Three Lawmakers from CHP, HDP Stripped of MP Status

*Enis Berberoğlu, Leyla Güven and Musa Farisioğulları

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Three lawmakers from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) were stripped of MP status today (June 4) because their prison sentences were upheld by the Court of Cassation.

CHP İstanbul MP Enis Berberoğlu, HDP Hakkari MP Leyla Güven and HDP Diyarbakır MP Musa Farisioğlulları were officially dismissed after Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Süreyya Sadi Bilgiç read out the court rulings at the general assembly.

Meanwhile, CHP and HDP MPs protested the speaker, hitting desks and chanting slogans.

CHP Parliamentary Group Deputy Chair Engin Altay said the deputy speaker's move was against both the parliament's internal regulation and the Constitution. He added that a judicial examination of Berberoğlu's case was still underway.

Addressing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), HDP group's deputy chair Meral Danış Beştaş remarked, "Why did these files come today? Who did you get orders from? With which authority you dismiss the deputyship of people?"

In a tweet after the dismissals, CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, "Enis Berberoğlu's being stripped of MP status is a result of the July 20 Civilian Coup process, it is disregarding the will of the nation. We will continue the struggle for democracy to secure justice, rights and the law."

Also posting a tweet from its official account, the HDP said, "The AKP's enmity towards the Kurds and the pro-coup mentality continues. We oppose the usurpation of the will of the people."

About Leyla Güven

Güven worked for the Women's Organization of the People's Democracy Party (HADEP) in 1994.

In 2004, she was elected the Mayor of Küçükdikili in Adana; in 2009, she was elected the Mayor of Viranşehir in Urfa.

As part of the operation launched against the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), she was arrested in December 2009. After being kept in custody for five years, she was released in 2014. At the main KCK trial, she was sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in prison.

She was elected as MP from Urfa province in the 2015 general elections.

In late 2018, she started a hunger against what she called the "isolation" on Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). After 200 days, she ended the strike in May 2019, following Öcalan's meeting with his lawyers.

Born in 1968 and lived in Germany for a long time.

About Enis Berberoğlu

Kadri Enis Berberoğlu is a politician and journalist from the Republican People's Party (CHP), who has served as the Member of Parliament for İstanbul's second electoral district since 2015. Since the 18th CHP Extraordinary Convention of 2014, he has been the Deputy Leader of the party responsible for media relations and communications.

He graduated from Boğaziçi University and obtained a master's degree in the field of econometrics. He has stated that he originates from a socialist family, thereby making him a legacy social democrat.

Berberoğlu began his journalism career in 1981 at the Dünya newspaper. He later went on to become the economics manager at CNN Türk and served as an editor at Hürriyet and Radikal. On 29 December 2009, he became the General Director of Publications at Hürriyet, resigning on 10 August 2014 due to growing political pressures on the newspaper. In October 2014, he became a writer at the Sözcü newspaper.

At the 18th CHP Extraordinary Convention held on 6 September 2014, Berberoğlu was elected to the Party Council of the CHP. On 14 September, he was appointed as the Deputy Leader of the CHP responsible for media relations and communications by party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. He was elected as a Member of Parliament for İstanbul's second electoral district at the June 2015 general election.

In May 2016 his immunity as a member of the parliament was lifted in order to allow for judiciary prosecution and on 14th June 2017, he was condemned by an Istanbul tribunal to 25 years in prison for having divulged in 2014 pictures of the Turkish secret service which seemed to show delivery of weapons.

Born on April 1, 1956, in İstanbul.

About Musa Farisioğulları

Elected MP from Diyarbakır in the June 2018 general elections. A member of the Parliamentary Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Information and Technology. Speaks Kurdish and German. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for "membership of a terrorist organization."

(RT/HA/VK)