Two months ago Selahattin Demirtas, the leader of Turkey's left-wing, pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), was celebrating his party's success in its first-ever national election campaign. The hdp won 13% of the vote and cost the pro-Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party control of parliament. Last week, Mr Demirtas and his fellow hdp deputies sent the government an unusual request: to lift their parliamentary immunity. The previous day Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a co-founder of AK, had demanded the arrest of parliamentarians with "terrorist links". The hdp wanted to show it had nothing to hide. "We have never supported violence, terrorism or racism," said Mr Demirtas. "We won't bow to pressure and blackmail."
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