda on behalf of the group, Anadolu Agency reported.

The PKK, which has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey, is considered a terror organisation by the US and the EU.

The pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya agency reported that one of its editors and a journalist were among those detained on Tuesday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seeking a third term in office, has the toughest electoral test of his 20-year rule. Opinion polls have given a united opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a slight lead over the man in power.

Mr Erdogan's control of parliament through an alliance between his Islamic-rooted party and a far-right group is also under threat.

The HDP has extended its tacit support to Mr Kilicdaroglu by deciding not to field its own candidate in the presidential race, nor to run under its own party banner in the parliamentary vote.

It will instead field its parliamentary candidates under the lists of a new group called the Green Left Party, which supports Mr Kilicdaroglu.

The measures are designed to shield the party in case it is banned before the vote.

The Supreme Court has the option of either banning the HDP or barring 550 of its senior members from politics for five years.