{"id":30730,"date":"2024-08-17T02:47:22","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T23:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=30730"},"modified":"2024-08-17T02:47:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T23:47:22","slug":"brawl-in-turkish-parliament-over-ousted-mp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/17\/brawl-in-turkish-parliament-over-ousted-mp\/","title":{"rendered":"Brawl in Turkish Parliament Over Ousted MP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Sudan Events &#8211; Agencies<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">A brawl broke out in T\u00fcrkiye&#8217;s parliament Friday after lawmakers discussed the fate of a jailed opposition figure controversially stripped of his parliamentary immunity earlier this year.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The lawmakers were meeting after the country&#8217;s constitutional court earlier this month struck down parliament&#8217;s decision to oust Can Atalay from his parliamentary seat.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Lawyer and rights Atalay won his seat last year after having campaigned from his prison cell.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Ahmet Sik, a fellow member of the leftist Workers&#8217; Party of T\u00fcrkiye (TIP), on Friday defended Atalay against the attacks on him by ruling party lawmakers, AFP reported.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;It&#8217;s no surprise that you call Atalay a terrorist,&#8221; he said.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;All citizens should know that the biggest terrorists of this country are those seated on those benches,&#8221; he added, indicating the ruling majority.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">That comment drew angry responses from ruling party lawmakers, prompting the chairman to call a break.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Scuffles broke out after former footballer Alpay Ozalan, a lawmaker from Erdogan&#8217;s ruling AKP party, walked to the rostrum and shoved Sik to the ground, said an AFP journalist in parliament.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Sik was then punched on the ground several times by ruling party lawmakers.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">At least two opposition MPs were injured during the fistfight.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Footage posted online showed the brawl and then staff cleaning blood stains from the parliament floor afterwards.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Ozgur Ozel, head of the main opposition CHP party, denounced the violence.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;I am ashamed to have witnessed this situation,&#8221; he added.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Atalay was deprived of his seat following an ill-tempered parliamentary session in January, despite efforts by fellow leftist deputies to halt the proceedings.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">He is one of seven defendants sentenced in 2022 to 18 years in prison following a controversial trial that also saw the award-winning philanthropist Osman Kavala jailed for life.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">From prison, 48-year-old Atalay campaigned to be elected to parliament, running for the earthquake-ravaged Hatay province in the May 2023 general election.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">He was elected as a member for the leftist TIP, which has three seats in the parliament.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">But that election win led to a legal standoff between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan&#8217;s supporters and opposition leaders that pushed T\u00fcrkiye to the verge of a constitutional crisis last year.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Parliament&#8217;s decision in January to oust Atalay came after a ruling by the supreme court of appeals that upheld his conviction, clearing the way for the move to strip him of his parliamentary immunity.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">But on August 1, the constitutional court &#8212; a body in charge of reviewing whether judges&#8217; rulings comply with T\u00fcrkiye&#8217;s basic law &#8212; published its ruling on the case.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Atalay&#8217;s removal as a member of parliament was &#8220;null and void&#8221;, it said.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">T\u00fcrkiye&#8217;s parliament has previously voted to lift immunity from prosecution of opposition politicians &#8212; many of them Kurds &#8212; who the government views as &#8220;terrorists&#8221;.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sudan Events &#8211; Agencies A brawl broke out in T\u00fcrkiye&#8217;s parliament Friday after lawmakers discussed the fate of a jailed opposition figure controversially stripped of his parliamentary immunity earlier this year. The lawmakers were meeting after the country&#8217;s constitutional court earlier this month struck down parliament&#8217;s decision to oust Can Atalay from his parliamentary seat. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30731,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30730\/revisions\/30731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}