ANKARA: A member of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party lost his seat in parliament after being imprisoned pending trial on terrorism charges, according to the Official Gazette on Friday.

Semra Güzel, a member of the People's Democratic Party (HDP), was imprisoned pending trial in September on charges of affiliation with a terrorist group; His party argued that his detention was illegal.

Guzel had his parliamentary immunity lifted in March, after photographs of Güzel with a militant from the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) surfaced in Turkish media several years earlier.

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He lost his parliamentary status on Thursday as a result of his absence from six sessions of Parliament.
According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, 330 of the 372 lawmakers who voted in the 600-seat parliament supported removing Guzel's seat. The decision was announced in the Gazette on Friday.

In 2020, his status was revoked after the convictions against two additional HDP MPs became final. The HDP is often accused by President Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party (AKP) and its nationalist allies of being the political arm of the PKK. In recent years, thousands of HDP members have faced similar charges and been prosecuted. The group disputes any connection to terrorism.

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In a statement, the HDP claimed that the removal of Güzel's parliamentary position by the AKP was "the latest episode of a political coup."
"Unfortunately, Parliament was made part of this political coup with an illegal and unethical decision," it said. “Parliament exists to put above all the will of the people.

Güzel claimed the subject was her fiancé and that the photos were taken when she visited him during the failed 2015 peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK, when the photos first emerged in January.

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Critics claim that Turkish courts follow the wishes of Erdogan and his party. The administration objects to this.

An insurgency by the PKK against the Turkish government began in 1984. Turkey, the US and the European Union all consider it a terrorist organization.